Post by: Ivo_B on November 06, 2018, 04:56:27 pm
Jean Claude Lemagny (http://journal.depthoffield.eu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=scherpte;sid=4f33ed6a1b6169eb5d61cd8de6eb80c5;view=text;idno=m0501a01;rgn=div2;cc=scherpte;lang=en;node=m0501a01%3A2.9)
Jean Claude Lemagny developed this 'clock' as a startpoint to discuss photo's.
There are other interesting approaches, such as the six categories of Terry Barret (https://laceysee9.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/terry-barrett-classification-system/)
Is there any interest at Lula to use such a tool to have a startpoint to openly discuss and eventually better understand photo work?
Post by: Martin Kristiansen on November 06, 2018, 10:57:29 pm
How long before a debate rages between those who say it’s all pure talent and or instinct and rules are for those who don’t have talent
How long before people take positions on their own favorite ideas and shut down all others
How long before someone says we need to look at all the dead photographers and if we don’t we we will never understand anything.
Hope this developed into something. Good on you for trying. I will try to contribute but for some reason I am flat out with commercial work at the moment.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 07, 2018, 12:46:11 am
I would be interested. A few things put me off though.
How long before a debate rages between those who say it’s all pure talent and or instinct and rules are for those who don’t have talent
How long before people take positions on their own favorite ideas and shut down all others
How long before someone says we need to look at all the dead photographers and if we don’t we we will never understand anything.
Hope this developed into something. Good on you for trying. I will try to contribute but for some reason I am flat out with commercial work at the moment.
All very valid, Martin. Check out my last reply in the Qou Vadis topic.
However, it is not about rules, just a tool to look deeper into photos and try to understand to what we look.
I found this approach helpful in my own photography, instead of firing from the hip or waiting for the light, I started to pre determine what kind of visual language I wanted to use. In the hope someday to have my own style and recognizable visual language. (Still a long road ahead)
Facility tools like this (like anything else) should not be the goal, but the means.
Post by: KLaban on November 07, 2018, 04:12:45 am
I see my existing work as being essentially muddled - unsurprising perhaps as there were many reasons for it existing - but my path forward as having some clarity.
Post by: Rob C on November 07, 2018, 04:50:09 am
See:
Jean Claude Lemagny (http://journal.depthoffield.eu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=scherpte;sid=4f33ed6a1b6169eb5d61cd8de6eb80c5;view=text;idno=m0501a01;rgn=div2;cc=scherpte;lang=en;node=m0501a01%3A2.9)
1. Jean Claude Lemagny developed this 'clock' as a startpoint to discuss photo's.
There are other interesting approaches, such as the 2. six categories of. Terry Barret (https://laceysee9.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/terry-barrett-classification-system/)
Is there any interest at Lula to use such a tool to have a startpoint to openly discuss and eventually better understand photo work?
1. Well, I found myself wondering exactly what Instrumental Photography means. Without a clear, accurate understanding of that basic concept, the rest of his "clock" became confusingly complex, because despite thinking I understood him, that intial definition doubt had remained unresolved, and because of that, my suspicion that perhaps my entire sense of understanding of what was written was flawed too...
2. It was an object lesson in how bad my cataracts really are: my initial reaction was that it was the worst website interface I'd ever battled; I could hardly read the white writing against the black background. Then, on masking off the bright image, the print suddenly became a lot more readable to me. So, it confirmed my difficulty with bright frontal light situations, where light plays around within the cataracts and diffuses itself and, as consequence, the image it forms.
That website should be added to the opthalmologist's toolkit!
However, Martin has a good point to make:
"How long before a debate rages between those who say it’s all pure talent and or instinct and rules are for those who don’t have talent"
I certainly conform to the idea that some interest has to be there, if only to encourage an initial foray into the medium, but then you face the extent of that talent and/or interest, and have to decide whether you had been dealing with nothing but curiosity without the talent part. Without that bit, you could still become a good photographic technician.
Where I don't share Martin's concern is in the matter of rules. I don't read the two articles as drawing up rules, but as a form of post-event forensics. None of what I have read would have the slightest input on my shooting, if only because, mostly, I go out with a blank mind - a bit like a dry sponge awaiting the hot water tap. The only exceptions were when I had to shoot to a layout, fortunately not too often more restricting than just having rectangular or square spaces to fill.
Rob
Post by: Rob C on November 07, 2018, 05:00:01 am
I see tools and systems such as these as being useful in clarifying where we want to be rather than where we've been.
I see my existing work as being essentially muddled - unsurprising perhaps as there were many reasons for it existing - but my path forward as having some clarity.
That's interesting; all my current work is muddled because it has no clear raison d'être beyond the frantic do something, do anything, if only not to atrophy unto death.
Unlike yours, my forward, photographic vision is an empty space.
Rob
Post by: Ivophoto on November 07, 2018, 05:24:37 am
I agree the websites are a bit clumsy, but I didn’t find something else on the net. For myself, I refer to some books about reading and understanding images written by Belgian photo art critic Johan Swinnen.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 07, 2018, 05:35:43 am
That's interesting; all my current work is muddled because it has no clear raison d'être beyond the frantic do something, do anything, if only not to atrophy unto death.
Unlike yours, my forward, photographic vision is an empty space.
Rob
Could such a ‘clock’ or ‘categories’ be a guide to draft the framework to give some orientation to fill the emptiness in vision?
About seeing behind the obvious:
Seeing the difference between Nachtwey and Witkin is not difficult, but seeing the difference behind the style of La Chapelle and Witkin is not so simple.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 07, 2018, 05:50:27 am
1. Well, I found myself wondering exactly what Instrumental Photography means. Without a clear, accurate understanding of that basic concept, the rest of his "clock" became confusingly complex, because despite thinking I understood him, that intial definition doubt had remained unresolved, and because of that, my suspicion that perhaps my entire sense of understanding of what was written was flawed too...
Rob
As I understand it.
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20181107/4ca02314bae925b828e512eeaa20abeb.jpg)
This is a picture of a 1Dsmiii. Purpose: commercial, publicity or just showing off?
This is another picture of same camera purely for user manual purpose:
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20181107/b955f4df9c39d55aaf198f951047f564.jpg)
?
Post by: KLaban on November 07, 2018, 06:13:31 am
Could such a ‘clock’ or ‘categories’ be a guide to draft the framework to give some orientation to fill the emptiness in vision?
About seeing behind the obvious:
Seeing the difference between Nachtwey and Witkin is not difficult, but seeing the difference behind the style of La Chapelle and Witkin is not so simple.
I believe they could certainly help focus the mind.
Post by: Rob C on November 07, 2018, 06:17:04 am
Could such a ‘clock’ or ‘categories’ be a guide to draft the framework to give some orientation to fill the emptiness in vision?
About seeing behind the obvious:
Seeing the difference between Nachtwey and Witkin is not difficult, but seeing the difference behind the style of La Chapelle and Witkin is not so simple.
I don't think we're speaking about the same thing.
My "emptiness" is all about opportunity of doing what I did best. It has nothing to do with personal style, motivation or treatment, but everything to do with availability of talent to stick in front of my cameras. It's physical.
That's the empty space in front of me - an extension of all my own landscape attempts, and the problem that I perceive in that of most other people's landscape shots too: they make interesting - sometimes - backgrounds to, if not the hand of man, then certainly to the presence of woman. Of course, those other authors will not see that.
Some landscapes are more conducive to that realisation than others: deserts, beaches, old buildings... the list does not, however, include the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls, nor snaps of lions etc. ;-) .
Rob
Post by: KLaban on November 07, 2018, 06:25:18 am
1. Well, I found myself wondering exactly what Instrumental Photography means. Without a clear, accurate understanding of that basic concept, the rest of his "clock" became confusingly complex, because despite thinking I understood him, that intial definition doubt had remained unresolved, and because of that, my suspicion that perhaps my entire sense of understanding of what was written was flawed too...
2. It was an object lesson in how bad my cataracts really are: my initial reaction was that it was the worst website interface I'd ever battled; I could hardly read the white writing against the black background. Then, on masking off the bright image, the print suddenly became a lot more readable to me. So, it confirmed my difficulty with bright frontal light situations, where light plays around within the cataracts and diffuses itself and, as consequence, the image it forms.
That website should be added to the opthalmologist's toolkit!
However, Martin has a good point to make:
"How long before a debate rages between those who say it’s all pure talent and or instinct and rules are for those who don’t have talent"
I certainly conform to the idea that some interest has to be there, if only to encourage an initial foray into the medium, but then you face the extent of that talent and/or interest, and have to decide whether you had been dealing with nothing but curiosity without the talent part. Without that bit, you could still become a good photographic technician.
Where I don't share Martin's concern is in the matter of rules. I don't read the two articles as drawing up rules, but as a form of post-event forensics. None of what I have read would have the slightest input on my shooting, if only because, mostly, I go out with a blank mind - a bit like a dry sponge awaiting the hot water tap. The only exceptions were when I had to shoot to a layout, fortunately not too often more restricting than just having rectangular or square spaces to fill.
Rob
It's fascinating how we differ - we as in a collective of photographers, artists, whatever, rather than RobC or KLaban. I have an entirely different approach to shooting, working. I won't so much as pick up a camera if I don't have a clear vision of what it is I want to do. I never shoot for the sake of shooting. Good thing, bad thing, dunno.
Post by: 32BT on November 07, 2018, 06:29:22 am
Could such a ‘clock’ or ‘categories’ be a guide to draft the framework to give some orientation to fill the emptiness in vision?
No.
I have yet to read the information more in depth, but i would like to contribute two general remarks:
#1 reversing implications
The idea seems to apply to classification or taxonomy. Applying rules in classification or taxonomy is quite obviously not a problem and in fact is a necessity. Some of us believe rules are a problem in the production process, not in the consumption process.
You could for example classify pictures using the rule of thirds just fine. That would simply be a selection criterium. The problems arise when reversing the logic:
Quote
if a picture conforms to the rule of thirds, then it is a beautiful picture.
Or
Quote
try to conform to the rule of thirds, then your pictures will be considered more beautiful
In other words, you generally want to avoid reversing implications.
#2 hierarchical structures
I usually am doubtful when classifications allow categories to overlap. I see it happening a lot even within precise engineering definitions and it usually is a forboding of a lot of trouble. Trouble as in endless discussions and animosity.
It also is often and indication of undefined hierarchical structure. Some things are deemed more important than others and that should reflect in the rules used to classify. Clearly Art my be controversial at times since it's often meant to break barriers, but it should still respect its own premisses. Some examples may clarify:
A murderer could for example possit that his/her murdering is an act of art creation. He/she claims to merely produce highly controversial art. Why do we (as a society) still judge him/her as a murderer and not as an artist?
Another example from actual reality
A photographer pictures himself naked in obviously aroused state with his toddler in his arms. A judge is asked to assess whether it constitutes childporn or art.
If you don't have clearly reasoned hierarchial definitions of what is considered acceptable and what is considered unacceptable by the same society that makes your art expression possible, then you're likely to end up with more controversy than actual art. By clearly reasoned i mean universal basic truths. For example we all have the universal basic right to individual development and expression. If however i abuse that right to kill another individual i am in breach of my own inherent right, my own premiss of existence, as applied to the victim. Therefore the right to individual existence supercedes the right to do as i please in my art, even within the confines of my own home.
Post by: 32BT on November 07, 2018, 06:35:45 am
Now i only need to find an interesting tv show where i can fill silence with empty pseudo intellectual drivel. Considering my expertise i could become a real celebrity.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 07, 2018, 06:42:56 am
PS. Jeremy will no doubt give me the blank stare now, but at least it fills up space, no?
Now i only need to find an interesting tv show where i can fill silence with empty pseudo intellectual drivel. Considering my expertise i could become a real celebrity.
I’m glad you said it yourself.
Hahahahaha (just joking)
I understand your remarks and I have a answer in mind, not sure how to explain in written. Give me some time.
Post by: Martin Kristiansen on November 07, 2018, 06:50:53 am
First thing that comes to my mind is the whole system of analysis and rules. I believe quite solidly that the traditional rules of photography are a codified way of describing largely pleasing stable and easily accessible compositions. Obviously I am alluding to leading lines, thirds and so on. It’s part of a visual vocabulary I suppose you could say. It’s useful to know this language as you can then use it to evoke feelings and a particular response. Perhaps you deliberately place objects in a way so as to be disturbing and jarring. Perhaps you use a visually ugly nasty scene and play off against it by using classically beautiful compositions. The issue here is you need to have something to say. How can you use a vocabulary if you don’t know what you want to say. It’s not about rules. It’s about intent.
It’s also about empathy in a sense as you need to have some feeling for how others might interpret a composition. Obviously we can’t always know but we can always try.
Where I think we fall short as photographers is in communication which is weird if you think about it. We are supposed to visual communicators. I know a hell of a lot of commercial photographers. Many of them are very good when on assignment and shocking when not on assignment. The reason I believed is that when on assignment the thing they are meant to communicate is part of the brief. As in we need to make this look good so we can sell it. Or this car is very fast and you will get laid if you buy it. Give the same person a camera and say go shoot whatever floats your boat and they are lost. They don’t know what to point the camera at so tend to look for the pretty. The Pretty is fine but you go around saying look pretty stuff, pretty stuff, more pretty stuff and check this very pretty stuff I and eventually you drive yourself and your audience nuts with boredom.
You have to have something a little more sophisticated to say than hey check this pretty stuff, then you need to figure out how to say it. What colour pallete, what tonal range, what size images, how to compose. Even technical excellence is a decision. Perhaps blindingly good quality can detract from what you want to say. You need to figure it out.
If a system like the one proposed here helps you with that then all strength to you I think.
Post by: Rob C on November 07, 2018, 06:54:10 am
PS. Jeremy will no doubt give me the blank stare now, but at least it fills up space, no?
Now i only need to find an interesting tv show where i can fill silence with empty pseudo intellectual drivel. Considering my expertise i could become a real celebrity.
But Oscar, you already are a celebrity: you're on LuLa!
Rob
Post by: Rob C on November 07, 2018, 06:59:48 am
It's fascinating how we differ - we as in a collective of photographers, artists, whatever, rather than RobC or KLaban. I have an entirely different approach to shooting, working. I won't so much as pick up a camera if I don't have a clear vision of what it is I want to do. I never shoot for the sake of shooting. Good thing, bad thing, dunno.
Indeed, and that lack of preconception was always evident in my pro work too, where my muse used to tell me that I never did anything until the last moment when I was pretty much out of time. So true...
I guess I'm an avid believer in the other muse striking when she's hot!
:-)
Post by: 32BT on November 07, 2018, 07:15:34 am
The Pretty is fine but you go around saying look pretty stuff, pretty stuff, more pretty stuff and check this very pretty stuff I and eventually you drive yourself and your audience nuts with boredom.
The best definition of Instagram if i ever saw one...
Post by: 32BT on November 07, 2018, 07:16:58 am
But Oscar, you already are a celebrity: you're on LuLa!
Rob
Of course, in a party of three it's easy to become
Post by: RSL on November 07, 2018, 08:43:32 am
It's fascinating how we differ - we as in a collective of photographers, artists, whatever, rather than RobC or KLaban. I have an entirely different approach to shooting, working. I won't so much as pick up a camera if I don't have a clear vision of what it is I want to do. I never shoot for the sake of shooting. Good thing, bad thing, dunno.
That's interesting, Keith. It's the obverse of street photography. But street photography, probably above any other kind of photography certainly requires clear vision. Without clear vision, you can spend your life on the street and never shoot anything worthwhile. I never shoot for the sake of shooting, either, but I do shoot for the sake of capturing something meaningful in front of me.
Post by: KLaban on November 07, 2018, 08:50:27 am
It's fascinating how we differ - we as in a collective of photographers, artists, whatever, rather than RobC or KLaban. I have an entirely different approach to shooting, working. I won't so much as pick up a camera if I don't have a clear vision of what it is I want to do. I never shoot for the sake of shooting. Good thing, bad thing, dunno.
That's interesting, Keith. It's the obverse of street photography. But street photography, probably above any other kind of photography certainly requires clear vision. Without clear vision, you can spend your life on the street and never shoot anything worthwhile. I never shoot for the sake of shooting, either, but I do shoot for the sake of capturing something meaningful in front of me.
Russ, if I have a clear vision that I want to roam the streets looking for opportunity then that will be enough for me to pick up the camera, but I will have a clear vision of what it is I want to achieve.
;-)
Post by: RSL on November 07, 2018, 08:59:00 am
Post by: KLaban on November 07, 2018, 09:40:20 am
You know I have a very high opinion of your photography. But if you're doing street you can't have "a clear vision of what [you] want to achieve," unless it's simply to shoot a good picture. Until you get out there you have no idea what's out there.
I have a clear vision to visit my chosen streets, to take advantage of what I find and shoot to the best of my ability. It's not knowing what it is exactly that lies around the next corner that drives me onwards.
;-)
Post by: KLaban on November 07, 2018, 10:45:33 am
(http://www.keithlaban.co.uk/Cats.jpg)
I also choose the theater, choose the location and have a good idea of the performance and cast that I would like to see. The rest is patience. An example below.
(http://www.keithlaban.co.uk/Into_the_Light.jpg)
And then there are the shots where I choose the destination and happen upon the location, the backdrop, the performance and cast. An Example below.
(http://www.keithlaban.co.uk/Mowgli.jpg)
I've not a clue if any of this meets your definition of street or for that matter anyone's definition of street. I often set out to shoot on the streets but never set out to produce street.
Post by: Martin Kristiansen on November 07, 2018, 11:26:37 am
The only people who are even remotely interested in street as a genre are other photographers. Why would I want to speak only to other photographers? I will go to an area that perhaps people are afraid of or no longer visits because it’s not trendy anymore and then I’ll take photos to show what it looks like TO ME. I have done mini projects on tourists taking selfies, people waiting at an inner city train and bus station. The bored children running around parents loaded down with goods they are taking back to Kinshasa and Harare. That interests me. I shoot it for my own pleasure. To find out how I feel about things. And it turns out it’s not street. Frankly I couldn’t care less.
I find images of random hipsters and aging hippies selling crap at flea markets banal in the extreme. I don’t understand what the images are meant to communicate. Could be it’s a cultural thing, I may speak English but I am not European or American and photos of realivley affluent people drinking cappuccinos mean absolutely nothing to me. That doesn’t mean I don’t see good “street” photography from first world countries, of course I do. Brilliant stuff. But to shoot so as to receive the accolade of qualifying as proper street seems pointless to me and a total waste of my time.
Post by: Martin Kristiansen on November 07, 2018, 11:27:59 am
Russ, if I have a clear vision that I want to roam the streets looking for opportunity then that will be enough for me to pick up the camera, but I will have a clear vision of what it is I want to achieve.
;-)
Not that you should care but I like your work.
Post by: RSL on November 07, 2018, 11:29:22 am
I've not a clue if any of this meets your definition of street or for that matter anyone's definition of street. I often set out to shoot on the streets but never set out to produce street.
Yes, it does, Keith. And what you're telling me you do is what I do too, when I'm able to do street (which isn't often nowadays). I go to places where I'm likely to find things that interest me. But it's still what Cartier-Bresson pointed out: "It's luck that matters. You just have to be receptive. That's all."
Post by: KLaban on November 07, 2018, 12:07:03 pm
Not that you should care but I like your work.
Martin, I care very much and thank you.
Post by: Rob C on November 07, 2018, 12:11:49 pm
Yes, it does, Keith. And what you're telling me you do is what I do too, when I'm able to do street (which isn't often nowadays). I go to places where I'm likely to find things that interest me. But it's still what Cartier-Bresson pointed out: "It's luck that matters. You just have to be receptive. That's all."
Well there you go, I would not classify Keith's posted shots as street at all. I would describe them as travel atmospherics. Maybe I have a natural affinity (I didn't write ability) for observing the value of classification - a need even - because of my Tony Stone days (stock library), where everything had its genre, the hole it had to fit and satisfy.
Street, for me, takes on roughly three required dimensions: it has ambiguity most of the time; it is an observation of the quirkiness of humanity; it reveals a tension of one kind or another. It has nothing at all to do with beauty. It can also, I guess, be called street when it is an aggressive style of work as practised by some of the late American guys such as Winogrand and perhaps that guy who sticks a flash gun in folk's faces. I think he's with Magnum, but I can't be bothered to seek him out because that isn't to me, true, classical street, it's shock caused by photographer and defeats the art of observation because it is the art of provocation.
Which leaves the confusion surrounding Saul Leiter. No way do I see any tensions or possible threats in his oeuvre; my favourite shots of his do, sometimes, have people but often so disguised (through misted up windows etc.) that those figures are but suggestions of humanity. His street work (simply because that's where it is shot) that consists of colours and blurs and things seen through windows are, to me, street art, which is not street in the other senses.
Sounds rather complex in the telling, but to me, crystal clear.
;-)
Post by: KLaban on November 07, 2018, 12:14:38 pm
Yes, it does, Keith. And what you're telling me you do is what I do too, when I'm able to do street (which isn't often nowadays). I go to places where I'm likely to find things that interest me. But it's still what Cartier-Bresson pointed out: "It's luck that matters. You just have to be receptive. That's all."
Russ, nice quote that sums up much of what I do. Hope you can get out and about when it cools down a little.
Apologies to Ivo for taking this thread off topic, but at least we're conversing.
Post by: KLaban on November 07, 2018, 12:20:53 pm
As I've said I'm not interested in street as a genre but love walking the streets.
Again, ooh er missus.
;-)
Post by: Ivophoto on November 07, 2018, 12:21:12 pm
Russ, nice quote that sums up much of what I do. Hope you can get out and about when it cools down a little.
Apologies to Ivo for taking this thread off topic, but at least we're conversing.
And that is just fine, Keith.
Post by: RSL on November 07, 2018, 12:34:16 pm
Well there you go, I would not classify Keith's posted shots as street at all. I would describe them as travel atmospherics. Maybe I have a natural affinity (I didn't write ability) for observing the value of classification - a need even - because of my Tony Stone days (stock library), where everything had its genre, the hole it had to fit and satisfy.
Street, for me, takes on roughly three required dimensions: it has ambiguity most of the time; it is an observation of the quirkiness of humanity; it reveals a tension of one kind or another. It has nothing at all to do with beauty. It can also, I guess, be called street when it is an aggressive style of work as practised by some of the late American guys such as Winogrand and perhaps that guy who sticks a flash gun in folk's faces. I think he's with Magnum, but I can't be bothered to seek him out because that isn't to me, true, classical street, it's shock caused by photographer and defeats the art of observation because it is the art of provocation.
Which leaves the confusion surrounding Saul Leiter. No way do I see any tensions or possible threats in his oeuvre; my favourite shots of his do, sometimes, have people but often so disguised (through misted up windows etc.) that those figures are but suggestions of humanity. His street work (simply because that's where it is shot) that consists of colours and blurs and things seen through windows are, to me, street art, which is not street in the other senses.
Sounds ratherr complex in the telling, but to me, crystal clear.
;-)
Hi Rob,
I agree with what you’re saying. To me, too, what Keith is doing is travel atmospherics, not street. But the approach is the same even if the intention is quite different. But then, how would you categorize my lady with the umbrella? I shot that fifty years ago – Leica M4. There’s really no ambiguity there. It probably is an observation on the quirkyness of humanity, though mostly because people no longer walk the street looking like that. And it’s not beautiful in the usual sense, though the composition grabs me. There’s something about the tilt of that umbrella. . .
Post by: Ivo_B on November 07, 2018, 12:42:20 pm
Guidance to observe is intrinsically something else than guidance to create.
Technical guidance (the photo technical stuff such as rule of thirds, DOF as composition tool, etc) is not the same as conceptual guidance (the visual language)
Two extreme examples:
Bare technical language such as: Eloquent emptiness
vs
Bare visual language such as: Slang to tell a meaningful story.
I see it more holistic, a photograph is built in several layers: the conceptual layer, the substantive layer, the technical layer, maybe for all these layers men could figure out categories, or find a position on a ‘clock’, whatever the quadrant represent. Call it keystones?
How the keystones look like is not important on such, it is important there is a point of orientation, like a lighthouse. Like a mental framework to observe and create photographic images.
That mental framework could benefit from the guidance to observe and the guidance to create.
Post by: Ivo_B on November 07, 2018, 12:45:46 pm
That's interesting, Keith. It's the obverse of street photography. But street photography, probably above any other kind of photography certainly requires clear vision. Without clear vision, you can spend your life on the street and never shoot anything worthwhile. I never shoot for the sake of shooting, either, but I do shoot for the sake of capturing something meaningful in front of me.
Let's give it a try. In which quadrant of the clock would this photo fall? (Russ, I hope you don't mind to use your photo?)
(https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=127446.0;attach=187084;image)
Post by: Rob C on November 07, 2018, 12:47:27 pm
Hi Rob,
I agree with what you’re saying. To me, too, what Keith is doing is travel atmospherics, not street. But the approach is the same even if the intention is quite different. But then, how would you categorize my lady with the umbrella? I shot that fifty years ago – Leica M4. There’s really no ambiguity there. It probably is an observation on the quirkyness of humanity, though mostly because people no longer walk the street looking like that. And it’s not beautiful in the usual sense, though the composition grabs me. There’s something about the tilt of that umbrella. . .
And the glossy galoshes (I think!)? Actually, what I see is a reference to a couple of French pictures, one an HC-B shot of a friend crossing a wet street towards him as he makes the shot.
I think we often see in our own work reflections that are peculiar to our own reading of things seen, which makes it difficult for others without the same background catalogue to suss out. I think we are back to jazz.
Rob
Post by: Martin Kristiansen on November 07, 2018, 01:04:46 pm
Anyway for me the genre thing is a distraction. Do people really go out with a plan to shoot street or landscape or whatever? I guess they must do. I never have.
This thread is teaching me how some other people think and that’s good I’m sure.
Post by: Ivo_B on November 07, 2018, 01:12:50 pm
Keith’s images are “travel atmospherics” because we know he was travelling when he took them. If a local took the same picture it would be street? That means it’s not the image on its own that determines what genre it is but we have to make an assessment based on things totally outside the image.
Anyway for me the genre thing is a distraction. Do people really go out with a plan to shoot street or landscape or whatever? I guess they must do. I never have.
This thread is teaching me how some other people think and that’s good I’m sure.
It is certainly interesting how quick it turns into a genre discussion...
Post by: KLaban on November 07, 2018, 01:25:37 pm
It is certainly interesting how quick it turns into a genre discussion...
OCD central.
Post by: Rob C on November 07, 2018, 01:54:05 pm
Keith’s images are “travel atmospherics” because we know he was travelling when he took them. If a local took the same picture it would be street? That means it’s not the image on its own that determines what genre it is but we have to make an assessment based on things totally outside the image.
Anyway for me the genre thing is a distraction. Do people really go out with a plan to shoot street or landscape or whatever? I guess they must do. I never have.
This thread is teaching me how some other people think and that’s good I’m sure.
No, I think that's a simplistic explanation of the genre. Were the same shots taken by an Indian photographer they would have fitted within the same visual genre: travel atmospherics. Exactly the same thing happens when somebody local in Scotland photographs a highland gathering and associated games; they are what they are regardless of the photographer's nationality.
Actually, having lived in India for about eight years, I believe the pictures would probably not excite an Indian resident in the slightest because they are simply of what much of India consists. Nothing new to an Indian. Probably the only Indians interested in making photographs in the genre would be those with a stock images contract or Tourist Board association. They are attractive to non-Indians precisely because of their difference to our norm.
As for folks going out to shoot a specific genre: maybe they often do. That genre would probably be governed by the likelihood of the material available to the particular photographer. Availability sure controls what I can produce. Think of the work of Peter Beard in Africa and why that did so much for his reputation in the West.
Rob
Post by: RSL on November 07, 2018, 02:11:50 pm
Let's give it a try. In which quadrant of the clock would this photo fall? (Russ, I hope you don't mind to use your photo?)
Sorry, Ivo. Haven't a clue what you're talking about.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 07, 2018, 02:16:50 pm
Sorry, Ivo. Haven't a clue what you're talking about.
I reckon it is a yes.
Post by: RSL on November 07, 2018, 03:15:00 pm
Post by: Ivophoto on November 07, 2018, 03:29:23 pm
Sorry. Now I see, you're talking about Jean-Claude's absurd clock. I don't place photographs in clocks. I place them in genres, which is what most people do with most art.
That is so far it can go here on Lula. Open minded as a Thomas Withers West Bromwich safe.
Post by: RSL on November 07, 2018, 03:43:43 pm
Post by: Ivophoto on November 07, 2018, 04:00:09 pm
.
You can ignore this topic, no need to Filibuster.
Post by: Martin Kristiansen on November 08, 2018, 12:15:00 am
Ivo I am keen to continue this discussion and I think we need to look at the genre debate as part of this process since some people delight in it and some people find it stifles creativity. To me it’s simple. Do we take photos to satisfy a genre or to communicate something? Can we do both and do we need to? Can we come up with new more relevant genres and do we need to?
Post by: Ivophoto on November 08, 2018, 01:08:46 am
I’m sure genres are very useful for people that feel a need to put stuff in boxes but genres themselves are not self existent. Genres are concepts constructed by people and can be useful in all sorts of ways. Where they are a danger is where they stifle growth and creativity and even enjoyment of the task at hand. A very good example of this is the street sub forum that has been sterilised and virtually killed off by this process.
Ivo I am keen to continue this discussion and I think we need to look at the genre debate as part of this process since some people delight in it and some people find it stifles creativity. To me it’s simple. Do we take photos to satisfy a genre or to communicate something? Can we do both and do we need to? Can we come up with new more relevant genres and do we need to?
That sounds like a sensible approach, Martin. Thanks.
Ok how can we investigate further ....
I don’t feel the ‘clock’ approach is the same as defining genres. Even the Barret categories are not like that. This plays on a different level of understanding.
I’m helped when I understand to what I look, and it helps me to understand why I do things in my creative process. And eventually it could help me in how I look at things and how I bring it together in a picture.
I ‘m so intrigued in La Chapelle and how he works and I can’t help to see underlying patterns that reminds me to Witkin, I want to understand, or holistically feel, how and why ‘I’ see this familiarity. That break trough could be the start of a new artistic flow to create some pictures.
And before somebody throw up that the urge to create is something that comes as natural, think twice. I feel it is a struggle inside and things don’t come easy.
Post by: Martin Kristiansen on November 08, 2018, 01:23:53 am
I am a naturally curious person and I have learnt to use that as a driver. It can also be a distraction in that I tend to hop around too much.
I also think the clock approach, while I may not be using it, is not exactly the same as a genre based classiification system. I think genres as in landscape, portrait and so on is the most simple level of abstraction when dealing with classification of images. I’m not saying it’s not useful but it is very simple and as such very restrictive. The clock system is a higher level of abstraction I would say. The problem is higher levels of abstraction can become complex and difficult to hold in the mind as a useful tool. You will need to decide for yourself I think.
An example of how I work. I did a series on battlefields in Zululand. You can find them on my new website if you are interested. The link is on my profile here. I chose the subject as in battlefields. I decided I wanted to show the landscape as battles choose a landscape for tactical reasons. I also decided to shoot mostly in the harsh dry winter landscape and in the middle of the day. I didn’t want the pictures to be romantic or pretty. I also opted for slightly uncomfortable but static compositions for much the same reason. I wanted the images to be a bit awkward. That’s how I think when engaging a project. Genre isn’t even thought about.
Post by: Rob C on November 08, 2018, 04:08:48 am
Rob
Post by: KLaban on November 08, 2018, 04:15:28 am
Post by: Rob C on November 08, 2018, 04:53:08 am
That sounds like a sensible approach, Martin. Thanks.
Ok how can we investigate further ....
I don’t feel the ‘clock’ approach is the same as defining genres. Even the Barret categories are not like that. This plays on a different level of understanding.
I’m helped when I understand to what I look, and it helps me to understand why I do things in my creative process. And eventually it could help me in how I look at things and how I bring it together in a picture.
I ‘m so intrigued in La Chapelle and how he works and I can’t help to see underlying patterns that reminds me to Witkin, I want to understand, or holistically feel, how and why ‘I’ see this familiarity. That break trough could be the start of a new artistic flow to create some pictures.
And before somebody throw up that the urge to create is something that comes as natural, think twice. I feel it is a struggle inside and things don’t come easy.
Ivo, I can understand how you may believe in systems as aids to creativity because, as far as I can tell, you are from an engineering background, so systems are part of your life. My engineering background was four years as apprentice, after which I got myself transferred, in the fifth year, into the company photo department, and never did anything else but photography for the rest of my career. I hated engineering life, and only got into it to avoid a worse one in the armed forces. My natural driving force has been from within, and on a very unclear kind of level where it has never been quantified, qualified or analysed: it just is - almost wrote was - and because of that built-in nature of the thing, I feel no need to question it or to try and channel it in some way: it knows all by itself what it wants the rest of me to do.
Frankly, looking at your clocks etc. frightens me. It appears to be such an artificial, mechanistic way of cutting up one's own soul much in the way that an autopsy would achieve. You may have sussed that, as did Jeanloup Sieff, I hold a very low opinion of those who take art and try to turn it into brand, force eqivalents and measures of worth betwen artists and, even worse, push some to financial success at the cost of others and sail on sweetly to wealth aboard their collective ship of cynicism, favouritism and hype.
Of course there is a struggle within; the first one is about what to do at all; is it even worth getting out of bed this chilly morning? The next one is often that of money: what can I or must I do to pay the rent and light bills? (Echoes there of Leiter, who should know.)
Other photographers of note or noteriety. The only ones that I want to know anything about are the ones whose work grabs me. It always starts with the work. I have no interest in names, and working my way through a catalogue simply to tick boxes and highten my awareness score and imagined street cred is not something I waste my life attempting. Let a great pìcture catch my eye and then yes, the inquisitive fuse is lit and the Internet gets my attention right away. Sadly, there are either fewer and fewer such names to research, or I have already found most of them and the world is less full of glory than I'd hoped.
Comfort zones. I think them essential. Having found one Piss Christ I have no wish to find it or its relatives ever again; having seen one defiled, mutilated and dishonoured human remain I have no wish to gaze upon more of them. The world contains so much pain, ugliness and horror as it is, that avoiding it seems to make greater sense. Far bettee to try and see where the other foot of that rainbow is resting. The may be no crock of gold, but why not something even better?
Post by: Martin Kristiansen on November 08, 2018, 05:00:04 am
Martin, why do you appear to believe that the existence of genres means that you are therefore forced into shooting to fit one? Surely, you have this back to front: you shoot whatever you feel is important or interesting to you, and then, after you have done that, it's uo to you or somebody else - should they feel the need - to put that work into some genre-related category. In no way does the post-shooting aspect, which may or may not come from, or matter to you, have any bearing on your direction unless you want it to have.
Rob
Fair enough. But then please explain what purpose exactly genres do perform? I can see no point to them when shooting and you are saying much the same thing. You mentioned stock in a previous post but we are not talking about stock here. And even if we were the stock system only existed because what else could be done before computers and #tags? Hash tags have largely supplanted genres as a way of searching for images. I worked in an agency in the days of film and big agencies had image libraries. Loads of images tucked away in rows of filing cabinets. Of course genres were useful in those days, but those days are done.
Ivo started this thread to discuss things other than genres actually but for various reasons we ended up on the subject and I think it needs to be resolved. My take is that strict adherence to genres when posting images stifles the forum and has contributed to loads of boring pointless stuff being posted for little reason other than it fits into a genre. Perhaps the genres are defined too narrowly? Perhaps we could allow urban and suburban into street and all stuff shot outside that as landscape. I don't think that's exactly right but Im sure you get my drift.
I think people on this forum are itching to have an intelligent and encouraging discussion about photography. I think Ivo's attempt with this thread reflects that. Lets not kill it with disdainful put downs and remarks designed to show our own cleverness and erudition. In no way is this last remark aimed at you Rob. I think your post quoted here was a fair question and it made me think about what I had posted. That is valuable to me.
Post by: Rob C on November 08, 2018, 05:35:49 am
Fair enough. 1. But then please explain what purpose exactly genres do perform? I can see no point to them when shooting and you are saying much the same thing. You mentioned stock in a previous post but we are not talking about stock here. And even if we were the stock system only existed because what else could be done before computers and #tags? Hash tags have largely supplanted genres as a way of searching for images. I worked in an agency in the days of film and big agencies had image libraries. Loads of images tucked away in rows of filing cabinets. Of course genres were useful in those days, but those days are done.
Ivo started this thread to discuss things other than genres actually but for various reasons we ended up on the subject and I think it needs to be resolved. 2. My take is that strict adherence to genres when posting images stifles the forum and has contributed to loads of boring pointless stuff being posted for little reason other than it fits into a genre. Perhaps the genres are defined too narrowly? Perhaps we could allow urban and suburban into street and all stuff shot outside that as landscape. I don't think that's exactly right but Im sure you get my drift.
I think people on this forum are itching to have an intelligent and encouraging discussion about photography. I think Ivo's attempt with this thread reflects that. Lets not kill it with disdainful put downs and remarks designed to show our own cleverness and erudition. In no way is this last remark aimed at you Rob. I think your post quoted here was a fair question and it made me think about what I had posted. That is valuable to me.
1. They peform the simple function of acting like signposts: they help viewers find the stuff that interests them without having to trawl through everything to discover their own bag. It's exactly as in a bookshop, where the interests are grouped together to simplify search and purchase.
We agree they have no pourpose within shooting unless they are part of the definition of the commission, the band within which you are being paid to shoot.
2. I don't see the form stifled by genres or, if you prefer, slots for the type of image being posted, which is just the other face of the function of (1) above.
The quality of postings depends on the quality of the work people are able to produce and to post. They are not genre limited, but talent and possibilities limited. In my own case, I can only post the finite number of pin-up shots that remain to me from those calendar days; I can no more afford to shoot more of that stuff at my own expense than I can buy a second home. As far as my fashion work goes, which was huge in volume compared to my calendar work, I can't post anything more than a print of a photograph I found in a box along with other stuff. Before I departed Britain for Spain I sold to clients whatever they wanted to have from my files, and destroyed the rest. Nobody knew the Internet was coming, that fashion snaps might become valuable for other people than the clients.
The other stuff I post, the majority of it, is neither street nor landscape. Where could I place it? Mostly, it fits easily within the wide expanse of WP. The rest of the Critique space does the same, but encourages critique, too, which WP does not.
The space exists, does the material?
Post by: Ivophoto on November 08, 2018, 06:07:04 am
.
The space exists, does the material?
Stop ignoring or disqualify the material which is considered out of genre would open some eyes.
I’m following the ‘genre’ discussion with interest, tough I don’t have much to say about it, genres are what theye are, and there are of no great use to me.
About my background. I ‘m neither a typical engineer or a typical manager. It is my ability to step back and overlook from distance that makes me a good manager, (you have to believe me on my words
)and I have sufficient engineering background to make my team not fooling around with me. 
But I admit that my management background not necessarily help to free up my mind to innocently look into the world of less defined creations. At the other hand, my creative part is a strong plus in how I manage industrial projects.
The whole clock thing, or Barret stuff, is not part of my life. It is an intellectual finger-exercise to explore in abstraction. It widens my view on the photographic artistic world. And the traces it leaves in my head, unconsciously, complete my way of being who I am.
I thought it was that what you said to miss, here on Lula.
Post by: Rob C on November 08, 2018, 06:54:39 am
Stop ignoring or disqualify the material which is considered out of genre would open some eyes.
I’m following the ‘genre’ discussion with interest, tough I don’t have much to say about it, genres are what theye are, and there are of no great use to me.
About my background. I ‘m neither a typical engineer or a typical manager. It is my ability to step back and overlook from distance that makes me a good manager, (you have to believe me on my words
But I admit that my management background not necessarily help to free up my mind to innocently look into the world of less defined creations. At the other hand, my creative part is a strong plus in how I manage industrial projects.
The whole clock thing, or Barret stuff, is not part of my life. It is an intellectual finger-exercise to explore in abstraction. It widens my view on the photographic artistic world. And the traces it leaves in my head, unconsciously, complete my way of being who I am.
I thought it was that what you said to miss, here on Lula.
What I'd enjoy reading here in the CC is biography about those who post images. Within that, I'm sure it would be impossible for their thought processes to remain invisible, and their history. Quite honestly, I am as much interested in Leiter's or Frank's life as in the photographs which, without the background to them, are not as interesting to me. Ditto Vincent van Gogh. The book Lust for Life may or may not be accurate, but it opened my eyes to the man and his sad history and made the pictures look something other than just paintings by an anoymous, possibly not too skilled entity. Background knowledge brings another dimension. Same with David Bailey and Richard Avedon: book and video add so much understanding about ideas and the why of things happening in their pictures in the way that they do. When you consider Avedon's "West" series of portraits it makes much more sense when you are aware that he came to that place from being the world's top, and highest paid fashion photographer. So, what is that telling anyone who knows a bit about his history and his world of professional work? One helluva lot!
Discover the world of Helmut Newton; you can't imagine his work existing in the style that it does if you fail to know about his background as a Jew and the state of Germany and its wealthy Jewish residents. The Berlin ethos of his early childhood, the social norms of the time, all of that is reflected in the work, in the sophisticted tastes he shows, probably exaggerates, but had to know about in the first place in order to exploit later on as a man.
Yes, even the clash of ideas about the value or otherwise of genre classification is interesting, as is discovering that some feel its existemce a threat to their own output, whereas I never did, and looked upon genre as nothing more than an index file for the later, easy finding of things. I couldn't imagine that unless they had to, to fit a commercial brief, people would look upon genre as permission to shoot or not to shoot! Surely, as amateur, the feedom is there to shoot whatever turns you on? That's how I use my retirement freedom.
Post by: Martin Kristiansen on November 08, 2018, 07:07:13 am
Post by: KLaban on November 08, 2018, 08:25:43 am
This place should be scented with sweet pheromones, not reek of mouldy filing cabinets.
Post by: Rob C on November 08, 2018, 08:45:35 am
The Street Showcase is a case in point, ultimately undone by the very people who pushed for it's existence. Intransigence: an overriding belief that it was their way or no way. OCD in action.
This place should be scented with sweet pheromones, not reek of mouldy filing cabinets.
I disagree, Keith.
Its problem as I see it, was that few do steet of any kind, beyond espousing the belief that if it's shot in a street, then, by definition, it's street. Which is akin to believing that if you make a selfie on a cruise boat you're doing marine photography, a concept that would drive any boat broker into his grave. You see the point and the problem.
The filing cabinets are as fresh or otherwise as the material within them. If LuLa readers are unable or not interested enough (a real consideration and possibility) to supply relevant material, then that's not the fault of others. The hoped for types of material are easy to place: there is the one where people can place "street art" which is best explained by reference to Leiter, "Street street" which you can reference by looking at a zillion people like Winogrand, Arbus (to an extent), Joel Meyerowitz and on and on. Anyone able to post here is able to look those people up via Dr Google and understand what street, the genre, actually is. It's not some arbitrary decision made up here on LuLa: it predates most of us.
Of course, if it makes anyone happy, there is nothing to preclude a section of street that fits the "if on a street, then it's street" concept. Somebody's pet pooch peeing against a lamp post would be just dandy.
;-)
Post by: 32BT on November 08, 2018, 09:50:34 am
I do agree with Keith, the streetsection simply hasn't become a very welcoming place to post. I do believe now that the initial enthousiasme has dried, there is room for more thoughtful and possibly more applicable entries there. On the other hand, LuLa doesn't seem to be comprised of enough active contributors any longer to guarantee fresh blood in any thread except possibly those allowing cats and pets.
Post by: KLaban on November 08, 2018, 10:29:45 am
If you want to pigeonhole the work I do on my travels then please, at least have the decency to drop the atmospherics bit. In return I will try to remember not to classify your calendar work as Glamour which in turn has overtones of 1950s Tit & Bum.
But really, why do you need to put my work into any kind of pigeonhole?
Post by: elliot_n on November 08, 2018, 10:37:03 am
See:
Jean Claude Lemagny (http://journal.depthoffield.eu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=scherpte;sid=4f33ed6a1b6169eb5d61cd8de6eb80c5;view=text;idno=m0501a01;rgn=div2;cc=scherpte;lang=en;node=m0501a01%3A2.9)
Jean Claude Lemagny developed this 'clock' as a startpoint to discuss photo's.
There are other interesting approaches, such as the six categories of Terry Barret (https://laceysee9.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/terry-barrett-classification-system/)
Is there any interest at Lula to use such a tool to have a startpoint to openly discuss and eventually better understand photo work?
I'm intrigued by this 'clock', but I can't make much sense of it.
The linked text isn't very helpful.
Is there a better explanation?
Post by: RSL on November 08, 2018, 10:38:56 am
I disagree, Keith.
Its problem as I see it, was that few do steet of any kind, beyond espousing the belief that if it's shot in a street, then, by definition, it's street. Which is akin to believing that if you make a selfie on a cruise boat you're doing marine photography, a concept that would drive any boat broker into his grave. You see the point and the problem.
The filing cabinets are as fresh or otherwise as the material within them. If LuLa readers are unable or not interested enough (a real consideration and possibility) to supply relevant material, then that's not the fault of others. The hoped for types of material are easy to place: there is the one where people can place "street art" which is best explained by reference to Leiter, "Street street" which you can reference by looking at a zillion people like Winogrand, Arbus (to an extent), Joel Meyerowitz and on and on. Anyone able to post here is able to look those people up via Dr Google and understand what street, the genre, actually is. It's not some arbitrary decision made up here on LuLa: it predates most of us.
Of course, if it makes anyone happy, there is nothing to preclude a section of street that fits the "if on a street, then it's street" concept. Somebody's pet pooch peeing against a lamp post would be just dandy.
;-)
Well said, Rob. The unfortunate part of the street genre is its name. People see "street photography," and instantly are sure they know what it is. After all, it MUST involve a street. As I pointed out in https://luminous-landscape.com/on-street-photography/, an awful lot -- perhaps most -- of street photography takes place far from a street.
But it's no use... and I, for one, would be happy to see LuLa's Street Showcase disappear, simply because I think it confuses people who aren't willing to take the trouble to learn what street photography is all about. Their opinions appear over and over again on LuLa, and other people, equally ignorant of the genre, swallow them up. That's a bad thing.
Oh, by the way, yesterday I posted a picture on Landscape Showcase titled "In the Swamp." Is it landscape (another one of those genres)? If not, why not?
Post by: Martin Kristiansen on November 08, 2018, 11:05:07 am
You can be quite rude and scathing to people about their opinions and about thier photography. For some reason that eludes me people don’t wish to be rude back to you about your view or your photography. Now we are trying to have a constructive conversation here and you drag the same thing up again. Let me state it again quite plainly. Things change and your narrow definition of street is outdated and redundant. It allows no growth and nothing interesting to happen. You have killed off the sub forum, not the lack of skill and understanding of people who were initially excited about posting on the sub forum.
Personally I don’t care what you think of me or my photography but I know that people have been put off by what you say and some interesting people have stopped posting and I believe you have contributed to that.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 08, 2018, 11:22:02 am
I'm intrigued by this 'clock', but I can't make much sense of it.
The linked text isn't very helpful.
Is there a better explanation?
Yes, there is, but in books. And I can’t be of great help with my Dutch literature.
I didn’t find anything better on the net, maybe if you de some research.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 08, 2018, 11:23:13 am
Well said, Rob. The unfortunate part of the street genre is its name. People see "street photography," and instantly are sure they know what it is. After all, it MUST involve a street. As I pointed out in https://luminous-landscape.com/on-street-photography/, an awful lot -- perhaps most -- of street photography takes place far from a street.
But it's no use... and I, for one, would be happy to see LuLa's Street Showcase disappear, simply because I think it confuses people who aren't willing to take the trouble to learn what street photography is all about. Their opinions appear over and over again on LuLa, and other people, equally ignorant of the genre, swallow them up. That's a bad thing.
Oh, by the way, yesterday I posted a picture on Landscape Showcase titled "In the Swamp." Is it landscape (another one of those genres)? If not, why not?
Come on, stop riding that death horse.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 08, 2018, 11:27:00 am
No Russ. It isn’t people not understanding. Or not bothering to find out. It’s people that disagree with your weird non definition definition and find the stuff that you do like and approve of to frequently be boring, dull and outdated. Vacuous if you prefer.
You can be quite rude and scathing to people about their opinions and about thier photography. For some reason that eludes me people don’t wish to be rude back to you about your view or your photography. Now we are trying to have a constructive conversation here and you drag the same thing up again. Let me state it again quite plainly. Things change and your narrow definition of street is outdated and redundant. It allows no growth and nothing interesting to happen. You have killed off the sub forum, not the lack of skill and understanding of people who were initially excited about posting on the sub forum.
Personally I don’t care what you think of me or my photography but I know that people have been put off by what you say and some interesting people have stopped posting and I believe you have contributed to that.
And I only can confirm Martins words.
Can we go back to the interesting conversation?
Post by: RSL on November 08, 2018, 11:28:52 am
No Russ. It isn’t people not understanding. Or not bothering to find out. It’s people that disagree with your weird non definition definition and find the stuff that you do like and approve of to frequently be boring, dull and outdated. Vacuous if you prefer.
You can be quite rude and scathing to people about their opinions and about thier photography. For some reason that eludes me people don’t wish to be rude back to you about your view or your photography. Now we are trying to have a constructive conversation here and you drag the same thing up again. Let me state it again quite plainly. Things change and your narrow definition of street is outdated and redundant. It allows no growth and nothing interesting to happen. You have killed off the sub forum, not the lack of skill and understanding of people who were initially excited about posting on the sub forum.
Personally I don’t care what you think of me or my photography but I know that people have been put off by what you say and some interesting people have stopped posting and I believe you have contributed to that.
Sorry you’re offended, Martin, but sometimes the truth is offensive.
Please give me an example of something of which I approve that you find boring. Maybe some of HCB’s stuff?, or Winogrand’s stuff?, or Frank’s stuff?, or Riboud’s stuff?, or Levitt’s stuff?, or Doisneau’s stuff?, or Evans’s stuff? Please be specific and point me to an actual photograph you find boring. Then we can discuss that photograph and you can explain why you find it boring.
Also, please point me to an actual example of where I’ve been rude to someone. Thinking back, I’m pretty sure there have been points in our political discussions where I responded to a rude statement with asperity, so maybe that’s what you’re thinking about.
As far as the definition of street changing – uh uh – I don’t think so, any more than I think the definition of landscape has changed or portraiture has changed or the definition of Impressionism has changed. If you think the definition of street has changed, please explain what you think the changes are.
Post by: faberryman on November 08, 2018, 11:30:55 am
Oh, by the way, yesterday I posted a picture on Landscape Showcase titled "In the Swamp." Is it landscape (another one of those genres)? If not, why not?The real question is who cares.
Post by: elliot_n on November 08, 2018, 11:31:59 am
Yes, there is, but in books. And I can’t be of great help with my Dutch literature.
I didn’t find anything better on the net, maybe if you de some research.
Then maybe you could explain how it works, and why you think it's interesting?
I can't make head nor tail of it. But it looks interesting.
Post by: RSL on November 08, 2018, 11:36:00 am
And I only can confirm Martins words.
Then let's see your "confirmation," Ivo.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 08, 2018, 12:06:00 pm
Then maybe you could explain how it works, and why you think it's interesting?
I can't make head nor tail of it. But it looks interesting.
Well, I already explained where I see value for me. I’ll do some research if I can find some better material on the web.
I hoped to investigate how it works by example, see my question about the galoche woman...
Post by: Ivophoto on November 08, 2018, 12:07:15 pm
Then let's see your "confirmation," Ivo.
Stop filibuster this topic.
Post by: elliot_n on November 08, 2018, 12:33:55 pm
Well, I already explained where I see value for me. I ‘lol do some research if I can find some better material on the web.
Ok, I'll re-read the thread.
The difficulty with the text you linked to is that it is an extract from a longer essay about something called 'instrumental photography'. That's a new concept to me - something similar, perhaps, to therapeutic photography (?)
Quote
I hoped to investigate how it works by example, see my question about the galoche woman...
Well how about making a start?! It might help us understand what this 'clock' is all about.
It's a good image to discuss - it wouldn't look out of place in Roland Barthes's 'Camera Lucida'.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 08, 2018, 12:43:34 pm
At 3 o’clock
Engaging reportage such as the work of Bresson, Klein, Wessing, Goldin, Parr, Capa, etc.
‘War’ reportage is a typical example but of course not covering the whole.
At 6 o’clock
Abstract tendencies such as the work of Pierre Cordier, Vik Muniz, Jurgen Klauke, Jan Dibbets, Luigi Ghirri.
This work explores the materiality of ‘a Photo’ and the suitability to reflect a subject.
At 9 o’clock
Surreal work such as Mapplethorpe, Dieter Appelt, dirk Braeckman, Araki,...
At 12 o’clock
Work not made by the author but used to make the viewer think about the exhibit. Such as Bolstanski, Marcel Broodthaers, Michael Snow, Thomas Hitschorn, Joan Fontcuberta,....
The transition from 3 to 12 is about the content
From 3 to 6 is about form
From 9 to 6 about the object
From 9 to 12 is about the subject
Googling the artists in the example clarifies a bit.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 08, 2018, 12:46:19 pm
Ok, I'll re-read the thread.
The difficulty with the text you linked to is that it is an extract from a longer essay about something called 'instrumental photography'. That's a new concept to me - something similar, perhaps, to therapeutic photography (?)
Well how about making a start?! It might help us understand what this 'clock' is all about.
It's a good image to discuss - it wouldn't look out of place in Roland Barthes's 'Camera Lucida'.
I would place the galoshes woman in the quadrant between 3 and 6.
For me it is about how it looks and the form is the key.
But this could be terrible wrong.
Post by: KLaban on November 08, 2018, 12:49:32 pm
I disagree, Keith.
Its problem as I see it, was that few do steet of any kind, beyond espousing the belief that if it's shot in a street, then, by definition, it's street. Which is akin to believing that if you make a selfie on a cruise boat you're doing marine photography, a concept that would drive any boat broker into his grave. You see the point and the problem.
The filing cabinets are as fresh or otherwise as the material within them. If LuLa readers are unable or not interested enough (a real consideration and possibility) to supply relevant material, then that's not the fault of others. The hoped for types of material are easy to place: there is the one where people can place "street art" which is best explained by reference to Leiter, "Street street" which you can reference by looking at a zillion people like Winogrand, Arbus (to an extent), Joel Meyerowitz and on and on. Anyone able to post here is able to look those people up via Dr Google and understand what street, the genre, actually is. It's not some arbitrary decision made up here on LuLa: it predates most of us.
Of course, if it makes anyone happy, there is nothing to preclude a section of street that fits the "if on a street, then it's street" concept. Somebody's pet pooch peeing against a lamp post would be just dandy.
;-)
New thread: On the Streets: an open image sharing thread (https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=127473.msg1077030#msg1077030)
Post by: Ivophoto on November 08, 2018, 12:49:56 pm
Do we have to try to avoid projection while observing a photo? Is it possible? Or is projection invaluable in reading a picture.
Post by: Martin Kristiansen on November 08, 2018, 01:00:19 pm
Why must you put Ivo down for his work as an example. I think his work is great. Pity he isnt contributing much anymore.
Post by: elliot_n on November 08, 2018, 01:08:35 pm
I’ll try to explain by example.
At 3 o’clock
Engaging reportage such as the work of Bresson, Klein, Wessing, Goldin, Parr, Capa, etc.
‘War’ reportage is a typical example but of course not covering the whole.
At 6 o’clock
Abstract tendencies such as the work of Pierre Cordier, Vik Muniz, Jurgen Klauke, Jan Dibbets, Luigi Ghirri.
This work explores the materiality of ‘a Photo’ and the suitability to reflect a subject.
At 9 o’clock
Surreal work such as Mapplethorpe, Dieter Appelt, dirk Braeckman, Araki,...
At 12 o’clock
Work not made by the author but used to make the viewer think about the exhibit. Such as Bolstanski, Marcel Broodthaers, Michael Snow, Thomas Hitschorn, Joan Fontcuberta,....
The transition from 3 to 12 is about the content
From 3 to 6 is about form
From 9 to 6 about the object
From 9 to 12 is about the subject
Googling the artists in the example clarifies a bit.
Thanks for having a crack at it. It's the transitions (content, form, subject, object) that confuse me.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 08, 2018, 01:19:45 pm
Thanks for having a crack at it. It's the transitions (content, form, subject, object) that confuse me.
That’s effectively a difficult one.
Form vs content is obvious, not?
Post by: elliot_n on November 08, 2018, 01:35:20 pm
That’s effectively a difficult one.
Form vs content is obvious, not?
Nothing is obvious to me!
Do we have to follow this clock in a clockwise fashion?
So as 'Conceptual' photography places increasing emphasis on 'content', it turns into 'Reportage'? And 'Reportage' turns into 'Abstract' as it focuses on 'form'?
Hmm, if that's how it flows, I can't make much sense of 'subject' and 'object'.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 08, 2018, 01:40:32 pm
Nothing is obvious to me!
Do we have to follow this clock in a clockwise fashion?
So as 'Conceptual' photography places increasing emphasis on 'content', it turns into 'Reportage'? And 'Reportage' turns into 'Abstract' as it focuses on 'form'?
Hmm, if that's how it flows, I can't make much sense of 'subject' and 'object'.
I don’t read it any direction, I read it more like the color circle of Itten. Opposites on the circumference of the clock.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 08, 2018, 01:46:27 pm
Nothing is obvious to me!
Do we have to follow this clock in a clockwise fashion?
So as 'Conceptual' photography places increasing emphasis on 'content', it turns into 'Reportage'? And 'Reportage' turns into 'Abstract' as it focuses on 'form'?
Hmm, if that's how it flows, I can't make much sense of 'subject' and 'object'.
Object: the print itself as piece d’art vs Subject : the print as carrier for the image as piece d’art?
Just thinking loud.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 08, 2018, 01:50:09 pm
Nothing is obvious to me!
Do we have to follow this clock in a clockwise fashion?
So as 'Conceptual' photography places increasing emphasis on 'content', it turns into 'Reportage'? And 'Reportage' turns into 'Abstract' as it focuses on 'form'?
Hmm, if that's how it flows, I can't make much sense of 'subject' and 'object'.
Form vs Content
Form: rule of thirds, composition rules, genre stuff, definitions
Content: image tells a story, image carry a message.
Again thinking loud.
Please don’t consider me as the tutor, I’m trying to understand as well.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 08, 2018, 01:53:08 pm
Post by: elliot_n on November 08, 2018, 01:58:29 pm
Please don’t consider me as the tutor, I’m trying to understand as well.
I've been googling. I think this might help explain the clock:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cFVsBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA458&lpg=PA458&dq=Jean+Claude+Lemagny+clock&source=bl&ots=dyUcsaTf4_&sig=KLsahat90ZFNFFEHiPk3Sn2Scwo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiGoJ24u8XeAhXGK8AKHda0D20Q6AEwC3oECF0QAQ#v=onepage&q=Jean%20Claude%20Lemagny%20clock&f=false
Post by: Ivophoto on November 08, 2018, 02:02:01 pm
I've been googling. I think this might help explain the clock:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cFVsBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA458&lpg=PA458&dq=Jean+Claude+Lemagny+clock&source=bl&ots=dyUcsaTf4_&sig=KLsahat90ZFNFFEHiPk3Sn2Scwo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiGoJ24u8XeAhXGK8AKHda0D20Q6AEwC3oECF0QAQ#v=onepage&q=Jean%20Claude%20Lemagny%20clock&f=false
Good reading!
Post by: Rob C on November 08, 2018, 02:22:19 pm
Rob, Travel Atmospherics? Reads like something from the promotional literature of a 1960s stock agency.
If you want to pigeonhole the work I do on my travels then please, at least have the decency to drop the atmospherics bit. In return I will try to remember not to classify your calendar work as Glamour which in turn has overtones of 1950s Tit & Bum.
But really, why do you need to put my work into any kind of pigeonhole?
Well there's a surprise! I never had the slightest suspicion that atmospherics was a toxic word! If anything, it is a plus, a statement that the images have atmosphere, life, spirit, call it what you please, that it removes them from the alternative, which is static, dead in the water, as it were, simple record work.
It's use in any era of stock has the same purpose as I've just described: impart to anybody interested that the work has vitality, and isn't blank record with no artistic input.
Regarding my own calendars, call them whatever you please: they fed me and the family rather well, for which I'm grateful. As long as I was able to leave them up on the wall at home and not feel worried that my son or daughter, not to mention the horse we didn't have would take fright, I was okay with what I did. Nothing has changed there and I am still happy enough that I didn't commit my greatest photographic fear, which was to drift across the border into porn, so easy to do. But hey, that's another genre...
I don't need to put your work into any category, but for the purposes of illustrating what genre means, there is little alternative within LuLa to show good, visible examples. However, if you prefer, I'll try to avoid mentioning your pictures in my posts.
Anyway, good luck with the new genre of street thread!
:-)
Post by: Rob C on November 08, 2018, 02:46:01 pm
Is believe a precursor to understanding? Or is understanding a precursor to believe?
I do agree with Keith, the streetsection simply hasn't become a very welcoming place to post. I do believe now that the initial enthousiasme has dried, there is room for more thoughtful and possibly more applicable entries there. On the other hand, LuLa doesn't seem to be comprised of enough active contributors any longer to guarantee fresh blood in any thread except possibly those allowing cats and pets.
The activity problem is the problem.
It's why the same group keeps getting its head banged about because of what's turning into Internet inbreeding. Fresh blood, in images, isn't flying its colours, so one has to assume that it isn't really there. Of course, it just illustrates the difficulty that a newspaper would have trying to be relevant by depending on nothing much but "letters to the editor" which is what our posts all amount to, and not a lot more.
As bad, we all come from different levels of photographic involvement and with very divers histories. Such a pot-pourri of references can't reasonably hope to coincide and interact in perfect harmony and unison.
It's my guess that the most valuable sections of LuLa to the greatest number of visitors, remain the gear and processes parts; art, who needs it other than folks with artistic natures, whether they be practising artists or not? Hell, nobody needs art: it's turned into a rich man's luxury - or caprice, depending on ones political leanings.
Rob
Post by: KLaban on November 08, 2018, 03:11:09 pm
Well there's a surprise! I never had the slightest suspicion that atmospherics was a toxic word! If anything, it is a plus, a statement that the images have atmosphere, life, spirit, call it what you please, that it removes them from the alternative, which is static, dead in the water, as it were, simple record work.
It's use in any era of stock has the same purpose as I've just described: impart to anybody interested that the work has vitality, and isn't blank record with no artistic input.
Regarding my own calendars, call them whatever you please: they fed me and the family rather well, for which I'm grateful. As long as I was able to leave them up on the wall at home and not feel worried that my son or daughter, not to mention the horse we didn't have would take fright, I was okay with what I did. Nothing has changed there and I am still happy enough that I didn't commit my greatest photographic fear, which was to drift across the border into porn, so easy to do. But hey, that's another genre...
I don't need to put your work into any category, but for the purposes of illustrating what genre means, there is little alternative within LuLa to show good, visible examples. However, if you prefer, I'll try to avoid mentioning your pictures in my posts.
Anyway, good luck with the new genre of street thread!
:-)
I've told you how I feel about being pigeonholed but accept it's up to you as to how you use that info.
Post by: Rob C on November 09, 2018, 06:18:34 am
No Russ. It isn’t people not understanding. Or not bothering to find out. It’s people that disagree with your weird non definition definition and find the stuff that you do like and approve of to frequently be boring, dull and outdated. Vacuous if you prefer.
You can be quite rude and scathing to people about their opinions and about thier photography. For some reason that eludes me people don’t wish to be rude back to you about your view or your photography. Now we are trying to have a constructive conversation here and you drag the same thing up again. Let me state it again quite plainly. Things change and your narrow definition of street is outdated and redundant. It allows no growth and nothing interesting to happen. You have killed off the sub forum, not the lack of skill and understanding of people who were initially excited about posting on the sub forum.
Personally I don’t care what you think of me or my photography but I know that people have been put off by what you say and some interesting people have stopped posting and I believe you have contributed to that.
I've been mulling that one over for a day or two.
I don't see Russ as ever being rude or offensive here - which makes him a bit of a rare exception, proof of which you will find within this very thread... I don't think he's one who needs any lessons on good manners or deportment. He merely refuse to play the nice, blind guy when in the face of something he sees and believes is not right.
The thing is, in different ways, you are both right. Russ is right because he - and I - come, almost, from the generation that defined street, gave it its roots. The reality is that the work that created the genre is hardly possible anymore for many reasons, both geographic and socio-political. The old world has been, literally, reconstructed with new concrete and neighbourhoods that supplied the ethos no longer exist. Even in my old Glasgow (Scottish one) the notorious and photogenic Gorbals saw a destruction and reconstruction in my own time in the city, and I believe it is now in its third iteration. The landscape is gone and with it the innocence (not to be confused with lack of crime) is no more. In the William Klein bio once shown on the BBC, Klein talks about going to Harlem and shooting kids playing ball in vacant lots; he says you could do that in those days... past tense. Helen Levitt made a name doing kids in b/w and, to a lesser extent, colour. Magnum still features an Italian photographer who made wonderful shots of slum kids in Sicily:
https://www.magnumphotos.com/photographer/ferdinando-scianna/
Today, street has come to be considered a rotten, suspect and dubious species of work often associated with fears of child molestation and so on; many people generally hate being snapped by strangers and some, good luck to them, get violent about it and the personal intrusion it repesents. Some religions proscribe photography and people get angry about it for other reasons than those of westerners. In essence, both the photographer and the victim? know what's going down: some kind of visual joke or mockery, or version of - ah, aren't they cute? - at the subject's cost, but either way, a judgement.
So, what can people in love with their fantasy of the original genre do today? Exactly what they have done: create another thing entirely from their own current reality and possibilities, which is why you now get the styles that you do.
Whatever they are, they no longer fit the formula. And you and others are right to do what you do, but not right in claiming the same mantle.
Revisionism isn't only a political reality.
Rob
Post by: elliot_n on November 09, 2018, 06:34:48 am
Good reading!
Now that I've read it, I'm not so sure.
As an 'encyclopaedia' article, it gets off to a bad start by locating the birth of photography in 1939 :)
However it does shed some light on the clock, describing the 4 main positions (3, 6, 9 and 12 o'clock) in some detail. Yet it has nothing to say on the diagonals (subject, object, content, form) in the diagram posted here.
It would be nice to read Jean-Claude Lemagny's original essay, but, AFAIK, it has not been translated into English.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 09, 2018, 07:34:43 am
Now that I've read it, I'm not so sure.
As an 'encyclopaedia' article, it gets off to a bad start by locating the birth of photography in 1939 :)
However it does shed some light on the clock, describing the 4 main positions (3, 6, 9 and 12 o'clock) in some detail. Yet it has nothing to say on the diagonals (subject, object, content, form) in the diagram posted here.
It would be nice to read Jean-Claude Lemagny's original essay, but, AFAIK, it has not been translated into English.
No. It isn’t translated.
However I think my attempt to explain comes close.
I will try to translate the explanation in one of my books on the subject. I will try to do so this evening local time.
Post by: RSL on November 09, 2018, 08:18:50 am
What I find boring is your endless quest to repeat that work and the work that ends up posted on your pet sub forum as a result of your inability to innovate and allow things to grow and progress.
Martin, it struck me this morning that I intended to ask you: please give me a visual example of the "innovation" and "growth" and "progress" you mention. Then we can discuss these points. I keep getting off-the-wall opinions, but never specific examples to illustrate the basis for the opinions. Also, how about pointing to one of my posts to illustrate my "inability to innovate." You sound serious about your opinions. If that's so you must have something specific in mind. Please share it with us.
Post by: elliot_n on November 09, 2018, 08:28:53 am
Post by: Ivophoto on November 09, 2018, 08:54:40 am
Martin, it struck me this morning that I intended to ask you: please give me a visual example of the "innovation" and "growth" and "progress" you mention. Then we can discuss these points. I keep getting off-the-wall opinions, but never specific examples to illustrate the basis for the opinions. Also, how about pointing to one of my posts to illustrate my "inability to innovate." You sound serious about your opinions. If that's so you must have something specific in mind. Please share it with us.
The problem with you, Russ, is that you ignore given examples. You ignore arguments not stroking with your ideas.
You consider everything what is not to your taste as ‘off the wall’
That makes it impossible to have a discussion with you.
You are rude. Not in the sense of using brutal language. You are rude in how you ignore the intelligence of others. You are eloquent rude. A kind of white collar rudeness.
Instead of using the word Bullshit, you post a picture. That kind of smart ass. And why is that rude? Because you deliberately sabotage entertaining conversations of others.
You are sabotaging this topic.
Stop it.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 09, 2018, 08:55:34 am
As far as Jean-Claude Lemagny's clock is concerned, it covers a much broader field of photographic art practice than what is generally encountered here on Lula.
Correct.
Post by: faberryman on November 09, 2018, 09:11:49 am
Post by: Ivophoto on November 09, 2018, 09:34:37 am
I get the gist of the clock, but once you place the images on the face, then what? It seems like it is a slide sorting exercise, not unlike genre assignment. Which makes sense as it arises from a curator's need to organize a large collection of diverse images.It is effectively not a genre assignment. That is what makes it interesting. It is about reading photographic art or content.
Post by: faberryman on November 09, 2018, 09:42:45 am
It is effectively not a genre assignment. That is what makes it interesting. It is about reading photographic art or content.3 o'clock is not a genre? Landscape is not about reading content?
Post by: Ivophoto on November 09, 2018, 09:47:41 am
3 o'clock is not a genre?
No. The genre given is only an example. Nan Goldin is definitely not the same genre as Capa but it fits on the same side of the Clock.
Post by: RSL on November 09, 2018, 09:48:19 am
The problem with you, Russ, is that you ignore given examples. You ignore arguments not stroking with your ideas.
You consider everything what is not to your taste as ‘off the wall’
That makes it impossible to have a discussion with you.
You are rude. Not in the sense of using brutal language. You are rude in how you ignore the intelligence of others. You are eloquent rude. A kind of white collar rudeness.
Instead of using the word Bullshit, you post a picture. That kind of smart ass. And why is that rude? Because you deliberately sabotage entertaining conversations of others.
You are sabotaging this topic.
Stop it.
Hi Ivo,
I think the real problem is that when I ask for examples to support the opinions I see on LuLa, some people see that as an insult. “After all, I said it! Are you questioning me?” Actually, yes. I am. There’s no way to discuss opinions unsupported by facts and reasoning without spinning your wheels, which is what you seem to want to do. Again and again I’ve asked you to support an opinion with an example. You’ve never come back with an example. You’re certainly free to have any opinion you want to have, but you’re not free to expect that opinion to be taken as gospel. Or as Daniel Patrick Moynihan put it: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinions but not his own facts.” It’s not that I “ignore given examples,” Ivo; it’s that I haven’t seen any examples to ignore. All I’ve seen is unsupported opinions.
Yes, I see that you believe I’m rude. Apparently you feel that way when I ask you to support one of your opinions with facts – examples. You see that as ignoring “the intelligence of others.” In other words, as I said earlier: “I said it! Are you questioning me?” Damn right I’m questioning you. If you have an opinion, give some support for that opinion. Intelligence isn’t illustrated by off-the-wall opinions. It’s illustrated by conclusions supported by facts and reasoning.
So you thought my bull was a way to say “bullshit.” Well, that was a case of supporting an opinion with an illustration. The facts already were there. You had made them very clear.
Oh, and thanks for the “eloquent rude” vote. “Eloquent” is something observable. “Rude” is a personal opinion.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 09, 2018, 12:47:26 pm
Hi Evo,
I think the real problem is that when I ask for examples to support the opinions I see on LuLa, some people see that as an insult. “After all, I said it! Are you questioning me?” Actually, yes. I am. There’s no way to discuss opinions unsupported by facts and reasoning without spinning your wheels, which is what you seem to want to do. Again and again I’ve asked you to support an opinion with an example. You’ve never come back with an example. You’re certainly free to have any opinion you want to have, but you’re not free to expect that opinion to be taken as gospel. Or as Daniel Patrick Moynihan put it: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinions but not his own facts.” It’s not that I “ignore given examples,” Ivo; it’s that I haven’t seen any examples to ignore. All I’ve seen is unsupported opinions.
Yes, I see that you believe I’m rude. Apparently you feel that way when I ask you to support one of your opinions with facts – examples. You see that as ignoring “the intelligence of others.” In other words, as I said earlier: “I said it! Are you questioning me?” Damn right I’m questioning you. If you have an opinion, give some support for that opinion. Intelligence isn’t illustrated by off-the-wall opinions. It’s illustrated by conclusions supported by facts and reasoning.
So you thought my bull was a way to say “bullshit.” Well, that was a case of supporting an opinion with an illustration. The facts already were there. You had made them very clear.
Oh, and thanks for the “eloquent rude” vote. “Eloquent” is something observable. “Rude” is a personal opinion.
Whatever.
Post by: Rob C on November 09, 2018, 02:12:54 pm
Whatever.
So, Ivo, would you consider your response here rude, polite, casual or just dismissive in a white collar sort of way?
:-)
Post by: faberryman on November 09, 2018, 02:19:40 pm
So, Ivo, would you consider your response here rude, polite, casual or just dismissive in a white collar sort of way?I would characterize it as frustration, and an unwillingness to get involved in a protracted argument over something that, in the end, is not worth the effort because no minds will be changed. The thread is quickly being derailed from a discussion about Lemagny's clock metaphor. How does Russ's narrow view of street photography have any bearing on the topic.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 09, 2018, 02:58:36 pm
So, Ivo, would you consider your response here rude, polite, casual or just dismissive in a white collar sort of way?
:-)
It serves the purpose.
Post by: Rob C on November 09, 2018, 05:06:36 pm
It serves the purpose.
Which purpose is that?
Post by: Ivophoto on November 09, 2018, 05:15:24 pm
Which purpose is that?
I’m done with the energy sucking behavior of Russ. And it adorns you to stand up for your friend, but you shouldn’t on this matter.
Post by: Rob C on November 09, 2018, 05:25:18 pm
I would characterize it as frustration, and an unwillingness to get involved in a protracted argument over something that, in the end, is not worth the effort because no minds will be changed. The thread is quickly being derailed from a discussion about Lemagny's clock metaphor. How does Russ's narrow view of street photography have any bearing on the topic.
Minds are seldom changed when people think themselves right. Trouble is, who is to say when they are or are not?
Derailed? By whom? Are you sure? Who is throwing around the dirt and the verbal attacks?
Rob
Post by: Rob C on November 09, 2018, 05:31:12 pm
I’m done with the energy sucking behavior of Russ. And it adorns you to stand up for your boyfriend, but you shouldn’t on this matter.
You really should retract that.
There is no right of libelous defamation of character enshrined in Internet conversation. I am not, and never have been a gay.
Rob
Post by: Ivophoto on November 09, 2018, 05:36:33 pm
You really should retract that.
There is no right of libelous defamation of character enshrined in Internet conversation. I am not, and never have been a gay.
Rob
?
This is a language thing, I don’t want to suggest that.
Probably I should have written ‘friend’. I will edit.
Apologize.
And at the end, again, An interesting topic has subtile been murdered.
Quo Vadis?
Post by: Peter McLennan on November 09, 2018, 07:02:12 pm
This is a serious question, not bait.
Post by: elliot_n on November 09, 2018, 07:43:30 pm
Hi Evo
Huh?
Post by: RSL on November 09, 2018, 07:49:21 pm
Post by: elliot_n on November 09, 2018, 07:55:18 pm
Right you are, Elliot.
What's your idea? With 'Evo', I mean.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 10, 2018, 02:28:32 am
Before this gets any worse and to return to the OP: Regarding the clock diagram, in photographic definitions, what's the difference between "subject" and "object" ?
This is a serious question, not bait.
Is I understand it, Peter,
Object: about the picture as material
Subject: the ‘about’ of the picture
That differentiation make sense to me.
Example:
- An image beamed to a wall, just the image to look. Only the content of the image is of any interest.
- An image crafty silver halide printed. The print itself becomes an interest as well.
Next step, where concept jumps in:
-A Visual show with different beamers on different projection screens, a kind of walkable labyrinth, walking ‘in’ the images. Maybe walking over a floor projection.
And add to this the content of the images them self. Do you walk between brutal war scenes? Or Erotic content? Or maybe nature? Or static snaps of a room?
Or the Halide print: prints the size of a postcard with a huge matting? Or wall sized prints?
Exhibit under spots or in subdued lighting?
This makes a huge difference in how the print should be crafted.
About the image: p.e. clearly recognizable situations vs impression.
Bare registrations vs in scene.
Next, the technicalities:
Clair obscure or high key
Composition
Color vs bw
And add all what can said about visual language.
And so on and so on.
I’m not sure if my explanation fits all the clock, but that doesn’t matter. It are exercises as the clock that gave me insights to explore more than just a picture in a genre.
There is so much out there.
Post by: elliot_n on November 10, 2018, 06:04:57 am
Is I understand it, Peter,
Object: about the picture as material
Subject: the ‘about’ of the picture
But the materiality of the image is already taken care of by the category - 'MATTER-ABSTRACTION'
And if 'subject' is the 'about' of the picture, then how does this differ from 'content'?
I understand his four main categories, but I'm puzzled by the four diagonals. Do they actually exist in his original 'clock', or were they added later?
Post by: Ivophoto on November 10, 2018, 06:08:50 am
But the materiality of the image is already taken care of by the category - 'MATTER-ABSTRACTION'
And if 'subject' is the 'about' of the picture, then how does this differ from 'content'?
I understand his four main categories, but I'm puzzled by the four diagonals. Do they actually exist in his original 'clock', or were they added later?
Good questions. Maybe I took to easy conclusions, is quite possible.
I will try to translate the explication given in a book I have on my shelve. Maybe this evening.
(Subject and content are not the same to my feeling)
Post by: Ivo_B on November 10, 2018, 08:18:56 am
Extract from 'Beeldcultuur' an essay written by Johan Swinnen: Founder of institute of arts in Antwerp, Lector on the University of Brussels, and lector on the Sorbonne in Paris.
2.3 'THE CLOCK' OF JEAN-CLAUDE LEMAGNY
The analysis model of the Parisian photo historian Lemagny in the form of an analogue clock attempts to create an order in contemporary photography. The clock consists of four segments, each divided into areas of interest. The advantages of this model are the flexible handling and the fact that it introduces a number of concepts that make it possible to distinguish and name a whole number of aspects of the photo content.
For convenience we will indicate the different points on the circle as on a dial: 12 o'clock at the top, 6 o'clock at the bottom, 3 o'clock at the right and 9 o'clock at the left. The vertical axis (or north-south, or 12 o'clock - 6 o'clock) is the photo as a photo, the photo that questions itself. At 12 o'clock we find the photo as an idea of itself, the conceptual photo, and at 6 o'clock we find the photo as a material reality, as a sensitive surface, as a tangible object. At 12 o'clock it is about the idea of the photograph as a trace of 'it was' (dixit semioticus Roland Barthes), and at 6 o'clock it is about the photograph as an objective fact (pixels-gelatin-salt-silver-paper).
The horizontal axis is no longer that of the photo that questions itself, but that of the photo that questions a separate reality. The answer to the question 'What is photography?' is no longer 'the image one forms of it' (as at 12 o'clock) or 'pixels, gelatine, silver and so on' (as at 6 o'clock), but 'a means of showing the outer reality' (at 3 o'clock) or 'a means of expressing the inner reality' (at 9 o'clock).
-At 3 o'clock we find the direct, engaged report, like the war report. Think of the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, William Klein, Koen Wessing, Nan Goldin, Carl De Keyzer, Martin Parr, Mario Giacomelli, Bmno Stevens and Robert Capa, among others.
At 6 o'clock we find the so-called abstract tendencies, which are interested in the materiality of the photograph and in its suitability to represent the material. This is where the work belongs, for example:
Pierre Cordier Julien Coulommier, Vik Muniz, Jürgen Klauke, Arnul fRainer, Jan Dibbets and Luigi Ghirri
At 9 o'clock we find the dream and what we call 'the surreal', like Duane Michals, Bernard Plossu, Arnoud Claass, Nobuyoshi Araki, Dirk Braeckman, Dieter Appelt, Robert Mapplethorpe.
At 12 o'clock we then see photographs that the author did not even take, but which he shows so that we might think about the nature of photographs in general.
Think of the work of Christian Boltanski, Marcel Broodthaers, Michael Snow, Joachim Schmid, Thomas Hirschhorn, Joan Fontcuberta, John Hilliard.
Those four main points, which serve to orient us, are in fact contact points, and the only thing that exists is the route from one point to another. So when we start at 12 o'clock and go with the hands of the clock, we start from a photo that is completely neutral and transparent in relation to its utilitarian function (for example, a family photo) and go to a photo that witnesses an increasingly harsh and expressive reality in order to arrive at the war or catastrophe photo (3 hours) Along the way we come across works that show a perfect balance between content and expression. If we continue our journey after 3 hours we come across images whose form is becoming increasingly important.
First because they show very violent events in themselves, then because they represent increasingly extravagant and even outright distorted forms. In this way we come to the realisation that a photograph is only a whole of forms that consist of the black of silver salts; these photographs border on the so-called abstract works.
From 6 am to 9 pm we go from matter to dream, and the point of equilibrium (around 7.30 am) is then found among the authors who have managed to reconcile the presence of the object and the inner life. The works gradually become permeated by an increasingly internalized mystery until we find ourselves, at 9 o'clock, in the middle of the surreal, with images composed of all possible elements so that others can share the inner vision of the photographer. In the last quarter of the circle we go from the dream to the concept. We find more and more direct and even banal photographs, but at the same time they are moments of the photographer's inner life as a visual being. Finally, we reach 12 hours through works that want to be nothing but what they want to say in the most intellectual or popular way.
EXIT:
Just as the compass rose gives the sailor the freedom to go where he wants, so this scheme leaves the user free to place photos on the clock as he sees fit. The model is a practical tool that allows us to become familiar with the variety of images we use to create our own pictures.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
Post by: Ivo_B on November 10, 2018, 08:34:22 am
The parable of the hunter.
The traditional photographer believes there are meanings in reality as the hunter knows there are rabbits in the field.
It comes to him to hunt, to aim, to shoot, to bring home the loot triumphantly.
The innovative photographer knows that the rabbits do not really exist, that it is his own mind that sticks meanings to reality.
And this summarizes perfectly what I believe is the difference between stifled by genre and definition and liberated by unchaining ourselves from the latter.
Post by: elliot_n on November 10, 2018, 08:56:37 am
Extract from 'Beeldcultuur' an essay written by Johan Swinnen: Founder of institute of arts in Antwerp, Lector on the University of Brussels, and lector on the Sorbonne in Paris.
Ah, he's the author of the encyclopaedia article I linked to earlier:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cFVsBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA458&lpg=PA458&dq=Jean+Claude+Lemagny+clock&source=bl&ots=dyUcsaTf4_&sig=KLsahat90ZFNFFEHiPk3Sn2Scwo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiGoJ24u8XeAhXGK8AKHda0D20Q6AEwC3oECF0QAQ#v=onepage&q=Jean%20Claude%20Lemagny%20clock&f=false
Thanks for posting this translation. He makes a good attempt at explaining the 'content', 'form', 'object', 'subject' categories.
But I still find it all very confusing :)
For example, is it right to equate abstraction with materiality?
Post by: 32BT on November 10, 2018, 09:17:04 am
A nice story I want to share as well: (also from this nice booklet)
The parable of the hunter.
The traditional photographer believes there are meanings in reality as the hunter knows there are rabbits in the field.
It comes to him to hunt, to aim, to shoot, to bring home the loot triumphantly.
The innovative photographer knows that the rabbits do not really exist, that it is his own mind that sticks meanings to reality.
And this summarizes perfectly what I believe is the difference between stifled by genre and definition and liberated by unchaining ourselves from the latter.
I do not necessarily want to be dragged down this rabbithole, but Genre is a stickerlabel you place after the hunt, not during the hunt. When publishing material you don't get to sticker you labels randomly because there has to be a reasonable subset of understanding. Sticking meaning to reality is a learned response exactly because there was a reasonable subset to exchange meaningful communication with.
If you want to converse with other people, like we do on this forum, either through words and verbal language, or through images and visual language, it helps tremendously to attempt to conform to some conventions. It doesn't mean you need to be conventional, but "innovation" or "experimentation" is not a free pass to explain away "misunderstanding" by the rest of the world. We already touched upon Shutter Island didn't we?
;-)
Post by: Ivophoto on November 10, 2018, 09:55:04 am
I do not necessarily want to be dragged down this rabbithole, but Genre is a stickerlabel you place after the hunt, not during the hunt. When publishing material you don't get to sticker you labels randomly because there has to be a reasonable subset of understanding. Sticking meaning to reality is a learned response exactly because there was a reasonable subset to exchange meaningful communication with.
If you want to converse with other people, like we do on this forum, either through words and verbal language, or through images and visual language, it helps tremendously to attempt to conform to some conventions. It doesn't mean you need to be conventional, but "innovation" or "experimentation" is not a free pass to explain away "misunderstanding" by the rest of the world. We already touched upon Shutter Island didn't we?
;-)
When leaving the house with a 35mm lens, taking position on a pedestrian crossing, or leaning to a light pole, is that not a preset to do street?
Or carrying a 500mm on a Manfrotto with gimbal, is that not a preset to shoot birds or other stuff that fly or run?
Walking around with a TS17mm on a Arca Suisse, could that point in a certain direction of genre?
Or do we take an Iceland cruise to shoot cityscapes?
There is more sticker labeling before the hunt than you imagine. Not?
A photographer walking out with his 500mm excludes himself from shooting a wide landscape. That’s not a problem, but imagine somebody find landscape only valid when shot with wide angle. Is that not stupid?
I don’t have any issue with a label or genre to categorize, I have an issue to ignore what does not comply to the definition, because that blocks any evolution
Post by: Ivophoto on November 10, 2018, 10:07:10 am
If you want to converse with other people, like we do on this forum, either through words and verbal language, or through images and visual language, it helps tremendously to attempt to conform to some conventions. It doesn't mean you need to be conventional, but "innovation" or "experimentation" is not a free pass to explain away "misunderstanding" by the rest of the world. We already touched upon Shutter Island didn't we?
;-)
Well, I agree on syntax, it prevents Babylonian confusion. But that should not leave themes where syntax is not yet defined be unspoken.
I do not agree on visual language. This should be as free as possible. Not saying that a kind of guide to find a way in this image culture labyrinth is not helpful.
I’m a bit a visual anarchist, maybe.
Post by: Rob C on November 10, 2018, 10:14:55 am
1. When leaving the house with a 35mm lens, taking position on a pedestrian crossing, or leaning to a light pole, is that not a preset to do street?
2. Or carrying a 500mm on a Manfrotto with gimbal, is that not a preset to shoot birds or other stuff that fly or run?
3. Walking around with a TS17mm on a Arca Suisse, could that point in a certain direction of genre?
4. Or do we take an Iceland cruise to shoot cityscapes?
5. There is more sticker labeling before the hunt than you imagine. Not?
1. No. I always leave the house with one camera with one lens; I almost never have the slightest idea what I'm going to shoot or even if I'm going to shoot at all.
2. I never shoot birds now that I'm an adult. I used to as a horrid kid, then skin them. If I venture out with my 500mm it's to get doughnuts, regardless of what the subject may be; it's why I bought one for the second time - lens, not a doughnut. I never buy doughnuts; they were best made chez moi. Maybe doughnuts become the genre?
3. Egotism; pride; diverted Leicaphilia?
4. I've never been to, and have no intentions of going there, but doesn't Reykjavik offer some cityscapes of a unique kind?
5. That's the stroke some folks strike. It's a selection, a choice; neither a rule nor an obligation.
;-)
Post by: 32BT on November 10, 2018, 10:18:59 am
I’m a bit a visual anarchist, maybe.
Visual anarchy is fine, perhaps sometimes even necessary, and if you want to educate people and turn them away from convention, simply make room for it. Do as Keith did, open a thread called "Unconventional Street" or "Experimental" whatever, but even you will likely agree that posting distinctly landscape images in a Street section for example is not going to help wean people off the conventions tit.
What if one might be as bold as opening an Anarchy thread in the Street section and start posting Landscape images there, that be punk, no?
Post by: Ivophoto on November 10, 2018, 10:19:08 am
1. No. I always leave the house with one camera with one lens; I almost never have the slightest idea what I'm going to shoot or even if I'm going to shoot at all.
2. I never shoot birds now that I'm an adult. I used to as a horrid kid, then skin them. If I venture out with my 500mm it's to get doughnuts, regardless of what the subject may be; it's why I bought one for the second time - lens, not a doughnut. I never buy doughnuts; they were best made chez moi. Maybe doughnuts become the genre?
3. Egotism; pride; diverted Leicaphilia?
4. I've never been to, and have no intentions of going there, but doesn't Reykjavik offer some cityscapes of a unique kind?
5. That's the stroke some folks strike. It's a selection, a choice; neither a rule nor an obligation.
;-)
Sigh...
You also could confirm I have a point.
You little rascal, you.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 10, 2018, 10:23:13 am
Visual anarchy is fine, perhaps sometimes even necessary, and if you want to educate people and turn them away from convention, simply make room for it. Do as Keith did, open a thread called "Unconventional Street" or "Experimental" whatever, but even you will likely agree that posting distinctly landscape images in a Street section for example is not going to help wean people off the conventions tit.
What if one might be as bold as opening an Anarchy thread in the Street section and start posting Landscape images there, that be punk, no?
Hm, I’m not sure why this heads in this direction....
This topic is about all but genres, that is pulled in somewhere, it seems difficult to get rid of it and talk in abstraction of genres.
Ok. No prob.
Of course I’m not going to put a landscape in a section for, let say, jewelry.
But I certainly will try to stretch and challenge the definition of the genre.
Post by: 32BT on November 10, 2018, 10:27:38 am
More on topic: perhaps it's interesting to see how Visual Anarchy can be approached with the clock? I always like to understand the extremes first. They usually simplify comprehension of the nuances.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 10, 2018, 10:30:21 am
I mean in a general sense, not you specifically.
More on topic: perhaps it's interesting to see how Visual Anarchy can be approached with the clock? I always like to understand the extremes first. They usually simplify comprehension of the nuances.
Good idea, do you have a certain image in mind?
Post by: Ivophoto on November 10, 2018, 10:37:07 am
What if one might be as bold as opening an Anarchy thread in the Street section and start posting Landscape images there, that be punk, no?
That’s not what I mean with visual anarchy. The anarchy is in the creation not in the exhibit. (Although......)
Deep Purple with the philharmonic, is that reversed anarchy?
Post by: 32BT on November 10, 2018, 10:38:45 am
Good idea, do you have a certain image in mind?
How about your "horizontal girl on the beach" shot?
I think it fits something i would dub "surrealist street", might not be anarchist but i'm fairly sure it is unconventional enough to challenge existing ideas of street, no?
Post by: Ivophoto on November 10, 2018, 10:40:37 am
How about your "horizontal girl on the beach" shot?
I think it fits something i would dub "surrealist street", might not be anarchist but i'm fairly sure it is unconventional enough to challenge existing ideas of street, no?
Yes. And that is why I posted it in the street section. And that was the start of the mildly flame war against me by certain individuals. It is somewhere on the left side of the clock, but where exact? Hm.
Post by: amolitor on November 10, 2018, 10:45:50 am
The clock suggests that there is some sort of natural progression from 12, to 3, to 6, to 9, and back to 12. But what I am seeing is more of two independent variables, "the photo as representation" versus "the photo as an object itself" in the vertical axis, and a "inner reality" versus "outer reality" in the horizontal axis.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 10, 2018, 10:51:00 am
But what I am seeing is more of two independent variables, "the photo as representation" versus "the photo as an object itself" in the vertical axis, and a "inner reality" versus "outer reality" in the horizontal axis.
Exact. See the translated text I posted earlier.
Post by: amolitor on November 10, 2018, 11:28:16 am
I can grasp the "clock" as a sort of guided tour through what is, ultimately, a 2 dimensional space, and that makes sense. The circle of the clock's face is pleasant and symmetrical, but I don't see that it has any special privilege over any other meandering path.
Having identified the model as representing 2 independent variables, the natural question of "well, what about this other variable? Or that?" arises ;)
But let's set that aside.
I happen to think, having thought about it a great deal, that placing photographs into scheme merely "as themselves" independent of other factor doesn't work. A photograph can appear surreal in one context, viewed or interpreted in another, but as straight documentary in another. One presentation might show the photograph-as-object, another the photograph-as-representation.
A closeup of watchworks might be seen as abstract, hung on the wall next to other closeups of other things. In a book about watchmaking, it would be documentary. Printed and hung in a show about printmaking techniques, it is a photo-as-object, the same print in a show about abstraction-through-closeup it becomes a photo-as-representation.
Schema like Jean-Claude's clock are thus best seen as ways to visualize, the categorize, our own understanding and reaction to a photograph. This is not to say that "it's all subjective" because it is not. In that book about watchmaking, most people will quite likely experience roughly similar reactions to, understandings of, the closeup photograph of the Tourbillion's inner workings. And that more-or-less shared grasping of the photograph can reasonably be discussed and dissected. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but to be honest if you aspire to make pictures for other people, it's worth a little bit of a think.
Post by: amolitor on November 10, 2018, 11:36:33 am
Without some surround, we cannot hope to categorize our grasp of a picture. By surrounding it with pointless grumbling about street photography, other pictures intended only to provoke, and half-hearted philosophical conversation, how on earth are we to make much sense of the picture? It is surrounded only by a sort of surrealist mess of text, there is almost no way to discern anything of useful intent in the presentation.
So, to put up a photograph, alone, here, and to ask "where on the clock does this go?" is a meaningless question.
What pictures, if any, go with it? Is the picture to be imagined with a wide white mat and a narrow black frame on a featureless white wall in an expensive building called "a gallery"? Is the picture in a book of photographs of Warsaw? Do you intend me to imagine her as your mother, or as a stranger?
Photographs are not paintings. With a painting, presented without context, we at least have a default: we should imagine it in a massive gilt frame, hung alone on a wall. Photographs, contrariwise, have many lives, are seen in many ways and many places. Without at least a little guidance, we are at sea and have no hope of grasping the thing.
You might as well say "in Dickens book Our Mutual Friend there appears a short passage, what do you make of it: 'the'?"
Post by: 32BT on November 10, 2018, 11:55:52 am
Notably, to throw up a single photo in an already contentious forum thread is completely pointless.
Pointless to whom?
OP already mentioned he believes the exercise itself is meaningful enough for him and his photography.
That said: are you suggesting it could only be applied to a body of work?
Post by: amolitor on November 10, 2018, 12:04:34 pm
The context for a photograph need not be the body of work it was made in. Someone might hand you a fistful of snapshots and say "these are pictures I found lying on the ground in NYC over ten years". A picture might turn up in a manual for tractor, or on a cereal box. It might be accompanied by words, or not.
Consider, say, Weston's pepper (#30, isn't it?)
Considered in the context of Weston's work, it is one thing. Perhaps it's an exemplar of Weston's mastery of the vaguely erotic play of light on sensual curves, reflective of his own appetites, or whatever. Shown in a class on contact printing, it becomes something else. If you stick it up in a forum, and say "I think Weston is super over-rated" it's now just a flashpoint for fisticuffs.
If you just stick it up in a forum without much comment, what then is it? Do I remember seeing it on the wall and consider it that way? Or from my class on printing? Or from the other forum where there was the big fight?
I realize that this IS a forum, about photography, and that people are therefore deeply interested in the idea that it should be a good place to show off pictures. After all, many people are here, and doing just that. I happen to think that's not true, though.
Post by: elliot_n on November 10, 2018, 01:11:12 pm
A nice story I want to share as well: (also from this nice booklet)
The parable of the hunter.
The traditional photographer believes there are meanings in reality as the hunter knows there are rabbits in the field.
It comes to him to hunt, to aim, to shoot, to bring home the loot triumphantly.
The innovative photographer knows that the rabbits do not really exist, that it is his own mind that sticks meanings to reality.
And this summarizes perfectly what I believe is the difference between stifled by genre and definition and liberated by unchaining ourselves from the latter.
To contrast with this, the encyclopaedia article I linked to concludes with the following quote from Jean-Claude Lemagny:
It is certainly clear that in the eternal struggle between reality and the idea of it that one constructs, reality must conquer the idea and only that which Zarathustra calls 'the sense of the earth' deserves to triumph.
I like this :)
Post by: Ivophoto on November 10, 2018, 01:55:50 pm
I think the OP is wrong on that point ;)
The context for a photograph need not be the body of work it was made in. Someone might hand you a fistful of snapshots and say "these are pictures I found lying on the ground in NYC over ten years". A picture might turn up in a manual for tractor, or on a cereal box. It might be accompanied by words, or not.
Consider, say, Weston's pepper (#30, isn't it?)
Considered in the context of Weston's work, it is one thing. Perhaps it's an exemplar of Weston's mastery of the vaguely erotic play of light on sensual curves, reflective of his own appetites, or whatever. Shown in a class on contact printing, it becomes something else. If you stick it up in a forum, and say "I think Weston is super over-rated" it's now just a flashpoint for fisticuffs.
If you just stick it up in a forum without much comment, what then is it? Do I remember seeing it on the wall and consider it that way? Or from my class on printing? Or from the other forum where there was the big fight?
I realize that this IS a forum, about photography, and that people are therefore deeply interested in the idea that it should be a good place to show off pictures. After all, many people are here, and doing just that. I happen to think that's not true, though.
All valid points.
I said earlier it would be necessary to introduce the principle ‘viewers projection’ but that was snowed under other replies.
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20181110/eca2069bf2e316351abc4f436374c9dc.jpg)
Post by: Ivophoto on November 10, 2018, 01:58:03 pm
To contrast with this, the encyclopaedia article I linked to concludes with the following quote from Jean-Claude Lemagny:
It is certainly clear that in the eternal struggle between reality and the idea of it that one constructs, reality must conquer the idea and only that which Zarathustra calls 'the sense of the earth' deserves to triumph.
I like this :)
That doesn’t mean the battle shouldn’t be fought. After all, reality gets fat and boring if not challenged.
Post by: amolitor on November 10, 2018, 08:10:32 pm
There's artist intent, there's the experience of this viewer, and of that viewer. There's what an experienced critic sees in the picture, and what a naif who sees it only as a snapshot sees in it, and so on.
These might all be different, but I have come to believe that if we are open and forgiving with the pictures, if we sit with it for a little while and let the damned thing be itself, we'll mostly see similar things in it, and get some sense of what the artist meant. Sure, the artist might have failed, the picture might read as quite different from the intent. Sure, random people looking at it might well tend to fall into two or three radically different camps.
But the processes we use to grasp the picture will tend to be much the same, and the conclusions we reach will tend to cluster around a small set of possibilities. There will be interesting things to be learned in what the differences between what different people get out of it, but those are easily looked at and don't need to overturn the applecart entirely. And, more importantly, they're going to happen picture-by-picture, book-by-book, show-by-show. There's no sense getting fussed about it until there's some actual pictures in play, and some actual people who have reacted to them and have elected to sit down and talk.
As an aside, I went off to Seattle and spent a weekend in a book making class a while back. They had a ton of books lying around to leaf through. There are basically three groups:
1. Greatest Hits monographs. This is basically a sarcophagus for pictures. Very little text, maybe an introductory essay at most. Then page after tedious page of white borders and centered prints, without much connection from one to the next. It is like a very boring museum show, except worse because the pictures are very small and you have to flip around to compare one to the next.
2. Three columns of text, very small pictures inline. Exceedingly tedious academic drivel. Sometimes this stops after far too many pages, and then we have a ponderous page reading THE PLATES followed by far too many pages of item 1 above.
3. Everything else.
Types 1 and 2 are very popular, and I dare say that lots of people like them a lot. Heck, I own some of them Evans "American Photographs" is a sort of sample of the form, except that it happens to be very well sequenced and organized. It's still a chore rather than a delight.
These are terrible ways to present photos. The concept, of course, if that "the pictures speak for themselves" but for the most part all we're hearing is the blood rushing in our own ears in the dead tomblike silence of the goddamned white borders and academic droning and the stupid stupid dead dry captions that suck the last hint of air out of the room.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 11, 2018, 03:09:10 am
I used to worry more about things like "viewer projection" but I mostly have set those issues aside for now.
There's artist intent, there's the experience of this viewer, and of that viewer. There's what an experienced critic sees in the picture, and what a naif who sees it only as a snapshot sees in it, and so on.
These might all be different, but I have come to believe that if we are open and forgiving with the pictures, if we sit with it for a little while and let the damned thing be itself, we'll mostly see similar things in it, and get some sense of what the artist meant. Sure, the artist might have failed, the picture might read as quite different from the intent. Sure, random people looking at it might well tend to fall into two or three radically different camps.
I’m not going to elaborate directly on the books, that is part of another very interesting discussion how tho exhibit visual art.
About viewers projection and the creators intention.
When I was in the third year photo academy we had a lector who claimed to have a mental disorder. He claimed he was not able to combine his sensory experiences with what he saw in a picture. Hence not able to project.
If that was genuine or not, I don’t know.
When we had the daily photo pow how and placed an image on the table and one by one told what the image did to us, he shook his head and repeated his mantra: ‘it’s not in the picture, it’s in your head’
I admit it changed the way I look at images. After a few months, most students pushed back and questioned why a viewers projection should not be part of the image. Up to today I ‘m not sure if the lector didn’t play a game with us....
In the same year I visited a locally well known exhibit of mixed art and landed in a small exhibition of contemporary paintings.
I was looking to a huge conceptual piece, the curator came to me and asked me what I found about it. I said I tried view it without projection. The curator looked into my eyes (It was a beautiful mid 40 lady, btw) and asked why I would ignore my projection.
“If you buy this, and hang it in the house, you better have a pleasant projection, otherwise it isn’t for you”
I had a long conversation with here and she explained about art that stands on its own, and art that counts on the viewers projection or the cerebral effort of the viewer.
That’s where I got interested in images not standing on themself.
I like images that are not ‘complete’ without out the viewers interpretation or depending on other context offered aside.
The clock deals with this differentiation.
Post by: Rob C on November 11, 2018, 05:26:31 am
I have sympathy with Andrew's complaint about the drivel that people write in those books, especially as the writers are often the reason the books are printed at all, because without their more famous names on the cover, the snapper would have even less chance of touching a nerve with the public, and zero of enticing the moths out from their wallets.
The very best monograph that I have is by Jeanloup Sieff, a Taschen production simply named for the man. It was his last work. In it, he writes his own story and it is fascinating, especially as the wordsmith(ing?) is so refined - it's in Spanish, Italian and Portuguese - so kudos to the people responsible for the translations from, I guess, the French.
I also own some Steidl productions but though very well printed, they are all far too small and make me feel cheated. Art by the kilo complex? No, seriously, it's insulting to have to admire stuff too small to give emotional depth. On art by the kilo, Newton's mini-Sumo threatens to dislodge my shelf, and I bought it because I refused all the other Newton books, and realised that the original, gigantic Sumo production was going to be the epitome of his life's work, probably covering in one space all the fragmented stuff I didn't want to buy before.
The physically huge Annie Leibovitz Life of a Photographer 1990 - 2005 is as huge in disappointment to me: mostly her private snaps and not very good at that. My equally weighty Peter Lindbergh A different Vision On Fashion Photography is a mixed bag of stuff that looks far better on the monitor. As ever, I think his "making of" videos are more interesting than the actual stills that get used.
Thinking about this, and also about Ivo's deep interest in everything peripheral to (perhaps more so than in the pictures themselves?) photography, drives me to the idea that perhaps images are simply way overrated by us people, that the public has it right: they are just mementos at best and advertising probably owns the best non-personal ones. Crowd-sourced sense contains more common sense?
As so often happens, and I recognize it in my paragraph immediately above, I see once more that Terence Donovan was inescapably right about the amateur's dilemma.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 11, 2018, 05:56:34 am
Personally, I think that there are two good ways of seeing photographs: framed on a wall; printed large in a well-printed book. Never printed across the gutter as a double-page spread.
I have sympathy with Andrew's complaint about the drivel that people write in those books, especially as the writers are often the reason the books are printed at all, because without their more famous names on the cover, the snapper would have even less chance of touching a nerve with the public, and zero of enticing the moths out from their wallets.
The very best monograph that I have is by Jeanloup Sieff, a Taschen production simply named for the man. It was his last work. In it, he writes his own story and it is fascinating, especially as the wordsmith(ing?) is so refined - it's in Spanish, Italian and Portuguese - so kudos to the people responsible for the translations from, I guess, the French.
I also own some Steidl productions but though very well printed, they are all far too small and make me feel cheated. Art by the kilo complex? No, seriously, it's insulting to have to admire stuff too small to give emotional depth. On art by the kilo, Newton's mini-Sumo threatens to dislodge my shelf, and I bought it because I refused all the other Newton books, and realised that the original, gigantic Sumo production was going to be the epitome of his life's work, probably covering in one space all the fragmented stuff I didn't want to buy before.
The physically huge Annie Leibovitz Life of a Photographer 1990 - 2005 is as huge in disappointment to me: mostly her private snaps and not very good at that. My equally weighty Peter Lindbergh A different Vision On Fashion Photography is a mixed bag of stuff that looks far better on the monitor. As ever, I think his "making of" videos are more interesting than the actual stills that get used.
Thinking about this, and also about Ivo's deep interest in everything peripheral to (perhaps more so than in the pictures themselves?) photography, drives me to the idea that perhaps images are simply way overrated by us people, that the public has it right: they are just mementos at best and advertising probably owns the best non-personal ones. Crowd-sourced sense contains more common sense?
As so often happens, and I recognize it in my paragraph immediately above, I see once more that Terence Donovan was inescapably right about the amateur's dilemma.
I own several Steidl productions as well and I’m happy I was very selective in my choice.
Election Eve and Los Alamos (Eggleston) are beautiful pieces. Not all Steidl productions are of that quality.
Yesterday, by coincidence, I bought Annie Leibovitz at Work. I like the book, pleasant reading, good quality paper, small but nicely printed photos and not unimportant, the book smells good.
Another book I bought second hand from a guy who didn’t have a clue is Nudi from Paolo Roversi. Magnifique.
Totally different are the Taschen publication of Lachapelle, but the production somehow suit the work.
About my deep interest in the, as you call it, periphery of photos. This came after coming to the conclusion you make in your second last paragraph. It is additional to my deep interest in images on their own.
I think, Rob, we are much more aligned than what can be understood from Forum guff.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 11, 2018, 06:01:08 am
Wide gamut Monitors are a quit good way to look at images. HQ beamers on black diamond projection screen are very nice to.
Post by: amolitor on November 11, 2018, 10:25:52 am
One can get pedantic and note that a photo is just tone and color smeared on a flat thing. You have to "project" to even see that it is a picture of a dog. The people who would say that are the same who would insist that "all photographs are manipulated because neither a RAW file nor an exposed film have a visible image" so I am distinctly not saying that. A photo of a dog is a photo of a dog.
But to derive any meaning from it, to feel something, there is always the interplay of mind and picture. The dog's posture droops, and you feel sorry for the dog, that is projection. Why? I cannot fully explain why I think "the dog" is not reasonably considered as projection, but the dog's mood is. The line is surely blurry. But consider that the dog's posture could be an accident, perhaps the happy dog was simply snapped as it changed position, creating the illusion of a drooping, miserable, dog. Perhaps "projection" is, in rough terms, our interpretation of whatever is left ambiguous by the picture, or something like that.
But as a sort of contrapuntal point:
Photographers in general have something of an obsession with "the good pictures" and we all more or less agree on what they are. For 25 years or so I could "see" them and approve just as much as the next fellow. These "good" pictures are the basis of the monograph, and many a gallery show. I still "see" them, I just don't care any more. Consider the attached picture. I consider this as a more or less "good" one.
Take a look at it.
...
Ok. I shot this as a parody of a style. It happens that I was walking under an overpass and noted some shadows, and said to myself "self, at about 5 those will be strong diagonals" and so I went back at five and spent a few minutes snapping pedestrians. This was the "best" of the lot in the photographer's-notion sense. Since then it has been passed around a little and has met with moderate approval. A great deal of "street" photography I see out there is presented as shot on the fly, but is very obviously shot by setting up and burning frames until the shadow play moves on. Anyways.
As photographers we project certain things onto this thing. We see the strong graphics, the strong range of tones, the aptly placed human figure. It reminds us of other "good pictures" that we have seen. This form of projection is NOT really about interpreting the ambiguous, it's something else.
But you know, it's not much of a picture. It's just some guy walking under an overpass. The real world depicted is almost completely void, and I defy you to project, to interpret, or otherwise extract anything of any meaning or power from it. The picture is utterly weightless. Anything you do manage to extract from it is going to be ALL you. I put nothing in to it, and I discern nothing in it. There isn't even any ambiguity to be resolved, it is precisely what it appears to be.
I could go shoot 50 more of these things, and then write an essay about solitude, or the inhumanity of the built environment, or some similar bullshit. But it would still just be a guy walking under an overpass.
My next step is to start carrying around a print and asking non-photographers what they think of it. I suspect, but do not know, that the strong graphics will appeal to many people, but they will tend to recognize it as a snap of nothing and will try to find a polite way to say that to me.
Post by: faberryman on November 11, 2018, 10:40:25 am
Ok. I shot this as a parody of a style. It happens that I was walking under an overpass and noted some shadows, and said to myself "self, at about 5 those will be strong diagonals" and so I went back at five and spent a few minutes snapping pedestrians. This was the "best" of the lot in the photographer's-notion sense. Since then it has been passed around a little and has met with moderate approval. A great deal of "street" photography I see out there is presented as shot on the fly, but is very obviously shot by setting up and burning frames until the shadow play moves on. Anyways.I fully agree with you assessment. The image is utterly vacuous, and no amount of diagonals or solitude or bullshit in general can save it. Good example. That being said, it is not nearly as bad as most of the dreck that passes as "street" here and elsewhere.
As photographers we project certain things onto this thing. We see the strong graphics, the strong range of tones, the aptly placed human figure. It reminds us of other "good pictures" that we have seen. This form of projection is NOT really about interpreting the ambiguous, it's something else.
But you know, it's not much of a picture. It's just some guy walking under an overpass. The real world depicted is almost completely void, and I defy you to project, to interpret, or otherwise extract anything of any meaning or power from it. The picture is utterly weightless. Anything you do manage to extract from it is going to be ALL you. I put nothing in to it, and I discern nothing in it. There isn't even any ambiguity to be resolved, it is precisely what it appears to be.
I could go shoot 50 more of these things, and then write an essay about solitude, or the inhumanity of the built environment, or some similar bullshit. But it would still just be a guy walking under an overpass.
My next step is to start carrying around a print and asking non-photographers what they think of it. I suspect, but do not know, that the strong graphics will appeal to many people, but they will tend to recognize it as a snap of nothing and will try to find a polite way to say that to me.
Post by: Peter McLennan on November 11, 2018, 11:39:43 am
As a class assignment to encourage seeing, I once asked students to photograph "reflections". The usual images appeared, some creative and interesting, some boring and derivative.
One student submitted an image of a person walking alone on a deserted beach. It took me a few moments to realize that the beach walker was, while walking, reflecting. Awesome!
To perhaps answer my own question, one interpretation of photograph is that the subject of the beach walker image was the person doing the walking. The object was the need to communicate the idea of reflection.
The problem is that the English words "object" and "subject" are somewhat ambiguous. They have multiple meanings depending on context, thus rendering the clock metaphor ambiguous, too.
Post by: Rob C on November 11, 2018, 11:43:42 am
I think projection in that sense is absolutely the key.
One can get pedantic and note that a photo is just tone and color smeared on a flat thing. You have to "project" to even see that it is a picture of a dog. The people who would say that are the same who would insist that "all photographs are manipulated because neither a RAW file nor an exposed film have a visible image" so I am distinctly not saying that. A photo of a dog is a photo of a dog.
But to derive any meaning from it, to feel something, there is always the interplay of mind and picture. The dog's posture droops, and you feel sorry for the dog, that is projection. Why? I cannot fully explain why I think "the dog" is not reasonably considered as projection, but the dog's mood is. The line is surely blurry. But consider that the dog's posture could be an accident, perhaps the happy dog was simply snapped as it changed position, creating the illusion of a drooping, miserable, dog. Perhaps "projection" is, in rough terms, our interpretation of whatever is left ambiguous by the picture, or something like that.
But as a sort of contrapuntal point:
Photographers in general have something of an obsession with "the good pictures" and we all more or less agree on what they are. For 25 years or so I could "see" them and approve just as much as the next fellow. These "good" pictures are the basis of the monograph, and many a gallery show. I still "see" them, I just don't care any more. Consider the attached picture. I consider this as a more or less "good" one.
Take a look at it.
...
Ok. I shot this as a parody of a style. It happens that I was walking under an overpass and noted some shadows, and said to myself "self, at about 5 those will be strong diagonals" and so I went back at five and spent a few minutes snapping pedestrians. This was the "best" of the lot in the photographer's-notion sense. Since then it has been passed around a little and has met with moderate approval. A great deal of "street" photography I see out there is presented as shot on the fly, but is very obviously shot by setting up and burning frames until the shadow play moves on. Anyways.
As photographers we project certain things onto this thing. We see the strong graphics, the strong range of tones, the aptly placed human figure. It reminds us of other "good pictures" that we have seen. This form of projection is NOT really about interpreting the ambiguous, it's something else.
But you know, it's not much of a picture. It's just some guy walking under an overpass. The real world depicted is almost completely void, and I defy you to project, to interpret, or otherwise extract anything of any meaning or power from it. The picture is utterly weightless. Anything you do manage to extract from it is going to be ALL you. I put nothing in to it, and I discern nothing in it. There isn't even any ambiguity to be resolved, it is precisely what it appears to be.
I could go shoot 50 more of these things, and then write an essay about solitude, or the inhumanity of the built environment, or some similar bullshit. But it would still just be a guy walking under an overpass.
My next step is to start carrying around a print and asking non-photographers what they think of it. I suspect, but do not know, that the strong graphics will appeal to many people, but they will tend to recognize it as a snap of nothing and will try to find a polite way to say that to me.
I hope you were joking about carrying it around seeking opinion. Why bother or care?
What you have written seems to mirror my own conclusion written over in the QV thread, about non-applied photography: it's largely pointlessly wasted effort and almost certainly meaningless.
Worse, and I didn't mention this in the other thread, it can waste one helluva lot of money better spent on something else. Can anyone really say he has not had that moment of cold and sweaty introspection when he asks himself what on Earth he is doing spending all this cash on stuff that is practically worthless in a couple of years?
Post by: KLaban on November 11, 2018, 11:51:00 am
Post by: amolitor on November 11, 2018, 11:56:45 am
Rob: I am indeed considering dragging a print around. The work of making it actually happen may defeat me, though. I am interested in the results of the experiment, but not very interested.
Post by: Rob C on November 11, 2018, 12:16:10 pm
Peter: I think it is arguably a measure of a picture's success that it produces more or less the same reaction in most/all viewers. Since you can steer this reaction in a bunch of ways (putting together sequences of pictures, and adding words) that is what I do. Pictures standing my themselves need to be quite remarkable (possibly too remarkable to actually exist) to produce the same reaction in everyone.
Rob: I am indeed considering dragging a print around. The work of making it actually happen may defeat me, though. I am interested in the results of the experiment, but not very interested.
Give it time... you'll probably go one way or the other - no anmbiguity.
Post by: Rob C on November 11, 2018, 12:16:46 pm
Rob, it's that time of year.
You are not wrong.
Post by: amolitor on November 11, 2018, 02:13:57 pm
Here are some pictures which are neither really about the thing depicted, nor about the physicality of the photograph (that would be hard in this digital world). Maybe they sit at 12 o'clock? Maybe not. I think of them as simple representations of particularly potent symbols. The common style ties them together, and I rather think you'd have to be a bit dense not to detect that there's something going on with symbolism here. A Cowboy, A Gun, A Coin, and A Car. The cowboy is a deeply American myth, the coin has a picture of George Washington.
Individually, these photographs are straightforward, if highly stylized, pictures of specific objects. You could certainly treat them as documents, perhaps between 12 and 3 o'clock. The stylings might suggest that the photographer is trying to reach in the other direction, away from merely documenting the objects, but one by one I don't think they have much chance to succeed. One by one, they're probably just over-styled pictures of ordinary things, signifying nothing. Maybe the toy cowboy has enough mythic power to make some sort of leap. The car, coin, and gun are just things, though, surely.
Together, perhaps they lean more toward 9 o'clock, the surreal? Together, the group makes to my eye an honest run at crossing the dial and landing firmly on the left side of the clock. At any rate, it is certainly not a stretch to say that these things are trying to get at certain elements of Mythic America, and you wouldn't be wrong if you decided that.
These pictures are a distilled set of a larger thing that really hammers the connection to Mythic America to the point where it is unmissable, but as it is also political, I have edited the thing down to this symbolic set.
Notably, I think, I have engineered this sequence to cause the viewer to project certain things onto the pictures. The theme of America and of American Myth turns up after a little while, and reinforces itself. At this point you're now looking at the pictures through that lens, and perhaps you see the cowboy no longer as a weirdly lit toy but as a representation of America's idea of itself, at least a little bit (and probably not in those rather bloviating words). The car, which perhaps was just a poorly lit picture of a Toyota, becomes, maybe, a trifle malevolent.
The gun, now related to the little plastic gun in the cowboy's hand, perhaps acquires a little more sense of danger. Perhaps it feels less passive, perhaps no longer lying still but in the hand of some guy in a big hat with unknown intent. Who knows? There's a lot of connections you might make, if you're open, if you're looking and trying to make sense of these pictures. Those connections, those ideas, are all projection. Those connections and ideas are what the sequence is supposed to do, and it is those ideas and connections that draw the pictures away from documentary toward surreal and conceptual.
And so on, blah blah blah. There's a lot of words to talk about something that's barely conscious.
But as a guy who tries to do things with pictures, I'm interested in the processes.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 11, 2018, 03:59:10 pm
You are not wrong.
Reminds me to a Belgian contemporary photographer: Jimmy Kets. He works for one of the Belgian ‘quality newspaper’ his work for the newspaper is not really innovative but his other work is of another kind.
He got an assignment to photograph the world war 1 commemorations . Each photograph he took would surely be rejected by any regular newspaper, he photographed the events from distance and included a lot of the environment in each shot. He documented the whole story in an almost cynical yet respectful way.
I met him after an exposition of his work and asked him how he got to this approach.
He said it was during the first week he was working on the series, a British couple stood behind him. And the man said to the woman: “The graves look nice this time of the year, isn’t it?”
That made him decide to approach the whole 4 years of commemorations with that attitude. And the title for his book was a fact.
http://www.jimmykets.be/series/the-graves-are-nice-this-time-of-year (http://www.jimmykets.be/series/the-graves-are-nice-this-time-of-year)
Post by: Ivophoto on November 12, 2018, 12:45:11 am
I can in fact rattle on about this sort of thing all day.
Here are some pictures which are neither really about the thing depicted, nor about the physicality of the photograph (that would be hard in this digital world). Maybe they sit at 12 o'clock? Maybe not. I think of them as simple representations of particularly potent symbols. The common style ties them together, and I rather think you'd have to be a bit dense not to detect that there's something going on with symbolism here. A Cowboy, A Gun, A Coin, and A Car. The cowboy is a deeply American myth, the coin has a picture of George Washington.
Individually, these photographs are straightforward, if highly stylized, pictures of specific objects. You could certainly treat them as documents, perhaps between 12 and 3 o'clock. The stylings might suggest that the photographer is trying to reach in the other direction, away from merely documenting the objects, but one by one I don't think they have much chance to succeed. One by one, they're probably just over-styled pictures of ordinary things, signifying nothing. Maybe the toy cowboy has enough mythic power to make some sort of leap. The car, coin, and gun are just things, though, surely.
Together, perhaps they lean more toward 9 o'clock, the surreal? Together, the group makes to my eye an honest run at crossing the dial and landing firmly on the left side of the clock. At any rate, it is certainly not a stretch to say that these things are trying to get at certain elements of Mythic America, and you wouldn't be wrong if you decided that.
These pictures are a distilled set of a larger thing that really hammers the connection to Mythic America to the point where it is unmissable, but as it is also political, I have edited the thing down to this symbolic set.
Notably, I think, I have engineered this sequence to cause the viewer to project certain things onto the pictures. The theme of America and of American Myth turns up after a little while, and reinforces itself. At this point you're now looking at the pictures through that lens, and perhaps you see the cowboy no longer as a weirdly lit toy but as a representation of America's idea of itself, at least a little bit (and probably not in those rather bloviating words). The car, which perhaps was just a poorly lit picture of a Toyota, becomes, maybe, a trifle malevolent.
The gun, now related to the little plastic gun in the cowboy's hand, perhaps acquires a little more sense of danger. Perhaps it feels less passive, perhaps no longer lying still but in the hand of some guy in a big hat with unknown intent. Who knows? There's a lot of connections you might make, if you're open, if you're looking and trying to make sense of these pictures. Those connections, those ideas, are all projection. Those connections and ideas are what the sequence is supposed to do, and it is those ideas and connections that draw the pictures away from documentary toward surreal and conceptual.
And so on, blah blah blah. There's a lot of words to talk about something that's barely conscious.
But as a guy who tries to do things with pictures, I'm interested in the processes.
Thank you for sharing this Amolitor.
This is effectively the process that helps me to understand but more important to do things with pictures. Yours last words says a lot.
Thanks again.
Last year, in the FOMU (photo museum Antwerp) I visited an exhibit about US multi nationals. Initially I didn’t find my way in the exposition. Images, articles, a lot of commercial photography.
And then a found the headlines. It was about how multinational are financed, the effect of this on local markets as another line it was explained how publicity is used to influence the buyers. And how a ‘need’ is created. Examples where given how Monsanto changed to food chain with food engineering. How Dupont used backwards engineering to increase sales by making a product (nylon stockings) not to good.
And at the end it was explained how all this was exported to Europe. (World Expo 58) and how it boosted the European continent. As a side line the effects of consumption industrie and engineered food came were discussed.
Photography was direct and indirect the basis of this exhibit, but there was so much more.
Text, extracts from historical contracts, original publicity from the fifties, video, it made a complete experience.
I photograph with projects like this in mind. I keep a number of broad themes in mind and shoot things or situations that could be useful.
P.e. I’m working on a series about the proliferation of Coca Cola.
I ‘m shooting all the phases of huge infra works who are changing my town of birth. These pictures would be laughed away here on Lula, but I’m sure that it will gain relevance over the decades to come.
Etc
Photography as a means not a goal.
....
Post by: Rob C on November 12, 2018, 04:04:24 am
Thank you for sharing this Amolitor.
This is effectively the process that helps me to understand but more important to do things with pictures. Yours last words says a lot.
Thanks again.
Last year, in the FOMU (photo museum Antwerp) I visited an exhibit about US multi nationals. Initially I didn’t find my way in the exposition. Images, articles, a lot of commercial photography.
And then a found the headlines. It was about how multinational are financed, the effect of this on local markets as another line it was explained how publicity is used to influence the buyers. And how a ‘need’ is created. Examples where given how Monsanto changed to food chain with food engineering. How Dupont used backwards engineering to increase sales by making a product (nylon stockings) not to good.
And at the end it was explained how all this was exported to Europe. (World Expo 58) and how it boosted the European continent. As a side line the effects of consumption industrie and engineered food came were discussed.
Photography was direct and indirect the basis of this exhibit, but there was so much more.
Text, extracts from historical contracts, original publicity from the fifties, video, it made a complete experience.
I photograph with projects like this in mind. I keep a number of broad themes in mind and shoot things or situations that could be useful.
P.e. I’m working on a series about the proliferation of Coca Cola.
I ‘m shooting all the phases of huge infra works who are changing my town of birth. These pictures would be laughed away here on Lula, but I’m sure that it will gain relevance over the decades to come.
Etc
Photography as a means not a goal.
....
That, my friend, says and explains everything, including my own position today.
Photography, without a purpose, and that purpose has to be more than a self-referential excuse to justify a basic interest in images, is what is essential for any long-term interest and dedication.
You have your current socio-political stance and interest that bears you and your photography, whereas I had my own version in different kinds of commercial work. For each of us, it is and was something greater than just the photography: it is/was about the purpose.
My sense and purpose for and with it has vanished into history, leaving only the skills, which are of the same value to me as those of a plumber with no further pipes to fix: redundancy. That is not a matter of personal optimism or pessimism, which are irrelevant: it's cold fact.
Post by: 32BT on November 12, 2018, 04:25:47 am
That, my friend, says and explains everything, including my own position today.
Photography, without a purpose, and that purpose has to be more than a self-referential excuse to justify a basic interest in images, is what is essential for any long-term interest and dedication.
You have your current socio-political stance and interest that bears you and your photography, whereas I had my own version in different kinds of commercial work. For each of us, it is and was something greater than just the photography: it is/was about the purpose.
My sense and purpose for and with it has vanished into history, leaving only the skills, which are of the same value to me as those of a plumber with no further pipes to fix: redundancy. That is not a matter of personal optimism or pessimism, which are irrelevant: it's cold fact.
The difference between the plumber and the artist though, is that the pipes of the former generally hide behind cabinets. Some of your "contemplative" work (if you can forgive me my choice of words here) has enough relevance to be on display in a local gallery.
Post by: KLaban on November 12, 2018, 04:38:26 am
That, my friend, says and explains everything, including my own position today.
Photography, without a purpose, and that purpose has to be more than a self-referential excuse to justify a basic interest in images, is what is essential for any long-term interest and dedication.
You have your current socio-political stance and interest that bears you and your photography, whereas I had my own version in different kinds of commercial work. For each of us, it is and was something greater than just the photography: it is/was about the purpose.
My sense and purpose for and with it has vanished into history, leaving only the skills, which are of the same value to me as those of a plumber with no further pipes to fix: redundancy. That is not a matter of personal optimism or pessimism, which are irrelevant: it's cold fact.
And that, my friend, we understand. But does rehashing the same mantra over and over again here on LuLa help you or us?
Post by: Ivophoto on November 12, 2018, 05:03:49 am
That, my friend, says and explains everything, including my own position today.
Photography, without a purpose, and that purpose has to be more than a self-referential excuse to justify a basic interest in images, is what is essential for any long-term interest and dedication.
You have your current socio-political stance and interest that bears you and your photography, whereas I had my own version in different kinds of commercial work. For each of us, it is and was something greater than just the photography: it is/was about the purpose.
My sense and purpose for and with it has vanished into history, leaving only the skills, which are of the same value to me as those of a plumber with no further pipes to fix: redundancy. That is not a matter of personal optimism or pessimism, which are irrelevant: it's cold fact.
And that, Rob, brings us to the situation we mutually knows how we look at it. For me, that’s a relief.
I very understand your situation, I just wonder if there’s nothing that could revitalize your photographic appetite.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 12, 2018, 05:04:35 am
The difference between the plumber and the artist though, is that the pipes of the former generally hide behind cabinets. Some of your "contemplative" work (if you can forgive me my choice of words here) has enough relevance to be on display in a local gallery.+1
Post by: Rob C on November 12, 2018, 07:03:52 am
And that, my friend, we understand. But does rehashing the same mantra over and over again here on LuLa help you or us?
When it comes down to my answering or not answering posts, I feel obliged to call it as I see it, not as a wider public may wish or imagine it might be.
There's obviously no need to read anything at all should it not suit a specif temperament.
:-)
Post by: Rob C on November 12, 2018, 07:43:19 am
The difference between the plumber and the artist though, is that the pipes of the former generally hide behind cabinets. Some of your "contemplative" work (if you can forgive me my choice of words here) has enough relevance to be on display in a local gallery.
Hi Oscar, the terminology suits me perfectly. I could enter into a sort of treatise on where in the process the contemplation comes into play, but as you will have figured, that's a bit dangerous to do.
I thought of the gallery thing about nine years ago - more or less - and bought myself a nice HP printer that gave me great A3+ black/whites. Took the stuff to a local gallery which was enthusiastic, and then the whole thing slipped away into silence after having been offered a slot a few months later on. Just as well my nose was still sensitive and I didn't rush to blow about €1200 on frames: I met the woman on the street, and she told me they were not doing new shows... which turned out to be a straight lie: they were not doing photographic shows.
Academic, though: HP abandoned the printer. I am not replacing it.
Post by: RSL on November 12, 2018, 09:53:26 am
Instead of “Photojournalism” for instance, we can call war reportage “3:12.” General photojournalism could adopt the term “2:45,” making clear that it’s more universal. Electoral coverage, on the other hand, could become “2:55:12,” pinning down the exact intention of the photographer. Coverage of a riot probably could be placed in “2:55:13,” resulting in more specificity. Instead of the nasty genre “street,” we could identify HCB’s “Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare” as a “9:48,” making clear the distinction between it and Henri’s “Boy Carrying Wine Bottles,” which would instantly be recognizable as a “6:24.”
This approach should make everything clear, even to the casual observer of photographs who never grasped the idea of genres such as photojournalism, landscape, or street. After all, who wouldn’t realize immediately that a picture of a land-mine explosion is a 3:12:06?”
Let’s hear it for Jean-Claude. He’s solved a problem with which humanity has been struggling ever since Niépce started the whole argument in 1826.
Post by: Rob C on November 12, 2018, 10:10:23 am
Turned out that the same old same old was the way it was gonna be. Which was quite reassuring for a while. Then, this morning, on Sky News, there was a piece on the advent of Alzheimer's thingy which, apparently, can be governed or predicted, not so much by the phases of the Moon but by the pressure of the blood inside the veins inside (where they would be, of course) the neck.
I have often felt discomfort around the neck area when carrying a camera suspended there from a strap - a kind of pressure that makes me feel weak: could it be that the weight is damagng the free flow of blood inside those veins and thus providing a time bomb of sorts? One of my olde heroes, Barry Lategan, went off the rails a while ago, but I don't know if he used neckstraps or assistants. Which means that perhaps assistants have some surprises to look forward to as they age a little bit. Ah Photography, you devious bitch, you!
;-)
Post by: Ivophoto on November 12, 2018, 10:51:40 am
After deep and extensive reflection on the ideas in Jean-Claude’s clock categorizations, I’ve come to the conclusion that his clock is an obvious way to eliminate genres, which seem to discomfit a number of LuLaers, especially those who are convinced they need to select a genre before they proceed to shoot.
Instead of “Photojournalism” for instance, we can call war reportage “3:12.” General photojournalism could adopt the term “2:45,” making clear that it’s more universal. Electoral coverage, on the other hand, could become “2:55:12,” pinning down the exact intention of the photographer. Coverage of a riot probably could be placed in “2:55:13,” resulting in more specificity. Instead of the nasty genre “street,” we could identify HCB’s “Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare” as a “9:48,” making clear the distinction between it and Henri’s “Boy Carrying Wine Bottles,” which would instantly be recognizable as a “6:24.”
This approach should make everything clear, even to the casual observer of photographs who never grasped the idea of genres such as photojournalism, landscape, or street. After all, who wouldn’t realize immediately that a picture of a land-mine explosion is a 3:12:06?”
Let’s hear it for Jean-Claude. He’s solved a problem with which humanity has been struggling ever since Niépce started the whole argument in 1826.
Whatever
Post by: RSL on November 12, 2018, 10:57:25 am
Whatever
In other words you agree, Ivo?
Post by: Ivophoto on November 12, 2018, 11:00:05 am
In other words you agree, Ivo?
In other words:
Whatever
Post by: amolitor on November 12, 2018, 01:32:16 pm
Post by: amolitor on November 12, 2018, 03:11:22 pm
For many years, simply "look for the good pictures, print them, stick them on my wall" was a good enough purpose, a good enough plan of action. It still serves many people on LuLa perfectly well, and in a way I am a little jealous of them.
My current plan is to take some pictures and write some words and take some more pictures, more words and so on, and sometimes it comes together. And then I make a book, 1 or 2 or 20 copies. And sometimes I give those away to people who will like them, or I leave them in a coffee shop, or (very very rarely) I sell one. Is my plan better than the "stick it on a wall" plan? Not in the least. None of it matters in the long run anyways, does it? We'll all be dead in a few decades, and a few decades after that everyone who ever knew us will be dead.
My plan works for me though.
A common thread through most plans for photography, though, is one of communication. Some people may photograph purely for themselves, and far be it from me to judge them. Most, I think, have some notion of communicating something to something, at least every now and then.
It is precisely there that things like Lemagny's Clock gains some usefulness. If you want to communicate something with words well, certainly you ought to have read a lot. But in addition, having some models in mind will hurt you not at all. Whether you have read any magical realism or not, knowing that it exists gives you access to another tool. Having some little notion of the taxonomy of poems won't hurt you either. There are infinitely many ways to dissect the world of the written word, to be sure. Having some grasp of some of them gives you a better, broader, sense of the tools in the box when it comes time to tell your own story, communicate your own ideas.
You might well consider the Clock to be balderdash, or to be too limited, too narrow. But in thinking that through you expand and refine your own ideas about how photographs might communicate. You might, ever so slightly, become a better communicator-with-pictures.
There is probably a school of thought (perhaps even right here in LuLa) that says you need only look at a lot of pictures, and you'll learn all you need to know. I beg to differ. You cannot merely read poems and deduce all there is to know about rhyme and consonance and meter and symbolism. You can probably work out a lot of it, with great effort, but you will certainly miss a lot of it. On the other hand, a couple of hours with a book about poetry will lay the whole thing bare, and you will be a better poet for it.
You might as well attempt to become an engine mechanic by attending a lot of motorsports events.
Post by: elliot_n on November 12, 2018, 03:59:07 pm
Post by: amolitor on November 12, 2018, 05:51:56 pm
Certainly the real/surreal spectrum is practically universal in any expressive medium. The distinction between the medium and the message, as it were, isn't quite as universal, but it's pretty common.
Is there something photographic about combining the two in a single system? I dunno. Worth a noodle though, isn't it?
Post by: Rob C on November 12, 2018, 06:19:27 pm
Rob, I understand your need for an underlying motive.
For many years, simply "look for the good pictures, print them, stick them on my wall" was a good enough purpose, a good enough plan of action. It still serves many people on LuLa perfectly well, and in a way I am a little jealous of them.
My current plan is to take some pictures and write some words and take some more pictures, more words and so on, and sometimes it comes together. And then I make a book, 1 or 2 or 20 copies. And sometimes I give those away to people who will like them, or I leave them in a coffee shop, or (very very rarely) I sell one. Is my plan better than the "stick it on a wall" plan? Not in the least. None of it matters in the long run anyways, does it? We'll all be dead in a few decades, and a few decades after that everyone who ever knew us will be dead.
My plan works for me though.
A common thread through most plans for photography, though, is one of communication. Some people may photograph purely for themselves, and far be it from me to judge them. Most, I think, have some notion of communicating something to something, at least every now and then.
It is precisely there that things like Lemagny's Clock gains some usefulness. If you want to communicate something with words well, certainly you ought to have read a lot. But in addition, having some models in mind will hurt you not at all. Whether you have read any magical realism or not, knowing that it exists gives you access to another tool. Having some little notion of the taxonomy of poems won't hurt you either. There are infinitely many ways to dissect the world of the written word, to be sure. Having some grasp of some of them gives you a better, broader, sense of the tools in the box when it comes time to tell your own story, communicate your own ideas.
You might well consider the Clock to be balderdash, or to be too limited, too narrow. But in thinking that through you expand and refine your own ideas about how photographs might communicate. You might, ever so slightly, become a better communicator-with-pictures.
There is probably a school of thought (perhaps even right here in LuLa) that says you need only look at a lot of pictures, and you'll learn all you need to know. I beg to differ. You cannot merely read poems and deduce all there is to know about rhyme and consonance and meter and symbolism. You can probably work out a lot of it, with great effort, but you will certainly miss a lot of it. On the other hand, a couple of hours with a book about poetry will lay the whole thing bare, and you will be a better poet for it.
You might as well attempt to become an engine mechanic by attending a lot of motorsports events.
Andrew, I don't buy into this because photography isn't those other, possily deeper arts: photography, for me, has two levels: the mechanical one where skills are about technique with camera and light manipulation - such as for real architectural photography - in contrast to architectural atmospherics, where the skill is all visual, in recognizing and catching mood on the fly. That's the instinctive photography that I like, draws me in and was all I ever wanted to be able to do.
This was especially evident at the more artsy edges of fashion photography where, to name but a few, people like Sarah Moon, Deborah Turbeville, Harri Peccinotti, Hans Feurer operate(ed). On the other side of the genre, I think that photography with the advent of digital has, rather than extend the boundaries, actually turned around and gone the other way, back to the styles of the old guys with their 4x5 etc. where every stitch counts. That's fashion: in today, out tomorow and back up and in like Lazarus the day after that.
It's all pretty superficial and always for the moment, with no real pretentions to anything deeper. And that's one of the leading branches of photography. As for the rest - you get war junkies out in the life/death wars, and the faux ones out on the streets; you get the folks who chastise their bodies by climbing mountains or othewise flagellate themselves by camping out in deserts. They come home with what? Photographs. So? And that's my point: the snaps make an exhibition or, with luck, a book, and once seen that's about all anyone's interest will take. But, if you consider the other arts such as poetry and music, they touch the same hearts for as long as they can beat. Very, very few photographs have had that power over me, but several photographers do because of the body of work, which simply makes them artists and not one-hit wonders.
That power has almost nothing to do with anything they learned in schools, but everything to do with how they see and dream.
I always advocate looking at all the photographs that you can, if you are really keen enough on photography, not to copy a single one, but to discover yourself therein, find your bag, what turns you on, and then you'll have a pretty good idea of what you may want to do. All photography is not created equal for the same person.
That said and pondered, it still comes down to the fact that photography is always a minor player. Sure, some make pots of money out of galleries, but money alone doesn't make the stuff any the more wonderful, just collectible.
Post by: RSL on November 12, 2018, 07:55:42 pm
Russ, we are all perfectly aware that this thread makes you feel uncomfortable. While I sympathize, I cannot do more than suggest that you stop reading it.
No, Andrew. It doesn't make me uncomfortable. It makes me ROTFL. It's a silly enough idea that it's worth having some fun with it. Sorry you can't see that.
Post by: amolitor on November 12, 2018, 08:05:51 pm
I think that's why I have started using more words. Gene Smith's Minamata makes me weep at a certain point, and I think it is fair to say that neither the words nor the pictures would do it. The pictures are just a man sitting on a table cross legged, looking at another man, who is looking back. But the pictures make the scene real, and it is that real historicity that makes makes me weep.
Post by: Ivophoto on November 13, 2018, 02:39:09 am
Is there anything specifically photographic about Lemagny's clock? It seems to me that it could be applied to painting, cinema, literature...
Yes.
On the other hand, I’m not sure if a painting can cover the clock as photo can.
Maybe 200 years ago, when some paintings also had that pure functional function and could fit that part of the clock. Nowadays a painting is per definition a piece d’art on its own. However, maybe graffiti does have it’s own merits.
Consider the triptych in a cathedral. The backside of the door panels are painted monochrome. Today, the works are all opened to expose the inner work. But in the period of making, on normal days the panels were closed and the whole church was somber and dark.
On special days such as eastern or Pentecost some triptych were opened to give the church a particular lustre. Those paintings were functional, maybe more than a piece of art and could be assessed to belong on another quadrant as they would be today.
Another example:
In the heydays of catholic clericalism, paintings and statues served a political purpose. Such a painting would be in that time on another quadrant as today.
Same can be said about the Stalinist art, National socialist art, Roman art, rich decoration of Egypt crypt, etc etc.
Post by: elliot_n on November 13, 2018, 07:50:41 am
Both Benjamin and Barthes seem to be engaging with what makes photography different from other mediums. It's not clear to me whether Lemagny is doing this.
Are the essays where he describes the clock available online (in the original French)?
Post by: Ivophoto on November 13, 2018, 08:44:31 am
Interesting that you mention sacred art. Walter Benjamin argued that this sort of art had an 'aura', and that photography was responsible for destroying aura. (Though he seems to allow auratic (mystical?) qualities to some very early examples of photography.)
Both Benjamin and Barthes seem to be engaging with what makes photography different from other mediums. It's not clear to me whether Lemagny is doing this.
Are the essays where he describes the clock available online (in the original French)?
I think there are books available in the native language, should be. I’ll do some research.
Post by: KLaban on November 13, 2018, 10:03:54 am
...For many years, simply "look for the good pictures, print them, stick them on my wall" was a good enough purpose, a good enough plan of action. It still serves many people on LuLa perfectly well, and in a way I am a little jealous of them.
The stick 'em on my wall purpose is not one that I've ever adopted or have ever been the slightest bit interested in adopting, but at least it is a purpose. I have though stuck 'em on a lot of other folks walls.
As a working painter, illustrator and photographer my purpose was to earn a buck. Now the purpose is to satisfy a passionate, continuing and compulsive need to make images. In addition it's a wonderful excuse - as if one was needed - to visit those places that have always turned my head, drawn my eye. Place and purpose, purpose and place, which is the more important, should I care? The fact is the purpose, my purpose, is purpose enough.
Post by: amolitor on November 13, 2018, 06:26:46 pm
Where does it land on the documentary-external/conceptual-internal spectrum?
Where does it land on the about-the-subject/about-the-photograph spectrum?
I find it to be quite fluid in both dimensions.
But, while I cannot pin the thing down on Lemagny's clock, the clock does provide an interesting framework for thinking about the various ways in which this thing exists, was made, and can be understood.
Post by: elliot_n on November 13, 2018, 09:09:21 pm
Post by: Ivophoto on November 14, 2018, 12:36:33 am
Here's something to think about. A fashion shot in the contemporary style. It's nominally about jeans, and the desire for expensive ones. But note the color of the trees in the background, compared to the color of the jeans. Notice that the railing hits her waist pretty much dead on. Then notice where the horizon line hits their jeans. None of these things are accidents. This is a wildly, profoundly, constructed photograph.Very interesting example.
Where does it land on the documentary-external/conceptual-internal spectrum?
Where does it land on the about-the-subject/about-the-photograph spectrum?
I find it to be quite fluid in both dimensions.
But, while I cannot pin the thing down on Lemagny's clock, the clock does provide an interesting framework for thinking about the various ways in which this thing exists, was made, and can be understood.
This is where it becomes exciting imo. Where a ‘model’ gets challenged by a keen producer how he picks up a image from a spot on the clock an drops it bluntly on a different location to make it work.
Like using a street picture according ‘the’ definition and use it to sell Fanta.
Like a bicycle used as decoration piece on a loft wall.
Ceci n’est pas une pipe?
Post by: Rob C on November 14, 2018, 03:54:44 am
Here's something to think about. A fashion shot in the contemporary style. It's nominally about jeans, and the desire for expensive ones. But note the color of the trees in the background, compared to the color of the jeans. Notice that the railing hits her waist pretty much dead on. Then notice where the horizon line hits their jeans. None of these things are accidents. This is a wildly, profoundly, constructed photograph.
Where does it land on the documentary-external/conceptual-internal spectrum?
Where does it land on the about-the-subject/about-the-photograph spectrum?
I find it to be quite fluid in both dimensions.
But, while I cannot pin the thing down on Lemagny's clock, the clock does provide an interesting framework for thinking about the various ways in which this thing exists, was made, and can be understood.
How do you know that, Andrew?
There's no way of knowing how much of such photography is left to the snapper, how much is directed by a huddle around a monitor, how much is pure accident (bad one) and how much is just making the most of a lousy situation, location and even wose clothing?
I've done a lot of this sort of work and it's sometimes totally dependent on making the best of somebody else's rotten ideas.
Anybody with a minimum of visual ability will automatically find, instantly, the shape that best combines the background with the subject; that's all it is, automatic judgement and hardly a great deal of "wildly, profoundly, constructed photograph."
You layer too much science onto fashion photography; it's a percentage talent, a percentage chutzpah, a massive pecentage of rapport and another percentage of good luck or bad.
Trying to turn this stuff into a science and something beyond the snapshot is crazy.
Post by: elliot_n on November 14, 2018, 06:04:52 am
https://www.marketing-interactive.com/calvin-klein-launched-fall-2018-multimedia-campaign-featuring-new-jeans/
Post by: Ivophoto on November 14, 2018, 06:45:10 am
Some background:
https://www.marketing-interactive.com/calvin-klein-launched-fall-2018-multimedia-campaign-featuring-new-jeans/
I would not underestimate Raf Simons, Belgians can be smart, you know
Post by: Rob C on November 14, 2018, 08:35:42 am
Guess used to do it well.
Post by: amolitor on November 14, 2018, 08:55:36 am
But I am certain that it is not a coincidence. Modern fashion photography is insanely controlled. It's completely maniacal. Some of them are crafted to look structured, made, but others are made to look loose and spontaneous. The building in the background is the same color as the earrings, or whatever, which could be a coincidence except than you notice that there actually are no other hues in the background, just different values of the same hue, and the entire background is the same color as the model's outfit and even her eyes are the same color. It's kind of creepy, and almost entirely subliminal if you're not attentively picking the pictures apart.
While I am fascinated by the whole thing I am at something of a loss as to the point.
Is it purely showing off for one another? Does it actually sell jeans, somehow? Is there some ridiculous theory behind it all? Is it just that marketing directors are tyrants and this is some way they show off their power?
Post by: Rob C on November 14, 2018, 09:49:43 am
Rob, I cannot say with any certainty how the photo from Calvin Klein got that way. Photoshop? Careful framing? There was probably a whole group of people involved, as you suggest, but perhaps the precise framing was one person's genius rather than the result of a conference? Who knows!
But I am certain that it is not a coincidence. Modern fashion photography is insanely controlled. It's completely maniacal. Some of them are crafted to look structured, made, but others are made to look loose and spontaneous. The building in the background is the same color as the earrings, or whatever, which could be a coincidence except than you notice that there actually are no other hues in the background, just different values of the same hue, and the entire background is the same color as the model's outfit and even her eyes are the same color. It's kind of creepy, and almost entirely subliminal if you're not attentively picking the pictures apart.
While I am fascinated by the whole thing I am at something of a loss as to the point.
Is it purely showing off for one another? Does it actually sell jeans, somehow? Is there some ridiculous theory behind it all? Is it just that marketing directors are tyrants and this is some way they show off their power?
The more complex you make a gig appear, the more easy it is to collect the money.
I sometimes look at the many Peter Lindbergh videos where he has that large shadow box structure erected on a beach or up on a roof somewhere; there's always a million lights visible, but looking at the stills shots when I find them, they appear to be pretty simply lit. How much is essential and how much no more than the same game I used to play on studio shoots, where I knew before the people arrived that it was going to be shot on Nikon, but the Hasselblads and lenses were all casually on display, too, is anybody's guess... It builds gravitas and lets the people that have to be there feel confident you're not a pauper and have probably earned your place at the table. Like the expensive car, then.
:-)
Post by: elliot_n on November 14, 2018, 09:54:37 am
Post by: Rob C on November 14, 2018, 10:33:45 am
Whether the formal elements that Andrew has highlighted were the intention of the photographer, or were only noticed by the art director after the event — or were perhaps not noticed at all (though this seems unlikely) — it hardly matters. Those elements are there, and they serve to activate the image. I don't see this as a harmonious combination of foreground and background elements (i.e. a 'good' composition), but rather an arrangement of those elements such that they create a sense of visual disorientation - similar to the way in which Lee Friedlander bolts a fluffy cloud on top of a signpost. And so the image points back to the medium, highlighting how one-eyed photographic vision works differently from human vision. Jan Groover, with her still-lifes in the 70s, was making a similar play. (Whether such tactics are at 6 or 12 o'clock on Lemagny's clock, I'm not sure.)
I'm sorry to appear a bit thick here, but I don't feel any disorientation at all with the picture. It seems to be a perfectly straightforward shot of two people standing on a plank or platform and leaning against some tubular structure with a bit of landscape in the background.
Now, if the video layout - the attempt to ape the American flag - is genuine or not, or a paste up of different boxes assembled in post, my iPad's too tiny to show. I'd be surprised if Cindy would be happy to allow her daughter to risk her life up a scaffolding that looks pretty shakey at best. Seen as a single image and not a composite (the video) would tick the box for disorienting, but from a fear of heights point of view rather than one of visual perception of what's real or otherwise.
But as with all modern concepts, I'm prepared to admit I'm probably missing something.
:-)
Post by: amolitor on November 14, 2018, 10:54:31 am
This admirably fits Rob's model of "look, we're burning a couple million bucks here, best we generate a great deal of activity to make it look like we're earning our lunch, eh?"
I can visualize a lot of similar things "Nah nah nah that truck's color is all wrong it's got to match her purse, wot? Go round me up another truck, but it's got to be THAT color, see? see? Here, take the purse with you to the lot and pick out the right truck this time and make it snappy!" all for an out of focus blob in the distance.
Even if it is just a scam to fluff up the budgets, does it work?
elliot, do you believe that these surrealist (if that's even the right word) elements affect us even if we don't consciously note them? Your remarks suggest that you do?
Post by: elliot_n on November 14, 2018, 11:01:29 am
I'm sorry to appear a bit thick here, but I don't feel any disorientation at all with the picture.
It's the same with the Friedlander image. Some people won't notice that he's fixed the cloud to the signpost. And others, when they do notice, will only shrug. That's ok.
https://www.rubixephoto.com/2017/08/08/mejora-fotografia-calle-street-photography-lee-friedlander/
Post by: elliot_n on November 14, 2018, 11:14:08 am
elliot, do you believe that these surrealist (if that's even the right word) elements affect us even if we don't consciously note them? Your remarks suggest that you do?
I'm not sure, Andrew. All I know is that as soon as I saw that image, I noticed the exact same things you did:
- the patches on the models' jeans line up with the horizon
- the girl's black belt lines up with the metal bar behind her
- the colour of the background foliage matches the denim
And one other thing - the patches on each model's jeans, seem to have been taken from the other model.
Maybe these things are just easter eggs for students of photographic form?
Rob sees nothing remarkable - just a straight-up snapshot.
I do have an ongoing interest in photographs which are visually disorientating. Perhaps I'm too easily disorientated. :)
Post by: Martin Kristiansen on November 14, 2018, 11:30:12 am
I'm not sure, Andrew. All I know is that as soon as I saw that image, I noticed the exact same things you did:
- the patches on the models' jeans line up with the horizon
- the girl's black belt lines up with the metal bar behind her
- the colour of the background foliage matches the denim
And one other thing - the patches on each model's jeans, seem to have been taken from the other model.
Maybe these things are just easter eggs for students of photographic form?
Rob sees nothing remarkable - just a straight-up snapshot.
I do have an ongoing interest in photographs which are visually disorientating. Perhaps I'm too easily disorientated. :)
I have looked at the same mage again and again. I personally think it’s fantastic. If that’s just luck I wish I was that lucky.
Post by: faberryman on November 14, 2018, 11:41:58 am
Post by: elliot_n on November 14, 2018, 11:47:56 am
Am I stating the obvious when I note that this shot was taken on set with a photograph as the background.
It's not obvious to me.
Post by: amolitor on November 14, 2018, 12:02:37 pm
Here's another thing (I more or less flipped through Vanity Fair and pulled out half a dozen particularly clear examples of the form in a couple of minutes. Vogue, Vanity Fair, WSJ Magazine, the usual suspects are more or less wall to wall these things). This is Bottega Venata, they're doing a weird thing where they're shooting short films and the print ads are frames pulled from the films and closeups of those frames. The films themselves are explicitly surreal.
Anyone can see that the phone booth is lit to match her outfit. But look in the background.
The tumbled safety barriers match her purse and the lapels of her coat.
And lest the point be missed: This is a normal level of styling and set design. This is absolutely the standard. Coach, Celine, YSL, Prada, etc. It's all this stuff.
Post by: Martin Kristiansen on November 14, 2018, 12:12:37 pm
It certainly has occurred to me that the background may have been pasted in one way or the other, but the technical details of how the thing was made aren't of much interest to me personally. That it appears to have been made is fascinating, though.
Here's another thing (I more or less flipped through Vanity Fair and pulled out half a dozen particularly clear examples of the form in a couple of minutes. Vogue, Vanity Fair, WSJ Magazine, the usual suspects are more or less wall to wall these things). This is Bottega Venata, they're doing a weird thing where they're shooting short films and the print ads are frames pulled from the films and closeups of those frames. The films themselves are explicitly surreal.
Anyone can see that the phone booth is lit to match her outfit. But look in the background.
The tumbled safety barriers match her purse and the lapels of her coat.
And lest the point be missed: This is a normal level of styling and set design. This is absolutely the standard. Coach, Celine, YSL, Prada, etc. It's all this stuff.
It’s not just set design and styling. A lot of it is very clever colour grading.
Post by: amolitor on November 14, 2018, 12:19:30 pm
But then, if Rob's take is correct, though (and I feel like he's on to something) I think we'd be surprised how much of it is done live. It's sexy as hell to demand new gigantic props on the grounds that they need to match the model's shoes, and it really feels like you're doing something! THOSE ELEPHANTS ARE THE WRONG GREY! GET ME NEW, BLUER, ELEPHANTS!
Post by: Ivophoto on November 14, 2018, 12:38:46 pm
Yes the color palettes could certainly be done in post. If Annie Leibovitz is anything like a benchmark, there's a hell of a lot more cut & paste in fashion photography than meets the eye.
But then, if Rob's take is correct, though (and I feel like he's on to something) I think we'd be surprised how much of it is done live. It's sexy as hell to demand new gigantic props on the grounds that they need to match the model's shoes, and it really feels like you're doing something! THOSE ELEPHANTS ARE THE WRONG GREY! GET ME NEW, BLUER, ELEPHANTS!
I had a friend working at Duval Guillaume, a not unimportant advertising company here in Belgium, if she is right in what she told me, it is not the photographers call but it is the art director / project manager who is key.
Another friend photographer works for a German company, don’t remember the name, he is doing the lingerie shoots and apparel shoots for a big post order company. No artistic freedom at all. He got a fist thick book with layouts and schemes how to put light and set up. He is very depressed by that way of working.
I don’t know if that is typical for the business.
Post by: faberryman on November 14, 2018, 12:47:06 pm
It's not obvious to me.Look at the top edge and the right edge. The left edge also looks like it is part of the set.
Post by: Rob C on November 14, 2018, 12:58:23 pm
It's not obvious to me.
Look at the left edge.
Post by: amolitor on November 14, 2018, 01:01:17 pm
So it's a photo of a photo, which is another beast altogether....
Post by: elliot_n on November 14, 2018, 01:05:02 pm
The picture I attached is a phone-snap of a magazine page...
I thought that was obvious. Maybe there's another sort of optical confusion going on. :)
Post by: Rob C on November 14, 2018, 01:10:13 pm
I know nothing about motion pictures, but as we can PS anything in a part of still to match any colour we want, isn't it possible to do that in movies too? After all, these are big budget companies.
Rob
P.S.
I see that is exactly the case, so the pic we were looking at is meaningless as it stands, and should have been shot agaist a black or white b/ground to avoid the confusion.
Post by: Martin Kristiansen on November 14, 2018, 01:12:20 pm
I had a friend working at Duval Guillaume, a not unimportant advertising company here in Belgium, if she is right in what she told me, it is not the photographers call but it is the art director / project manager who is key.
Another friend photographer works for a German company, don’t remember the name, he is doing the lingerie shoots and apparel shoots for a big post order company. No artistic freedom at all. He got a fist thick book with layouts and schemes how to put light and set up. He is very depressed by that way of working.
I don’t know if that is typical for the business.
It’s typical of how I work. I don’t get depressed about it at all. It’s great. Way more fun than running around with a gun or working on a farm which is some of the other stuff I have done. It pays the bills and buys my camera gear while not draining me creatively. Commercial photography is to there to sell stuff. Not to stroke the creative egos of commercial photographers most of whom don’t give a fig for art or photography. Product photography is technically challenging and requires good organizational and workflow skills, a real barrier to entry.
Not sure with the 8mages in question but usually this stuff is a collaboration. Well that’s obvious I suppose.
Post by: elliot_n on November 14, 2018, 01:16:57 pm
Post by: Rob C on November 14, 2018, 01:30:50 pm
It’s typical of how I work. I don’t get depressed about it at all. It’s great. Way more fun than running around with a gun or working on a farm which is some of the other stuff I have done. It pays the bills and buys my camera gear while not draining me creatively. Commercial photography is to there to sell stuff. Not to stroke the creative egos of commercial photographers most of whom don’t give a fig for art or photography. Product photography is technically challenging and requires good organizational and workflow skills, a real barrier to entry.
Not sure with the 8mages in question but usually this stuff is a collaboration. Well that’s obvious I suppose.
I have heard that photographers are very often forced into being button pushers. I'm so glad that I pretty much escaped all that. Most of the time I was handed a bunch of clothes and expected to return them with some nice photographs. Pretty much everybody I knew had the same experience, and only some types of advertising (as distinct from fashion) had art directors meddling on the job. The worst shoots where I experienced this were those destined for Vogue because I was saddled with representatives who had little idea what photography was about, but that didn't prevent them from trying to direct. Their problem, as always with such people, was fear, and the fact that much of the cost of such shoots was covered by free travel and free hotels in return for publicity on the pages. (Product placement before it was called that.) I remember standing in Lisbon airport in front of a TAP Jumbo and wondering how the hell to get logos, clothes and some suitcases looking like they were all one shot. Perspectives and scale were a friggin' nightmare. Business where things are supposed to be quid pro quo are usually a bad idea unless you know the people concerned personally, and well.
Post by: Martin Kristiansen on November 14, 2018, 01:41:47 pm
This a Calvin Klein ad, not a catalogue shoot.
Yes obviously. Do you think then that the photographer made most of the decisions?
Post by: Ivophoto on November 14, 2018, 01:46:00 pm
Yes obviously. Do you think then that the photographer made most of the decisions?
I doubt.
Post by: elliot_n on November 14, 2018, 02:03:07 pm
Yes obviously. Do you think then that the photographer made most of the decisions?
No, but I don't think he was told what to do.
Post by: Rob C on November 14, 2018, 02:11:29 pm
I really would like to know if that "flag" idea was shot for real, or is a motion pasting job.
Rob
Post by: elliot_n on November 14, 2018, 02:16:14 pm
https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/qvbd3p/raf-simonss-new-calvin-klein-campaign-stars-underwear-jeans-and-andy-warhol
https://uk.phaidon.com/agenda/photography/articles/2017/july/27/does-raf-simons-new-campaign-echo-this-stephen-shore-shot/