Just Published - Photography is Selection

[Rob C]

1.  Rob, given your previous posts in this thread I find it strange that you celebrate Saul Leiter for dredging it up from the swamp and yet feel somewhat aggrieved when it transpires that he is very capable of directing the action.

2.  Following on from the propositions in your previous posts, it begs the question, what of Street? - which is essentially working with whatever is dredged up from the swamp. Can then Street be considered a creative genre?

1.  What Leiter did was simply this: he wandered around his local swamp looking for interesting bits he could isolate and turn into something perhaps invisible to, if not just overlooked by, the "man in the street" though, at the same time, I see no evidence that Saul gave a fig about the opinion of the man in the street; probably as little about him as would that man about the images Saul could see. Considering that he kept piles of boxes of his stuff stored and not looked at in his apartment, I think it shows he had no interest in showing the work to a wider audience. He did have a few moments in public shows, but they went nowhere.

In that sense, his photography of New York is mainly one of selecting and editing what lay around. He also shot a lot of stuff with his friends, lovers and people he had close ties with in the city. Much of that is on show in his two-volume black/white books by Steidl; in some of the shots of girlfriends he is very creat¡ve indeed, whereas in others, merely happysnapping.

However, Leiter earned his crust not from his windows and reflections or personal snaps, but as a fashion photographer working for over twenty years for one of the big two - Harper's Bazaar - as well as for Nova and a variety of show-biz magazines. So yes, in his case, he was able both to take what architecture and city life offered, as well as to create from scratch with his fashion work that, at the time, had the models wondering what the hell he was doing.

Some people are blessed with both abilities: selection and creation, others not.

2.  Street. Can it be considered creative? Strictly speaking, probably not; when it works, most certainly as the manifestation of a very keen and observant eye in action, coupled with an aesthetic sense of equilibrium or its considered, instinctive sense of when the opposite is appropriate. In some cases a death wish could also be an advantage. Where it suffers is in its absolute dependence on things happening that the snapper can not control. If he tries to do that, he has lost and moved into another genre.

I must go and wash the terrace before the Sun hits it and renders work impossible.

Rob

[KLaban]

Jees, all of a sudden I feel the need to do something more creative. Perhaps a haemorrhoid cream product shot would suffice?

;-)

[Rob C]

Jees, all of a sudden I feel the need to do something more creative. Perhaps a haemorrhoid cream product shot would suffice?

;-)

That could well depend on whether simply product or use of it.

No idea if there is a sub-species of specialist model for this, as there is for hands, fingers and tits. You could try to find out... maybe a combination of the two model talents?
 
Wear a mask, both for the sake of your health and sensitivities, as much as for creator effect. Steven Meisel always wore a hat in the studio, and it got him all the Italian Vogue covers...

;-)

[Patricia Sheley]

Once again, excellent examples of Homo Sapiens pretty much on the way out as we have been to taught understand her. All, differently wired, and limited by the wires as to perception, such arguments will be distant memory in well less than 50 years. My grandchildren will participate, and their children well on their way to bright new worlds if there was enough quality wiring to catch on in time to the new beings by which Homo Sapiens is replaced or mere artifacts of this time on the curve. Who ever dreamed we would be the lucky (?) few to witness this leap? How we are wired will be the smallest, if significant at all, part of the equation. Head in sand arguments such as these feel very much as distractions from "realities" of the current air we breathe. Easier not to acknowledge the speed we are gaining as we hurtle down this road~

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Once again, excellent examples of Homo Sapiens pretty much on the way out as we have been to taught understand her. All, differently wired, and limited by the wires as to perception, such arguments will be distant memory in well less than 50 years. My grandchildren will participate, and their children well on their way to bright new worlds if there was enough quality wiring to catch on in time to the new beings by which Homo Sapiens is replaced or mere artifacts of this time on the curve. Who ever dreamed we would be the lucky (?) few to witness this leap? How we are wired will be the smallest, if significant at all, part of the equation. Head in sand arguments such as these feel very much as distractions from "realities" of the current air we breathe. Easier not to acknowledge the speed we are gaining as we hurtle down this road~

Well said, Patricia.

[KLaban]

Or as the late, great, John Laurie would have it, we're doomed, doomed...

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Well said, Patricia.

Pass the bong around, please!

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

I guess I am happy to be a happysnapper. Can I use that term? Or has Rob trademarked it?

[KLaban]

doomed...

[Rob C]

Once again, excellent examples of Homo Sapiens pretty much on the way out as we have been to taught understand her. All, differently wired, and limited by the wires as to perception, such arguments will be distant memory in well less than 50 years. My grandchildren will participate, and their children well on their way to bright new worlds if there was enough quality wiring to catch on in time to the new beings by which Homo Sapiens is replaced or mere artifacts of this time on the curve. Who ever dreamed we would be the lucky (?) few to witness this leap? How we are wired will be the smallest, if significant at all, part of the equation. Head in sand arguments such as these feel very much as distractions from "realities" of the current air we breathe. Easier not to acknowledge the speed we are gaining as we hurtle down this road~

Deep, Patricia, but as ever, there's a but lurking in the background.

A site such as LuLa, with pretensions to being more than just another gear freak site, has to have (and keep) some alternative conversation going to make it interesting and worth repeated viewing.

That's where the few people like Andrew (of this thread), and also Russ, who just writes so damned well - become worth their contributing weight in gold. We may or may not agree with them, but they do provide the basic material, the propositions with which to connect.

Do you really believe that all of us who are so-called "figs" or even just benign old curmudgeons of one sort or another, would still bother hanging around were it not for the intellectual stimulation we sometimes derive from what we find to read here? The photographs, I might hear you offering, but let's be straight: if you want photographs alone, then good old Doctor Google has enough to satisfy every taste, from the historical to the ridiculously contemporary.

Frankly, it's the observation of those different wiring diagrams and motherboards interconnecting that brings the interest.

As for our following generations? I doubt they will care very much about photography; it will probably seem such a quaint old idea not worth more than a few minutes' trawl through a junk shop... there will always be junk: we have created so much of it.

Rob

[Dave (Isle of Skye)]

Why do you/we all seem to get our knickers in a twist when discussing photographic creativity and what it is all supposed to mean? In fact why do we even have to consider and analyse this same subject over and over again until the cows come home?

All I know is that if we all get some sort of deep visceral satisfaction out of doing it and no one gets harmed in the process, then surely that is reason enough to do it and be damned why or what it means to others, or whether it is a creative process or not.

So let us imagine this, I am standing there in my living room looking at a bare wall. I go out and I shoot something that touches some part of my inner being (whatever that is, so let's not go there shall we). I go home, I print it and I mount it on my wall. So now where there was once nothing, there is now a picture hanging in the place of that nothingness. So did I just create something? Yes of course I did and yes I might have done some selection to pick out what elements from the the entire world that I wanted to appear in the image, or the light, or the time of day or year etc, but the final product and the very thing itself that I am now looking at, I created.

But if we were to push the discussion even further in the direction you have tried to point it Andrew and continued on through to to its ultimate conclusion, then wouldn't I be right in saying that there is no such thing as creativity at all, because all there ever is and will ever be is selection? Such as a painter who selects the colour of paint to use, who then selects the type of canvas and brush to use and then selects where to daub the paint on the canvas, to turn into a piece of work that they have selected to produce. Each separate part of the process, can be looked at if we wished, as being no more than a step by step selection process that leads to a conclusion and therefore no creativity was ever required - but we all know this isn't true, so why do we find it hard to say that photography is also a creative process, but by different means?

Or how about producing a sculpture, where all anyone needs to do is to keep selecting which bits of marble to chip off the block in turn, until we produce our very own version of the Venus de Milo - which I am sure a modern day robot sculpting arm could be programmed to do repeatedly and precisely.

So for me, creativity is simply the act of me bringing something into this world that did not exist before and would never have existed unless I created it.

It is fun to discuss this creativity in photography, but that is all we can ever do, because whatever anyone decides in their own mind, there will always be someone who thinks the opposite, but ultimately, if what you "create" or "select" satisfy you as a photographer, then who cares how anyone else wishes to define it?

Dave

[Rob C]

Why do you/we all seem to get our knickers in a twist when discussing photographic creativity and what it is all supposed to mean? In fact why do we even have to consider and analyse this same subject over and over again until the cows come home?

All I know is that if we all get some sort of deep visceral satisfaction out of doing it and no one gets harmed in the process, then surely that is reason enough to do it and be damned why or what it means to others, or whether it is a creative process or not.

So let us imagine this, I am standing there in my living room looking at a bare wall. I go out and I shoot something that touches some part of my inner being (whatever that is, so let's not go there shall we). I go home, I print it and I mount it on my wall. So now where there was once nothing, there is now a picture hanging in the place of that nothingness. So did I just create something? Yes of course I did and yes I might have done some selection to pick out what elements from the the entire world that I wanted to appear in the image, or the light, or the time of day or year etc, but the final product and the very thing itself that I am now looking at, I created.

But if we were to push the discussion even further in the direction you have tried to point it Andrew and continued on through to to its ultimate conclusion, then wouldn't I be right in saying that there is no such thing as creativity at all, because all there ever is and will ever be is selection? Such as a painter who selects the colour of paint to use, who then selects the type of canvas and brush to use and then selects where to daub the paint on the canvas, to turn into a piece of work that they have selected to produce. Each separate part of the process, can be looked at if we wished, as being no more than a step by step selection process that leads to a conclusion and therefore no creativity was ever required - but we all know this isn't true, so why do we find it hard to say that photography is also a creative process, but by different means?

Or how about producing a sculpture, where all anyone needs to do is to keep selecting which bits of marble to chip off the block in turn, until we produce our very own version of the Venus de Milo - which I am sure a modern day robot sculpting arm could be programmed to do repeatedly and precisely.

So for me, creativity is simply the act of me bringing something into this world that did not exist before and would never have existed unless I created it.

It is fun to discuss this creativity in photography, but that is all we can ever do, because whatever anyone decides in their own mind, there will always be someone who thinks the opposite, but ultimately, if what you "create" or "select" satisfy you as a photographer, then who cares how anyone else wishes to define it?

Dave

Sound argument well put.

But as I wrote earlier, it's the "debate" that fills the cracks between interminable geek-speak and images. Left to those two, there would be almost nothing left to call LuLa's own. Unless you treat it as a holiday bookings site.

Rob

[KLaban]

Like it or lump it, capturing an image, any image, selected or directed, good, bad or indifferent, an image that prior to capture didn't previously exist, is in itself a creative act.

Sometimes, often even, we need to get over ourselves.

[Rob C]

Like it or lump it, capturing an image, any image, selected or directed, good, bad or indifferent, an image that prior to capture didn't previously exist, is in itself a creative act.

Sometimes, often even, we need to get over ourselves.

You mean like stamping out a hubcap in the factory? As if didn't exist until it did, that should fit the outline...

:-)

Rob

[faberryman]

I have now read several sides of the select or create arguments, but as yet no one has stated why it matters.

[amolitor]

At some point the painter, having selected a number of things, actually applies paint to the canvas.

[Rob C]

Your reply #34.

Can you point me to the post from which you cut this sentence, please?

Rob

[Dave (Isle of Skye)]

At some point the painter, having selected a number of things, actually applies paint to the canvas.

Yes Andrew, the painter then 'selects' where they wish to place the paint on the canvas, as well as how thick they wish to apply it, the colour of it, whether they want to use a certain technique such as or pointillism etc, etc, etc.....

Have you ever watch the video "Tim's Vermeer"? Because if you haven't then you will be blown away at what can be done when you choose (select) the method you wish to use to paint a masterpiece. You see Tim Jenison is and inventor, but is also someone who has never painted anything in his life, in other words he is absolutely not an artistic painter in any sense of the word. Yet through selecting the materials and the same methods that he thinks Vermeer also secretly used, he was able to create a work of art as good as anything Vermeer ever did. Which as it turns out, were/are all actually photographs, but using paint instead of ink or emulsions etc.

So do you think Vermeer is or was an artist? I certainly do, but it also turns out that Vermeer was no more (or less) than one of the worlds first ever photographers.

In fact anyone reading this who wants to enjoy a jaw dropping evening of entertainment, should seek out this video - here is the trailer.

I bet if you watch this video, you will want to have a go yourselves, but does it make Vermeer's work any less artistic or creative? No of course it doesn't. But does it mean Vermeer only used selective processes and had no artistic skill whatsoever when he created his body work? Then yes it probably does.

Dave

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Your reply #34.

Can you point me to the post from which you cut this sentence, please?

Rob

Rob, it looks like a case of bad quote formatting, resulting in his own words looking like your quote.

[amolitor]

This discussion has (predictably, I suppose) veered wildly from the the point I was making on the front page, and I don't really want to get embroiled in a debate about whether the word "photography" right includes the various acts of creation that surround it.

I think it is pure sophistry to claim that you cannot distinguish between "selecting" and "creating", as per my remark about applying paint to the canvas.

Tim did engage in creation, as did Vermeer, in ways that I do not when I mash the button on my camera. Try as I might, I cannot see as how that is possibly open for discussion, it appears to me to be simply factual. The word "create" means something, after all.

Dragging in the word "artist" now potentially opens another door, but again circles back to the Victorian debate over photography, and my original thesis.

The idea that in order to be an "artist" one must "create" is also wrong, at least in the modern understanding of what those two words mean.