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The Art of Photography => Discussing Photographic Styles => Topic started by: russell a on October 21, 2006, 06:01:56 pm

Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: russell a on October 21, 2006, 06:01:56 pm
101 Cliches of Photography

Years ago, the often cantankerous jazz saxophonist Eddie Harris published, among his other works on musical methodology, a work entitled "The 101 Cliches of Jazz".  In one of my cantankerous moods it occurred to me that Photography could be viewed through a similar lens.

Definition from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

"The term cliché is a phrase, expression, or idea that has been overused to the point of losing its intended force or novelty, especially when at some time it was considered distinctively forceful or novel. It is generally used in a negative context."

So we are speaking here of overused images in photography.  As Mike Johnston pointed out in his 2003 article (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/sm-03-06-01.shtml) and the response (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/sm-03-06-08.shtml) to that article, beginning photographers are often interested in making photographs that will draw the comment "looks professional" or "looks like a postcard".   Then, this is reinforced in camera clubs as members try to please contest judges who tend to traffic in a narrow set of "rules" by which to judge "good" photographs, and they are reinforced further by a community of peers with similar ambitions.  I would add that the typical camera club member also has a very narrow view of the history of photography, often limited to pretty calendars, nature and/or wildlife magazines, popular photography magazines, Sierra Club publications, etc.  This is all perfectly fine if one is satisfied with engaging in the phtographic equivalent of making needlepoint "Bless This House" samplers.  But for the photographer who wishes to engage the world in a more serious grasp or seeks some level of self-expression exercise of the advice of the legendary art director Alexy Brodovich is required:   "if you look through the viewfinder and see a photo that you've seen before, DON'T TAKE IT!"

Now professional photographers take cliched photos as well - the street photographer, the avant-gardist, no one is really immune.  Photographers who allow market forces to trap them in a recognizable style begin to repeat themsleves and, in essence, their work becomes their own cliche.  A cliche is a combination of subject matter and treatment.  One can take a cliched subject but apply a new treatment that elevates it above the level of the cliche.  Just as in music there are only 12 tones and the constraints of certain psycho-acoustical reactions, there are only a finite number of categories of visual subject matter, although it might be difficult to enumerate them exhaustively.  

So, I propose to begin a list that may stretch to 101 or beyond to 1001 or whatever. You are free to add to this list.   For each identified cliche (which can be either or both subject and treatment) there are historic photos (including perhaps your own, dear reader) that transcend the label of cliche.   If you are sufficiently passionate about some historical photo such that you are moved to mention it, please do so only if you can supply a justification as to why it transcends cliche that is more illuminating than it is just your opinion.  

Gary Winogrand (according to discussions with a former student of his) took the position that effect of stacking up enough cliches in one photo could be transcendent.  An interesting proposition, but tricky, I would say.

I use this kind of thinking in the photos I take.  Being an intense student of the history of photography I am very aware of the legacy that may attach itself to the image in my viewfinder.  The trick is to use this as inspiration to find a way to differentiate the opportunity at hand from the photos that have preceeded us.  Take the potential crush of history and squeeze something new out of the mix.

So, at any rate, here goes!

Sunsets/Sunrises (depends on your sleeping habits I suppose)  Can't we declare a moratorium?

Babies - pretty babies, ugly babies, babies whose facial expressions seem "grown up"

Animals - especially baby animals - puppies and kittens and other furry creature in particular, but all young offspring, including those whose facial expressions
   echo human expressions, this goes double for animals with big eyes, ears, noses, or tongues

Bees on flowers taken with macro lenses, double penalty points for a misplaced shallow depth of field

Autumn Leaves - on trees of course, but double penalty for leaves floating in a stream or lake

Rocks in Sand - with or without water wetting part of the scene or curling around the stones, extra penalty for wisps of seaweed

Reeds in a lake silhouetted against the light of the rising or setting sun

Geometric vistas formed by the patterns of contour farming

White fences - throw in gates, porticos, doorways, arched entrances

Over-saturated photos - this can be a way to double up on a cliched subject

The application of any "artistic" filter effect from Photoshop, ditto above on the doubling up

Weather-beaten barn boards, double penalty for faded red paint

On the street - the homeless, beggars, double penalty for the blind or crippled, triple penalty for the foregoing if holding a musical instrument

Any photo where the subject seems to be the existence of repeated colors within the frame, double penality if the color is red

Vistas of mountaintops fading into the distance, double penalty when combined with a sunset or sunrise

Deer in meadows

Graveyards - double penalty for fog

Blackened skies in daylight photos - have you noticed that in night photos the sky is seldom the blackest part?

Any photo that can be described by invoking the name of a historic photographer (Ansel Adams, Minor White, Diane Arbus - including some of their own.)



I invite you to join in.  This can be fun and marvelously cathartic.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: 32BT on October 22, 2006, 03:32:38 am
- Partially colored B&W. Especially if the color involved is an additive primary. Roses are red, an overall is blue, and the neighbor's grass really isn't getting any greener.

- Diffused nudes or bridal photography. Mutually exclusive of course, otherwise it might actually be interesting for once next time you're invited over to view your best friend's wedding pictures for an hour-and-a-half.

- Scarcely dressed women and motorized vehicles in a single picture. Don't get me wrong, I like women, and I like cars, but to think that the appreciation of either is in any way enhanced by combining the two is an obvious fallacy.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: russell a on October 22, 2006, 10:01:02 am
opgr -  Excellent.  That's the spirit!  So how about:

Cibachrome emulations - especially of slot canyons with the reds pushed - that plastic look makes me think of bugs cast in acrylic

Graffiti
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Dale_Cotton on October 22, 2006, 11:30:52 am
Russell: is this a list of cliches or list of weekly/monthly assignments for a photography club, course, or forum? ;)
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: russell a on October 22, 2006, 02:19:43 pm
Dale:  Right!  How could one tell the difference?  Except most camera clubs wouldn't include opgr's scantily-clad ladies.  You have put your finger on a tendancy of camera clubs to offer up cliched subject matter nouns as their contest topics.  Seldom does one see a subjective topic such as "a photograph that communicates conflicting emotions" or "a photograph with powerful but ambiguous intent".
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Gordon Buck on October 22, 2006, 06:49:01 pm
After the 101 (or 1001) list is completed, I'd like to see a list of what remains.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on October 22, 2006, 09:01:02 pm
Quote
After the 101 (or 1001) list is completed, I'd like to see a list of what remains.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=81660\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
if anything!

Eric
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: kaelaria on October 22, 2006, 10:03:04 pm
What is going to remain is simple - bad pictures that no one wants to see.  But hey - at least they are original!  

I don't care if you've taken a good picture, your mother took the same and then her brother...that's just 3 good pictures to me.

Where's the magic line when a good picture becomes 'cliche'?  Oh, and who is anyone to say?

I don't think anyone has a right to judge anyone else's image as such.  For example, watching through all the LLVJ, one had the assignment of 'fall coulors'.  The instructions said (paraphrased), 'no pretty pictures, no shots of trees turning colors, we've all seen it before and we don't want more cliches pictures'.  Yet just one or two issues later while reviewing some travel shots the exact shot came up.  Yellow and such colored leaves of fall.  It was now called 'a classic shot' that was liked very much.

The point is, just because you personally don't like to see a certain shot anymore doesn't mean they should not be taken by anyone else, as much as they like.  Some people can't get enough, and every shot is new to someone.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: alainbriot on October 22, 2006, 10:34:37 pm
Quote
After the 101 (or 1001) list is completed, I'd like to see a list of what remains.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=81660\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Very well put.  I was thinking about that when I first read the lists.

I suggest that anyone who posts a list also posts a photo demonstrating what they think is not a cliche.

Alternatively, we could start a list of non-cliches...
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: russell a on October 22, 2006, 11:46:50 pm
Quote
After the 101 (or 1001) list is completed, I'd like to see a list of what remains.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=81660\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Dear Readers:  Some of you are missing the point.  Remember that either or both (or neither of) subject and treatment are part of what may characterize the overused.  The list of what remains would also subsume the list of cliches!  In other words, for each of the listed items we could provide examples of succesful original photos, where the photographer, either historically fortunate by being first, or by dint of original vision created a photo that rises above the pack of other photographs that could be included in the same subject/treatment slot.  

But, come on, we all know there are cliches - and anyone is welcome to add more instances to the pile of photos, if that's how they want to define themselves - and I am entitled to roll my eyes when I see one.  I haven't said any of your photos are cliches.  If you are offended by my list, then perhaps it's because of suspicions you have about your work.  I am personally not content to take a photo that I know exists - and I take great pains to try to expand my knowledge of what already does exist.  

What attracts the "photographic eye" is remarkably consistent throughout the history of photography, influenced more by technical progress than by differences in what is considered a photographic subject.  Treatments ebb and flow according to fashion and fad (pictorialism, f/64 group, "tough" street photography, etc.)

Back to Eddie Harris' 101 Cliches of Jazz.  Is the jazz player going to be able to avoid all the possible cliches?  No, but awareness means that the player can place them in a context in which they have an altered emphasis and significance.  There is a difference between playing a phrase that every other player has executed just because it "lays under the fingers" or "fits the chord" and using that same phrase as an element in a larger musical idea.  This is akin to the photographer who recognizes a familiar result in the viewfinder and who asks "what can I do differently here?".
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: kaelaria on October 23, 2006, 12:13:17 am
So let's see your gallery of original work
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Robert Spoecker on October 23, 2006, 01:14:22 am
If I did not shoot cliches I would need only a 64 kb flash card and thus save lots of money.  
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: alainbriot on October 23, 2006, 01:47:16 am
Quote
we all know there are cliches - and anyone is welcome to add more instances to the pile of photos, if that's how they want to define themselves - and I am entitled to roll my eyes when I see one.  [a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=81694\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Pointing to a problem is useful.  Providing a solution to the problem is truly helpful.  I agree that educating people about cliches is by building a list is useful.  However, until you provide examples of cliches and non-cliches and explain why some are cliches and others not, it is not truly helpful.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: DiaAzul on October 23, 2006, 01:50:46 am
One man's cliche is another mans original image - assuming of course it is the first time that he has seen that style before.

If I can't sit with my woman and watch a beautiful sunset or sunrise and still get enjoyment from them both, then where has the poetry gone in life?
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: 32BT on October 23, 2006, 03:39:51 am
Please note that we are discussing "clichés" which basically means that the subject has been tried to the point of irrelevance. The importance of a picture doesn't make it less of a cliché. Perhaps we should think more thoroughly about providing appropriate context when submitting a clichéd image.


- Pictures of Soldiers and Victims. With the causes of war these days I fail to differentiate the terms and in my completely misguided sense of irony I would note that the subject has been beaten to death.

- Crying mothers with a dead child. Especially the religiously inclined. In my most gloomy moments I honestly believe(!) that the faithful should know better. Given the concept of heaven, is a child really served by growing up with its mother but a complete lack of decent nourishment, a save environment, and proper education? I'm not denying the bond between mother and child, but I do question the usefulness of further contributions on the subject without proper context.

- Starving children in the arms of ditto parents. What goes into the human race that even at the brink of existence there is room for family planning... hope springs eternal? Of course, it is a completely different story when you're driven from your home into a refugee shelter because of ethnic separation, which goes to show that proper context really is highly relevant.

Some images are enhanced by lack of context. Most aren't.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: kaelaria on October 23, 2006, 08:11:48 am
Quote
Please note that we are discussing "clichés" which basically means that the subject has been tried to the point of irrelevance.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=81717\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Only to you - that's a 100% subjective statement.  That's the point.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: russell a on October 23, 2006, 09:19:14 am
Quote
Pointing to a problem is useful.  Providing a solution to the problem is truly helpful.  I agree that educating people about cliches is by building a list is useful.  However, until you provide examples of cliches and non-cliches and explain why some are cliches and others not, it is not truly helpful.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=81709\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

The definition of a cliched photo is very simple: a photograph that differs so little from others that we have seen that the choice among them is an indifferent one.  A non-cliched photograph is one that, in spite of the fact that it may contain subject and/or treatment elements that are known, is executed in such a way that it differentiates itself from others that might be indexed by the same general description.  Example:  Shots of one's children.  The average shot of a child posing for a photo on an outing vs. a Ralph Eugene Meatyard shot.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: russell a on October 23, 2006, 09:24:13 am
Quote
So let's see your gallery of original work
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=81697\")

BTW, pointing at people is very rude.

Below is a link to my gallery. Are there some I think are cliches?  Yes.  Are there some I think that are not?   Yes.  However, the decision for you is up to you.


[a href=\"http://russarmstrong.com/gallery/Master]http://russarmstrong.com/gallery/Master[/url]
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: kaelaria on October 23, 2006, 09:38:58 am
Nice gallery - too bad I've seen all of them before!  Oh, and now you admit the choice is up to the viewer!  Good job, you see the light.  And yes, even though I have seen just about all of those shots before, I still don't call them cliches, they are just shots that have been done before.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: abaazov on October 23, 2006, 10:11:00 am
The real voyage of discovery consists of not in seeking
new landscapes but in having new eyes.
- Marcel Proust

the pictures will always be the same, only the eyes change.
amnon
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: russell a on October 23, 2006, 02:10:45 pm
In response to alainbriot, let me present a couple of case studies.  I will use my own examples so not to ruffle anyone's feathers (to use a cliche) and to demonstrate that hardly anyone talks more trash about my images than I do.  

One cliche I had not listed yet:   rusting automobiles, other vehicles, farm implements, machinery

Here is my example: http://russarmstrong.com/gallery/Sargasso1/Frontal_Buick_a (http://russarmstrong.com/gallery/Sargasso1/Frontal_Buick_a)

And yes, this is a shameless cliche.  I took this along with a great many other shots at a location I call "Sargasso Farm"  (after the Sargasso Sea, an area of the Atlantic ocean where the currents are such that it traps ocean trash, compounded by the constant of matted seaweed).  The former orchard and surrounding areas of Sargasso Farm contained a 50 year accumulation of all the items listed as cliches above and more, intertwined with the increasingly neglected vegetation.  Although this accumulation was not what I considered my "sweet spot" as far as subject matter goes, the appeal to the "universal photographic eye" was too much to resist.  So I had a great time photographing there over several months - different seasons, lens, weather conditions, etc.  I had obtained permission and a signed release from the generous owners and was welcome to come and go at will.  The rusted Buick was a cliche in the viewfinder - I've seen these photos before, but my inclination was to leave no rust unrecorded. (The farm was subsequently cleaned of most of the accumulation.)  A bit of sharpening, a touch of saturation and it makes a quite good looking 24x36" print.  And, wouldn't you know, this has been a best seller in the appropriate venue.  It is still a cliche but there is an audience (nostalgia and cliches are close relatives) who enjoys it, so what the hey.

Case study 2:  http://russarmstrong.com/gallery/FandF/J_E_C_and_C_II_001 (http://russarmstrong.com/gallery/FandF/J_E_C_and_C_II_001)

This is a shot, on the most elemental level, of my son, his wife, their daughter and my wife.  The photo combines some familiar elements:  the cloud-strewn-sky, interesting pattern in the pipe construction and the sawdust underneath, and the device of denying easy access to a narrative by partially hiding the human activity (Kertez was one of the first that I am aware of using it).  I belong to a photo club and lecture and judge at other clubs (so I know whereof I speak in that regard) and I took this image to one of the sessions with a guest critiquer and got the highly (to me) satisfactory comment "I have no idea what to say about this photo".  So, I subsequently submitted it to one of the annual art photo shows of some prestige (I know: "Compared to What") and received a juror's award.  Because of the stacked nature of the devices I think this photo evades being a cliche.  Obtaining a narrative that is not easily articulated in a frequent goal of mine and a way to help avoid cliche.  (Until such a time as we can list "obscure but curiously attractive" photos as another category.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: kaelaria on October 23, 2006, 02:27:20 pm
See, now this proves everyone's taste is different, along with what they call a cliche.  I like that Buick, and it's something I could see printed and hanging, and people paying for.  The other, just looks like a snapshot to me, nothing I would more than glance at, let alone want to pay for, print or hang (not an insult).

I have not had the opportunity to take any shots of such rusty cars or machinery, and would gladly do so at my first.  I would not at all hesitate and say 'oh gee, I shouldn't take this, I know it's been done before'.  It's just completely irrelavent to me.  If I like it, I'll take it.  If it looks good, I'll print it.  If someday I try to sell something, someone else may buy it.  

Someone else may have taken a similar shot, but you can't print someone else's at will, let alone sell it   I want my own!!
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: KSH on October 23, 2006, 02:29:35 pm
One of the essays on this site that I keep returning to is this one: Been there, done that (http://luminous-landscape.com/essays/done_that.shtml). I think it summarises quite nicely why it is ok to take pictures that may have been done before. At least I felt greatly relieved when I read it.

I know that this 101 is somehow meant to be tongue in cheek, but to me it comes across as aloof and prone to spoil people's fun in taking pictures. I have seen pictures that I felt were clichéd, but I am afraid that trying to avoid perceived cliché will lead to forced results.

Karsten
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: alainbriot on October 23, 2006, 02:50:25 pm
Quote
The real voyage of discovery consists of not in seeking
new landscapes but in having new eyes.
- Marcel Proust
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=81755\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

A fine quote most appropriate in the context of this discussion.  

Thank you.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: alainbriot on October 23, 2006, 02:54:27 pm
Quote
I know that this 101 is somehow meant to be tongue in cheek, but to me it comes across as aloof and prone to spoil people's fun in taking pictures. I have seen pictures that I felt were clichéd, but I am afraid that trying to avoid perceived cliché will lead to forced results.
Karsten
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=81816\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Very true. Starting with cliches before moving to non-cliches is a common approach.  Making this process inappropriate can stiffle the creativity of many upcoming photographers.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: russell a on October 23, 2006, 03:03:38 pm
Quote
Very true. Starting with cliches before moving to non-cliches is a common approach.  Making this process inappropriate can stiffle the creativity of many upcoming photographers.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=81822\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

That's one school of thought - my experience with current arts education is that it follows what I term the "daycare center" model whereas my education was more of the tough-love model.   If creativity is so easily stiffled how strong can it be?
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: russell a on October 23, 2006, 03:10:01 pm
Quote
I know that this 101 is somehow meant to be tongue in cheek, but to me it comes across as aloof and prone to spoil people's fun in taking pictures. I have seen pictures that I felt were clichéd, but I am afraid that trying to avoid perceived cliché will lead to forced results.

Karsten
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=81816\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

The photographers that I find interesting do not necessarily take pictures for "fun", not that there's anything wrong with that, but the ones I admire were driven and neurotic, bless their hearts.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: kaelaria on October 23, 2006, 03:16:10 pm
It's comes across to me that you think yourself higher than others when it comes to your skill, creativity and technique.  I think that's where you are butting heads with most of us.  We all produce fabolous shots here and there, to ourselves at least.  For many of us this is a hobby, and it's FUN!  Can it make others a living?  Sure!  In fact I wish it made mine!  

But regardless of application of our hobby, most of us are not looking down our noses at others, because certain shots are taken & enjoyed, or we follow a methodology different to some.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: russell a on October 23, 2006, 03:59:39 pm
Quote
It's comes across to me that you think yourself higher than others when it comes to your skill, creativity and technique.  I think that's where you are butting heads with most of us.  We all produce fabolous shots here and there, to ourselves at least.  For many of us this is a hobby, and it's FUN!  Can it make others a living?  Sure!  In fact I wish it made mine! 

But regardless of application of our hobby, most of us are not looking down our noses at others, because certain shots are taken & enjoyed, or we follow a methodology different to some.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=81830\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I'm sorry you feel that way.  Basically my objective in launching topics such as this is for entertainment.   If it turns out to be educational, that's even better.  I try to avoid looking down my nose - since doing so comes with the requirement to keep it clean and trimmed.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: mahleu on October 23, 2006, 04:39:49 pm
Back OT

Flower in the barrel of a gun
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: KSH on October 23, 2006, 05:29:36 pm
Quote
The photographers that I find interesting do not necessarily take pictures for "fun", not that there's anything wrong with that, but the ones I admire were driven and neurotic, bless their hearts.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=81827\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

This is besides the point because your 101 is not aimed at photographers who are driven and neurotic; the last thing that Diane Arbus ever needed was a 101 of clichés.

Also, your story about "Sargasso Farm" does sound as if you had a lot of fun shooting there. Which is perfectly fine. I can relate very well to what you say about the "appeal to the universal photographic eye", and we all are in danger of producing cliché pictures when we give in to that appeal. But I don't believe that you can avoid it by saying "Don't  take pictures of sunsets because a sunset is a cliché". And I do believe that it does not foster someone's creativity to tell him or her not to take pictures of something. A true master of photography may be able to take a picture of a sunset that speaks to you in an unclichéd way in spite of millions of other photographs?
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: howiesmith on October 23, 2006, 06:50:11 pm
Just for fun, I googled on Van Gogh self portraits.  More than one.  I suppose all those after the first were cliches and should not have been done.  Or are there seperate categories for self portrait with hat, without hat, with two ears, one ear?
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: russell a on October 23, 2006, 07:17:32 pm
Quote
But I don't believe that you can avoid it by saying "Don't  take pictures of sunsets because a sunset is a cliché". And I do believe that it does not foster someone's creativity to tell him or her not to take pictures of something. A true master of photography may be able to take a picture of a sunset that speaks to you in an unclichéd way in spite of millions of other photographs?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=81845\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
When did I say not to take a picture of x or y?  In fact, what I am suggesting, and now saying, is that the existence of numerous examples of photos that exhibit the same or undifferentiatedly similar subject/treatment, makes it more difficult for a photographer to create another photo that  does differentiate itself from the historical record.  I acknowldege that there are many photographers, from hobbyists to professionals, for whom this distinction does not matter.  For those for whom differentiation is a goal, the historical record - increasingly available at a click on the internet - becomes more crowded each day with individuals who have captured images that one might have preferred were one's own exclusive domain.  So while it is still possible, differentiation becomes increasingly difficult - indeed, to the point that it may be rational to question if such a quest is a reasonable goal.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Dale_Cotton on October 23, 2006, 07:24:46 pm
The underlying problem here is that we have a state of the art created by tens or hundreds of thousands of avid photographers. Da Vinci and Rembrandt didn't have to contend with that kind of competition or that sort of status quo. Vermeer died a pauper with maybe a dozen other painters in competition with him for the next commission in a bustling town of thousands of noveau riche. Fast forward to century 21 - there are 6.5 billion people on the planet and counting. Any given medium of expression is going to go rapidly saturated - all possible permutations are going to be thoroughly exploited in the time it takes Mr. Jones to pop into the loo.

Not convinced? Look at the history of art/serious painting and music from 1850 to 1950. (And were there even a single billion humans alive back then?) Like a supernova star exhausting its supply of easy hydrogen or a capitalist economy running out of exploitable fuel, ever more exotic and expensive sources of combustion are going to be systematically tapped, exhausted, and abandoned. Painting went from classical realism, to Impressionism, to Cubism and Fauvism, to Dadaism, to Expressionism, to abstract in an ever-quickening chain-reaction (with a dash of Neo-Primitivism thrown in just for a change of pace). Art music went from neo-Mozart to the Romantics to the Impressionists to the atonalists to the arhythmic atonalists in the same span of time. Once the god of Individual Expression, the supremacy of the Ego, was set up for worship everything else followed in an inevitable progression.

The situation in art photography as (I assume) practiced by the majority of people perusing this forum is even more dire. The constraints - essentially those established by the f/64 movement nearly a century ago - are extreme. Tight realism, a very narrow window of permissible self-expression, is demanded. Subject matter is restricted to naturally occurring events - and for many these must be further limited to Mother-Nature-only events.

So - yep! - it has all been done before ... yet, the only time any of this becomes an issue is when your ego swells sufficiently that it takes you into King of the Hill territory (and I plead guilty here). In that case you can either:

- Wait for a new technology to open up a brief window of new possibilities (handheld 35mm after a century of view cameras on a tripod)

- Or you can think in terms of working in a tradition instead of breaking ever-new ground (century after century of the tradition of the classical Indian raga passed on from master to student)

- Or you can follow your star so relentlessly for such a length of time that it leads you into still uncharted ground (Diane Arbus, for sure).

... None of which is meant as a knock on Russell's delightful 101 clichés. My point is that those of you who feel backed up against the wall by that ever-growing list need only whistle any one of several different tunes to resume strolling down the street at ease in the land of ItsBeenDoneBefore.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: russell a on October 23, 2006, 07:33:24 pm
Quote
Just for fun, I googled on Van Gogh self portraits.  More than one.  I suppose all those after the first were cliches and should not have been done.  Or are there seperate categories for self portrait with hat, without hat, with two ears, one ear?
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Generally one doesn't refer to subsequent instances of an artist's work that share stylistic commonalities as a cliche.  However, one could argue that works that seek to capitalize on the market success of earlier work and whose instances do not contribute novel elements to the oeuvre constitute cliches of one's own work.  Examples that come to mind are deChirico (who, late in his career, started faking examples of an [a href=\"http://www.artchive.com/artchive/d/de_chirico/conquest.jpg]earlier style[/url] of his that had become popular), Warhol, and Haring.  Unfortunately, VanGogh didn't live long enough for this to be an issue in his work.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: russell a on October 23, 2006, 07:38:29 pm
Dale:  Excellent!
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: alainbriot on October 23, 2006, 08:26:10 pm
Quote
That's one school of thought - my experience with current arts education is that it follows what I term the "daycare center" model whereas my education was more of the tough-love model.   If creativity is so easily stiffled how strong can it be?
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I think we are talking of different teaching styles.  As you saw I do not embrace the "tough love" teaching model.  This is a personal choice.  I am sure that you can find other instructors ready to "tear your work apart and then rebuilt it" as someone once asked me to do (I refused).  

Just remember that the tearing apart side of this approach is relatively easy.  It is the rebuilding part that gives me problems.  Quite simply, what if the rebuilding doesn't happen and the student remains in a torn-apart state?

In my experience, teaching can be just as effective using a different, more human approach.  In fact, and also in my experience, teaching is more effective using approaches other than "tough love".  Why?  Simply because teaching starts by building self-confidence, not by tearing someone apart.  This is particularly true with teaching art which requires that one develops the ability to express personal feelings.

In fact, and going out on a limb somewhat here, I wonder if the "tough love" approach you recommend does not result in more "cliche" images than the self-esteem-building approach I favor.  The reason why I wonder that is because people whose self esteem is taken away tend to resort to formulas -cliches- because they look outside of their own experiences for answers since their own experience has been proven to lead to "bad" results.  People whose self-confidence has been boosted, on the other hand, tend to look within themselves for answers, because the outcome of their experience has been valorized, thereby making what is uniquely theirs come out, with a far lower chance that cliches will emerge.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: russell a on October 23, 2006, 09:59:17 pm
Alain:  ...and birds and small animals will gather in the meadow around the school and they will all sing together....

Yes, you are right about a difference in teaching philosophy.  But your assumption that tough love is a tearing down process does not match what I am thinking of as characterizing such an approach.  A strong teacher against whom one can rebel creates a more resilient individual than the current frequent practice of uncritical acceptance of the lowest denominator of performance.  A strong approach creates someone who has the capacity for self-criticism and improvement.  It provides a concrete example to the student of someone with passion instead of apology. It creates individuals who eschew cliche. After all it is not the dead weight of the masses that defines history, but the singular individuals who redefine it.  I refer you to Kati Marton's new book The Great Escape about nine Hungarians who fled Hitler and made an indelible impact on the world.  Two of the nine are Andre Kertez and Robert Capa.  One of the most influential music teachers of all time was Nadia Boulanger.  Among her successes was telling Astor Piazzolla to forget about European music and to compose tangos.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Fred Ragland on October 23, 2006, 10:01:36 pm
Quote
I think we are talking of different teaching styles.  As you saw I do not embrace the "tough love" teaching model...People whose self-confidence has been boosted, on the other hand, tend to look within themselves for answers, because the outcome of their experience has been valorized (given value?), thereby making what is uniquely theirs come out, with a far lower chance that cliches will emerge.
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Many years ago I had a piano teacher who used a ruler to emphasize what to do.  My progress was amazing after changing teachers!  Reflecting back, there are many similarities between the requirements to become a good pianist and to become a good photographer.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: alainbriot on October 23, 2006, 11:47:50 pm
Quote
your assumption that tough love is a tearing down process does not match what I am thinking of as characterizing such an approach...One of the most influential music teachers of all time was Nadia Boulanger.  Among her successes was telling Astor Piazzolla to forget about European music and to compose tangos.
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That sure sounds like tearing down to me.  But then again I am not intimate with the nuances of tough love ;-)

Quote
Alain: ...and birds and small animals will gather in the meadow around the school and they will all sing together....[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=81887\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]



Russell: and the little toughies will gather in the school yard and delight in being bullied and put down until they realize that there are more contructive ways to learn such as building your self esteem ...
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Paul Sumi on October 23, 2006, 11:49:09 pm
Quote
Fast forward to century 21 - there are 6.5 billion people on the planet and counting. Any given medium of expression is going to go rapidly saturated - all possible permutations are going to be thoroughly exploited in the time it takes Mr. Jones to pop into the loo.
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Given the situation and the tremendous scale of numbers that Dale describes, one can argue that the photographing of cliches has insinuated itself into the global economy.  What would happen if we were actually prohibited from shooting any of the "101 Cliches of Photography?"  

At first glance, banning photographic cliches would seem to be a good thing.  For example, certain on-line fora would no longer have multitudinous messages announcing, "my first photo using the new (fill in the name of latest zillion megapixel DSLR)!" with obligatory feline image.   The savings in bandwidth alone would be considerable.

But, upon closer examination, the downsides become all-too-apparent.

Computer hardware makers would be the first to go under.  People would no longer need more and bigger hard drives to store all of their high resolution images of cats, dogs, sunsets, etc.   Larger monitors would no longer be needed to display umpteen-megapixel images of bees landing on flowers, tilted wedding photos or yet another close-up of a moving rock at the Race Track in Death Valley.  Ever more powerful computers would not be necessary to process digital images.  The sales of photo printers, paper and high-margin ink cartridges would plummet.

Sales of digital cameras of all types would likewise decline precipitously.  Consumer and prosumer digicams would languish in warehouses and retail display cases, the lack of sales creating considerable financial chaos among their manufacturers and retailers.   Ironically, high-end sales (particularly DSLRs) might actually pick up.  It seems to me that a significant number of non-pro photographer buyers of these big-ticket items are the sorts who would rather spend great amounts of time on-line arguing about the superiority of their camera's specs versus competing brands than actually using the equipment.  Since they apparently take no photographs, no cliches are produced.

The negative consequences are wider than just a few companies going under.

People would no longer travel great distances on vacation because they would be prohibited from taking pictures of iconic (cliche) locations at the Grand Canyon, Yosemite Valley, Yellowstone, or other natural or man-made wonders.   This would affect not only the U.S. but the rest of the world as well.

France's Eiffel Tower would be deserted.  Buckingham Palace's changing of the guard would go un-noted.  The African savannah would be barren of photo safaris.  China's Great Wall would be just another wall and the Angkor Wat temple ruins would sink back into the Cambodian jungle from lack of visitors.  Airlines and other long distance transportation dependent on camera-toting vacation travelers would go bankrupt from lack of business. The world-wide tourist infrastructure -- lodging, eating establishments, car rentals, shops, etc -- would all collapse from lack of custom, inflicting massive damage on the global economy.

So, be careful what you wish for, the consequences may be catastrophic!  

Paul

Oh - and for those interested in seeing my photographic cliches:

[a href=\"http://www.pbase.com/pauls]http://www.pbase.com/pauls[/url]
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: alainbriot on October 24, 2006, 12:05:13 am
Paul,

Nice cliches ;-)  

Care to tell us where is F8 point so we can go there and make our own cliches of this location?
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: John Camp on October 24, 2006, 12:08:57 am
Cliches are like the supreme court justice's comment about pornography: I can't define it but I know it when I see it. Sunsets often are, but not always; babies often are, but not always; & so on. Maybe the most famous landscape picture in history is a Moonrise...like, duh, that hadn't been done before.

When it comes to lists, I sort of like the Ten Commandments of Leica Photography:

1. Thy children are ugly. Do not make us look upon them...

3. Thou shalt not photograph thy dog, nor thy cat, nor thy ass. (Some dispensation may be had for thy neighbor's ass, but we'd have to look at it first...)

7. Thou shalt not photograph homeless people. Thou shalt leave them alone, or buy them a sandwich; this is pleasing in the eyes of the Lord...
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: alainbriot on October 24, 2006, 12:34:30 am
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When it comes to lists, I sort of like the Ten Commandments of Leica Photography:
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=81901\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I like this kind of list too.  I remember one for the Zone System but haven't seen it for a while.  If someone knows where to find it, or is willing to post excerpts to this page, from what I remember it was a pretty funny one as well.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Paul Sumi on October 24, 2006, 11:16:16 am
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Paul,

Nice cliches ;-) 

Care to tell us where is F8 point so we can go there and make our own cliches of this location?
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Hi Alain,

I traveled with people who know how to get to what we called "F-8 Point," but I couldn't point to it on a map to save my life.  This is one time I wish I owned a GPS.

Generally, the turn-off is just before Dead Horse State Park (near Moab).  Getting there involves traveling a number of miles on rough dirt roads (high clearance vehicle necessary, 4-wheel drive helpful).  Definitely not as easy to access as parking at the visitors center at Dead Horse (which is a surprisingly good sunset location).

If I were to do this on my own I would arrive late afternoon to shoot the sunset, camp overnight, and shoot the sunrise the next morning.  Parts of the "road" are pretty nasty to drive in the dark if one is not familiar with the area.

Wish I could be more helpful.

Back to the topic at hand.

Paul
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: alainbriot on October 24, 2006, 01:11:00 pm
Paul,

Thank you.  I am familiar with the area so finding the dirt road before Dead Horse Point should be no problem.  Sometimes it involves getting lost and finding other, just as interesting locations, which is part of the fun of scouting for locations!

I saw you went to the "false Kiva" site as well.  This is one that is hard to find too.  We wandered around the sandstone bluff above the Kiva for hours before realizing that there was a trail.  We found the Kiva the next day.  It's actually a steep hike up into the ruin, but what a view.  I want to return on a cloudy day to have a more moody ambiance for the photograph.

Thank you for sharing your work.  I very much like your vertical composition titled "Early Morning, F8 Point" .  It is actually an uncommon image of Canyonlands, definitly not a Cliche!

Best regards,
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Ben Rubinstein on October 24, 2006, 02:07:40 pm
With the availability of cheap photography since the 70's and especially today, there are many taking photographs who are either copying the work of the greats and well known, or trying to emulate the styles. Why? Because their work - worked! By now give or take every conventional photographic subject has been tackled and there are people who could write books on the best way to photograph each subject from an objective point of view, i.e. what has worked over the years.

Therefore every photographic subject is by definition cliched. There is only a very very narrow window of originality open in any genre and it in itself is only an offshoot of a similarly cliched genre.

Let us take Alain. He shoots the most cliched subject in photography. Landscapes. His artistic take on the landscape is very good, it works, but because of that it is again defined by the name cliche. He isn't shooting landscapes at f1.2 or using funky tilts or fisheyes which may give originality to his art. Do I then say that his work is no longer significant? That his artistic expression is worthless? What nonsense!

I have no formal artistic training but I would not hestitate to define photography as the expression of the photographer through the medium of the camera. Just as with art. Here is where we seperate the wheat from the chaff. What has become cliched is photography based on technicalities, based on machinery. 'Nice photo' should be the ultimate curse on any photograph. The image must show the soul of the photographer through the coming together of light and composition. It has to be far more than just a 'nice photo', it has to SPEAK to the viewer in ways that another photograph may not.  When I see Alain's Antelope Light Dance photo it speaks to me in ways that could not have come about from anything entitled a cliched genre. There are a few photos which I would hang on my wall and although perhaps cliched in their genre, they are anything but cliched in their execution.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: 32BT on October 24, 2006, 02:07:53 pm
I was thinking that a cliché and a trend are closely related, no?

The latest trend here that I can recall off the top of my head is Food Photography with extreme shallow depth of field. Food being a highly popular subject in general, so many magazines and commercials are now pushing those types of images, it's beyond funny. The similarity in these images is quickly making it a true cliché. But since it's a trend, some day the images will subside and be forgotten, so that the trend can be rediscovered in 20 years time as the next best thing since sliced bread (to remain consistent with the subject at hand).

So, how long does a cliché remain a cliché?
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: 32BT on October 24, 2006, 02:20:04 pm
On a different note: who here believes that "cliché" is a value-judgment?

And if so, would you say that "A brilliantly executed cliché" is a contradiction bordering the sarcastic?
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: alainbriot on October 24, 2006, 02:48:44 pm
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would you say that "A brilliantly executed cliché" is a contradiction bordering the sarcastic?
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I would say it might demonstrate genius.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: alainbriot on October 24, 2006, 02:50:18 pm
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The image must show the soul of the photographer through the coming together of light and composition.
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This is a subject I develop at length in my next essay "The Eye and the Camera".  I think you will enjoy reading it.  

Thank you for your comments on my work.

Regards,
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Paul Sumi on October 24, 2006, 02:59:54 pm
Quote
On a different note: who here believes that "cliché" is a value-judgment?

And if so, would you say that "A brilliantly executed cliché" is a contradiction bordering the sarcastic?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=82019\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

IMO quality of execution has nothing to do with originality (or lack thereof).  The concept/personal vision may be better expressed through technical excellence.  Or not - for example, 60's rock musicians were not often virtuoso vocalists or instrumentalists.

In contrast to your question, how can "cliche" be a quantitative judgement?  At what number photograph did the vista of Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View become a cliche?  The 500th?  Was the 499th NOT a cliche?  How much more of a cliche was the 501st compared to the 500th?

Paul
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: mmurph on August 03, 2007, 09:21:43 pm
Thanks Russell, interesting post!

After 30 years in photography, there are certain things that you see again, and again, and again ...

Sure, Photo 101 students need to be encouraged. But if you are serious, you eventually need to ask whether your own work is merely repeating cliches. And you need to be able to talk about what you see in artwork without worrying about offending some "lowest common denominator" photographer.  

At a conference where she was being honored, Anne Tucker told a story about her first semsester in graduate school for photography. She got a "B".  When she went to ask her "instructor" (Nathan Lyons) what a "B" meant, he said "Anne, in graduate school there are really only two grades. An "A" or an "F". "      

Sure, subjective. But at some point you need to trust someone's judgement if you are to have a mentor, etc.

Anyway, really old thread here, but I thought you would like this:

http://mncp.org/index.cfm/openings_closing...oll_Sunburn.cfm (http://mncp.org/index.cfm/openings_closings_current_exhibits/3/exhibits/10/month/8/year/2007/event/122/Eric_Carroll_Sunburn.cfm)

Sunburn is a meditation on landscape, particularly the photographic cliché of the sunset. Eric William Carroll asks, "Why do we feel the need to repeatedly photograph something that happens every day? Is it beauty? Is it time?" Using photographs of landscapes and sunsets found in the dumpsters of one-hour-photo stores, Carroll pushes the images into sublime fields of color through bleaching and silk-screening. In the end, the artist hopes not to describe the beauty of a sunset, but rather re-imagine it.

Best,
Michael
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Gordon Buck on August 03, 2007, 10:30:26 pm
You're saying that the sun sets every day?  And people take pictures of it?
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Ray on August 04, 2007, 12:41:07 am
This is really good, that old threads should be rejuvenated. Thanks for that, mmurph.

The fact is, in October 2006 I was trekking in Nepal and had little opportunity to access LL.

Having now read the entire thread, I think the issues raised are important.

I'm particularly impressed with Dale Cotton's response. Dale seems to have a breadth of knowlege on such matters unparalleled (or should that be unparalelled or unparrallelled?)

My own take is this. We photograph scenes because they 'move' us in some way. The 'move' might be an obligatory response to a request from a spouse to photograph a particular scene, for example.

Cliches are embedded in our consciousness.  Common language itself is a cliche. Almost every phrase you've uttered has been said a milliom time before.

The pressure on artists to produce something original is enormous.

One cliche I'd like to add to the list is the 'group' photo of kids at school or college or company.

Here's a shot of the class of '64, Tibetan refugee style. A little bit different from my school photo when I was 11 years old.

[attachment=2919:attachment]
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Anthony R on August 04, 2007, 02:01:19 am
russell I applaud you for making such a thread. I have an enormous distaste for cliche and also realize that every photograph has already been taken. I see where you are coming from and know that it is meant in good fun.

Here are some additions without the defensive arguments against (me thinks some doth protest way too much)

Close-up of a sunflower
Person wearing a half mask or pulling their shirt/sweater/scarf over their mouth
Person shot with a shawl of some sort wrapped about their head/face
an empty pier or dock
close up of an eyeball
a person with wings
a color image selectively made black and white
a pregnant woman holding her stomach
a field of wheat or better yet hay bales
an umbrella shot from birdseye
shot of/in a rear view mirror
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: blansky on August 04, 2007, 11:44:39 am
When I was a member of  APUG, a "traditional" photography site, one day someone started a thread that suggested we list all the kinds of photographs we hated. It started off by listing the usual, slot canyons, kids with angel wings, grand vistas of wheat fields, and then thread after thread hit upon hundreds of our great photography "hates".


By the time the list was done after about ten pages of threads it turns out that we as a group hated everything.

Michael
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Rob C on August 04, 2007, 12:21:37 pm
The distinction between cliche (I can´t find accents on this Spanish keyboard) and just another photo of a familiar subject is very difficult to define. I would suggest that cliche is the term to  be used when one is talking about  something that has already been done very well by a ´name´ photographer and which then spawns repeats from other photographers of whatever standing; generic pictures, on the other hand, are simply shots that can be classified as the OP suggested.

I think that the OP is a rather important thing to contemplate. It really cuts to the chase and repeats, in a different manner, the truth behind what Terrence Donovan said: the problem for the amateur is finding a reason to take a picture.

I think you have to exclude the snapshotter in this discussion because he clearly neither knows nor gives a hoot about cliches or otherwise - why should he, it´s not his obsession!

However, for the rest of us, the problem is almost religious: who is free of original sin? Who can say that he has not been influenced by seeing other work than his own? To admit that is to deny originality and to accept that cliche is an unavoidable part of one´s personal armoury. For the pro, it is often done to order...

Ciao - Rob C
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: mmurph on August 04, 2007, 05:18:06 pm
Quote
However, for the rest of us, the problem is almost religious: who is free of original sin? Who can say that he has not been influenced by seeing other work than his own? To admit that is to deny originality and to accept that cliche is an unavoidable part of one´s personal armoury. For the pro, it is often done to order...

Yes, exactly. To find a master/mentor and "copy" his/her style, as a student is a very valid, necessary, and even natural learning process.  

It may be more or less concious.  We are all "stamped" by our own personal school of influence - Robert Frank, Walker Evans, Gary Winograd, Robert Misrach, Ansel Adams, etc.

The challange is to grow beyond repeating what you have seen or know to work, to develop your own personal style.  

To be able to "mimic" other styles as required is a sign of a certain level of facility, learning, and understanding.  As long as you don't get trapped into being too clever - or too ironic - so that mimicing others becomes your work and you never move on to develop a personal style that you believe in.  

Or stay so stuck in your head and so cynical that you can't make *any* photos without feeling that it is a meaningless activity. Then you just need to pick up a Holga and start playing again  

Best,
Michael
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Gordon Buck on August 04, 2007, 06:06:45 pm
Quote
an empty pier or dock
...
...
a field of wheat or better yet hay bales

[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=131433\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Hey, I *like* my photos of piers and docks but don't have my photo of a field of hay bales -- yet (perhaps this year).  I request that these two subjects be removed from the cliche list!
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: mmurph on August 04, 2007, 07:58:30 pm
Quote
Hey, I *like* my photos of piers and docks but don't have my photo of a field of hay bales -- yet (perhaps this year).  I request that these two subjects be removed from the cliche list!

just because they are on the list, it *does not* mean you cannot photograph them.

You just need to do one of two things:

1) Try really, really hard to be artistic and unique and capture the scene in a new way (which does not include using every available photoshop filter, that in itself is a cliche   ), or

2)  Be a retrograde folk artist who aspires to making "naive" folk art (kitsch) and drink whiskey and/or beer while "creating" your images (the booze adds to the persona and helps wipe out the usual angst of the educated, which normally serves to inhibit your making cliched pictures, and allows you to be an authentic naive/primative artist despite your education. At least until you reach a certain age, at which time you become an authentic reactionary old fart and cuss who just doesn't know better anymore anyway .)  
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: cymline on August 04, 2007, 11:40:19 pm
It would seem that anything someone photographs could be a cliche' according to some posts here. And, in that case, I think the only photographs put in the cliche' category would be those seen by the viewer to be unsuccessful.
  I doubt if there is a subject on earth that has not been photographed thousands or more times. They all can be put into a general category and shoved into the overdone/cliche' column (ie. sunrise, sunset, ocean, mountains, happy kids, sad kids, etc) However, when you see a very good or great photograph (which of course is that particular viewers personal opinion) of a so called cliche', you don't see the cliche' first if at all. To simplify, when you see a photograph of something you have seen before and you don't really like the photo you might say "ehh, well, I've seen it before".  But, when you see a photograph you love of something you have seen before, you say "wow! that's a great photograph."  What you don't say is "wow! that's a great photograph but it's a cliche' so I refuse to like it".
 I think there are enough bitter artists and people in the world. Everything can be put in the cliche' category and put down or belittled. Let's enjoy each photograph on it's own merit and not shove it into some group because we personally don't like it. We do that enough with people.
  Photography should be enjoyed. If you see something that doesn't inspire you, move on to something that does.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Ray on August 05, 2007, 12:51:25 am
Quote
It would seem that anything someone photographs could be a cliche' according to some posts here. And, in that case, I think the only photographs put in the cliche' category would be those seen by the viewer to be unsuccessful.
  I doubt if there is a subject on earth that has not been photographed thousands or more times. They all can be put into a general category and shoved into the overdone/cliche' column (ie. sunrise, sunset, ocean, mountains, happy kids, sad kids, etc) However, when you see a very good or great photograph (which of course is that particular viewers personal opinion) of a so called cliche', you don't see the cliche' first if at all. To simplify, when you see a photograph of something you have seen before and you don't really like the photo you might say "ehh, well, I've seen it before".  But, when you see a photograph you love of something you have seen before, you say "wow! that's a great photograph."  What you don't say is "wow! that's a great photograph but it's a cliche' so I refuse to like it".
 I think there are enough bitter artists and people in the world. Everything can be put in the cliche' category and put down or belittled. Let's enjoy each photograph on it's own merit and not shove it into some group because we personally don't like it. We do that enough with people.
  Photography should be enjoyed. If you see something that doesn't inspire you, move on to something that does.
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Hey! Cymline, this appears to be your first post. Welcome to the forum.

I tend to agree with what you've just written, but I sense here there are 5 basic categories of endeavour.

The photographer who makes a living by satisfying the customer, in which case, for good business, the customer is always right. If the customer is looking for cliches, then that's what you have to provide.

The amateur who's interest is perhaps mainly in the processes, the novelty, the excitement of the result and perhaps even in the achievement of professional cliched results.

The artist who has chosen photography in preference to painting as his/her medium and who feels the pressure to 'break new ground' as modern painters have since the invention of photography.

The snap shooter who has no pretensions about art but who is merely recording an event of some personal emotional significance. Blown highlights, blocked shadow may often be of little concern.

The scientific photographer who's main concern is with absolute accuracy and maximum detail.

However, the problem with categories is, they are unreal. The edges are always blurred. There's considerable overlapping.
 
I sense within myself all 5 categories at work to some degree, slight or great.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Gordon Buck on August 05, 2007, 08:15:44 pm
As a photographer of a certain age, I claim an exemption from the ban on piers.  In fact, I've placed a slide show of my pier photographs on my webpage (http://hornerbuck.com/Piers.aspx).

(Beware:  Some pier photos include sunsets!)

None of the pier photos include hay bales; however, in a few months, I hope to claim a similar exemption on hay bales.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Ray on August 05, 2007, 09:50:21 pm
Quote
Gary Winogrand (according to discussions with a former student of his) took the position that effect of stacking up enough cliches in one photo could be transcendent.  An interesting proposition, but tricky, I would say.

[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=81554\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Nicely organised website, Gordon, even though there are a few photographic cliches there   .

It occurred to me that Russell has suggested a way out of our dilemma. Having identified our 101 cliches, we could then strive to include various combinations of some of them, 2 or more, in each photo. Cliche #1 plus cliche #5; cliche #7+#9+#99; cliche#1+#101 etc etc.

We could also sudivide each cliche into 'strong' and 'weak'. A blood-red sunset a strong cliche; a subtle hint of a sunset glow, a weak cliche. A full blown, obvious pier, a strong cliche; a few stumps of what was once a pier, sticking out of the water, a weak 'pier cliche' plus a strong 'derelict cliche'.

My maths is not too good. How many possibilities does that amount to?  
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Gordon Buck on August 05, 2007, 10:04:15 pm
Quote
Nicely organised website, Gordon, even though there are a few photographic cliches there   .

It occurred to me that Russell has suggested a way out of our dilemma. Having identified our 101 cliches, we could then strive to include various combinations of some of them, 2 or more, in each photo. Cliche #1 plus cliche #5; cliche #7+#9+#99; cliche#1+#101 etc etc.

[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=131679\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Thanks, Ray.  I was thinking along the same lines regarding combinations of cliches but I was wondering "Do two wrongs make a right?"  Also, I remember enough math to know that a minus multiplied by a minus makes a plus.  

My goal is now to find a scene incorporating a pier, a sunset and a hay bale.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Anthony R on August 05, 2007, 10:09:39 pm
Quote
Thanks, Ray.  I was thinking along the same lines regarding combinations of cliches but I was wondering "Do two wrongs make a right?"  Also, I remember enough math to know that a minus multiplied by a minus makes a plus. 

My goal is now to find a scene incorporating a pier, a sunset and a hay bale.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=131680\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Nice photos gordon.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Rob C on August 06, 2007, 04:03:27 pm
Gordon - I really liked those Swiss Army Knives though I was alarmed to read that you carry them about with you: in the good ole UK you´d be on a police charge for that simple pleasure.

Ironic, really, when the safest way to move about in today´s UK is with the security of a Paulo Beretta tucked into your waistband; or possibly to remain at home and have a double do the walking.

Ciao - Rob C
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: mmurph on August 08, 2007, 09:00:14 pm
Gordon,

Those piers are not yet true cliches. You are missing the kitschy, metaphorical title that tells the viewer what they are seeing.

They need names like "The Long Walk," which would be a picture of a pier with fog at the end, as a metaphor,  walking off the pier into fog being like walking into your own death  

A pier, sunset, hay bales, and a baby holding a kitten would do nicely.  Just be sure to think of a catchy title.

Wait, wait .... add an old man! "Begginings and Endings" is the tilte. It is *almost* a cliche, but it transcends cliche, because you have not one, but *two* beginnings, the kitten and the baby, and the baby is *holding* the kitten, and not one but *two* endings, the old man and the sunset, and that pier is ambigous and metaphorical by being both beginning and end, depending on how you look at it ....    

Just don't go to stoners for your philosophy - it will all be cliches! ("Wow, man, did you ever notice when you look at the sky just how small we are, like ....")  As opposed to something like Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason". Definitely not a cliche.    

Just have fun!

Best,
Michael
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Rob C on August 09, 2007, 05:39:06 am
Here we go - ageism rears its ugly old(!?) head again. Why do you want to add me to your list of cliches just because I´ve graduated from my early flush(es) of youth?

Anyway, I´m concerned about piers ever since my dog fell off one whilst attached to her lead; took a hell of a lot of daring on my part to leap into the ocean and push her upwards in order to lessen the weight so that my wife could pull her back up without strangling her, breaking her neck (the pooch´s) or just getting arrested for imaginary cruelty (my wife or myself).

Ciao -Rob C
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Gordon Buck on August 09, 2007, 11:01:32 am
Quote
They need names like "The Long Walk," which would be a picture of a pier with fog at the end, as a metaphor,  walking off the pier into fog being like walking into your own death  

[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=132241\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


My dad was in the hospital, very ill, but began to recover and I was able to leave.  Snow had fallen and in sufficient quantity to "stick"  -- very unusual for south Mississippi.  I saw this pier covered in snow and stopped to get a few photos of a snow covered pier on a snow covered beach against a really odd sky.  Then I noticed a set of footprints going out to the end of the pier and returning.

So I could write the cliched caption.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Rob C on August 09, 2007, 12:06:15 pm
I don´t know how many of you guys see Black & White, the ´collectors´ magazine?

The current issue No. 52, Special Issue, is worth the price if only to serve as a permanent catalogue of what I see as memorable cliches.

From ghost village to blurred ocean to blurred waterfall, from shadows on the wall to strange portraits, it´s all there - a classic tome to illustrate this thread.

NB I have no commercial interest in this publication.

Ciao - Rob C
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on August 09, 2007, 03:58:20 pm
Quote
I don´t know how many of you guys see Black & White, the ´collectors´ magazine?

The current issue No. 52, Special Issue, is worth the price if only to serve as a permanent catalogue of what I see as memorable cliches.

From ghost village to blurred ocean to blurred waterfall, from shadows on the wall to strange portraits, it´s all there - a classic tome to illustrate this thread.

NB I have no commercial interest in this publication.

Ciao - Rob C
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=132337\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
If all these cliches are showing up in Black and White, then it suggests that cliches sell! So maybe we need more of them??? (At least if we want to sell photographs.)

Eric
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on August 09, 2007, 04:01:37 pm
Quote
Anyway, I´m concerned about piers ever since my dog fell off one whilst attached to her lead; took a hell of a lot of daring on my part to leap into the ocean and push her upwards in order to lessen the weight so that my wife could pull her back up without strangling her, breaking her neck (the pooch´s) or just getting arrested for imaginary cruelty (my wife or myself).

Ciao -Rob C
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=132290\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Rob,

You should have photographed this memorable scene. I'd say an under-water image of the backside of a half-submerged pooch, with a pier in the background would definitely not be a cliche-pier photo.

-Eric
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: mmurph on August 09, 2007, 10:59:26 pm
Gordon, you take any photos you feel you should. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise!

But, unfortunately, they may not always communicate what you would like. I love to look at a photo of two dogs of ours who have since died, running through the snow and trees in Colorado when we lived there. Not very meaningful to others, just a snapshot - through a window - with a P&S. Nostalgia - I miss them.

OK, I'll argue the other side tonight.     I closed my studio 9 months ago because of chronic pain and chronic fatigue problems.  I haven't really done any meaningful photography since, paid or personal.

I told a friend who is an art professor that I would send him a portfolio of images of trees in my backyard, cats, and my feet. This is where the feet came from:

> did you see "Lost in Translation"? There is a Scarlett Johansson quote that I like:

"Charlotte: I tried taking pictures, but they were so mediocre. I guess
 every girl goes through a photography phase. You know, horses... taking
 pictures of your feet"

So I got myself a hand-held 4x5 and wandered around for 1.5 months so far taking lots of pictures - about 100. Hard to take pictures of a cat with a 4x5.  

Haven't sorted through them yet, just got the negatives back from the lab.  But, I have to say, my results don't come anywhere near to those of Robert Adams in this little book, "I Hear the Leaves and Love The Light". About  52 pictures of his dog in his backyard. Unfortunately you can only see a couple here:

http://www.amazon.com/I-Hear-Leaves-Love-L...86708277&sr=1-5 (http://www.amazon.com/I-Hear-Leaves-Love-Light/dp/3923922701/ref=sr_1_5/104-5691622-2235955?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186708277&sr=1-5)

Really a nice little work, and gutsy for an intellectual like Adams who is know for some more difficult work in the past.

Best,
Michael
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Ray on August 10, 2007, 03:12:02 am
We should also not forget the potential that cropping has to reduce that 'cliched' effect.

For example, that cute photo of the pet cat with razor sharp whiskers (a total cliche) could be cropped in an innovative way. We could crop off half of its left ear, one third of its whiskers on the right and the whole of its left paw.

That might sound a bit sadistic, but could improve the photo.  
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Rob C on August 10, 2007, 04:12:01 am
Quote
We should also not forget the potential that cropping has to reduce that 'cliched' effect.

For example, that cute photo of the pet cat with razor sharp whiskers (a total cliche) could be cropped in an innovative way. We could crop off half of its left ear, one third of its whiskers on the right and the whole of its left paw.

That might sound a bit sadistic, but could improve the photo. 
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=132468\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Ray, do you watch House?

Ciao - Rob C
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Ray on August 10, 2007, 09:34:26 am
Quote
Ray, do you watch House?


[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=132471\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Nope. Is this a British sitcom?
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Rob C on August 10, 2007, 03:05:28 pm
Quote
Nope. Is this a British sitcom?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=132494\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Ray - British star; US hospital location.

Ciao - Rob C
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Ray on August 11, 2007, 05:47:35 am
Quote
Ray - British star; US hospital location.

Ciao - Rob C
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=132547\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Rob,
Are you trying to say that my recommendations for tight cropping reminded you of a hospital situation?  

I had in mind the paintings of Pierre Bonnard.

There's nothing so cliched as the female nude. Here are a few examples of Pierre Bonnard's treatment of the subject, just up your street   .

(1) Nude on bed missing half her right foot. [attachment=2981:attachment]

(2) Nude with missing knees.  [attachment=2982:attachment]

(3) Nude minus half her bottom and half a leg.  [attachment=2980:attachment]

(4) Nude in bathtub with missing foot and ankle.  [attachment=2979:attachment]

(5)  Very drastic situation for the bloke in this painting of Man & Woman.  [attachment=2978:attachment]

So you see, a bit of judicious cropping might just be able to rescue an image from the label of cliche   .
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Rob C on August 11, 2007, 12:35:30 pm
Ray - got it in one!

Of course, I agree with you that there is nothing as cliched as the nude, but man, what a delightful cliche! Right now, to protect my position, I must make it clear that I mean with the best sort of model - no Mz Arbus bullshit here!

Ciao - Rob C
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: gunnar1 on August 19, 2007, 08:49:54 pm
There some questions I have not yet seen asked: why is a cliche a cliche? What makes it so? Does it not have some relation to our time?

Were the Dutch masters painting cliches? Were the impressionists painting cliches? You see where I am going with this. It all comes down to time and place in the end. At the present time (post color negative film invention) we (humans) tend to what appears attractive in our medium and that is considered cliche by some. Does a sunset look so alluring in monochrome? How about a tropical bird?

Here is another question: Why is the budding young photographer drawn to what the more "experienced" photographer may consider cliche? Why does my 10 year old take pics of the dog and the sunset and flowers and the lake etc. etc.? I would contend that in some ways we are "wired" to see the appeal in these photographs. She has not been influenced by my own work, to that I can attest, but she ends up at these places nonetheless.

Food for thought... (or is it cliche to have even written that last sentence with the periods behind it??)
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Ray on August 19, 2007, 10:03:18 pm
Quote
There some questions I have not yet seen asked: why is a cliche a cliche? What makes it so? Does it not have some relation to our time?

[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=134216\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I think the dictionary can help here. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the origins seem to relate to the process of making a metal cast from a wood carving in order to make prints. The word itself is a derivative of the French clicher or cliquer meaning to 'click', which is the sound made by the die-sinkers as they struck the melted lead in the process of making the stereotype block.

Of course, such blocks or casts were used to stamp out almost unlimited identical copies of forms and prints. The term has even been used to describe the film negative of photography, so it's no wonder the word has become a metaphor for anything commonplace and hackneyed.

However, in the case of photography, even though a subject and its treatment might metaphorically be described as a cliche, there is usually some variation in each sunset, sunrise, family cat or Yosemite grand view.

If the printers of old who used these die-cast blocks (cliches) were to get the same variation in their copies of prints as I get in my sunsets, they would have a right to get very angry and frustrated.  
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: reyn_two on August 21, 2007, 08:22:09 am
I'm going to Burford Wildlife Park on Saturday to take pictures of Penguins.
I certainly don't want to take pictures that other people have taken before, one idea I have to avoid this is to stand them in a row and invert every other one.
Has anyone seen a picture like this before? If so I won't bother going.
Frank
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Rob C on August 21, 2007, 10:53:24 am
Quote
I'm going to Burford Wildlife Park on Saturday to take pictures of Penguins.
I certainly don't want to take pictures that other people have taken before, one idea I have to avoid this is to stand them in a row and invert every other one.
Has anyone seen a picture like this before? If so I won't bother going.
Frank
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=134486\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

reyn, why don´t you simply get them to sign a model release, then you´ll know for sure  whether they have all been photographed together before? If they have not, or only in limited versions (editions?) of the group you are going to construct, then they are not, collectively, a cliché. Inversion would be a step too far and, in itself, just bordering on cliché.

Rob C
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: reyn_two on August 21, 2007, 03:52:40 pm
Thank you Rob C for your considered reply to my question the answer it seems is not black and white. I want to take pictures of Penguins, I considered going to Antarctica on Saturday but have been reliably informed by an expert Penguin picture taker that it has been done to death. I will retire to the shed and give it a great deal more thought. Any serious ideas on non clichéd Penguin picture taking would be appreciated, no big words please.
Frank
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on August 21, 2007, 05:35:55 pm
Quote
Thank you Rob C for your considered reply to my question the answer it seems is not black and white. I want to take pictures of Penguins, I considered going to Antarctica on Saturday but have been reliably informed by an expert Penguin picture taker that it has been done to death. I will retire to the shed and give it a great deal more thought. Any serious ideas on non clichéd Penguin picture taking would be appreciated, no big words please.
Frank
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=134612\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
If you photograph Arctic penguins instead of Antarctic penguins, that would surely be non-cliche. Do it quick, before the Arctic ice cap melts.

P.S. You'll have to bring your own penguins, of course.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Rob C on August 22, 2007, 04:01:47 am
Quote
If you photograph Arctic penguins instead of Antarctic penguins, that would surely be non-cliche. Do it quick, before the Arctic ice cap melts.

P.S. You'll have to bring your own penguins, of course.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=134642\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Fantastic solution, man, one lot is always standing on its head relative to the others! Why didn´t I think of that?

Rob C
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on August 22, 2007, 10:33:49 am
Quote
Fantastic solution, man, one lot is always standing on its head relative to the others! Why didn´t I think of that?

Rob C
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=134725\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
It's the imported Antarctic ones that stand on their heads, of course, because they come from "down under".  
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Robert Roaldi on August 22, 2007, 10:53:34 am
Maybe shoot a group of Penguins playing poker.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: reyn_two on August 22, 2007, 02:02:02 pm
What is the world coming to? I have been grassed up, I have been warned off by the RSPCP (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Penguins) they state that anyone intending to take pictures of Penguins, standing on their head or not, must first obtain a licence. I should also be aware that it may create a security risk as bad men, sorry persons, have been known to masquerade as Penguins, usually the right way up,  to commit their dastardly deeds.
Surely not I replied with great emotion.
I can see that my compulsion (for that's what is was) for Penguin picture taking is drawing me into uncharted waters, North or South pole, it makes no difference.
I have reconsidered and will now concentrate on picture taking of Ducks. You cannot stand a Duck on it's head.
Frank
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Rob C on August 23, 2007, 12:14:19 pm
Frank, ducks too have human rights.

With your penguins, how can you tell if they are biased to the left or to the right? They might even be middle-of-the-road penguins in which case they will be much more likely to wear loose track suits pants than full tuxedos, which will, of course, make it easier to tell without staring and provoking a dispute.

Do NP penguins ever marry SP penguins?

Ciao - Rob C
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: sinc on September 19, 2007, 08:16:41 pm
Cliches are just cliches 99% of the time. The other 1% of cliches are art.

OK, maybe 99.9% and 0.1%.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Rob C on September 20, 2007, 03:53:00 pm
Quote
Cliches are just cliches 99% of the time. The other 1% of cliches are art.

OK, maybe 99.9% and 0.1%.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=140571\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Hey, I like the odds!

Rob C
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: marimagen on September 20, 2007, 09:12:14 pm
So what's "popular" and what's a cliche. Is there a difference? I think I have a good example here of the "perfect" photo for a travel agency's brochure. The travel agency wants to reach a given target audience. They will use a language that their target will understand at a glance: the cliche. So I would say that a cliche works like a symbol: it conveys a meaning in one second flat. So there is more to a cliche than meets the eye! It triggers emotions and memories. It can be used as a universal language to bring people together or to make them react in a certain way.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Rob C on September 21, 2007, 07:28:15 am
Quote
So what's "popular" and what's a cliche. Is there a difference? I think I have a good example here of the "perfect" photo for a travel agency's brochure. The travel agency wants to reach a given target audience. They will use a language that their target will understand at a glance: the cliche. So I would say that a cliche works like a symbol: it conveys a meaning in one second flat. So there is more to a cliche than meets the eye! It triggers emotions and memories. It can be used as a universal language to bring people together or to make them react in a certain way.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=140858\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

This is a family-friendly site; there is no call for the exposure of provocative imagery such as that to be found in the representational erotica in the foreground.

Rob C
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: blansky on September 21, 2007, 12:20:12 pm
As soon as everything you see is a cliche, then it's a sign that you've lived too long.


Michael
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Rob C on September 21, 2007, 12:29:56 pm
Quote
As soon as everything you see is a cliche, then it's a sign that you've lived too long.
Michael
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=140987\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

So, this is a suggestion that we might seize the opportunity of taking part in a snuff movie? Or would that, too, be cliché?

Rob C
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Jonathan Wienke on September 21, 2007, 01:44:03 pm
Spiderwebs, with dew on them. 5 bonus points if the spider is in the middle...
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: blansky on September 21, 2007, 05:02:55 pm
Quote
So, this is a suggestion that we might seize the opportunity of taking part in a snuff movie? Or would that, too, be cliché?

Rob C
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=140993\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Alas, death too is a cliche.


Michael
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: amcinroy on September 24, 2007, 11:51:33 am
It seems to me that part of the problem is that there is a desensitisation caused by viewing too much photography. Particularly viewing too much internet photography where many of the subtle technicalities are lost.  

Take landscape for instance. As forum users we see multitudes of colourful, deep landscapes of far off places we have no personal connection with.

Put large prints in front of a local who knows the area well but is not familiar with landscape photography and the reaction will be very different.

So to summarise, it's not the photographs that are the problem here. It's our own desensitisation that is causing us to lose our appreciation of good photography. As someone else pointed out, nearly everything has been done before. And if it hasn't then it soon will be.

Andy
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Rob C on September 24, 2007, 03:24:31 pm
Andy, you have a good point there. I know that when I first got into the internet I was amazed at the pictures out there. I looked at all the leading photographers´ agents sites and at all their guys´ material. It took quite a long time, but I have to admit that I have become very much more hardened to taking new stuff aboard and being moved to comment.

That doesn´t indicate that great pictures are not being made or seen, just that, as you said, one has now seen so much that it´s hard to be enthused. It´s also like working with good  models: at first you get blown away at the great pics you can get with them, then the scenario changes and you just take them for granted.

(Later, when you retire, you realise too late what you had, what you should have done.)

Rob C
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Jen on September 09, 2009, 09:12:22 am
I don't see why everyone is freaking out so much about the cliches, it's not like it's a terrible thing to take pictures of cliches, but YES, we want original photographs. The teacher isn't saying that cliches are always a bad thing, just that we have to know how to photograph them to make them unique. I for one, will never get sick of seeing photographs of beautiful sunsets, I love to photograph them myself, but it would be GREAT to find a NEW way to do it to make them even more fantastic. That's when everyone decides they want to see YOUR picture, instead of one of the other thousands of sunset photos. That's the point of learning these things, not to put you down, but to find new ways of creating something beautiful, shocking, original, and interesting.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: jashley on September 13, 2009, 09:54:18 pm
Here's your cure for Internet "desensitization".  Pick up the new Life National Parks mag (on sale now at most newstands).  Yes, I suppose you could say that most of the photos in it are cliches in some way, but I still had that "wow" or "ooo" response to many of them because they're just so darn good.  Especially the Carr Clifton ones--wonderful stuff.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: DanLehman on September 15, 2009, 12:24:10 am
Quote from: Jen
...  it would be GREAT to find a NEW way to do it to make them even more fantastic. That's when everyone decides they want to see YOUR picture, instead of one of the other thousands of sunset photos. That's the point of learning these things, ...

No one has time to *learn* all those things -- even superfast net connection
and a , well, *photographic* memory will be overburdened trying to avoid
The Cliche' shooting.

Fortunately, Olympanasonikentaxon will have a camera made to suit:
a multi-terabyte memory card to hold --not YOUR shots (which will be few)--
all of the existing art, and a fast few processors to search images with the
click of the shutter,
exposure denied if a match is found (one can select resolution of matches
from "Beginner" to "Pro --just say 'no' to cliche's").

QED.

(Of course, one needs to keep updating the stored memory; but universal
Wi-Fi with all cameras interconnected will take care of that.)
((Partially funded by grants from unnamed government sources.))

On sale 2010-04-01.

--dl*
====
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: LucyA on September 23, 2009, 10:17:02 pm
As I read through the replies in this thread I first appreciate the years of collective experience and the wonderful images members have captured. Through the eyes of someone newly interested and ever the optimist I then think to myself how cynical some of the comments are.

Granted some shots may become seemingly repetitive, we have all seen a sunrise/baby/leaves/pregnant woman but the magic comes from the emotions that good photography can invoke and that can never become cliche.

It doesnt matter what the subject matter is, a good photographer will capture the wonder of it and make it amazing. To me this is the definition of an original work, even if it is a sunrise.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Rob C on September 24, 2009, 01:31:41 pm
Quote from: LucyA
Through the eyes of someone newly interested and ever the optimist I then think to myself how cynical some of the comments are.




And that, Lucy, is why: your newness, for want of a better word.

By the time you recognize the cliché, it has been around for a very long time before your becoming aware of it. This isn't a phenomenon peculiar to you: we all share in its joy. If you want to think of it within a time-scale, consider that some of the stuff first exposed to the light of day back at the end of the 1800s has undergone many reincarnations over the decades. This doesn't just apply to photography, think of teenagers: each new set thinks it has discovered the opposite sex for the first time ever, perhaps that generation has within its experience, but it forgets the reason for its own existence and that of all the generations of mankind before it...

Cynicism has nothing to do with it; boredom everything.

Rob C
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: stamper on September 26, 2009, 04:35:45 am
A few years ago I was taking a picture of part of a steam engine in an open air museum when I heard a voice saying "what are you seeing, what are you seeing?" It was a guy older than me, only just. We got talking and it became apparent that he was out every day taking images and he had run out of things to photograph. My reply was that he was suffering from "burn out" Methinks ROB - no disrespect - that you may be as well? The more one does and the more we learn then the more fussy we get and then ultimately the less we get? Then we start photographing once again what we did with better equipment and more experience behind us and hopefully we will get better images. I am now going to look at images I took of sunsets from Calton hill Edinburgh from yesterday. I have taken these shots before but hopefully they will be better than the previous ones and thus likely to be less clichéd? It is a roundabout!
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: michelson on October 12, 2009, 03:45:55 am
I stopped reading around page five, pardon if my view duplicates any previous.

As a new photographer, (and a life-long creative person) I find that a list of cliches is only imperative for those are seeking to attempt to define themselves with something new, potentially even for the sake of something new. Sure, you can bang your head and heart on the subject all day, but in the end: What are you conveying with this "new" thing?

It's my firm belief, that if there was a definition for art, it may possibly be:
"The conveyance of emotion through a medium which in itself, conveys no emotion, artificially created for such purpose."

Hey, someone may have come up with that before, and on different grounds it may be proven correct or incorrect: but that's not the point. That's my belief, and I don't have to study other people's previous (re: historical) thoughts to come to it.

Cliche's: To whom?

Sunsets, skylines, black and white nudes.... That HAS been done, I don't disagree. But my sunset may be something new to me. At that moment the shot was taken, there was a beautiful picture that I was a part of creating: and someone else may agree. It may be new to them too! The arts are and always will be subjective. What is an an eyesore to one person, is fine art to another. What is cliche to one, is a beautiful rendition of their own inner thoughts to another.

The mentioned sunset could have been my first sunset picture ever, and potentially my last, but lumping a print of it into the cliche bin for the sake of the fact it's not "new" "avante garde" "contemporary" or even novel smacks of the kind of mindset that you're exactly trying to avoid.

Let me illustrate that point with a simple logic statement:
It is believed that good art breaks the rules of art. It is also believed that images that are cliche are not art.


In the sense of what is, and is not: I refuse to cave into idea that "this shouldn't be done", especially on the grounds that it has been done before. How shall one grow as a photographer, or artist in general, if they can not find out for themselves the path? People in this thread talk about wanting to find new and next best thing, but that's a near impossible task if what is considered a cliche can't be explored.

You may see cliche junk, and dump it in the rubbish bin. But I say every image, is and will always be, a paving stone on the way.

I understand that in the fine art world, there are topics and areas of importance because there is money on the line. But, you have to consider this: Since your judgement is subjective, and you believe that an image you see is cliche because in the early 70's it was overdone in the fine art scenes and thus disregard it,  does that mean that someone who has not studied the arts as much as you will actually have a better understanding of the image? That they can step into an image as it truely is, gain the (un)intended emotional response, without the pomp and weight of the inner circles of fine art? To experience an image as it really is, and not just what it isn't? But I digress, that's another topic for another day...

To circle back to my original statement, that the creation of something new, for newness sake is not art. That's marketing. Art could potentially be conveyed, through this new thing, but in itself the "new" should not be the focus; instead of what's conveyed. Attempting to define cliches is counterproductive, because in eventuality this "rule" will be circled back upon and broken, thus creating "fine" art. That is a trend, and trends are not artistic, it's marketing.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: RSL on October 12, 2009, 01:44:40 pm
Quote from: michelson
In the sense of what is, and is not: I refuse to cave into idea that "this shouldn't be done", especially on the grounds that it has been done before.

No one's saying, "this shouldn't be done." What they're saying is that if you do it, it'll be a cliche. It's pretty obvious that the world's full of people who don't care a whit whether or not what they're doing is a cliche.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Rob C on October 15, 2009, 03:30:24 pm
Quote from: stamper
A few years ago I was taking a picture of part of a steam engine in an open air museum when I heard a voice saying "what are you seeing, what are you seeing?" It was a guy older than me, only just. We got talking and it became apparent that he was out every day taking images and he had run out of things to photograph. My reply was that he was suffering from "burn out" Methinks ROB - no disrespect - that you may be as well? The more one does and the more we learn then the more fussy we get and then ultimately the less we get? Then we start photographing once again what we did with better equipment and more experience behind us and hopefully we will get better images. I am now going to look at images I took of sunsets from Calton hill Edinburgh from yesterday. I have taken these shots before but hopefully they will be better than the previous ones and thus likely to be less clichéd? It is a roundabout!





Stamper

Well, you may well be on the money with the burnout idea; perhaps burnout is actually another word for the same thing as boredom within this context. And how could one not be bored when seeing the same thing over and over and yet over again?

That one version of #37 might be better executed than another version of #37 doesn't change #37 into something else - just another iteration of the same old thing, whatever that might be.

This is touching onto another thread next door about creativity and its relationship with art and/or technique and whether creativity is the same thing as pressing the button - reportage by another name, but not implying anything negative about reportage. In other words, is the act of taking a shot enough to list itself as creativity? I thought not. I was pretty much in a minority of one, largely, I think, because it can be a worrying thought to imagine that one has spent years doing something less 'honourable' than one might have imagined! Strip of us of our self-esteem and what's left?

So, is a new version of a cliché art? Is it a creative act? I think it remains just a cliché.

Rob C
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Paul Sumi on October 15, 2009, 04:50:00 pm
Quote from: Rob C
So, is a new version of a cliché art? Is it a creative act? I think it remains just a cliché.

Rob C

This isn't photography but what can be more cliche than boy meets girl, but belong to feuding families?  Everyone seems to try to re-make Romeo & Juliet, but IMO Westside Story is a terrific, non-cliche, retelling.   Is it art?  I guess it depends on your point of view.

Paul
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Rob C on October 16, 2009, 06:46:10 am
Quote from: PaulS
This isn't photography but what can be more cliche than boy meets girl, but belong to feuding families?  Everyone seems to try to re-make Romeo & Juliet, but IMO Westside Story is a terrific, non-cliche, retelling.   Is it art?  I guess it depends on your point of view.

Paul



No, it doesn't have to be cliché because it takes the interaction of people to make it exist. It doesn't just sit there waiting for you like the Golden Gate and the fog.

Art? Performance art.

Rob C
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Paul Sumi on October 16, 2009, 10:26:54 am
Quote from: Rob C
No, it doesn't have to be cliché because it takes the interaction of people to make it exist. It doesn't just sit there waiting for you like the Golden Gate and the fog.

Taken to the extreme, then, any photograph of any inanimate object is automatically a cliche?

Paul
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Rob C on October 16, 2009, 11:48:47 am
Quote from: PaulS
Taken to the extreme, then, any photograph of any inanimate object is automatically a cliche?

Paul




Absolutely not, povided that the photographer has had sufficient input to assemble the inanimate object(s) and light them. We are crossing into another topic which has been recently exhausted - or I have by it - but cutting to the chase, it all depends on how original your work is and whether you have put in added value beyond the obvious ones of view point, lens, focus, aperture and shutter speed. In my view (a recent one) these simply signify technique and however good, perhaps do not go beyond reportage. It's that extra, bothersome bit called creativity that's the problem, that separates the original from the cliché.

But, cliché or not, there is  no reason not to do it if you find satisfaction therein; it all ends up as an internal war anyway, which you have to wage by your own rules.

Rob C
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Paul Sumi on October 16, 2009, 11:53:41 am
Quote from: Rob C
But, cliché or not, there is  no reason not to do it if you find satisfaction therein; it all ends up as an internal war anyway, which you have to wage by your own rules.

Rob C

Definitely agree!

Paul
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: EduPerez on October 17, 2009, 05:11:32 pm
Do you really think clichés exist? Are there subjects that have been so badly overused, that absolutely nothing new can be said about them? I do not think so: perhaps I am being too naïve, or perhaps I have not seen enough photographs to be desensitized; but I still see new (at least for me) approaches to old subjects.

I'll take Jonathan Wienke's comment as and example: "Spiderwebs, with dew on them. 5 bonus points if the spider is in the middle... ". When I read that, I immediately remembered this photo I had seen some days before: http://1x.com/v2/#/photos/latest-additions/27939/ (http://1x.com/v2/#/photos/latest-additions/27939/). It is a spiderweb, it has dew, and the spider is in the center... but I could never classify that photography as a cliché.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on October 17, 2009, 07:26:31 pm
Quote from: EduPerez
Do you really think clichés exist? Are there subjects that have been so badly overused, that absolutely nothing new can be said about them? I do not think so: perhaps I am being too naïve, or perhaps I have not seen enough photographs to be desensitized; but I still see new (at least for me) approaches to old subjects.

I'll take Jonathan Wienke's comment as and example: "Spiderwebs, with dew on them. 5 bonus points if the spider is in the middle... ". When I read that, I immediately remembered this photo I had seen some days before: http://1x.com/v2/#/photos/latest-additions/27939/ (http://1x.com/v2/#/photos/latest-additions/27939/). It is a spiderweb, it has dew, and the spider is in the center... but I could never classify that photography as a cliché.

You're right. That one is not a cliché.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Rob C on October 18, 2009, 11:30:34 am
Quote from: EduPerez
Do you really think clichés exist? Are there subjects that have been so badly overused, that absolutely nothing new can be said about them? I do not think so: perhaps I am being too naïve, or perhaps I have not seen enough photographs to be desensitized; but I still see new (at least for me) approaches to old subjects.

I'll take Jonathan Wienke's comment as and example: "Spiderwebs, with dew on them. 5 bonus points if the spider is in the middle... ". When I read that, I immediately remembered this photo I had seen some days before: http://1x.com/v2/#/photos/latest-additions/27939/ (http://1x.com/v2/#/photos/latest-additions/27939/). It is a spiderweb, it has dew, and the spider is in the center... but I could never classify that photography as a cliché.





1.  There is ever the danger of confusing cliché with genre.

2.  I would like to thank you for the link to that site: I didn't know it existed and there are some very interesting images there, muchas gracias.

Rob C
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: EduPerez on October 19, 2009, 03:56:42 am
Quote from: Rob C
1.  There is ever the danger of confusing cliché with genre.
Could you elaborate more on that, please?

Quote from: Rob C
2.  I would like to thank you for the link to that site: I didn't know it existed and there are some very interesting images there, muchas gracias.
De nada... it is one of my favourite places to spend some time.
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Rob C on October 19, 2009, 09:37:02 am
Quote from: EduPerez
Could you elaborate more on that, please?


De nada... it is one of my favourite places to spend some time.




¡Hola!

To elaborate on the dangers of confusion? Well, it is rather easy, as with your spider, to think that since the same components are involved in the picture, that it will be so similar to all the others that it will be unable to offer anything new - a cliché.

But, not all pictures that consist of roughly the same elements are going to be virtual copies of each other - they might be of the same genre but could still retain sufficient individuality to retain identity; thus, I think of fashion pictures against a white/grey roll of paper as being reasonably good examples of perhaps both cliché and genre. Genre, unmistakably, because they share the common location of a roll of paper; cliché if they bring nothing new to the experience in front of the reader but not cliché if they still manage to surprise.

However, even that isn't as tight or binding a definition as might be desired - the cliché might exist even when the same idea is only seen twice. There is a famous topless photograph of Janet Jackson with her arms up in the air and a pair of male hands holding her breasts from behind, which I think was shot for Rolling Stone, but I might be mistaken. I have seen one more picture copying that pose and instantly, for me, it became cliché, even with just a single predecessor.

Maybe the problem is language or the belief that it can define everything that humans can feel. And I don't mean Janet Jackson.

Ciao

Rob C
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: DanLehman on October 22, 2009, 01:01:34 am
Quote from: EduPerez
... I immediately remembered this photo I had seen some days before: http://1x.com/v2/#/photos/latest-additions/27939/ (http://1x.com/v2/#/photos/latest-additions/27939/). It is a spiderweb, it has dew, and the spider is in the center... but I could never classify that photography as a cliché.

Lovely, but unnatural -- I feel the discomfort of a spider put in that
upside-down position by the photographer!  (Such spiders hang from,
not sit upon, the web.)  (What the viewer brings to the image ... .)

(-;
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: Rob C on October 22, 2009, 04:57:10 am
Quote from: DanLehman
Lovely, but unnatural -- I feel the discomfort of a spider put in that
upside-down position by the photographer!  (Such spiders hang from,
not sit upon, the web.)  (What the viewer brings to the image ... .)

(-;





Dan

I am not well enough versed in such matters to know, but assuming that you are right, and any small spider I see with a web in the vicinity is of the hanging variety, it just goes to prove that one should always seriously doubt the apparent truth within photographs! But the aesthetics...!

Rob C
Title: The 101 Cliches of Photography
Post by: schrodingerscat on November 18, 2009, 10:51:38 pm
"Show me a magazine with a picture of a pretty girl, a dog, or a baby on the cover, and I'll show you a magazine that sells" - W R Hearst.

National Lampoon went on to put all three on the cover, and was a masterpiece.

Insofar as New Cliche is concerned...HDR and/or stiched landscapes.

And just to make sure we don't leave anyone out -

ducks