Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => Discussing Photographic Styles => Topic started by: Rob C on January 16, 2019, 03:57:23 pm
-
We've thrown around ideas like confetti at a wedding, most of 'em in efforts to get the new folks at the helm to start different concepts or, rather, sections for LuLa.
Okay, I'll moon out the back window of the bus and hope it encourages others into doing the same. If enough photographers come along with loosened belts, we might even get a separate compartment in this LuiLa vehicle; at the back, of course.
...................
On Shooting Women
Well, maybe one could begin by wondering why anyone might want to do that.
I suppose there are as many reasons as there are photographers doing it, but in the end, I think it breaks down into a couple of basic motives: lust, or simply love of beauty. At which point, I think it makes sense to introduce a little humour, aka women's knowledge:
A little three-year old boy examines his testicles whilst having a bath. “Mum,” he asks, “are these my brains?” “Not yet,” she replies.
Obviously enough I can't account for the drives of others, and I admit that I've often pondered this very question concerning motivation. I don't always come up with the same answer – more like different shades of the same general idea. Which is that I find them, women, fascinating, and always did. A fascination tinged, of course, with a little sadness at the knowledge that their beauty is usually doomed to being so transitory.
My first awareness must have hit me when I was about eleven, during a year spent in Italy, most of it in the local flea pit watching dubbed black and white westerns. It was around this time that I realised I needed a black guitar, a black horse, and then my life would forever be one of grateful, south-of-the-border cantina señoritas. That has nothing at all to do with shooting women (well, maybe in the movies), but the time does, because I was then spending some of it with a sister of my maternal grandmother, a lady with a pair of delightfully pretty twin daughters, happily not identical, but one blessed with the most gorgeous legs I'd ever seen – or perhaps simply the first I'd noticed – the other gifted with a wonderful pair of breasts, which is really a great endorsement for not having identical twins. Unless, of course, you can guarantee the perfect blending of both assets. They were about twenty years old, I think. They may have been younger, but at eleven, everybody older than you looks very old. And young kids are, as we all know, conveniently invisible. For some reason lost to me I named our last dog, a beautiful Alsabrador, after the leggy twin. My wife never suspected from whence came the name, but I think she sometimes wondered. However, the point remains, once you notice these things you seldom forget them. Indeed, they impress you more every day.
Around 1953/4 I realised that my aunt had a collection of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar magazines, and a Rollei. I devoured the magazines and she eventually lent me the Rollei. You could say I really had no chance.
In retrospect, I guess it must have been the early exposure to Vogue set me off in the right direction; had it been exposure to the grimmer side of girl photography instead, things might have turned out differently, so I'm grateful to my aunt. The influence of those magazines has never left me, and I realise that all my photographs of women have been little but fashion images. With or without clothes, the feeling's pretty much identical: I love putting 'em up on pedestals.
My first interest in pin-up pictures was inspired by photographers such as Peter Gowland, Peter Basch and Don Ornitz. Their stuff was distributed by Globe Photos and appeared in lots of publications, mostly movie-connected. Or at least, that's where I found them. The thing about them was that they made photography look like it was fun, not hard work and not in the least bit sordid. In essence, they were precursors to what I was to discover some years later in Playboy, until that magazine eventually found itself having to compete with the likes of Penthouse, which was another thing completely, at which point I cut subscription and abondoned ship.
To cut a long, personal tale short: I wasted a lot of time messing about in an engineering apprenticeship before getting the break, in my fourth year, that saw me starting in the company's photo-unit. There, I learned all that was ever practically useful to me later on. The printers were very skilled, and I learned a lot of stuff and, for a while, I was doing all the colour lab work pretty much on my own. Great times, but not for ever – I had to get into what I'd always wanted, which had nothing to do with photographing metal parts. I started my own studio and took it, slowly, into fashion. I found myself on a lot of trips for dress manufacturers, shooting advertising for House of Fraser stores, various general advertising agencies and the IWS (the International Wool Secretariat), the latter opening the door to Vogue in the UK, which was sort of odd in that most people do magazine work in order to attract commercial clients, whereas for me it worked the other way around. But it wasn't to last – the storm was gathering fast.
The fashion world in late-70s Scotland was contracting very quickly, and fees were tumbling because the few remaining people still buying photography knew only too well that we needed the work. We were being well and truly screwed. But nobody in my neck of the woods, really, was into calendars other than those that David Niven describes at the end of his forward to the first Pirelli Calendar Book, as featuring “whimsical terriers and thatched cottages” or, in the case of Scotland, yet more bloody lochs and snowy mountain peaks.
Thus dawned the era of my calendars. The first few were shot in tandem with PR and exhibition stand pictures for fashion clients, which was a neat package to produce. Thankfully, this lasted long enough for me to complete enough of them to give credibility, and I then had another kiss upon the lips from the gods: I was introduced to the man who became my best-ever client by a PR man I'd known back when we both worked in the engineering company. He was now out in general practice, and came to see me because he needed pictures. I couldn't believe my eyes when, walking with him into his client's office, I saw a Pirelli calendar on the wall. The next step, of course, was to produce a dummy of what I wanted to do, something that had no conection with the reason I'd been in his office. He liked my mock-up, and that was the start of a relationship that saw me shoot and produce six or seven calendars for him, each year consisting of up to forty-two or so versions for the different companies within his group. One thing led to another, and I was in a new career of design and production, keeping myself well supplied with the photography I loved.
I spent hours looking at hundreds of model cards, flying down to London doing castings and playing power games that I hated: I don't like turning anyone down, and even if it didn't happen face-to-face, I'm sure the girls all knew right away when they hadn't rung the bell. My wife used to accompany me on these castings and take notes, seeing flaws that charming personalities can hide from male eyes but not from the sharper ones of another woman. A great help, in so many, many ways.
And how to choose the girls for a calendar? I found one great short cut: I would always include in my castings at least a few girls that Patrick Lichfield had used for his very successful Unipart calendar series, and on the prayer that if they looked great with him, then they'd look as good with me, that was what usually swung the pointer the right way. Thank goodness for belted earls doing my dummy runs for me!
Another really key client was a brewery. I'd been trying to get a contact established in that company for years, and absolutely never got anywhere at all. One day, for no reason I can think of, I suggested to my wife that she drive into town and go see them. Now she was never, ever, a sales person; she absolutely hated that side of life thinking it absurd and so obvious, but for some obscure reason she said okay, took my portfoliio, went out one morning and returned home to make lunch, armed with an invitation for me to go see the marketing director. Another six- or seven-year association. Ain't women wonderful?
Photographic mechanics? Most of the time I used Kodachrome 64 Pro in 135; I never did try it in 120 during the brief period it was being produced again in that format, because by then I'd traded away all my 120 format equipment. I had a brief encounter with Kodachrome 24 but though rather finer, it was just too contrasty for me. I travelled as lightly as possible – no teams of assistants and only, on ideal trips, with the models and my wife: she'd work miracles with sun oil, spray bottles and reflectors. We needed nothing more. Especially not watching clients, most of whom, if they came at all, were happy to tag along for a day or two, convince themselves we knew what we were doing, then keep out of the way and never show again until evening. I'm reliably informed that those days are gone for ever, that the bigger the production team, the greater the prestige and bragging rights for the clients.
Equipment. I started out with a new Exakta Varex 11A and a second-hand Rolleiflex TLR as well as an ancient plate camera that was used exclusively for making copy negatives. Studio: well, I never did – still don't – think very much of huge lighting situations. I had an old gent's umbrella that I painted white inside (many coats of paint!), and to the wooden shaft I screwed an accessory shoe into which slid a flash head. Modelling light came from a domestic bulb holder also supended from the same shaft. (The contraption sported lots of wires.) Crude indeed, but it worked very well, and the fact that I was using a portable flash as power unit gave a faster flash speed, which helped catch motion better than the subsequent early monoblocs that I bought when money started to come along. But man, that was a slow coming! We'd initially enough capital to last us six months without income, and we ran through that very soon, despite being owed money from clients. I hadn't quite understood that a three-month wait for payment was the industry norm...
Later on, the quality of cameras I could have changed. I tended to use small cameras mostly - Nikons of various types, mainly the F and F2. Though I had quite an arsenal of lenses, I didn't use many, even though it was obligatory to cart a wide range of them along; most of what I shot ended up coming from 35mm,135mm and 200mm with a few special occasions filled by my 500mm catadioptric. Come to think of it, as that 500mm was fixed at f8, digital would have offered a huge advantage there, because one could use higher ISO and, consequently, shutter speeds, whilst still getting the fineness of 64 ASA film. But yes, the 'look' would simply not have been the same without film. Maybe.
Hasselblads, the 500 Series of the era, were very nice instruments for studio tripod work. I used them sometimes on trips, but only if, for some reason, the client insisted. Mostly, I designed calendars to fit 2x3 image shapes. Importantly, Kodachrome travelled better than Ektachrome, in the sense that it wasn't quite as vital to get rapid processing done, and it seemed to cope with high temperatures reasonably well. But, sadly, X-Ray tended to make tanned skin go khaki-greenish... hit me once in Spain, where they wouldn't hand-search my film bag. But anyway, I never, at any one time, owned more than two monoblocs and a shoulder flash unit. No need for more, doing what I did.
My first studio was a large apartment at the top of a block; it had no lift and access was up a circular staircase. Dickens would have loved it. I stayed with it from '66 until I moved away around '72 because the nature of my work had drifted from mainly studio to almost entirely location. Within a couple of months, naturally enough, the tide turned and studio work came back, but I was out of mine. We decided that it made no sense to rent again, and so we had one built by the side of our house. That coincided with the invasion of Cyprus, which of course, had nothing to do with it, beyond the fact that I was shooting my first Hewden/Stuart calendar on that island two weeks before the Turkish parachutes came floating down.
In an interview I saw recently, Harri Peccinotti echoes a wistfulness for the simplicity of yesteryear and, sighing for those lost times, compares them with now, when he seldom sees the same girl twice - thinks he might see her on the Paris Metro but is afraid to say hello in case he's mistaken and taken for a dirty old man or that, on the other hand, if he doesn't greet her, she may think what a shit, he worked with me yesterday but today he ignores me! You can't win anymore; how tragic: a gift from our friends over at PC Central. I also remember an Interview on Toronto's Fashion Channel, where Helmut Newton talks with Jeanne Beker about the changes in the business from his own peak fashion era when, in his words, photographers were free to run through the streets of Paris like dogs, doing whatever they wanted to do, but that now (it was an 80s inteview, I think) everything had become such a big deal, that the money involved had become so huge (10,000 bucks to get out of bed, anyone?). In other words, all the love had gone.
What I did learn, through time, was that your luck improves the higher up the company hierarchy your particular client finds himself. Getting through to director level is obviously best: it's still not usually entirely their own money on the line, but they are high enough up the pecking order to feel confident in their decisions. The worst deal is the lower echelon client. I know: the ones I met operated in a state of tangible fear of their superiors, a fear that's contagious.
So what about post-professional life and shooting women? Frankly, after a few very false post-retirement attempts, I have concluded that it usually just isn't worth the candle. As I wrote when I came in, there are two main motivations for photographing women, and civilian prospects usually suspect the other one, thinking it's all about them and their knickers instead of understanding that no, it's actually all about the dream you want to convert into a picture – that they can only, ever, be the medium. Or they just have inquisitive little brothers in the bath. When you have been lucky enough to have worked with the best that London could offer, there's not much else to replace that experience other than disappointment. Or, the occasional coup de foudre comes your way and renders preconceptions silly - or so one hopes.
The black guitar and horse – I never had the horse, thank goodness, and the guitar became both a conscience and embarrassment of failures. The guy to whom I sold it never mentioned it again either. It was a Silvestri, made in Catania.
Technique? I don't really have one; each model presents a different plus and always a minus: we are dealing with people, not sculpture. It's really a combination of what the two of you dream up that gets the picture. It all boils down to a matter of rapport, which is why you find that one girl works very well with a certain photographer but not so well with another, yet all three participants can to be equally good at their job: it's a chemistry that you can't analyse; just is. I always tried to keep it as simple as I could: that gave mobility and, consequently, greater opportunities for luck to play its part. The unexpected can be far better than something you though about before the shoot. In fact, too much thinking can paralyse you. Go with the flow, and there the challenge: creating that flow.
What remains of my professional imagery can be found at:
http://www.roma57.com/calendars-and-star.html
-
Well done, Rob. This glimpse into the arc of a career is well worth reading. It makes me think there might be a place for "oral history" here. That could be a very good thing.
-
+1. Fascinating, Rob.
-
Where's the chapter about movng to the island?
-
That's a beautiful essay, Rob. Thanks for sharing it and your stunning gallery of pro images.
This really should be front-page material (with some images) for Josh.
Cheers,
Eric
-
Where's the chapter about movng to the island?
Hey, Oscar, it's not a complete autobiography! That would take another paragraph.
;-)
-
Thanks for the kind comments, people; I just hope some others feel they want to contribute personal stories too. I think I'd be very interested in their photo-journey.
Rob
-
Lovely story, Rob. It’s a pleasure to read!
I don’t mind sharing a short movie made of my portrait work. Only, it’s no subtitles.
If not appropriate, I will delete.
https://youtu.be/66LH2a0KmWw
-
I don’t mind sharing a short movie made of my portrait work. Only, it’s no subtitles.
If not appropriate, I will delete.
https://youtu.be/66LH2a0KmWw
A beautiful film — thanks for sharing.
-
Rob I would appreciate if you made a thread for us portrait shooters with shared wisdoms about working with people you photograph :-). I find that much more challenging than all the technical stuff. As a hobbyist I have the advantage of "living in the simpler times" - it's just me and the model (and sometimes a makeup lady) when shooting, with no clients peeking over my shoulder and I'd like to make the most of it.
-
Wonderful and romantic story.
-
I don’t mind sharing a short movie made of my portrait work. Only, it’s no subtitles.
If not appropriate, I will delete.
https://youtu.be/66LH2a0KmWw
This is the stuff that really gets my juices flowing, video showing contemporaries working, showing the subjects they're shooting and preferably the finished work. Inspiring stuff, Ivo, the only downside being the language barrier.
Another video I thoroughly enjoyed was Peter Fiore's excellent interview. I won't post a link to the video without Peter's approval but for those who are interested it is in his signature.
Great stuff.
-
This is the stuff that really gets my juices flowing, video showing contemporaries working, showing the subjects they're shooting and preferably the finished work. Inspiring stuff, Ivo, the only downside being the language barrier.
Another video I thoroughly enjoyed was Peter Fiore's excellent interview. I won't post a link to the video without Peter's approval but for those who are interested it is in his signature.
Great stuff.
Tx, Keith. I’m checking the cineast if subtitels are doable
-
Rob I would appreciate if you made a thread for us portrait shooters with shared wisdoms about working with people you photograph :-). I find that much more challenging than all the technical stuff. As a hobbyist I have the advantage of "living in the simpler times" - it's just me and the model (and sometimes a makeup lady) when shooting, with no clients peeking over my shoulder and I'd like to make the most of it.
Rado - there isn't really anything much that I can tell anyone about shooting model pictures - it's mostly seat of the pants stuff. All I can say is that as far as I can remember, right from the first time, I never had any doubts about whether I could do it - it just seemed so easy. Which is not to say that it always came off: there were times when there was no chemistry, usually because a model had been forced on me by somebody, and on those occassions all one could do was put in a technically good job with what one had in front of the camera.
My experience was that with the "wrong" model, you had a better chance of pulling off a reasonable shoot outdoors, than in front of a roll of Colorama paper, because that blank thing gives neither you nor the model anywhere to hide or, at least, play against/with. It's the place people feel the most naked, the most vulnerable.
I suppose it's also a matter of leaving your dignity outside the studio door: you should be prepared to act out poses and stuff you think the model could do - it helps break the ice, and even when you know people well, there can often be a little warming up period you have to shoot though. Some guys thought they were cool being hard taskmasters, being loud and bossy; that style would never have worked for me - I never felt I was anybody's boss, more was it collaboration.
I always had music on; in the early days, Radio Caroline (on 199) - a pirate radio station offshore.
Rob
-
This is the stuff that really gets my juices flowing, video showing contemporaries working, showing the subjects they're shooting and preferably the finished work. Inspiring stuff, Ivo, the only downside being the language barrier.
Another video I thoroughly enjoyed was Peter Fiore's excellent interview. I won't post a link to the video without Peter's approval but for those who are interested it is in his signature.
Great stuff.
That's my prime interest in the Peter Lindbergh "making of" videos; the videographer is sometimes able to make a better show than do the final images you get to see. It underscores again the power of motion and the educated eye of some motion photographers...
Waching the models go through a little set of gestures as the stills guy makes his shots is so much more rewarding and exciting than looking at one image.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yeb_275p1_g
Rob
-
Rob, is your idea that people will contribute personal stories to this thread? Or make our own individual threads one per story? I don't want to step on your toes, and there does seem to be a good discussion rolling here!
-
I suppose it's also a matter of leaving your dignity outside the studio door: you should be prepared to act out poses and stuff you think the model could do - it helps break the ice, and even when you know people well, there can often be a little warming up period you have to shoot though. Some guys thought they were cool being hard taskmasters, being loud and bossy; that style would never have worked for me - I never felt I was anybody's boss, more was it collaboration.
Yeah that mirrors my experience, the best shots come towards the end of the session. Maybe it's me who needs a longer warm up period. I've also learned that having chocolate on hand is a Very Good Thing :-)
-
I can imagine that after a period of time, 3 months, six, or a year, there would be a collection of essays. At that point, perhaps Josh could begin selecting one essayist every quarter to be the object of a Charlie Cramer type series as to the technical aspects of their work--or if the essay was originally technical in nature, then the invitation could be to examine the creative impulses that depend on those technical efforts.
Ciao,
Doug
-
Rob, is your idea that people will contribute personal stories to this thread? Or make our own individual threads one per story? I don't want to step on your toes, and there does seem to be a good discussion rolling here!
Well, it's intention was that it might encourage a space about photographers as people, as distinct from their modus operandi, or loads of snaps being on display. The interesting part, to me, is often in their motivation - the things that led them to devoting their lives to the job.
I think pictures stuck into copy a distraction, a break in information; if there are any images to show, perhaps a reference to the person's website would offer more overall flavour.
A problem with simply sowing new essays into an existing thread is the inevitable confusion from cross-references etc.
That said, it could easily function within the already extant Photographic Styles envelope, with new essays just titled and posted there, as per my own. It works now for links to various external photographers some like, so why not as suggested a moment ago, too? No new department would need to be set up.
Rob
-
Now with Peter Fiore's approval.
Peter Fiore on breaking the rules, his life and history as an artist. From his early days to his current work, influences and philosophy on painting. Interviewed by Christopher Libertino.
Peter Fiore (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRsNaNM0ZeU)
-
Now with Peter Fiore's approval.
Peter Fiore on breaking the rules, his life and history as an artist. From his early days to his current work, influences and philosophy on painting. Interviewed by Christopher Libertino.
Peter Fiore (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRsNaNM0ZeU)
Yeah, I remember enjoying that interview several times in the past; sadly, it underlines again my feelings of the inadequacy of photography in comparison to painting.
That aside, Peter has an honesty coming through that makes everything hang so beautifully together.
An excellent example of what I'd love to see this series build up to shelter.
Rob
-
If it makes you feel better, Rob, I can guarantee that my painting is inferior to my photography.
Eric
-
Yeah, I remember enjoying that interview several times in the past; sadly, it underlines again my feelings of the inadequacy of photography in comparison to painting.
That aside, Peter has an honesty coming through that makes everything hang so beautifully together.
An excellent example of what I'd love to see this series build up to shelter.
Rob
I was fortunate enough to have both in my life from an early age and throughout my career, often used in combination, which is perhaps why I don't make that clear-cut distinction. One just flowed into the other.
-
Interesting Rob. I love painting and have travelled thousands of Km to visit great art museums and galleries. As much as that has amazed, impressed and touched me I get more from photography.
Perhaps it’s sacrilege but I would rather look at a Salgado than a Picasso. An Adams before a Turner and a Weston before a Bacon.
To each his own.
-
Thanks Kevin for posting my interview. Lots of things go into making one's life, it seems most are not by choice. Which is a good thing.
Peter
-
I'm a snob, and while I am not especially proud of that, I have come to terms with my snobbishness. Allow me to elaborate.
I've been mashing shutter buttons off and on for something like 40 years. I've been making a stab at Serious Photography for something like 30 years. I did my time as a wannabee Ansel Adams, and read the Trinity and spent a lot of time dorking around in darkrooms. I've read history, and I have aspired to be Stieglitz, and Steichen, and all those blokes. Along the way I have taken a fair number of pictures, and learned a fair number of things about taking pictures. I haven't taken as many as a lot of you probably have, but I've taken a pretty goodly number.
Along the way I figured out enough about Ansel Adams style landscape photography to know that I could probably, by applying myself diligently for a year or two, get good enough to churn out black and white landscapes of a certain caliber more or less at will. Perhaps not Adams, but anyways Picker and a whole lot of other acolytes. Pick up a copy of LENSWORK and you'll see a lot of this stuff. This is not because I am special, it is because I am a normally competent human being. Almost anyone can learn this. There are 1000s, maybe 10s of 1000s of people out there banging out this material on a regular basis.
Luminous Landscape has a long tradition of teaching anyone who cares to apply themselves exactly these skills, and they have been quite successful at it.
Basically, I am lazy. I don't want to do all that hiking, and I don't want to arrange my life such that I would be able to do all that hiking. It takes more than normal abilities with the camera, it takes a commitment and a lifestyle that I found unappealing.
The same story can be applied to, say, photographs of models. Again, I learned enough along the way to see that if I applied myself for a year or two I could get Quite Good at it and then I could churn out Fashion Styled photographs, or Figure Studies, or whatever. Would I be Rob Campbell? Perhaps not, but I could certainly be the equivalent of any number of people making amiable and competent pictures of beautiful girls. Again, the skills necessary to grind out the pictures are a minor part of it, it's the business of rearranging my life to make room for a lot of hired models and lights and enormous octoboxes that I found uninteresting.
Ditto macro photography. I never did make a serious attempt at wildlife photography, but by now I see the pattern. I could buy the gear, devote some time to learning some skills, and then I could rearrange my life, and lo, I could churn out endless Birds In Flight or whatever.
The question arises naturally: if I am so damned serious about photography, why am I so unwilling to rearrange my life a bit in order to do it better, to produce better photographs?
It is, essentially, because I perceive the kinds of pictures I could have made down any of those paths as not worth the trouble. They would have been fine pictures, but they would have been just like a lot of other pictures put out there by a lot of other normally competent people who applied themselves rather more diligently that I am willing to apply myself. Having no desire to make a career out of it, I had (and still have) the luxury of picking and choosing what to do in just as finicky a way as pleases me.
It's a bit like making a good quiche. Lots of people never make a quiche at all. Quite a few people make lousy quiche. Some people make excellent quiche. To make good quiche there's a bunch of skills you need to have: you should be able to handle a pie crust, you need to have a rough grasp not only of how to reliably crack eggs without getting shell bits everywhere but also some grasp of how eggs cook, etcetera. The point is that the ability to make a good quiche is perfectly teachable. A few people may have some mental block which renders them incapable of learning these skills, but almost anyone could learn to do it. Most people don't.
It happens that I have learned it, and that furthermore I am perfectly happy to bang out a good quiche more or less on demand, despite the fact that there isn't anything particularly special about a good quiche. I am not a quiche snob, at least not in the sense that I refuse to do it because it's something that anyone could do. I am perfectly happy to be an everyman who happens to have and to exercise the relevant quiche making skills.
Where photography is concerned, however, I am a snob.
The fact that my quiche exists does not mean that the restaurant French Laundry does not exist, and the existence of French Laundry does not make my quiche non-existent, or even bad.
Neither could I pretend that a dinner I prepared of my quiche and a salad is equivalent to dinner at French Laundry. These are not the same thing, at all. Almost anyone could, by applying themselves with a little diligence, produce the former. The latter is rather more involved and, in very real ways, a superior thing. My quiche dinner would be excellent, I assure you, but it would not be in any way equivalent.
If the French Laundry dinner included quiche, the quiche would not be much better than mine. That, however, is not the point. French Laundry is doing something other than sticking a slice of good quiche on a plate.
Where photography is concerned, rather than quiches, I am much more interested in the French Laundry version of the thing than the homemade quiche version. The analogy could be stretched a bit more to note that it is not the quiche which makes the dinner ordinary or great, it is the way the quiche is contextualized. But that is maybe a bridge too far.
Do I do the French Laundry version? No, of course not. But it's what I am interested in. It's what I want to do. It is my aspiration. I am a snob!
-
Do I do the French Laundry version? No, of course not. But it's what I am interested in. It's what I want to do. It is my aspiration. I am a snob!
May I ask, do you feel the same way about your words?
-
The problem is, then, that through putting intellectual handcuffs on your photography, you are probably denying yourself some serious pleasure, especially as you don't need your efforts to make you money.
I suspect that most of us are snobs, even if we perhaps fail to realise it. What else is the football fan, who is conditioned to look down upon all the others of his kind for having exactly the same complex as himself, but simply allied to a different god?
My own snobbery is within the world of the boat: I would no more want a small boat that I could actually afford to buy right now and possibly enjoy for a summer or two - with luck - than would I want to eat my fingers. The only boats I might enjoy are all light years removed from the reality of my telescope, and so I ignore the lot of them now, especially today, walking past them on a freezing, drizzle-sodden day; how clever I was to have held my impoverished hand and not bought into such nonsense!
I think a difference between your photographic yearnings interests and mine is easy to see: your mind is still thinking alternative genre possibilities whereas I never wanted any: focus.
Quiche. Indeed, I was married to such an expert and could demolish an entire one (quiche, not expert) intended to feed four, all by myself. Today, I have strict medical limitations on such delights: no cheese.
-
May I ask, do you feel the same way about your words?
Of course you may ask ;) I am "Hanging It Out!"
It depends on what you mean. If you mean the actual sentences, no, my writing is not as good as my quiche, and it suits me adequately. If I can produce a workmanlike, albeit common, sentence with every now and then a poetic turn of phrase, I am pleased as anything.
If you mean the ideas I try to communicate, well, again I aspire to more of the exceptional, the French Laundry ideal. I like to imagine that every now and then I do produce something that flirts anyways with the edges of the exceptional.
-
You know, Rob, I think it comes to me not actually liking the doing of photography that much. I don't hate it, but I mash the button only so that I will have a picture I can maybe make some sense of later, not because there's any real love of the mashing or the stuff that surrounds the mashing.
-
You know, Rob, I think it comes to me not actually liking the doing of photography that much. I don't hate it, but I mash the button only so that I will have a picture I can maybe make some sense of later, not because there's any real love of the mashing or the stuff that surrounds the mashing.
Then I completely understand the love of the great quiche: it delights on several levels!
:-)
-
Of course you may ask ;) I am "Hanging It Out!"
It depends on what you mean. If you mean the actual sentences, no, my writing is not as good as my quiche, and it suits me adequately. If I can produce a workmanlike, albeit common, sentence with every now and then a poetic turn of phrase, I am pleased as anything.
If you mean the ideas I try to communicate, well, again I aspire to more of the exceptional, the French Laundry ideal. I like to imagine that every now and then I do produce something that flirts anyways with the edges of the exceptional.
Perhaps trying to match the French Laundry's quiche is wasted effort, even if successful you'll end up with third party, mass-produced. Better to spend the time improving your own.
-
My point is not that I am attempting to match FL's quiche.
A shorter way to state this thing is:
There are things which are excellent, but not exceptional, not rare. I like quiche and many many other things which are excellent, but not exceptional. It happens that I don't much care for the same in a photograph.
-
You know, Rob, I think it comes to me not actually liking the doing of photography that much. I don't hate it, but I mash the button only so that I will have a picture I can maybe make some sense of later, not because there's any real love of the mashing or the stuff that surrounds the mashing.
I’ve mentioned this series before, but your post brings it again to mind. The Netflix series Chef’s Table (https://www.netflix.com/title/80007945) does an excellent job of shedding light on what it takes to get to the top of ones field. In the case of that series, it’s the restaurant business, but it applies equally to any other. Much is sacrificed in the rest of ones life to achieve greatness in one chosen arena, because it requires near-total commitment.
Most anyone with a modicum of talent can get to a level where they produce passable images in any genre, and maybe even make a living at it, but it usually does take rearranging your life to get to the virtuoso level. There are lots of good life reasons for not doing that—perhaps you like your wife, or want to be around for your kids, or feel you need to take care of your sick mother. Those are all valid life choices, but they won’t make you an extraordinary artist. I know this because they are the choices I’ve made, and I’ve seen the result.
-
Don’t like quiche. Love taking photographs. The entire process is a joy to me. I’m not talking about commercial stuff. Commercial photography is a job and it beats working in a foundry, carrying a gun or digging a trench, but it’s not a joy.
I have noticed amongst some photographers that what appears to drive them is a desire for status, a competitive motivation. Mostly they want to succeed at photography but they are not driven by what they are trying to say. They are not amazed by what they see and are not driven by any desire to communicate. They may produce some very successful images and may indeed succeed at a certain level but more frequently they spend a lot of time trying to find a suitable genre or subject to show off their abilities as a photographer.
I believe the best work is produced by people that are first captivated by the subject and the message and secondarily by photography. Great chefs love food and feeding people above cooking.
-
I believe the best work is produced by people that are first captivated by the subject and the message and secondarily by photography. Great chefs love food and feeding people above cooking.
Yes indeed. A reason to make something is the artist's journey.
Peter
-
About snobbery
A love fly fishing.
I love a good pair of wading shoes, waders, reliable wading stick, decent modern rod and reel, home made flies, etc.
I fish on local water and local species. Occasionally I will hop in the car and drive 12h to explore and fish a foreign river.
I have friends who are happy to invest in Rockhopper workshops style to fish Alaska waters dropped from a water plane into a rafting boat while sleeping with bears.
On fly fish fairs I meet peoples who say they have transcended all this and their boots don’t touch water anymore. They enjoy a travel to Scotland staying in a hotel close to a legendary salmon river theoretically ready to fish to meet a few old fly tying and fishing masters. Sitting at the crackling fire, drinking Lagavullin from a quaich, discuss the finest Hardy reel on earth and petting each other’s hand made split canes with golden engraved butts.
-
...There are things which are excellent, but not exceptional, not rare. I like quiche and many many other things which are excellent, but not exceptional. It happens that I don't much care for the same in a photograph.
I've known artists and photographers with a modicum of talent and even those without talent who have worked hard and made a living. I've also known artists and photographers with an *inborn talent, a few of whom have produced the exceptional and others who have produced nothing.
As Martin and D Fuller have suggested, the path to the exceptional is to be passionate about both the subject and the message and to be prepared to make many sacrifices along the journey. Those who I admire **worship have almost without exception taken this path but they are very few and far between. Anyone can get lucky and make an exceptional photograph but few can make an exceptional body of work.
*a talent that cannot be explained by experience or education.
**sadly I can't think of a single photographer who meets the criteria - perhaps Rob is right ;-)
-
Andrew, have you tried photographing quiche? Seems like a perfect combination for your
lack of passion for both ;)
-
snip
it requires near-total commitment.
it usually does take rearranging your life to....
snip
In a way the 10,000 hour rule applies. To reach a high level it’s not your job, it’s your calling. You go to bed thinking and working on photography, wake up doing the same.
The way I started I was a very young art director in a medium sized agency. I hired good photographers, but then as our agency picked up larger accounts, photo agents from around the U.S. would come in with huge portfolios.
For the first time I got to see great photographer’s personal work and I fell in love, until one day walked into the agency’s President and said I quit I’m going to be a photographer. My job paid me well and actually at that time I had low overhead so leaving was a chance, but I did, got a gig in a catalog house, then went on my own.
Early own I thought I was pretty good, sometimes was, because at that stage you have an unencumbered mind. You’re not thinking about clients or genres, your just shooting what you like and I love photographing people. Scenics, Still Life (though I did them from time to time) didn’t interest me, though I have respect for people that are good at it.
Then work came in I stayed busy and that’s when the creativity starts to drop, because you start accumulating things and your life changes, you have to listen to the client because you want to get paid and you don’t have the experience to explain your way around a challenging idea (good or bad). Then you hit a point that you’ve worked for some many different people you can find a better solution and explain it, so my work improved. Communication with people; clients, crew, suppliers, subjects, (unknown or famous) because unless you get the best out of everyone, the image suffers.
The one thing I never wanted to do was be locked into one single genre. Most photographers like to specialize, but I had no interest in just shooting one thing in one style over and over. Everyone said it would hurt my business, but I always stayed busy and it was a great learning experience and I could apply hanging out of a helicopter on the border to shooting fashion in Milan, or a sports star in Barcelona.
To me it’s always just story or creative brief, subject, lightiing and composition.
Our business flew when I met my wife who is uber talented as a producer and stylist. Everything she puts in front of the lens is perfect, her planning is off the scale. That allowed me to really free up and work on my side on the job.
We also learned motion capture early on (I hate the word video) learned to edit and grade and since I was in LA it was easy to buy and own movie lights and grip, whether it be for stills or motion.
Dave is right, you have to be careful because life can get in the way. We recently went through some tragic family issues that lasted a few years and it’s consuming and this is such a competitive business, anytime you take away from your goals, networking, moving forward, it will effect your work. (thankfully that part is over).
I have and still am very fortunate, usually have lived in two places simultaneously which also broadens our horizons.
I’ve been asked a trillion times by assistants and swings how do you make it in image making (I guess that’s the new term). My modest advice is 1. Do no quit and weather the ups and downs 2. Look at your life as if have perpetual homework that you’ll never complete. 3. Also be fair and kind not only to clients, but to all the people you work with, crew, suppliers, talent agents, location finders, drivers, everyone. This last suggestion will save you so many times.
If it’s not special in front of the lens it’s damn hard to make it interesting in the camera.
(http://www.russellrutherford.com/final_imagination_ROCK_COVER.jpg)
(http://www.russellrutherford.com/mex_small.jpg)
(http://www.russellrutherford.com/lake_como_sm.jpg)
(http://www.russellrutherford.com/julia_spot_small.jpg)
(http://www.russellrutherford.com/cloud_server_sm.jpg)
IMO
BC
-
That's intetesting: Joel Meyerowitz took the same route as you did. He was sent to meet with Robert Frank who was to do some photography for his agency, and ended up so impressed with the fact that photography could be a mobile, active and living thing, that he went straight back to the office and resigned. The rest became a certain kind of photographic history.
Regarding the other thing - dedication: I don't think anyone can ever get anywhere in photography without it. It's a 24/24 business, and that includes the times other folks have weekends and holidays.
I guess that the thing about being or not being married also has a huge input. If you are not, it's easier to do the 24/24 number because it doesn't screw with anybody else's life and day; if you are, you have to be damned lucky and have a woman who isn't going to criticise, moan about irregular income and hours, about models being perhaps a little too friendly (though it means nothing) and seen as competition. I guess we were both very lucky, and once mine began to take an active part on trips, it made the entire shoot far more of a buzz because we got to spend so much more good time together. With the wrong wife it would be a nightmare, and end in business failure or divorce; nobody could live under those sorts of domestic pressures and work well..
-
Rob,
I know many a figure painter that has had a tough go, when married to the wrong kind of person. It's a circus for a while and then the last act appears and the curtain drops.....For all the right and wrong reasons. However the driven artist keeps going and often grows and at times becomes Sainted. Art books are full of such Saints.
Peter
-
Being married to the right gal is essential in any profession. Mine herded four sons for two widely different years while I was at war, then two more years while I was a thousand miles away in the US. All four of those kids are happy, very successful men with a total of nineteen grandkids (my great-grands) now. Without my beloved partner it could easily have been pure hell.
-
Without my beloved partner it could easily have been pure hell.
Russ,
A true truth!
Peter