Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: John R Smith on May 21, 2011, 01:05:28 pm
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In about 1978, when I first came to the valley, the Strongmans established a new larch plantation on the hillside overlooking the stream just up the road from my cottage. The trees were tiny at first, but eventually reached maturity and I made several photographs inside the dark woodland which they had become. My favourite is attached below. Then, late last year, the whole stand was felled, to become fence-posts or pulp or perhaps planks for boat builders from the largest trees. So I recorded that moment too, in the second picture. And now the the hillside is bare again, as I remember it all those years ago when I was younger and life seemed much simpler.
John
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Although the logs shot wasn't from the same spot as the first they could probably be displayed together effectively as a commentary statement. Stronger still would be a third shot of the empty area after the logs were removed and all three shown as a triptych. If you could also add a shot of some reforestation there it would make a nice re-cycling grouping.
In any case the first shot is very nicely done.
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I really like the first one alot!
I came across a scene like this (though i didn't capture/pp it this well) yesterday where the sun lined up perfect with a whole in the trees. Really creates a great effect how it hits the line of trunks and casts the long shadows. Thanks for posting this it helped me with PP.
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I completely agree with you both that the first picture is in a different league from the second shot. I knew this when I posted them. I included the second, which is really a documentary picture (but nonetheless fine for a book or magazine illustration) just to accompany the narrative.
I have since tried to get a concluding image of the bare hillside spread with tree-stumps, but have failed. In B/W the brown tonality of the scene doesn't give me enough contrast and separation to make a convicing picture - I need some exceptional light to make it work.
John
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John,
The first photograph is wonderful. The composition, lighting and processing are delicious. Thoroughly enjoyable.
The second is a nice follow up to the first - but pales by comparison.
Kudos on No. 1 - its a great photograph.
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John,
The first photograph is wonderful. The composition, lighting and processing are delicious. Thoroughly enjoyable.
The second is a nice follow up to the first - but pales by comparison.
Kudos on No. 1 - its a great photograph.
My thoughts exactly! As I commented some weeks ago - polished.
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John,
The first photograph is wonderful. The composition, lighting and processing are delicious. Thoroughly enjoyable.
The second is a nice follow up to the first - but pales by comparison.
Kudos on No. 1 - its a great photograph.
Well said!
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Such unanimity of responses is unheard of on LuLa! I'd love to add a dissenting view, just for variety, but I'll have to admit that I, too, agree with what Josh said.
But I hope you'll still find the right light for the "after" shot some day.
Eric
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Such unanimity of responses is unheard of on LuLa!
Eric, The only reason there's no dissenting view is that some of us, or, at least one of us, doesn't want to spoil the party. I grew up among jack pines and tamaracks, but a jack pine or tamarack is just a jack pine or a tamarack. In my summers I was near logging operations and saw lots of logs, but to me a log is a log is a log. I don't want this blanket to sound too wet, so I'll add that in my not terribly humble estimation some of John's work, especially his still life, is quite good.
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Eric, The only reason there's no dissenting view is that some of us, or, at least one of us, doesn't want to spoil the party. I grew up among jack pines and tamaracks, but a jack pine or tamarack is just a jack pine or a tamarack. In my summers I was near logging operations and saw lots of logs, but to me a log is a log is a log. I don't want this blanket to sound too wet, so I'll add that in my not terribly humble estimation some of John's work, especially his still life, is quite good.
Why do I think camera clubs and other MASocieties? But not being a regular commenter (commentator?) here in Critics Corner, I reserve the right to suffer quietly. I've already fallen foul once by biting my tongue too hard... I do learn from experience, really, honestly I do!
;-(
Rob C
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Well Russ (and Rob), with all due respect, I’m going to be totally unapologetic for this one. The first picture represents one of those rare occasions when I managed to pull off the vision I had for the shot and achieve it technically. I get maybe two or three of those a year, at best. And it represents exactly the kind of photograph I want to make, and wish that I could do so far more often.
Actually, in a very real sense it is a still-life, as so much landscape work is. It’s just a very big one.
John
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John, I have to quote the words of a very good professor, speaking on the history of Impressionism. He was talking about Cézanne's painting of the valley near Pontoise: "The subject of the picture is ... completely banal and boring. Yet it exists as a painting because the artist makes it beautiful, and the artist makes it strong, and the artist constructs it."
The point I keep making about landscape photographed versus landscape painted is that a painter can make the banal and boring beautiful, because he can construct it. But you can't really "construct" a photograph, and when the subject you're photographing is banal and boring, the photograph continues to be banal and boring. I remember a comment on an early portrait made during the period of the Pictorialists in which the subject was portrayed as a Biblical figure. I don't remember the exact wording of the comment and I don't have time at the moment to look it up, but it was to the effect that "you could still recognize the subject as miss Johnson." The photographer tried to "construct" the picture but his construction collapsed.
Now, I don't doubt that in your eyes the New Mills Plantation photograph is something special. I look back on certain places and events in 1978 with nostalgia too, and I have photographs from that period and earlier periods that are very precious to me. Some of them are technically excellent; but that doesn't make their content photographically excellent. I even have landscape photographs, and pictures of rocks in mountain streams from the early sixties that a couple of my sons dote on. But they don't dote on them because they're interesting in a general sense but because they remember them hanging in their home when they were very young. They have an emotional connection with them that no one else could have -- not even me.
But let me make a final point: When you put landscape paintings or photographs on the web, made small and heavily compressed in a lossy format, and displayed on a 72 ppi monitor, the viewer can't even begin to evaluate what the picture would look like in a 16 x 20 or 20 x 24 print or painting. I can see that the first New Mills Plantation photograph is technically excellent, and it may be that when it's well printed in large format, it's a knockout. But I'd have to take that on faith, and I just can't do it.
In a way I'm sorry to say these things. I liked your still lifes very much. I think you're a good photographer. But when you put a picture on LuLa in a forum called "User Critiques," I have to assume you're asking for criticism. So far, in this thread, no one else has given you criticism. Just saying "I like it," or suggesting a way to make a pile of logs less banal and boring, doesn't get the job done. I see this happening more and more on here, and, worst of all, I see people whose opinions I value and whose work I often admire, starting to do it. But I'm not Doctor Feelgood, and I won't do it.
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I remain unapologetic ;)
John
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John, I have to quote the words of a very good professor, speaking on the history of Impressionism. He was talking about Cézanne's painting of the valley near Pontoise: "The subject of the picture is ... completely banal and boring. Yet it exists as a painting because the artist makes it beautiful, and the artist makes it strong, and the artist constructs it."
The point I keep making about landscape photographed versus landscape painted is that a painter can make the banal and boring beautiful, because he can construct it. But you can't really "construct" a photograph, and when the subject you're photographing is banal and boring, the photograph continues to be banal and boring. I remember a comment on an early portrait made during the period of the Pictorialists in which the subject was portrayed as a Biblical figure. I don't remember the exact wording of the comment and I don't have time at the moment to look it up, but it was to the effect that "you could still recognize the subject as miss Johnson." The photographer tried to "construct" the picture but his construction collapsed.
Now, I don't doubt that in your eyes the New Mills Plantation photograph is something special. I look back on certain places and events in 1978 with nostalgia too, and I have photographs from that period and earlier periods that are very precious to me. Some of them are technically excellent; but that doesn't make their content photographically excellent. I even have landscape photographs, and pictures of rocks in mountain streams from the early sixties that a couple of my sons dote on. But they don't dote on them because they're interesting in a general sense but because they remember them hanging in their home when they were very young. They have an emotional connection with them that no one else could have -- not even me.
But let me make a final point: When you put landscape paintings or photographs on the web, made small and heavily compressed in a lossy format, and displayed on a 72 ppi monitor, the viewer can't even begin to evaluate what the picture would look like in a 16 x 20 or 20 x 24 print or painting. I can see that the first New Mills Plantation photograph is technically excellent, and it may be that when it's well printed in large format, it's a knockout. But I'd have to take that on faith, and I just can't do it.
In a way I'm sorry to say these things. I liked your still lifes very much. I think you're a good photographer. But when you put a picture on LuLa in a forum called "User Critiques," I have to assume you're asking for criticism. So far, in this thread, no one else has given you criticism. Just saying "I like it," or suggesting a way to make a pile of logs less banal and boring, doesn't get the job done. I see this happening more and more on here, and, worst of all, I see people whose opinions I value and whose work I often admire, starting to do it. But I'm not Doctor Feelgood, and I won't do it.
Given the choice between reading that again or looking at John's picture again, I know which I'd rather do.
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Russ states his opinion on landscape photography clearly and well, and he has every right to do so. Although I may not agree with his opinion, I still respect it.
I am not speaking for John here, but if this were my picture, I would be quite happy to take this comment from Russ:
I can see that the first New Mills Plantation photograph is technically excellent, and it may be that when it's well printed in large format, it's a knockout.
That, and the other comments from everyone else, would be enough for me to go forward...
William
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If I went into an art gallery and saw someone looking at a painting and did the same and then stated to the person it wasn't as good as a photograph,what would be the reaction? At the very least a look of utter disdain. I think this "connection" is taken too far. Personally I look at photographs as photographs and paintings as paintings and I don't try to make a connection. Some would say that I am lacking because of it. There are enough differences between the two for to be judged by their own merits. :) The images aren't world beaters. They are very pleasant and I don't see anything to fault them but John has done better and I think that is the correct way to describe them? ;)
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Given the option, which I have anyway, I know which option I have chosen.
I see the problem almost exactly as Russ describes it. I used to drive through France a hell of a lot in happier days; we used to go north/south and the reverse on trips from Spain to Scotland, always avoiding Paris by cutting west. Once, for a change and in order to see the source of the Dordogne, we went up to Brive as usual and then cut eastwards towards Auxerre. Never did get to the actual source of the river at Le Mont Dore, but stopping for a pee on the roads up there towards Bourg-Lastic (near Clermont-Ferrand) I found myself parked in the middle of forests. The feeling was of a distinct unease. I was no more than twenty feet from the car, but those trees closing in on me were horrific. Did I take a picture? No; not because of fear but because I knew perfectly well there was no point. You can’t show that emotion in those circumstances: you just show trees.
Exactly the same sense of apprehension came to me between Monpazier and Gourdon: smaller, lighter woods but the same claws frozen in time. No pictures. Same reason.
That’s the point I believe that both Russ and I see and make, not just on these specific images, but genre-wide. It isn’t an attack on a specific emperor’s clothing, just that I think neither of us accepts intention as being good enough without the result showing as much. To do so would mean justifying a deed that hasn’t worked, bringing everything down to the condescending, kindergarten level of marking that oh well, his intentions were good!
Rob C
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The feeling was of a distinct unease. I was no more than twenty feet from the car, but those trees closing in on me were horrific. Did I take a picture? No; not because of fear but because I knew perfectly well there was no point. You can’t show that emotion in those circumstances: you just show trees.
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I agree about the fear. I once got lost for a couple of hours in a forest. The photographer can't show emotion but can evoke emotion. Looking at the trees brought back memories of being lost. :-[
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If I went into an art gallery and saw someone looking at a painting and did the same and then stated to the person it wasn't as good as a photograph,what would be the reaction? At the very least a look of utter disdain. I think this "connection" is taken too far. Personally I look at photographs as photographs and paintings as paintings and I don't try to make a connection. Some would say that I am lacking because of it. There are enough differences between the two for to be judged by their own merits. :) The images aren't world beaters. They are very pleasant and I don't see anything to fault them but John has done better and I think that is the correct way to describe them? ;)
But stamper, this doesn't apply in the direction you make it.
The argument about landscape photography and painting is distinct; it's based on the notion that painting demands creativity from the painter because he starts from nothing whereas photography simply demands ownership of a machine and being there, skill a given with both.
In the case of John's woodlands, it's merits appear to depend on the images/feelings he had in his mind at the time of shooting; these do not really appear in the pictures we see. At least, not without a certain amount of explanation and hope. Come on, you've been to the Trossachs as often if not more than I have; what's so especially cool with John's little corner of trees? Take all the Getty and Corbis shots of redwoods and you are neither any more forward nor worse off; they just are.
Rob C
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The feeling was of a distinct unease. I was no more than twenty feet from the car, but those trees closing in on me were horrific. Did I take a picture? No; not because of fear but because I knew perfectly well there was no point. You can’t show that emotion in those circumstances: you just show trees.
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I agree about the fear. I once got lost for a couple of hours in a forest. The photographer can't show emotion but can evoke emotion. Looking at the trees brought back memories of being lost. :-[
But that's you, a Pavlovian reaction that anything connected to that memory will inspire.
Woof, woof!
Rob C
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But that's you, a Pavlovian reaction that anything connected to that memory will inspire.
Woof, woof!
Rob C
Now I know that you are barking mad. :) ;D
>But stamper, this doesn't apply in the direction you make it.
The argument about landscape photography and painting is distinct; it's based on the notion that painting demands creativity from the painter because he starts from nothing whereas photography simply demands ownership of a machine and being there, skill a given with both.<
It is this distinction that I think is different enough that there isn't a connection - at least in my mind - between photography and paintings. Personally paintings don't do much for me mostly because as you pointed out they are created, some from photographs ironically. As to the Trossachs I have only seen them from a bus - don't drive - and that was going over the Duke's pass to Callendar.
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Now I know that you are barking mad. :) ;D
>But stamper, this doesn't apply in the direction you make it.
The argument about landscape photography and painting is distinct; it's based on the notion that painting demands creativity from the painter because he starts from nothing whereas photography simply demands ownership of a machine and being there, skill a given with both.<
It is this distinction that I think is different enough that there isn't a connection - at least in my mind - between photography and paintings. Personally paintings don't do much for me mostly because as you pointed out they are created, some from photographs ironically. As to the Trossachs I have only seen them from a bus - don't drive - and that was going over the Duke's pass to Callendar.
Barking mad, all right, but that's because we only went to the Trossachs when it rained. Then, you could park in the very few lay-bys that existed in those days and have a cosy picnic in the car, watching the rain sweep across the screen, exactly as, years later, we were to do sitting in La Roque-Gageac carpark, the storm bounce off the rising Dordogne. Boy, do those French get floods there! No wonder they are so much into duck.
Rob C
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Given the choice between reading that again or looking at John's picture again, I know which I'd rather do.
+100!
I think Russ and Rob have both made it clear that
1. Landscape photographs leave them cold, and
2. Anybody who responds positively to landscape photographs is guilty of Wrong Thinking. :D
Eric
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+100!
I think Russ and Rob have both made it clear that
1. Landscape photographs leave them cold, and
2. Anybody who responds positively to landscape photographs is guilty of Wrong Thinking. :DEric
Oh dear, such unwarranted interpretation of position! The only question I pose is whether it's art... simple, non?
I, personally, often feel positive towards such photographs, have even bought monographs; I just don't think it creative and, by that token, not art in my sense of art being a creative entity. My reasons for buying were twofold: first, at a time when I still thought landscape a good stock idea it was research; secondly, as I was doing a lot of travelling, it helped get a sense of the places before I got there, yet further research. Basically, for me, it represented geographical information and not a lot more. I already knew about filters and films and formats and lenses...
Rob C
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+100!
I think Russ and Rob have both made it clear that
1. Landscape photographs leave them cold, and
2. Anybody who responds positively to landscape photographs is guilty of Wrong Thinking. :D
Eric
Eric, I'm not sure how you arrived at such a broad generalization on the basis of a specific criticism of a specific pair of photographs, but, to say the least, it's quite a jump.
Landscape photographs don't "leave me cold." I've seen Josh do some color work in landscape that's right up there near what a painter could do. But it would be accurate to say that most landscape photographs leave me cold, mainly because they're strictly "so what" photographs.
There's very little you can do to a photograph that will result in the kind of emotional interpretation a really good painter can produce. That may seem as if I'm knocking photography, but you have to remember that I'm a photographer, so it would seem at least somewhat unreasonable to assume I'm knocking my own art. The fact is that photography is an art form that's best applied to certain genres, among which we don't find landscape. As the professor I quoted pointed out: in the raw, most landscapes are completely banal and boring. And once you level your camera at them and shoot, their straight photographic images remain banal and boring. If you're Ansel Adams you may be able to remove some of the banality and make the result less boring. But it would be interesting to see a comparison between Ansel's "Monolith," and an interpretation of the same scene by, say, Turner. I think that had Turner painted the same scene, Ansel's photograph would, by now, have been relegated at least to a footnote, if not to the round file.
If you want to see what I consider photography's proper function as an art form, take a look at The Americans. Since you're a photographer I have no doubt you're familiar with the book. This is a genre where painting can't begin to compete with photography. I could go on, but this isn't the place to argue the point. If you want, we can start another thread for that discussion.
It's not "wrong" thinking, Eric. A better description would be "soft" thinking. And even then you have to be selective.
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If you're Ansel Adams you may be able to remove some of the banality and make the result less boring. But it would be interesting to see a comparison between Ansel's "Monolith," and an interpretation of the same scene by, say, Turner. I think that had Turner painted the same scene, Ansel's photograph would, by now, have been relegated at least to a footnote, if not to the round file.
There I have to step in and take exception to that statement. You're really comparing apples and oranges. Photography and painting are different mediums and owe their narrative power to different things. One doesn't diminish the other. Many fine artists have painted Yosemite Valley and yet Adams' photographs remain as impressive as ever. And although landscape painting and landscape photography are both art forms that derive from observation of the world, painting is by its nature wholly interpretive, while photography is both a record of the world and an interpretation of it. It is the interplay of its observational and interpretive aspects that gives photography its unique power in the hands of a master.
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Pop, I wouldn't begin to claim that photography and painting aren't different media and owe their narrative power to different things. That's exactly why well-done genre photographs usually are better than genre paintings. Yes, Adams's photographs remain impressive -- as photographs. Whether or not paintings by "many fine artists" can be compared with Adams's photographs is another question, but since I don't know which painters you have in mind I can't comment on that.
But, yes, painting is wholly interpretive, which is why it can be so powerful given the right subjects. Landscape, especially landscape that includes the hand of man, is one of those "right" subjects. But it's very hard to do "interpretation" in photographs. Ansel probably did more "interpretation" than any other landscape photographer, and his landscape photographs stand out compared with other landscape photographs. But narrative photography is iconic. It's almost impossible to do effective allegory with a photograph, and that's what's so wonderful about Bierstadt's painting: "Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California." The painting is allegorical. It cuts through the banality of what would be a normal, iconic scene (a photograph) and sums up the shock and wonder of the early settlers first glimpses of these incredible mountains. No photograph could come close to doing the same thing.
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Pop, I wouldn't begin to claim that photography and painting aren't different media and owe their narrative power to different things. That's exactly why well-done genre photographs usually are better than genre paintings. Yes, Adams's photographs remain impressive -- as photographs. Whether or not paintings by "many fine artists" can be compared with Adams's photographs is another question, but since I don't know which painters you have in mind I can't comment on that.
Again, I don't think you can compare the two mediums qualitatively. It's like saying you can compare a thoroughbred racehorse to a Ferrari. They're fundamentally different animals even though there is significant overlap in the sense that they're both modes of transportation. Both will get you where you need to go. But neither diminishes the other by being good at what it does.
As for landscape painters of note that have painted Yosemite valley, Albert Bierstadt is probably the most highly regarded. Some of his work is quite lovely. A much more modern painter, John Marin, has done a few.
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There I have to step in and take exception to that statement. You're really comparing apples and oranges. Photography and painting are different mediums and owe their narrative power to different things. One doesn't diminish the other. Many fine artists have painted Yosemite Valley and yet Adams' photographs remain as impressive as ever. And although landscape painting and landscape photography are both art forms that derive from observation of the world, painting is by its nature wholly interpretive, while photography is both a record of the world and an interpretation of it. It is the interplay of its observational and interpretive aspects that gives photography its unique power in the hands of a master.
Well said. I admit I get tired of hearing these arguments that landscape paintings as a class are better (or more inspiring or whatever) than landscape photographs as a class. They are indeed different media and serve different purposes.
I do suspect that both Russ and Rob take a fairly narrow view of photography and are both missing something, just as they probably suspect that I am missing something.
I agree with them that some landscapes (painting or photograph) are more effective with a human element in them, but others are not. I don't think Ansel's Monolith would be improved by sticking a person in the foreground just to give it scale. And yes, Robert Frank's work is wonderful, too.
Eric
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Pop, It seems to me that context has a lot to do with whether or not you can compare a racehorse to a Ferrari. If you look at them as a means of transportation, in most cases the Ferrari wins hands down. If you look at them from the standpoint of physical beauty the racehorse probably wins hands down. I don't think you can say categorically that you can't make such a comparison. You have to specify a context before the statement makes any sense at all.
So, if we specify the context, maybe we can agree. I'd certainly agree that Ansel's photographs of Yosemite are more iconic than Albert's paintings. So, if I wanted to say to someone, "This is what Yosemite looks like (in black and white)," I'd lean toward Ansel. But if I wanted an allegorical approach that would convey the real beauty of the place I'd put my money on Albert.
Unfortunately, perhaps, I'm not familiar with Marin's Yosemite paintings.
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Horses and cars. Unfortunately, I think we have not only drifted away from the main topic which I take to be (possibly incorrectly) about whether photographic landscape is creative or not, but we have slipped into selecting two of the most erratic and unreliable sorts of exotica with which to make comparisons!
Regarding St Ansel's mountains: without doubt, great photographic works, but that's where the 'greatness' of his, and all other such snappers' work ends: within the context of photography. The moment one puts photographs and paintings (both by accomplished practitioners) alongside one another, the problems for photography begin to be very plain. It's also difficult if not impossible to hang colour and b/w photographs alongside one another without discrediting either one or the other.
There certainly are genres where photography wins hands down, such as comment on the passing show that is life (see Jennifer's delicious work), but I can't see landscape as being amongst the candidates for glory.
Sadly, the more I ponder the matter, and I have had to quite a lot of late, the more I am convinced that landcape is best served as stock material for travel brochures and magazines (not a put-down), and that its popularity is probably largely due to the lack of alternative photographic opportunity many of us face. We have the urge without having the outlets for something more meaningful.
Again, this is not meant as attack but as observation and personal opinion. As Eric writes - I could well be the one missing something.
Rob C
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The moment one puts photographs and paintings (both by accomplished practitioners) alongside one another, the problems for photography begin to be very plain.
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Then stop comparing them. Personally I don't, therefore I don't have a problem. ;D
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The moment one puts photographs and paintings (both by accomplished practitioners) alongside one another, the problems for photography begin to be very plain.
Unquote
Then stop comparing them. Personally I don't, therefore I don't have a problem. ;D
+10!
Thank you for saying that, Stamper!
Now could we perhaps start a discussion comparing etchings with YouTube videos??? ::)
Eric
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+10!
Thank you for saying that, Stamper!
Now could we perhaps start a discussion comparing etchings with YouTube videos??? ::)
Eric
Well, I've heard of the line: would you like to come home with me and see my etchings...?
Doubt that youtube would ring the same chimes; after all, she could probably do that herself, in her own place.
Rob C
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The first shot is a good one. It evokes a sense of place, is compositionally interesting & well exposed. The second one is well exposed. That's all I can honestly say about number two. It evokes no positive response in me. Aesthetically, it leaves me cold. But the first one is a good one.
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The second one was posted, as John clearly indicated in one of his earlier responses, for information only. The first is a fine landscape, and I enjoy coming back to it often.
Eric
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The moment one puts photographs and paintings (both by accomplished practitioners) alongside one another, the problems for photography begin to be very plain.
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Then stop comparing them. Personally I don't, therefore I don't have a problem. ;D
That's what the ostrich said!
Rob C
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That's what the ostrich said!
Rob C
[rant]I am disappointed that this thread got hijacked into another discussion of X vs. Y, which has nothing to do with the original post, which showed a pair of images in the critique section, thus inviting comments from those that might have something constructive to suggest to John about his images.
I wish to apologize to John and all other LuLa readers for getting caught up in this irrelevant debate myself.
If some of you wish to debate further the relative merits of painting vs. photography, Canon vs. Nikon, DSLR vs. MFDB, street photography vs. studio photography, portraits vs. macro photos of insects, or how many photons can fit on the head of a pin, please start threads of your own, preferably in the Coffee Corner section, and not in the Critiques section. Let's please do our best to keep comments in the Critiques section relevant to the original post.[/rant]
Eric
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[rant]this irrelevant debate myself.
Eric
Eric, I am not questioning your statement regarding the thread being hijacked, I am also not necessarily agreeing with you on that one. This debate has caused me , in the last few days, to really question what I am trying to do with my photography, trying to understand other points-of-view, and so-on.
I was thinking of making post along these lines because I have enjoyed this debate, but was not sure where to post it!
It seems that John's posts often become "involved" and I think that that is a good thing. I am learning new things every day, not only about art and photography, but also about people.
Perhaps this should be moved elsewhere if John is worried about this one being hi-jacked. I am keen to hear more...
William
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That's the beauty of this place, of LuLa as a whole: one thing leads to another and vision, of all kinds, gets broadened.
At the end of the day, what and how much can you say about any picture? That's why it usually ends up with anodyne inanities like: +1! or Me too! or even I love it! The alternative is gallery-speak. To which those who revel in crap are welcome.
If this 'stolen' thread has helped even one person think outside the confines of his mental cage, the I, personally, feel I've done something worthwhile with my time.
It's the only reason I have stuck with this site whilst abandoning everything else online into which I've looked for edification.
Rob C
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What nobody so far has managed to mention, is the quite obvious reason why the first picture works well and the second one does not -
The first picture draws the eye into the scene, by virtue of leading lines and a dark surround.
The second picture pushes the eye back out of the scene, because the pile of logs in the foreground blocks the eye from progressing.
Which is actually the stuff we should be talking about.
John
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[rant]I am disappointed that this thread got hijacked into another discussion of X vs. Y, which has nothing to do with the original post, which showed a pair of images in the critique section, thus inviting comments from those that might have something constructive to suggest to John about his images.
I wish to apologize to John and all other LuLa readers for getting caught up in this irrelevant debate myself.
If some of you wish to debate further the relative merits of painting vs. photography, Canon vs. Nikon, DSLR vs. MFDB, street photography vs. studio photography, portraits vs. macro photos of insects, or how many photons can fit on the head of a pin, please start threads of your own, preferably in the Coffee Corner section, and not in the Critiques section. Let's please do our best to keep comments in the Critiques section relevant to the original post.[/rant]
Eric
Eric, If the thread was "hijacked," when was it hijacked, and why? If you look back at the beginning of the thread you'll discover that until I suggested John's posted pictures might be less than splendid, the criticisms amounted to "I really like the first one," and similar penetrating observations: as you put it, "a unanimity of responses." What I saw, and still see, is something I've often seen in "camera club" offerings: good lighting but subject matter from which photography can't remove the banality.
John responded that the picture represents a rare occasion when he managed to pull off the vision he had for the shot and achieve it technically. "Technically" is the operative word. Yes, technically the shot's very good, but the "vision" is John's. Nothing wrong with that. I'm sure the picture means a lot to John. I have a bunch of pictures like that: technically excellent, but with subject matter that means a lot to me but to no one else.
Maybe there's a feeling that it's not legitimate to criticize subject matter on LuLa. If that's true, then we're restricted to criticizing the technical aspects of posted pictures. That leaves us at about the same point you'd be on Nikonians or Leica Users' Forum where you're pretty much restricted to discussing the qualities of cameras. But let's face it, when Christoph says, about Jennifer's street shots: "Two images, two stories, well executed. Good stuff! Thanks for showing these." and you respond "And me too!" you're both offering subject matter criticism. So what's different? Landscape is off the criticism list but street photography isn't?
The thread got hijacked, if that's the word, when I suggested that painting can do things with landscape that photography can't do. The response was:
I think Russ and Rob have both made it clear that
1. Landscape photographs leave them cold, and
2. Anybody who responds positively to landscape photographs is guilty of Wrong Thinking.
Which had nothing at all to do with what I'd said. From there on the thread degenerated into a rejection of the idea that painting can do things photography can't, and ended up pretty much with Stamper throwing up his hands and telling us that he can't deal with that idea, and that his personal solution to the problem is: "Then stop comparing them. Personally I don't, therefore I don't have a problem."
John's a good photographer. A couple of his landscapes -- ones which, incidentally, included the hand of man -- were interesting. His still lifes were excellent. But these two... well... I don't want to beat this to death, but I just can't get inside the idea that a stand of trees, all by itself, can be interesting subject matter, unless, perhaps, you watched them grow from tiny plugs, as John did.
Let me give you a comparison: Last year Chuck Kimmerle did a series of North Dakota landscapes that were published in LensWork. It was fine work. The pictures weren't any more technically excellent than John's first picture, but they showed the effect of the striking, cold barrenness of a North Dakota winter upon its residents by including what art critics call "indices. Black and white was entirely appropriate to the scenes he was portraying. Color would have interfered with the feeling the pictures were intended to portray. Several pictures included the hand of man and were pointers to the kind of life North Dakotans live in the winter. I loved those pictures. They were landscape pictures! It's one case where I doubt a painter could have improved on what Chuck did. But there are very, very few cases like that.
So there's a subject matter criticism for you. Seems to me that if we can say "I like it," we ought to be able to say "I don't think much of it" as long as we include a "why."It doesn't make much sense to me to have a "critique" section that outlaws criticism.
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That's the beauty of this place, of LuLa as a whole: one thing leads to another and vision, of all kinds, gets broadened.
AT THE END OF THE DAY, WHAT AND HOW MUCH CAN YOU SAY ABOUT ANY PICTURE? THAT'S WHY IT USUALLY ENDS UP WITH ANODYNE INANITIES LIKE: +1! OR ME TOO! OR EVEN I LOVE IT! THE ALTERNATIVE IS GALLERY-SPEAK. TO WHICH THOSE WHO REVEL IN CRAP ARE WELCOME.
If this 'stolen' thread has helped even one person think outside the confines of his mental cage, the I, personally, feel I've done something worthwhile with my time.
It's the only reason I have stuck with this site whilst abandoning everything else online into which I've looked for edification.
Rob C
Fertilizer varies a lot in its quality and in it's appropriate uses. [IMHO your's is one of the best grades and broadly applicable.]
Describing how we structure what we see in photos is like horseshoes and hand-grenades, though not always as accurate. It is necessary though. I seldom revel in other people's ideas about what is going on in a photo, other than to I think how clever I am for seeing it my way, but sometimes I learn something.
Bruce
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Fertilizer varies a lot in its quality and in it's appropriate uses. [IMHO your's is one of the best grades and broadly applicable.]
Describing how we structure what we see in photos is like horseshoes and hand-grenades, though not always as accurate. It is necessary though. I seldom revel in other people's ideas about what is going on in a photo, other than to I think how clever I am for seeing it my way, but sometimes I learn something.
Bruce
Oh? Why?
Rob C
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Oh? Why?
Rob C
"Describing" because even visual people think largely in words and showing would be redundant or imitative. [I don't mean to exclude changing it to what you think looks better]
It is necessary because being part right is better than having no idea at all.
Different minds see more variously than different eyes do. And people change their minds. It's a mess, but if we are to communicate with images we need to hear about how other people see them. Guessing what they see based on our own reaction, even when it is the most informed, is relatively neat and clean, but less accurate. Besides, this way you get to tell other people how to see.
Bruce
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Which had nothing at all to do with what I'd said. From there on the thread degenerated into a rejection of the idea that painting can do things photography can't, and ended up pretty much with Stamper throwing up his hands and telling us that he can't deal with that idea, and that his personal solution to the problem is: "Then stop comparing them. Personally I don't, therefore I don't have a problem."
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No hands in the air, they were on the keyboard ;D This is a photography site and this is a photographic critique thread. The constant references to painting didn't - imo - help progress the thread in any way. I suspect that most members don't connect the two subjects in any meaningful way? I sensed, surprisingly, that the art of painting was portrayed in some way superior - in someone's mind - to photography and WE should all listen - or more accurately read - and accept that premise. Everybody is entitled to their opinion but hijacking the thread to promote the idea that painting is superior, at the expense of photography, was OTT. :(
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"Describing" because even visual people think largely in words and showing would be redundant or imitative. [I don't mean to exclude changing it to what you think looks better]
It is necessary because being part right is better than having no idea at all.
Different minds see more variously than different eyes do. And people change their minds. It's a mess, but if we are to communicate with images we need to hear about how other people see them. Guessing what they see based on our own reaction, even when it is the most informed, is relatively neat and clean, but less accurate. Besides, this way you get to tell other people how to see.
Bruce
Are you saying that, in your opinion, all images require captions? I think it's a valid comment for any sort of news-photography where the image is just (?) an illustration of an event, but for so-called decorative/artistic uses, I think words are a distracting problem rather than anything else: after all, it's the initial buzz that the buyer gets that counts, that opens the wallet or not, not the play in the snapper's mind as he pressed the button. In fact, that emotional connection is a right royal pain: it causes photographers to impart special worth to mundane images of theirs, simply because they were having a jolly at the time of clenching, a jolly that exists only in their head and not in the image: an exercise in futility.
There you are, some more hi-grade fertiliser for the farm!
;-)
Rob C
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Quote
Which had nothing at all to do with what I'd said. From there on the thread degenerated into a rejection of the idea that painting can do things photography can't, and ended up pretty much with Stamper throwing up his hands and telling us that he can't deal with that idea, and that his personal solution to the problem is: "Then stop comparing them. Personally I don't, therefore I don't have a problem."
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No hands in the air, they were on the keyboard ;D This is a photography site and this is a photographic critique thread. The constant references to painting didn't - imo - help progress the thread in any way. I suspect that most members don't connect the two subjects in any meaningful way? I sensed, surprisingly, that the art of painting was portrayed in some way superior - in someone's mind - to photography and WE should all listen - or more accurately read - and accept that premise. Everybody is entitled to their opinion but hijacking the thread to promote the idea that painting is superior, at the expense of photography, was OTT. :(
Stamper, in some circumstances it most certainly is a superior medium; to pretend otherwise is just that: pretence.
As you say, the two are different media but that doesn't prevent or save one from its shortcomings relative to the other, and to imitate the actions of the ostrich (rather than of the tiger) is self-defeating at best and does neither 'art' any service.
Blindness to failures is akin to football fanaticism, and God save us from that in these gentle pages!
Rob C
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Stamper, in some circumstances it most certainly is a superior medium; to pretend otherwise is just that: pretence.
As you say, the two are different media but that doesn't prevent or save one from its shortcomings relative to the other, and to imitate the actions of the ostrich (rather than of the tiger) is self-defeating at best and does neither 'art' any service.
Blindness to failures is akin to football fanaticism, and God save us from that in these gentle pages!
Rob C
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The first sentence is very subjective. I am someone who isn't interested in paintings so it doesn't impact on my photographic mind. As to shortcomings relative to each other, Sean Reid, a couple of weeks ago, had an article in this site where he had an analogy with motor cars. I didn't see the connection there either. No doubt someone will state if I get interested in painting it will improve my photography. Now where is the shutter button on the paint brush? ;)
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Stamper, in some circumstances it most certainly is a superior medium; to pretend otherwise is just that: pretence.
As you say, the two are different media but that doesn't prevent or save one from its shortcomings relative to the other, and to imitate the actions of the ostrich (rather than of the tiger) is self-defeating at best and does neither 'art' any service.
Blindness to failures is akin to football fanaticism, and God save us from that in these gentle pages!
Rob C
Unquote
The first sentence is very subjective. I am someone who isn't interested in paintings so it doesn't impact on my photographic mind. As to shortcomings relative to each other, Sean Reid, a couple of weeks ago, had an article in this site where he had an analogy with motor cars. I didn't see the connection there either. No doubt someone will state if I get interested in painting it will improve my photography. Now where is the shutter button on the paint brush? ;)
Well I don't have any fertiliser for that one, stamper, but what I do have is an elegant solution for my (one of) photographic problems which was a 35mm lens that I might feel obliged (foolishly, in my case) to buy as a sort of jeep for a carry-around system: all I need do is fish out the immaculate D200 which has lain dormant in the ally box since the arrival of the D700, and stick on the manual 2.8/24mm that is pretty damned good, as I know from its use on houses. Using the central zone will make it even better! I should have known that everything in life has its reasons, and that the reason I didn't get a good purchase offer for the D200 was that it wasn't the right move for me; should have learned years ago my own lesson, oft quoted here for the benefit of others: sell nothing, you never know.
;-)
Rob
PS As I was playing with the D200 I decided to stick black tape over the white Nikon branding... how old-fashioned and derivative! Totally made my day, which indicates the sort of day I'm having, though my own, home-made salad lunch was nice. The sardines will probably give me indigestion, though; I find anchovies far too salty.
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Are you saying that, in your opinion, all images require captions? I think it's a valid comment for any sort of news-photography where the image is just (?) an illustration of an event, but for so-called decorative/artistic uses, I think words are a distracting problem rather than anything else: after all, it's the initial buzz that the buyer gets that counts, that opens the wallet or not, not the play in the snapper's mind as he pressed the button. In fact, that emotional connection is a right royal pain: it causes photographers to impart special worth to mundane images of theirs, simply because they were having a jolly at the time of clenching, a jolly that exists only in their head and not in the image: an exercise in futility.
There you are, some more hi-grade fertiliser for the farm!
;-)
Rob C
I didn't mean captions; I think they are best done without or, if necessary, kept to a minimum. I meant the ideas I have viewing someone else's photo, what I think I see and the relevant or topical implications. "Gallery-speak" or at least speaking in galleries such as this can make a certian amount of sense and is frequently an antidote to the photographer's emotional connection.
Bruce
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" "Gallery-speak" or at least speaking in galleries such as this..."
That's something else; gallery-speak to me is all about 'artist's credo' and the worst example of this I heard, at first hand, was in Hamilton's Gallery in London several years ago, when Robert Mapplethorpe's brother was having a show. I was looking at an indifferent (to me) image, hung large on the wll, when a guy in brown cords and tweed jacket stood beside me with a woman who appeared to be getting the guided tour number played on her. The undiluted fertiliser (new buzz word for me this week!) to come out of the guy's mouth was far more interesting and amusing than the pics! Had I the time, I'd have faked longer interest and hug around just for the soundtrack.
Of course, who really knows if he had anything to do with the gallery? I don't... but hell, with Patty Loveless singing Crazy Arms softly into my ears right now I'd forgive anyone everything!
Rob C
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I am someone who isn't interested in paintings so it doesn't impact on my photographic mind. As to shortcomings relative to each other, Sean Reid, a couple of weeks ago, had an article in this site where he had an analogy with motor cars. I didn't see the connection there either. No doubt someone will state if I get interested in painting it will improve my photography. Now where is the shutter button on the paint brush? ;)
Stamper, Do you know anything at all about the history of photography? If you were to study that history you might be able to learn two interesting facts: (1) Many of history's best known photographers studied painting. Henri Cartier-Bresson, certainly the most influential photographer of the 20th century, is the prime example. The man certainly acquired his fabulous knack for intuitive composition in his classes with Andre Lhote, the painter. (2) The vast majority of the world's best known photographers photographed people and their artifacts primarily, not landscape. Ansel was an anomaly, and he was an anomaly not because he was such a great photographer, but because he was a great printer. Edward did some interesting landscapes but his fame came primarily from photographs of vegetables and people.
First came the Pictorialists, whose often maudlin photographs strained to duplicate the effect of paintings. It's not unreasonable to say that Paul Strand's photograph of the blind woman marked the first serious deviation from Pictorialism. From then on both Strand and Stieglitz, and then the whole photographic community began to abandon Pictorialism, but Pictorialism lived on among many photographers who continued, and continue, to work hard to make their photographs look like paintings. Most of these folks do landscapes.
You don't have to be "interested in paintings" to understand that painting, and printmaking along with photography are varieties of flat, visual art. Since that's true, there's nothing unreasonable, or, as it seems you're implying, illegal, in making comparisons between the effect of paintings, prints, and photographs. Yes, there's no doubt that a serious study of painting can improve your photography. But, since you claim you'd be looking for a shutter button on a paintbrush, it seems unlikely you'd be able to take advantage of that fact.
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It is highly unlikely that a Jehovah's Witness, knocking on my door, will persuade me to become a believer. It is equally unlikely that I would walk into a temple during a prayer and persuade anyone inside that God does not exist.
It is equally unlikely that Russ at al. will ever persuade me that landscape photography is a lesser genre (let alone lesser art or art at all). It is equally unlikely that I would ever persuade them that, say, street photography is a lesser genre just because it invokes the same "so what?" reaction in me as a sunset does for them.
In the above sense, it has become rather tiresome to be badgered with the same rehashed arguments about superiority of (landscape) paintings over (landscape) photography. Especially when Russ' Witnesses do so inside a temple of landscape photography ;)
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It is equally unlikely that Russ at al. will ever persuade me that landscape photography is a lesser genre...
Slobodan, I have to conclude that you came in late and didn't read the whole thread. I never said that landscape photography is a lesser genre. In fact, I gave an example of Chuck Kimmerle's work that I'd say probably is superior to painting. That series of pictures had a theme and the theme depended very much on the iconic nature of the pictures. The effect probably would have been less powerful in a painting.
But I also said that painting can control linear perspective and atmospheric perspective to a much greater extent than photography can. You can get lucky with atmospheric perspective on a foggy day, but you can't change linear perspective in a photograph. I also pointed out that you can control color in a painting in a way you can't even begin to control it in a photograph. And since you have to take what's there pretty much as is, though you can burn and dodge the way Ansel did, you can't make the kind of allegorical modifications you can make in a painting. Another thing I said, in a different thread, is that the most effective landscape paintings and photographs include man and/or his artifacts.
So, what does all that amount to? What I said is that landscape painting can be more effective than landscape photography. To interpret that as "landscape photography is a lesser genre" is a bit of a stretch.
I do landscape all the time. Here's one. It's even in black and white. But note that the hand of man is the focal point, not the trees.
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But Russ, yes, you have indeed been badgering us "with the same rehashed arguments about superiority of (landscape) paintings over (landscape) photography" over and over in this thread (where it certainly is irrelevant to the original post), and in many others. The fact that you magnanimously bestow your blessing on one of Chuck's images, or that you even deign to show a "landscape" of your own (while taking pains to point out that the Hand of Man is the Focus) does not alter that fact.
With your insistence on the "Hand of Man" as being essential to any landscape, I am a little surprised that you didn't prefer John's second image (the logs, obviously cut by the Hand of Man) to the first one, in which the Hand of Man was perhaps less obvious.
IMHO comments that Subject Matter X is {unsuitable, less valuable, whatever} than Subject Matter Y is always unhelpful, dogmatic, and I would rather childish. I still believe that if you don't care for the subject matter of a post in the Critiques section, you should refrain from making any comment at all, unless you have something constructive to say.
And yes, I can find an image of Cartier-Bresson's that I think is admirable, too. And all of your comments about your views on landscape that I have read on the LuLa forum tell me that your view of photography is rather constricted. If that makes you happy, so be it.
I agree 100% with Slobodan when he said, "It is equally unlikely that Russ at al. will ever persuade me that landscape photography is a lesser genre..." Your mileage evidently does vary.
Eric
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I'm probably sure to be wrong, here, but has anybody pondered the paucity of b/w landscape painting?
I guess that's because b/w landscape photography would beat it hands down. So no, being the "et al." probably referred to by Slobodan, I don't denigrate b/w landscape as a lesser medium than painting, and I have congratulated Chuck privately in the past, but that, at the same time, is the Achilles heel: it has to be black/white (IMO) to stand up to good paint. But as to either photo genre being 'creative', that's something else; but as we end up saying, that's a negative take of mine.
As for the context, LuLa. Why ever not? It's landscape photography we are discussing.
I plead guilt too, if I can find some, one of which has a tiny bit of colour but is, essentially, b/w. I don't like tints, either, which I see as a sort of truss to contain the other collapses. ;-(
Rob C
PS To get something positive out of all this, can anybody identify the tall weeds in the coloured shot? They are about two metres tall.
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IMHO comments that Subject Matter X is {unsuitable, less valuable, whatever} than Subject Matter Y is always unhelpful, dogmatic, and I would rather childish. I still believe that if you don't care for the subject matter of a post in the Critiques section, you should refrain from making any comment at all, unless you have something constructive to say.
Eric, Ah ha!! You actually came right out and said what I suspected you were working toward: In your estimation it's wrong to criticize subject matter here on "User Critiques." So, like Nikonians and LUF, where the only thing you can talk about is cameras, here on "User Critiques" we're prohibited from "critiquing" subject matter -- unless, as you say, we "have something 'constructive' to say." Would that include "I like it?" How about "me too?" "what he said?" or "+1?" But "I think the subject of the photograph is banal" is a no-no? How about "-1?" Maybe Michael or somebody ought to post a list of legitimate critique subjects.
Subject matter is probably the most significant thing you'll find in a photograph. Since you can't do the kind of allegorical interpretation in a photograph that you can do in a painting, the subject matter always is iconic -- a representation of the real thing. So, in most cases the real thing is the whole point of the photograph. Which is exactly why Walker Evans said to his student: "It's a beautiful sunset. So what?" No subject matter is off limits for painting or photography as long as the painting or photograph makes its point, which is exactly what I indicated when I mentioned the professor's comment on Cézanne's painting of the valley near Pontoise. I avoid commenting on a lot of posts on User Critiques because they're put there by people just fooling around, not trying to make a serious point in a photograph. But when someone who's demonstrated his capability as a photographer comes up with a "so what?" photograph I think pointing out the flaw is a reasonable criticism.
Frankly, I'm surprised that any visual artist, which includes photographers, would be unwilling to examine and discuss the relationships between photography, painting, engraving, etching, lithograph, etc., etc., etc. Seems a pretty narrow frame of mind for an artist.
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I agree with your points, Russ, and the problem that faces photography really is about interpretation and representation. And perhaps it’s something not confined to landscape only.
In my own field of greatest interest – women – there used to be (no longer know because I stopped buying), in Playboy, an artist called Vargas, who was given a page each month for his classic paintings of girls. Now, you could be forgiven for thinking that in Playboy, of all showcases, the photography of the centrefold would knock the paint into a cocked hat (hmmm… careful Rob), but no, it didn’t. The reverse: the Vargas Girls were better because they allowed for an artist’s exaggeration and/or compiling of given ideals and the putting of them all together in a single image. All the centrefold could do was over-light.
However, where photography scored was in the other, freer photography styles, where the happy play of light and breeze on hair, the flashing expression on a girl’s face was uncatchable on canvas.
And those two photographic extremes, of the same subject, illustrate how the same medium has problems even within the same genre, never mind when facing comparison, which in life, fairly or otherwise, everything does: apples, oranges, pears and cactus. Why should landscape photography believe itself superior or immune from similar challenges?
But yes, there is the clear fear of criticism, so obvious in this thread, that somehow another’s opinion can bring the cosy inner world tumbling to its knees. My, my, darlings, welcome to just another day in the life of the professional.
And in case any of you wonders why this thread has been permitted to remain breathing, I’d suggest that it’s because Michael has been there, done that and understands the nature of the water.
Rob C
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Many of history's best known photographers studied painting. Henri Cartier-Bresson, certainly the most influential photographer of the 20th century
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Considering Henri was a primarily a street photographer then the connection to painting would be tenuous? A connection between landscape and paintings less so. What I won't do is go into a gallery and look at the paintings for a while and then go onto the street and look for scenes that resemble the compositions in the paintings. The world is ever changing and the paintings aren't. The paintings are a work of someone's imagination and the street isn't. Russ as you have pointed out in the past the street is the only ever changing subject. Painters are more likely to study photographs and use them in their imaginative interpretations rather than the other way around. I think you have reversed the logic? ;)
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But I also said that painting can control linear perspective and atmospheric perspective to a much greater extent than photography can. You can get lucky with atmospheric perspective on a foggy day, but you can't change linear perspective in a photograph. I also pointed out that you can control color in a painting in a way you can't even begin to control it in a photograph. And since you have to take what's there pretty much as is, though you can burn and dodge the way Ansel did, you can't make the kind of allegorical modifications you can make in a painting.
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I am heading out soon to try and get a meaningful image. There will be a lot of thoughts going through my mind when I am about to take a photograph, but not when I press the shutter. What won't be going through my mind is any of the above. If anyone is thinking about this when they are looking to get a good image then I think they should be thinking about something more relative? Are there any good painting forums where I can state that photography is the superior art forum? :)
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And in case any of you wonders why this thread has been permitted to remain breathing, I’d suggest that it’s because Michael has been there, done that and understands the nature of the water.
Rob C
Rob
I very much doubt it. It's far more likely that he simply can't be arsed to read it ;)
John
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Considering Henri was a primarily a street photographer then the connection to painting would be tenuous? A connection between landscape and paintings less so. What I won't do is go into a gallery and look at the paintings for a while and then go onto the street and look for scenes that resemble the compositions in the paintings. The world is ever changing and the paintings aren't. The paintings are a work of someone's imagination and the street isn't. Russ as you have pointed out in the past the street is the only ever changing subject. Painters are more likely to study photographs and use them in their imaginative interpretations rather than the other way around. I think you have reversed the logic? ;)
Stamper, Here's a question upon which you might want to ruminate: Why do you think Henri Cartier-Bresson was such an influential photographer? Since it's obvious you're not exactly up to speed on the history of photography I'll give you a sort of negative clue: It wasn't because HCB invented street photography. Andre Kertesz, among others, was doing street photography before HCB came along. You might even say that in some cases Atget (whoever he was?) did street photography. Since he didn't originate the genre for which he was best known, what could possibly account for Cartier-Bresson's exceptional influence on his contemporaries and successors?
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I don't have an answer to that question but I am sure you will say it is to do with painting? If so then it is your opinion and if it is to do with painting then it won't affect my - if I have one - style of photography. :)
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You won't even hazard a guess? What have you got to lose?
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I think that, when it comes to crucial influence, inferiority of photography to painting is nothing compared to its inferiority to... music. Yes, music! Music rocks, baby! Ansel played piano at a concert-pianist level, Kodachrome was invited by two professional musicians... it's a long list of photographers with musical backgrounds. Take that, Russ the Painter! ;) :) :D ;D
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Bam! Slam! Slobodan!
Yes, music is very much more influential to the average Joe, including this one, who can neither sing nor play an instrument. It's the first thing I do when I switch on the computer, the essential companion to everything else. Always was. And it can bring back memories that surpass those of images, unless originally connected to image as in film or book/magazine and time.
I saw Jazz on a Summer's day in late '58 or in '59 (six times) and I always associate Chuck Berry with the stage act where he (appears) to be shunned by the higher egos of some of the jazz musos, excluding the drummer and clarinet who both chipped in and gave him backing and a break, too. (Ironically, Berry gets the best cheers of them all.) I also associate Jimmy Giuffre with Train and the River and the watery titles of the movie. So sure, images and music can make for magical combinations. I also remember sitting in a bar in Naples (Italy) in '57 and feeding the jukebox and getting Little Richard scream the place awake mid-morning.
We agree, Slobodan.
Rob C
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Rob
I very much doubt it. It's far more likely that he simply can't be arsed to read it ;)
John
I wouldn't put money on it!
;-)
Rob C
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yeah and i fear no evil when i walk into the valley of death.....
musicians ? Isn't music just another language ? like mathematics ?
so really, they were just closet mathematicians ! :o
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I think that, when it comes to crucial influence, inferiority of photography to painting is nothing compared to its inferiority to... music. Yes, music! Music rocks, baby! Ansel played piano at a concert-pianist level, Kodachrome was invited by two professional musicians... it's a long list of photographers with musical backgrounds. Take that, Russ the Painter! ;) :) :D ;D
Slobodan, I'll certainly go along with that. Giacomo Puccini can absolutely knock me down, Verdi can sit me down, and there are others, Rachmaninoff comes to mind, who can mess with my emotions in a big way.
Yes, I was surprised to find out that Ansel gave up a budding career as a concert pianist to shoot pictures. I gather that even then he occasionally performed. I played the piano for ten years and wanted very much to be a concert pianist, but I simply didn't have what it took. I'm not a painter either, though my brother is a very good one. So here I am, making photographs.
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Well, as I started off with paint too, and discovering that copying Impressionists' postcards from the art museum was nothing more than painting by numbers, I surrendered to my even earlier fascination with the mechanical toys that ads for Leica seemed to be offering in the pages of glossy magazines, the more little windows on the front the better: imagine my sadness when the M3 removed that effect! But, as I never owned any of the marque, academic.
So, painter manqué, almost certainly; but I did find an alternative love after all.
Rob
PS Reverting to music awhile:
Added to the list of memory jerkers could be Only You which brings back Amalfi and my girlfiriend-eventual-wife, a landmark originally commemorated on the number plate that currently sports my website, with the two lines Only You, Amalfi '57. Another tune of import was Always, that spooked past members of my family because it was an arbiter of movement to yet another place. Blueberry Hill is my American Graffiti moment because it reminds me of lost friends from school, it being 'their song'. It didn't work out: I met her years later and she didn't go into it, so neither can I.
Don't you just love this medium?
Some piano for Russ:
http://youtu.be/vB-WF4lvVhw
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yeah and i fear no evil when i walk into the valley of death.....
musicians ? Isn't music just another language ? like mathematics ?
so really, they were just closet mathematicians ! :o
And the practical application of mathematics is engineering. Engineering, then, is related to architecture. Architecture to Frank Lloyd Wright. And Frank Lloyd Wright studied nature.
Therefore, you should study nature. Preferably while listening to Rachmaninov.
(Despite the obviously flawed logic, that's actually not a bad idea)
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Slobodan, I'll certainly go along with that. Giacomo Puccini can absolutely knock me down, Verdi can sit me down, and there are others, Rachmaninoff comes to mind, who can mess with my emotions in a big way.
No Shostakovich, Russ? I'm shocked. I've found live performances of the fifth symphony in particular to be among the most emotionally draining experiences I've had.
One point which has drifted across the arid wastes of my mind when reading this thread is that you seem to extol painting for allowing the artist to do that which many landscape photographers regard as anathema: change the scene so that it looks as it "should" rather than as it is. I've never seen a problem with removing boulders, or wires, or even small and irrelevant mountains, in post-processing but some people regard it as heresy. Plainly you wouldn't be one of them, although your dislike of cropping had led me to suspect that you would be a purist.
Jeremy
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No Shostakovich, Russ? I'm shocked. I've found live performances of the fifth symphony in particular to be among the most emotionally draining experiences I've had.
One point which has drifted across the arid wastes of my mind when reading this thread is that you seem to extol painting for allowing the artist to do that which many landscape photographers regard as anathema: change the scene so that it looks as it "should" rather than as it is. I've never seen a problem with removing boulders, or wires, or even small and irrelevant mountains, in post-processing but some people regard it as heresy. Plainly you wouldn't be one of them, although your dislike of cropping had led me to suspect that you would be a purist.
Jeremy
Can't answer for Russ, but as I said before - possibly too ofen - the only real problem I see with landscape photography is the lack of control in relation to the subject. I don't see perspective and positioning of camera, waiting for the light etc. as creative per se, but simply making the best of what's there before you came along. Now, could you move mountains... not to imply that doing that via PS is creative either: that's just technical skill.
Landscape aside, this creative thing is a bit of a killer for my current muso shootings too, which are all the result of framing what's there. There is no control of where they stand, where they look or how they hold their musical instruments. There's not even much control of where I can stand, as people at seats are buying drinks and they are Top Dog. Quite rightly, too: they pay the bill.
One day...
Rob C
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No Shostakovich, Russ? I'm shocked. I've found live performances of the fifth symphony in particular to be among the most emotionally draining experiences I've had.
One point which has drifted across the arid wastes of my mind when reading this thread is that you seem to extol painting for allowing the artist to do that which many landscape photographers regard as anathema: change the scene so that it looks as it "should" rather than as it is. I've never seen a problem with removing boulders, or wires, or even small and irrelevant mountains, in post-processing but some people regard it as heresy. Plainly you wouldn't be one of them, although your dislike of cropping had led me to suspect that you would be a purist.
Jeremy
Jeremy, The only "other" I listed was Rachmaninoff, but there are many, many others. Yes, Shostakovich is among the others. A lot of Grieg. Especially "Solveg's song," which can immobilize me completely when sung competently. There's a lot in Mendelssohn, particularly his songs without words. As far I'm concerned, Mendelssohn understood the piano better than anyone except Chopin. And of course there's a whole menu of show stoppers from Chopin. Then there's a little aria from Boito's Mefistofele: "Dai Campi, Dai Prati" that brings tears every time I hear Placido Domingo sing it. There just isn't enough time or space to list them all.
I only extol painting for landscape. Not because a painter like Turner makes it look as it "should," but because Turner can play with linear perspective and color in a way that brings out the emotion and meaning that's hidden in a plain landscape. I've rarely seen a photograph that can do that, though I think Chuck's North Dakota series is an exception. The problem with trying to do that with photographic post-processing is that the modifications are obvious to anyone with eyes to see. I frequently remove wires (but not boulders or mountains), but that's a different kind of thing.
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"As far I'm concerned, Mendelssohn understood the piano better than anyone except Chopin."
And if you go to see his pad in Valldemossa where he famously had that 1838 Mallorcan winter with George Sand, you'll understand why old Chops had the drop on them all: the thing he played on seems tiny and out of proportion. Who could ever understand what that may have done for his synapses? Not to mention the effect of the electrical storms up there in the mountains. You understand about electricity and early psychology and psychiatry... more weird than the Munsters, on this island.
Rob C
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...
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up there in the mountains. You understand about electricity and early psychology and psychiatry... more weird than the Munsters, on this island.
Rob C
!!!
all (a few) brilliant people I know are so insulated from outside forces as to render themselves useless in all but a few pursuits
so try and take one of them out among the people, and they're farting in underground chambers, declaring their love for a woman met just hours/days/weeks before-half joining cults for the acceptance of their peculiarity-
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!!!
all (a few) brilliant people I know are so insulated from outside forces as to render themselves useless in all but a few pursuits
so try and take one of them out among the people, and they're farting in underground chambers, declaring their love for a woman met just hours/days/weeks before-half joining cults for the acceptance of their peculiarity-
You know too much for a man of your age.
Rob C
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This thread has progressed a long way from larch plantations and trees. :(
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Right, Stamper. "Progressed" is the right word.
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As I've said before, that's one of the joys of LuLa: it progresses from one thing to another with seldom a dull moment in between.
Rob C
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Right, Stamper. "Progressed" is the right word.
Russ is that the final summing up on John's images? ;)
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Stamper, I think we beat it up enough, but you never did try to answer my question.
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Stamper, I think we beat it up enough, but you never did try to answer my question.
Did your question provide any useful critical comments about John's photo?
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Did your question provide any useful critical comments about John's photo?
Why do you ask?
Rob C
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Would you like to try answering the question, Eric?
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No. ;)