The most fustrating thing about photography/art

[Jeremy Roussak]

This is best illustrated by American Idol. People have access to professional songs. They probably even have access to preproduction or acoustic tracks from professional singers. And yet, not all of those awful singers auditioning were purely trying to get on TV; some of them honestly couldnt tell when they listened to themselves that they sounded bad.

It's known as the Dunning Kruger effect. Those who are bad at something don't appreciate how bad they are; those who are good underestimate how difficult it is to do what they're good at.

The cognitive defect that makes bad singers bad - tone deafness, in short - is the defect that makes them fail to appreciate how bad they are.

Jeremy

[wmchauncey]

Dunning Kruger effect

I had to Google that term as I have never before encountered it.  It almost indicates inadequate prefrontal cortex development.

[GrahamBy]

Tone-deafness is an extension of the Dunning Kruger that I hadn't thought of.. but yeah. Another example: I was crazy enough to write a novel in French. To me, it reads really well. My friends like the story, but tell me the language pretty much sucks: I simply don't have the life-time of exposure to the language to know what "sounds right" and what doesn't.

And in a way, it's somewhat arbitrary: for the most part, the grammar is correct, it's just that the way I choose to say things is recognisably not the way a francophone would say it, so a francophone does not like it. A Romanian friend who speaks fluent French along with a long list of other languages has no problem with it because she doesn't have such a tight expectation of how something "should" be said.

So... to what extent is an aesthetic judgement of a photo absolute or relative to expectation and habit? I expect it's mostly the second, even if certain "rules" of composition tend to be a useful guide. Then to go beyond that and decide whether it is "art"... hmm.

PS: patient waking up during the procedure is also a bad outcome, although where you rate it between "all good" and "dead" is a bit challenging (I used to work in clinical epidemiology... you get to think about quite worrying scenarios at times).

[Otto Phocus]

The frustrating aspect of photography/art is the difficulty in measuring our level of competency...

The concept of measuring art is a contentious one.  Personally, I don't think there is an objective way of measuring art competency.  There are ways of measuring technique and other technical qualities of art.  But art itself is subjective.

In your case, find out who you are creating the photography for... and strive to make that person happy with your art. 

For my photography, that person is me.

It is just a shame that I am such a hard to please dick at times.   

If this is your hobby, shoot for yourself

Good luck with it.

[wmchauncey]

We all shoot for ourself...in the beginning.  But there comes a time when we ask if self-satisfaction is enough.
We crave the accolades of our peers...then we wonder if our peers are competent.
In the end, the only way to grade our stuff is to properly market it and see if it sells.

[Jimbo57]

My pre-retirement career revolved around giving anesthesia, it was easy to measure one's level of competence...
the patient either lived or not. 

You must have been a VERY BAD anaesthetist!

Were you really only worried about whether the patient lived or died? What about how much pain he felt or what after-effects he experienced?

I had an experience where the anaesthetic was shot into the cannula just as the BP cuff on the same arm was at full compression. For a moment I wished I could die!

[Peter McLennan]

In the end, the only way to grade our stuff is to properly market it and see if it sells.

Absolute and complete disagreement.  Sales figures do not indicate quality. Witness the high sales of black velvet airbrush paintings and the rest of the crap we see in high-volume mall art stores.

If your art is art to you, it's art.

[Isaac]

If your art is art to you, it's art.

At which point, we have completed a hundred-years of hollowing-out any meaning from the word "art".

[Alan Klein]

Well, you can always ask someone who loves you whether they like it.

[MattBurt]

Interesting conversation.
I know a lot of the stuff I like and shoot is probably thought of as fluff or tourist pics but I try not to let that bother me. Just like the hard hitting photos of people in crisis and living on the streets, it's not for everyone. I live in a town that relies heavily on a tourist economy so the postcard photos tend to do well. The tourists like and buy my work to take a little piece of the valley back home with them. When I make the images I'm usually enjoying myself on a mountain top or riverside or some other scenic spot at sunrise or sunset. It's good for the soul and looking at the photo takes me back there again but without all the effort of actually climbing that mountain.
I also like these kinds of images from others if they were able to put themselves in the right place at the right time and tick all the technicalities boxes. That's basically what Adams did, isn't it?
What if the message I want to convey is "Holy shit, it's beautiful here!"? Does that make me or my work shallow?

[Peter McLennan]

At which point, we have completed a hundred-years of hollowing-out any meaning from the word "art".

You're welcome.

[RSL]

At which point, we have completed a hundred-years of hollowing-out any meaning from the word "art".

"Art" has never had any meaning standing by itself, Isaac. It always has to be connected with something concrete.

[Jimbo57]

"Art" never had had any meaning standing by itself, Isaac. It always has to be connected with something concrete.

or, at a push, marble.

[wmchauncey]

I had an experience where the anaesthetic was shot into the cannula just as the BP cuff on the same arm was at full compression. For a moment I wished I could die!

Based on your troll-like comment, I would have done that on purpose.

[Alan Klein]

...What if the message I want to convey is "Holy shit, it's beautiful here!"? Does that make me or my work shallow?

Not at all.  That's how I shoot.  I see something interesting and beautiful and try to capture it hoping others can find it interesting and beautiful as well.  In the end, art is mainly about aesthetics.  At least landscape photography.

[petermfiore]

My pre-retirement career revolved around giving anesthesia, it was easy to measure one's level of competence...
the patient either lived or not.  Was a black or white issue...no middle ground, no gray areas.

A heavy hand has made more than one patient sick to various degrees...very much shades of gray from the patients point of view. Just saying.

Peter

[Jimbo57]

Based on your troll-like comment, I would have done that on purpose.

So, everyone who disagrees with your very limited view is a "troll".

I think you have just said more about your mental state than I ever could.

Commiserations.

[amolitor]

That is in fact what 'troll' means. It means someone who disagrees with me.

Of course, people who use the term lie about the meaning, but that is what it means, almost without exception.

[Otto Phocus]

The most frustrating thing about photography/art?

Reading comments on the Internets Tubes......

I think I was a much happier photographer before the advent of the Internet. 

[torger]

Not all photography have to be "important" like photo journalism from crisis situations in the world. It's hard to make important art from landscape photography. I know of one that has succeeded though, Edward Burtynsky. But that artistic concept is already occupied by him, so you have to come up with something else .

You can make photographic art in many ways.

Some see each photograph as a single piece of art which has no connection to any other picture or context, much like an isolated piece of music. Say a beautiful sunset on a famous location, and the art is that beautiful well-made image you're looking at. Artist statements are things like "enrich people's lives with beauty", and if that seems too shallow you may add things like "remind people about the fragile environment, reconnect people with nature" etc.

Another approach is to have themes, or "projects" where the context of each image becomes important and the art lies not only in each image isolated but as a group. This context can be very specific, or very vague. I prefer projects myself where you can see some sort of "artistic concept" and that images belong together, and that concept as a whole is more important than that every picture in the group is that "great".

I also think originality has value. Traveling around the world to capture the most beautiful places in the most beautiful light with well-established composition techniques may be nice, but I think it's hard to create great art this way as there's so many before you that has done it already, and is doing it.

That is I think that the actual photographs are only carrier of an artistic idea or concept, and the "quality" of the art is much, sometimes more, about that concept than how good the images are as such.