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Author Topic: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...  (Read 16357 times)

petermfiore

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #20 on: May 10, 2019, 07:42:53 am »

The art world is about NEW( the unfamiliar, never saw that before, WTF is that and anything that leaves you scratching you head) ...always has and will remain. They will sell "traditional work" by the original artist's that made it as NEW. All else, or to work with a nod to the past is a non starter today.

Peter
« Last Edit: May 10, 2019, 08:00:29 am by petermfiore »
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fdisilvestro

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #21 on: May 10, 2019, 08:38:55 am »

I don’t see anything NEW in that winning image.

Rob C

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #22 on: May 10, 2019, 09:21:00 am »

I don’t see anything NEW in that winning image.

I don't think there is any New at all. Unless one considers Photoshop fantasies. I don't consider them, and see Photopshop as a convenient way of doing traditional darkroom work with greater ease. In the end, the image has to look reasonably sensible or it is junk - pour moi.

All the photographers I admire produce(ed) work that looks real, with just a few blurs - real or faked - or double negatives combined for effect.

I suppose most of us go through phases of trying out different tricks that PS allows - blur being one such - but unless one is very careful it becomes a trap, where the same goddam shot is made interminably; sure happened to me a couple of years ago.

Rob

RSL

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #23 on: May 10, 2019, 09:25:38 am »

+1
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OmerV

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #24 on: May 10, 2019, 10:03:58 am »

Well, I like the picture. It is an everyday, moment, the result of which is wall of wonderful flowers. The composition is pleasant and unpretentious, without the maudlin, melodramatic, directional lighting that has become popular. Kinda reminds me of the Daguerre picture of the working shoeshine in Paris.

Personally, I’m grateful it isn’t one of the “me too,” incessant photographic tropes used mostly for filling up hard drives. A bit surprising really, considering the contest was sponsored by a high profile commercial enterprise, which like most other high profile companies, undoubtedly has an absolute aversion to controversy.

Rob C

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #25 on: May 10, 2019, 10:11:36 am »

Well, I like the picture. It is an everyday, moment, the result of which is wall of wonderful flowers. The composition is pleasant and unpretentious, without the maudlin, melodramatic, directional lighting that has become popular. Kinda reminds me of the Daguerre picture of the working shoeshine in Paris.

Personally, I’m grateful it isn’t one of the “me too,” incessant photographic tropes used mostly for filling up hard drives. A bit surprising really, considering the contest was sponsored by a high profile commercial enterprise, which like most other high profile companies, undoubtedly has an absolute aversion to controversy.


The other side to that coin tells us that there's no such thing as bad publicity.

Anyway, it's sure to be deductible.

:-)

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #26 on: May 10, 2019, 10:22:27 am »

... It is an everyday moment...

Shot by a Google Street View car.

RSL

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #27 on: May 10, 2019, 11:04:02 am »

Are we really surprised any longer when the commercial art market makes a silly mistake?
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OmerV

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #28 on: May 10, 2019, 11:14:44 am »

Are we really surprised any longer when the commercial art market makes a silly mistake?

No mistake at all. It’s a pleasant image, not a tiresome cliché.

Shot by a Google Street View car.

The Deep Blue of street photography.  ;D

RSL

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #29 on: May 10, 2019, 11:28:30 am »

C'mon, Omer, you certainly don't believe that a street photograph can be made by a car. Yes, a car can make a photograph of a street. A car even can make a photograph of the rear end of a girl in front of a bunch of sunflowers. And a car probably thought that's a good photograph. Maybe it was the car that made the decision on the winning picture. Considering what I see here, I'd bet it was a car that selected the winner. If the decision was made by a human, the guy desperately needs a radiator flush.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2019, 10:32:37 am by RSL »
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OmerV

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #30 on: May 10, 2019, 11:56:06 am »

C'mon, Omer, you certainly don't believe that a street photograph can be made by a car. Yes, a car can make a photograph of a street. A car even can make a photograph of the rear end of a girl in front of a bunch of sunflowers. And a car probably thought that's a good photograph. Maybe it was the car that made the decision on the winning picture. Considering what I see here, I'd bet it was a car that selected the winner. It the decision was made by a human, the guy desperately needs a radiator flush.

Heh, Russ, you would not be hired to curate art for IBM, etc. That’s probably a good thing. But since when has art, chosen by commercial interests, ever been more than pleasant, at best?

OK, I guess during the Renaissance commissioned art turned out really good. But now, who’s afraid of twitter? Everyone it seems.

RSL

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #31 on: May 10, 2019, 12:12:22 pm »

I think we've reached a meeting of the minds, Omer.

And I'll go further: Truly powerful art rarely is something you can put your mental hands on. The effect is, well, elusive. If you try to focus on the effect you get from great art your mind slips past the effect and you get words, visual segments, notes. Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," is a fine example. The words themselves are gibberish, yet for those who understand English the effect can be very powerful.
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32BT

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #32 on: May 11, 2019, 08:39:44 am »

It's seeks poetry in the mundane, sometimes with multiple layers of subtle narrative.

It's very clearly not for the instant gratification instagram in your face generation. With advancing tech, extremely well executed, highly skilled, amazing imagery is being created every day, except that, due to that same skilled and technologically advanced execution, it is completely devoid of soul or substance. It's like watching another galaxy rise timelapse with amazing resolution on the latest wallwide 8k hdr screen, and yet feeling completely dead cold from the inside, as dead cold as all the amazing tech before you. The tech took over the wonder and amazement, sucking all the mystery out of our own galaxy.

Where did that go wrong? I don't know. But it seems like a disease if next we dismiss the products of an established artist, recognized by his peers, exhibited as far back as 1989, who attempts to depict that feeble precious wonderment in the occurrences of everyday life, in tiny slices of visual poetry, a poetry of muted colors,  the poetry of the mundane.

Poetry usually about the individual in his/her environment, depicted in such a way that you can't do anything other than think about that relation. Depicted in such a way, that the faceless individual becomes a metaphore for the human factor, or even humanity in general. That you're forced to think about your own inner connection with that human individual, that human factor, and humanity.

That's pretty potent stuff in such mundane images. And don't underestimate the achievement: it is a fairly consistent theme, look & feel throughout his images. It has the same demarcation as street street vs random street. Not all mundane images are created equal, and these images tend to fall consistently on one side of the fence. No doubt for most of you it falls on the trash pickup side of the fence, but for those of you that judge this accordingly I challenge you to go out in your mundane neighbourhood and come back with an image that depicts visual color poetry, with a human factor, interesting enough to look at for longer than a second.

And don't be fooled: street street isn't street just because it's shot on the street. Similarly, a random human in a random mundane environment does not make you the next contemporary photography prizewinner. Try to catch that ever so slightly ungraspable odd character trait in either the human or the environment.

Like a sunburned wallflower in front of a wall of sunflowers that almost seem to all face her direction.




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rabanito

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #33 on: May 11, 2019, 09:21:28 am »

The art world is about NEW( the unfamiliar, never saw that before, WTF is that and anything that leaves you scratching you head) ...always has and will remain.

But the problem is that looking at that so called "art" you are not left scratching you head but realizing that you are looking at "more of that garbage"
If it were God who made it, I would scratch my head and try to interpret.
But not because some jury does.

Just MHO
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RSL

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #34 on: May 11, 2019, 09:41:35 am »

It's seeks poetry in the mundane, sometimes with multiple layers of subtle narrative.

It's very clearly not for the instant gratification instagram in your face generation. With advancing tech, extremely well executed, highly skilled, amazing imagery is being created every day, except that, due to that same skilled and technologically advanced execution, it is completely devoid of soul or substance. It's like watching another galaxy rise timelapse with amazing resolution on the latest wallwide 8k hdr screen, and yet feeling completely dead cold from the inside, as dead cold as all the amazing tech before you. The tech took over the wonder and amazement, sucking all the mystery out of our own galaxy.

Where did that go wrong? I don't know. But it seems like a disease if next we dismiss the products of an established artist, recognized by his peers, exhibited as far back as 1989, who attempts to depict that feeble precious wonderment in the occurrences of everyday life, in tiny slices of visual poetry, a poetry of muted colors,  the poetry of the mundane.

Poetry usually about the individual in his/her environment, depicted in such a way that you can't do anything other than think about that relation. Depicted in such a way, that the faceless individual becomes a metaphore for the human factor, or even humanity in general. That you're forced to think about your own inner connection with that human individual, that human factor, and humanity.

That's pretty potent stuff in such mundane images. And don't underestimate the achievement: it is a fairly consistent theme, look & feel throughout his images. It has the same demarcation as street street vs random street. Not all mundane images are created equal, and these images tend to fall consistently on one side of the fence. No doubt for most of you it falls on the trash pickup side of the fence, but for those of you that judge this accordingly I challenge you to go out in your mundane neighbourhood and come back with an image that depicts visual color poetry, with a human factor, interesting enough to look at for longer than a second.

And don't be fooled: street street isn't street just because it's shot on the street. Similarly, a random human in a random mundane environment does not make you the next contemporary photography prizewinner. Try to catch that ever so slightly ungraspable odd character trait in either the human or the environment.

Like a sunburned wallflower in front of a wall of sunflowers that almost seem to all face her direction.

Very well said, Oscar. Two thumbs up!!!
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elliot_n

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #35 on: May 11, 2019, 10:26:35 am »

I can't make up my mind about Stephen Waddell's work. Is he doing anything that Jeff Wall hasn't done already? Perhaps it is what he is not doing – staging – that gives his pictures some currency? A lazy Jeff Wall?
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OmerV

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #36 on: May 11, 2019, 10:42:21 am »

It's seeks poetry in the mundane, sometimes with multiple layers of subtle narrative.

It's very clearly not for the instant gratification instagram in your face generation...

Again, well said.

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #37 on: May 11, 2019, 10:45:47 am »

Very well said, Oscar. Two thumbs up!!!

Goes to show that art is not “Art” unless it needs paragraph after paragraph of intellectual justification and post-conceptualization to work.

RSL

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #38 on: May 11, 2019, 11:05:29 am »

Exactly the opposite, Slobodan. Art isn’t art unless it kicks you in the gut and you can’t explain why it’s doing that. That’s essentially what Oscar just said.
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: And the $50,000 Scotiabank 2019 Prize in Photography goes to...
« Reply #39 on: May 11, 2019, 11:14:38 am »

Exactly the opposite, Slobodan. Art isn’t art unless it kicks you in the gut and you can’t explain why it’s doing that. That’s essentially what Oscar just said.

Mundane, even its “poetry,” rarely, if ever, kicks me in the gut. That’s exactly the opposite of what Oscar said. Oscar tried to kick me in the gut with words.

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