Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: Krug on October 05, 2018, 07:58:53 am
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Probably worth a B- for a high school student essay.
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I struggled with both the article and the photos. I don't see the connection between the first half on personal growth and the second half - seemingly a book-jacket summary of several junctures in the history of modern art; nor do I understand how the photos relate to the essay. I also missed the point of those photos, whether as documents or exercises in photographics. I am of course prepared to be educated - maybe it's just me being dense this morning.
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An editor required. Pretty awful use of punctuation, confusing as much as enlightening.
The photographs? Reminded me of the late David Hamilton but, sadly, without his girls.
Sometimes a mannerism helps push something to a higher level; sometimes, a mannerism is just a mannerism.
Rob
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Can some one please explain what's the point and the significance of this essay?
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Apparently I'm in the minority, I enjoyed the article. I found it thoughtful and well said. The message, while basic, is well worth repeating. Regarding the images, as a body of work, I thought they exactly reflected the theme of the article, i.e., they conveyed feeling that is more than a literal representation of the subject. What feeling? That would depend on the viewer. I actually cycled through the images several times, spending a few seconds on each. A single image perhaps would not have such an effect, but as body of work it does so, for me, in spades.
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I also enjoyed the essay and the photographs.
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Editorial filler.
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I thought this article was something different and maybe there would be some people who enjoyed an essay like this.
I have had limited access to the internet over the last few days as I am moving into a new home and wifi and systems are kind of in limbo. We should be back in full operation by next Wednesday.
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A fine enough article and fine images.
P.S. Is "sited" a Canadian, more polite version of "cited"? ;)
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I think this sort of thing adds a lot of depth to the front page.
I did not love this particular essay, to be honest, in a large part because it's written pretty clunkily. The constant "sited from here" inserts, and the various typos etc just were too dense to let me sit back and read it. Also, baby teeth fall out WELL after the kid's finished being a toddler.
But the sentiment was sound, and the pictures worked well with it. They're very much in that irritating modern "vernacular styled" things, but I have definitely seen worse. Also, I am a huge fan of words+pictures.
I don't see myself subscribing to Mono Chroma, though. The writing and editing need to step up a notch or three before it's actually worth money.
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. . . in a large part because it's written pretty clunkily . . .
+1 I think it is a fine "early effort" in writing and combining photos. It's just not ready for prime time, as they say. I agree with those who found the last half not at all, or at least too distantly, related to the first half. Typically you can get away with about 3 main (and related) points in an endeavor such as this.
I do like the concept of essays + photos, however and am glad to see continuing effort in that direction.
Rand
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A refreshing change of subject, meaning more ambiguous, subjective and interpretive. The photography is wonderful, and while the history lesson in the essay was overdone, nevertheless it nicely provided a point of view for those who need or want it.
Good choice, Kevin.
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I like the photos, so I can forgive the text being in need of an additional editing/revising pass.
-Dave-
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I like this essay and I hope LL does much more in this line. Almost any site can do a gear review but very few sites go deeper into the image and the process of creation itself. Doing so has always been something which distinguishes LL from other sites. It’s just not all about the gear. The essay’s stylistic infelicities, if any, do not bother me. Often, changing them into something more “correct” silences the writer’s own voice (and I am saying this as a former professional book editor). Silencing is one of the hot topics of our time, hence #metoo among many other things.
I’m glad, too, that the essay seems to have pressed a few buttons. Good. It means the essay isn’t bland and by hitting some nerves perhaps it has started people thinking and, maybe, trying a few new ideas of their own. So many thanks.
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I like this essay and I hope LL does much more in this line. Almost any site can do a gear review but very few sites go deeper into the image and the process of creation itself. Doing so has always been something which distinguishes LL from other sites. It’s just not all about the gear. The essay’s stylistic infelicities, if any, do not bother me. Often, changing them into something more “correct” silences the writer’s own voice (and I am saying this as a former professional book editor). Silencing is one of the hot topics of our time, hence #metoo among many other things.
I’m glad, too, that the essay seems to have pressed a few buttons. Good. It means the essay isn’t bland and by hitting some nerves perhaps it has started people thinking and, maybe, trying a few new ideas of their own. So many thanks.
That's some leap, equating reaction with something not being bland; if it has started people thinking, then they must have been in a collective coma before they picked it up.
Why does this remind me of those blasted glasses, you know, the ones half full whilst also half empty?
;-)
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I liked the overall sentiment expressed in the essay though I did find it meandering. For me personally, I really enjoy a well written essay when I can find one. It takes a certain kind of mind to do it really well because, like poetry, the writer needs to distill large ideas into fewer words and more concise forms. It takes a lot of practice and discipline and is an art form in and of itself.
I too would have liked to have had it have an editorial review. I personally don't believe that asking an author to spell or use words correctly or even tightening their prose is silencing their voice (just the opposite, actually), but that's just me. The images were very good and evocative.
Lastly, I agree wholeheartedly that this is great to have on the site. More please!
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The photos work very well as a body of work, as someone else already pointed out. The essay itself, seems like it was written during a 30 minute train journey while commuting.
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I don't see myself subscribing to Mono Chroma
Mono Chroma seems to be a very interesting publication, and it would be a shame for that to be lost in this drubbing of one essay. It has the potential to provide exposure to a whole host of talented photographers who might otherwise remain in obscurity. The work I see there is diverse and original, and some could potentially influence my own photographic style. The fine art photo magazine is a risky and difficult business model, and many have fallen by the wayside. We should applaud the courage of the intrepid souls who have put Mono Chroma together. It deserves a close look, and I hope it provides enough value that at least some in this community choose to support the efforts of the publisher and the contributing artists.
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Mono Chroma seems to be a very interesting publication, and it would be a shame for that to be lost in this drubbing of one essay. It has the potential to provide exposure to a whole host of talented photographers who might otherwise remain in obscurity. The work I see there is diverse and original, and some could potentially influence my own photographic style. The fine art photo magazine is a risky and difficult business model, and many have fallen by the wayside. We should applaud the courage of the intrepid souls who have put Mono Chroma together. It deserves a close look, and I hope it provides enough value that at least some in this community choose to support the efforts of the publisher and the contributing artists.
I agree. It does look interesting and deserves support.
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I agree. It does look interesting and deserves support.
It does look interesting, indeed. Kind of like LensWork, and I enjoy Brooks Jensen's writing as much as the images.
Wonder why the name "Mono" when clearly color photography is included. Oh, well.
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While it's true that Modern Chroma looks pretty good, I need to point out that the sheer number of schmoes out there who are putting out half-assed electronic zines is off the charts. There are probably on the order of thousands of similar publications being put out now, and most of them are:
1) filled with fairly appealing photographs, because fairly appealing photographs are absurdly common
2) badly put together and badly written, because good design and good writing are remarkably rare
Honestly, I will not personally be giving Modern Chroma another look. Sure, it seems harsh to say "one strike and you're out" but life is too short.
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While it's true that Modern Chroma looks pretty good, I need to point out that the sheer number of schmoes out there who are putting out half-assed electronic zines is off the charts. There are probably on the order of thousands of similar publications being put out now, and most of them are:
1) filled with fairly appealing photographs, because fairly appealing photographs are absurdly common
2) badly put together and badly written, because good design and good writing are remarkably rare
Honestly, I will not personally be giving Modern Chroma another look. Sure, it seems harsh to say "one strike and you're out" but life is too short.
Well, they're not as boring as your blog. Okay, I rarely visit it, so I'm judging mostly on what you write in LuLa.
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To be quite candid, Omer, you have made such a persistent hobby, over several years, of disagreeing with everything I say, that I cannot take you seriously. You clearly have some personal issue with me.
You are explicitly banned from reading my blog. Don't do it. It is not for you.
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It does look interesting, indeed. Kind of like LensWork, and I enjoy Brooks Jensen's writing as much as the images.
Wonder why the name "Mono" when clearly color photography is included. Oh, well.
Well, Lenswork is one of a shrinking group of periodicals that actually gets printed on paper, has a long pedigree and the quality is second to none. As well, the material Brooks Jensen selects for publication is consistently in a class by itself.
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Well, they're not as boring as your blog. Okay, I rarely visit it, so I'm judging mostly on what you write in LuLa.
I'd like to recommend that this thread revert to topic; no-one is interested in this tit-for-tat of personal animus.
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I agree that LensWork is a superbly made magazine. I find Brooks' taste in photographs to be a little old fashioned, but it is refined and deliberate. The overall design and editing is top notch.
Recommended!
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One problem with publishing online is this: we have no money to spend on skilled editorial staff and the result is that we end up writing out our own feelings, and then repeating them ad infinitum. None of us has a broad enough mindset to avoid constant repetition and to seem fresh; we end up boring even ourselves.
Another problem of the lone venture is that it takes an unusually well plugged in character to research, and bring to fruition, enough material to keep up momentum. I tried something along the lines of a small online mag and it soon became evident to me that it was going to take a lot more effort, time, travel and money to make it happen than had appeared to be the case during the theoretical imaginings stage in front of the computer. Beginning from a base of stock images could carry one edition - perhaps - but the next one in line was going to require a lot of cooperation from disinterested third parties. There was no reason in the world that those people would inconvenience their own day in order to make mine a tad more interesting. Figures.
The only realistic way of making publishing work is to produce something that people are willing to buy.
Considering the fact that many photography magazines have closed down and that the online survivors have to hawk ads to make it possible to stay alive is far from cool. Printed magazines all carried advertising as a means of generating profit and staying competitively priced, but the difference is that with print, as reader, you can just turn a blind eye and page; you can't do that as easily on a screen, especially when ads move and flicker for attention.
I look at and occasionally contribute posts to a couple of small sites that deal with photography. The problem is that in both cases, the majority of replies are all of the same type: nothing but a slightly extended version of the +1. How in hell do you take that conversation a step further - by writing +2? On top of that, one has to wait a day or two for one's own post to get moderated and presented. It stifles debate because debate requires instant communication to be interesting and to remain relevant during the short lifespan of online themes. LuLa permits that rapid communication.
To conclude, I believe that the only online publishing that would work would be from people who have massive reputations. Were Avedon, Penn, W. Eugene Smith, HC-B alive and well and willing to devote their days to writing about their world, then I think their sites would crash under the pressure to read them!
For the rest of us, better try to find some work or curl up with a good book. Some might suggest shooting an endless series of pointless photographs instead. Had we all the initiative and balls of one Hugh Hefner, things could be different.
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Rob, what you penned above seems well observed and reasonable, as usual. Which makes Wikipedia that more astounding.
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Well, Lenswork is one of a shrinking group of periodicals that actually gets printed on paper, has a long pedigree and the quality is second to none. As well, the material Brooks Jensen selects for publication is consistently in a class by itself.
I agree wholeheartedly. It's been on for 25 years which for a magazine of this type is an achievement in itself. I have a shelf full of old copies that I still shift thru occasionally to get inspiration.
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Photography is an arena which seems to be infested by the problem of people who rather fancy themselves publishers. They're not publishers, often, they lack one or more or the essential features of a publisher, but because there are so many photographers out there producing pretty good pictures, you've got a ready stock of people and material to use in your efforts to pretend to be a publisher.
A very high percentage of photobook deals are "artist driven" which means that the artist is going to be coming up with somewhere between 10,000 and 50,000 dollars. The book will be printed in an edition of about 400, and will mostly not sell. The "publisher" in this case lacks the essential ability to work out what will sell and how to sell it. The artists are in fact paying the "publisher" and a small staff to sit around in a nice little office in London monkeying around with InDesign and "negotiating" with Czech printing houses.
These books are generally both well made and properly edited. The pictures are often lousy. It's a vanity press, but of a new sort -- not to prop up would be authors, but to prop up would-be publishers!
At the other end of the spectrum we have the zine crowd. Oddly enough, they can actually sell things because they're young and social media savvy. The pictures are often better at least in some senses, because they're not dealing with artists who have already been turned down by real publishers, and they're not dealing with art school refugees as much.
The skills they lack are in design and editing. These are the boring bits of publishing, and when you've just raised $10,000 on kickstarter, and can't find a bootlegged copy of InDesign so you're forced to use BookWright, you're too excited and confused to sit down and proofread and copy edit several thousand words of text. Possibly you're incapable of it, having been raised on social media and the "light skim for keywords" way of reading everything.
This is a rarely discussed problem that has arisen from the oft-mentioned ubiquity of photographs in this day and age.
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I think the photos are interesting. This is another example of the trend toward desaturated images in response to HDR.
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I think the photos are interesting. This is another example of the trend toward desaturated images in response to HDR.
I haven't noticed any such "trend", nor do I think it makes sense even if it existed. Every scene deserves its own appropriate kind of treatment whether it's low-key foggy, or more hyped-up HDR, or anything in-between.
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I don’t think the photography publishing(monographs, etc.) business was ever lucrative, nor was it all high quality. The problem now is two fold; the romaticising of the past, and trying to wedge the past into the future.
Like it or not, social media with its option to form cliques, friends, interests, groups and so on, is the publishing envoronment of today. The funny thing is, more photography is being published in LuLa now than what we could ever hold in our hands in the past.
The time of the singular, reveared, iconic photographer whose monograph we treasured is past. Yep, there are some good photography books being published but any suggestion of iconic status would embarrass a rational artist.
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I haven't noticed any such "trend", nor do I think it makes sense even if it existed.
It depends on where you look. HDR is still wildly popular on some sites, including here. If you watch gallery sites, not so much.
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Modern media - the web - is not comparable to paper publishing at all. For better or for worse, paper required substantial investment on somebody's part, which automatically forced that person's concentration on perceived value of what was to be published. A publisher had to believe he was going to see a return on the investment, and that prompted at least some set of standards to be applied; Internet comes for free, the only risk being you may get sued for something you put out there.
Flat pictures, contrasty pictures; pictures with impossibly wide tonal ranges - all of these things are just styles or attempted conceits that are used to make work stand out from that of the herd. Trouble is, the herd had grown so fat that all of the quirks and mannerisms have been absorbed within and been done to death: there ain't nothin' new to contribute; whatever anyone does has been done already and the only thing left is the hope that you can do it better, more convincingly or at least applied in the right place.
Whether the publishing of monographs is or ever was lucrative is a question beyond my knowledge or investigative capabilities; I just can't accept that Steidl and Taschen do it for fun and to burn up their bank accounts... in the case of the latter, perhaps the rest of the output helps finance the art - I just don't know, but it does seem to be the case that a lot of photo books end up very expensive, possibly because of the expected limited sales. Maybe the price ensures the limitations rather than the high enough returns? I can tell you this: the most expensive books I have bought were just under €100 (Newton's Sumo and the Annie L life) and that was one stretch of my conscience! Especially as I wish I had left the Annie L on the shelf.
My current object of lust is the Deborah Turbeville tome Deborah Turbeville: The Fashion Pictures. Amazon UK has it in hardback today for £ 432.39 - that accounts for about four fifths of my state pension. The immediate comparison is, of course, with looking at the same pictures on the monitor. And there the tease: I would rather hold the book. Actually, that's a fib: I would rather be making the photographs.
I guess art collecting starts ever more cheaply - for some already deep pockets!
;-)
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Like the photos in the essay; the words are a bit in conflict i find.
The photos have something special ordinary; the words are full of (big) name dropping...
Would like to see more of this type of contributions... and less reviews of equipment...
I think the photos are interesting. This is another example of the trend toward desaturated images in response to HDR.
I think the photos are 'arty' and those are usually not oversaturated in colour.
(then even BW photos can be HDR)
Rob, what you penned above seems well observed and reasonable, as usual. Which makes Wikipedia that more astounding.
yes Wikipedia is one of the finest examples of something the internet brought us - also the openstreetmap.
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Slightly OT, but the best things about the Internet for me are e-mail, my website that gives me ready access to my stuff in one easy stop, some favourite photographers' work and the great music that I can find all these years after the event.
Rob
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Slightly OT, but the best things about the Internet for me are e-mail, my website that gives me ready access to my stuff in one easy stop, some favourite photographers' work and the great music that I can find all these years after the event.
Rob
I doubt I would have learned of Mono Chroma and Dominic Lippillo had both not appeared here. I'm glad to know of them.
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Slightly OT, but the best things about the Internet for me are e-mail, my website that gives me ready access to my stuff in one easy stop, some favourite photographers' work and the great music that I can find all these years after the event.
Rob
Agreed, and taking it a step further, without the digital technologies none of us would be here on LuLa and I'd be dead.
;-)
PS. Glad to hear you weren't swept away!
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Slightly OT, but the best things about the Internet for me are e-mail, my website that gives me ready access to my stuff in one easy stop, some favourite photographers' work and the great music that I can find all these years after the event.
Rob
That was a new beginning. There will be yet more, for sure.
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a new beginning of an programed end.
HUgely empty paper