Eric Meola article

[Rob C]

Could it be that creating an image that didn’t previously exist, however it is created, could be...hmm...let me think for a moment...well...perhaps...creative?

Yes, if that new image exists because of how the 'artist' actually changed the status quo; as I write so often, chosing a viewpoint, for me, on its own, isn't creating anything and neither does it change anything that already existed; all that's changed is what the viewer sees, not what actually is, and the logical consequence of that would be that going to the Sphinx and shooting what is there, from a dozen angles, means you've created a dozen pictures. I don't think you've even created one in that process. Would looking at and shooting something in a miirror be considered art if the introduction of said mirror is the extent of the 'artist's' added value? I think you are (possibly mischievously?) suggesting that taking a picture is the same as creating a picture, and there lies our fundamental bone.

Regarding your comparison of your life in illustration with that in photography: only you can decide how you choose to view it; all I claim to do is state how I look at these things. I'm clearly in a tiny minority here, but that`s okay - doesn't bother me at all as, I hope, my views shouldn't bother anyone else. I only offer them becaues of the place, the circumstances and the fact that people appear happy to discuss these things and a busy LuLa is more satifying to me than a moribund one. As regards illustration and how it affected me: I can remembner being knocked out by the guys who used to illustrate the stories in Woman and Woman's Own, which my wife-to-be used to buy as a teenager. I also envied Vargas his skills. And how!

As also said before, I mean no put-downs to anyone: do and please think as you all wish, and that's perfectly fine by me: just allow me to interpret what I see in the manner that it strikes me.

;-)

Rob C

[Rob C]

Rob, how about my Cezanne comment?

Sorry, Slobodan, my two dyslexic typing fingers make life slow!

I don't see any painter as being relevant to this chat: a painter starts of with a blank canvas and an idea - I trust - and then tries to give that life in a medium that takes huge skill to do it well and that's the first difference you encounter with photography: a monkey can (and probably has) do it. Hell, the friggin' camera can do it, never more so than today! And no, starting with a fresh film or card isn't the same thing at all. If you want to limit this to Cezanne and his confrères, you could be forgiven for suggesting he and they were not even particularly great artists. Their 'thing' was that they were new, and whether this was a by-product of lack of traditional skills and/or simply the timely acceptance of their styles is a moot point. Were they no more than early examples of living in the right time at the right time? Don't misunderstand me: I love Vncent, Degas, Dali, lots of artists of not so long ago. What I love is fheir interpretation, I don't claim to admire their technique as being superior to their ancestors' except in the case of Dali, that is.

Take Canaletto: his paintings of Venice often show views that are physically impossible and inaccurate. Can anyone claim that his skills are on the level of Photoshop or vice versa? The intended results may be vaguely similar, but Canaletto is incontrovertibly artist whereas the PS specialist is technician. Getting to similar positions with a programme isn't art - it's technique.

There are those of us who admire Avedon, Penn, Watson; does the same group of us honestly admire the two Richardsons? That never hindered the latter pair!

Rob C

[Walt Roycraft]

I don't see any painter as being relevant to this chat: a painter starts of with a blank canvas and an idea - I trust - and then tries to give that life in a medium that takes huge skill to do it well and that's the first difference you encounter with photography: a monkey can (and probably has) do it. Hell, the friggin' camera can do it, never more so than today!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2073204/Monkey-artist-Pockets-Warhol-uses-hands-feet-tail-create-paintings-worth-250.html

 And no, starting with a fresh film or card isn't the same thing at all. If you want to limit this to Cezanne and his confrères, you could be forgiven for suggesting he and they were not even particularly great artists. Their 'thing' was that they were new, and whether this was a by-product of lack of traditional skills and/or simply the timely acceptance of their styles is a moot point. Were they no more than early examples of living in the right time at the right time? Don't misunderstand me: I love Vncent, Degas, Dali, lots of artists of not so long ago. What I love is fheir interpretation, I don't claim to admire their technique as being superior to their ancestors' except in the case of Dali, that is.

Take Canaletto: his paintings of Venice often show views that are physically impossible and inaccurate. Can anyone claim that his skills are on the level of Photoshop or vice versa? The intended results may be vaguely similar, but Canaletto is incontrovertibly artist whereas the PS specialist is technician. Getting to similar positions with a programme isn't art - it's technique.

There are those of us who admire Avedon, Penn, Watson; does the same group of us honestly admire the two Richardsons? That never hindered the latter pair!

Rob C

[Isaac]

Monkey-artist-Pockets-Warhol-uses-hands-feet-tail-create-paintings-worth-250

"We cannot guarantee the artist or colors, but all art is done by the lemurs here at the Center."

[Isaac]

The essence of photographic creativity, in my sense/understanding of the term, is that the photographer has put together something that did not and would not have existed without his active interference in the status quo.

If we push to an extreme, there seems something a little strange about that as a criterion -- the difference between a photograph of a tulip in a florist's and a photograph of a tulip outside the florist's after purchase; the difference between a Morning Glory flower on the vine and a Morning Glory flower on a wire support.


"He told us we were charming, and asked if we could [kiss] again for the camera," ... "Monsieur Doisneau took us to three different places for the picture," ... First he took some pictures on the Place de la Concorde, then on the Rue de Rivoli, and finally the Hôtel de Ville."

Presumably, if Robert Doisneau had photographed the first un-posed kiss that would not show photographic creativity -- but the second, third and fourth sets of photos would?

[Rob C]

Rob, you are absolutely entitled to your opinion, whatever it is!

No offence taken, I'll just go hide away in a corner somewhere and dwell on the fact you think my life's work as a photographer has lacked creativity ;-)

I'm willing to make exceptions: that's how life works. And possibly art, too.

;-)

Rob C

[Rob C]

If we push to an extreme, there seems something a little strange about that as a criterion -- the difference between a photograph of a tulip in a florist's and a photograph of a tulip outside the florist's after purchase; the difference between a Morning Glory flower on the vine and a Morning Glory flower on a wire support.


"He told us we were charming, and asked if we could [kiss] again for the camera," ... "Monsieur Doisneau took us to three different places for the picture," ... First he took some pictures on the Place de la Concorde, then on the Rue de Rivoli, and finally the Hôtel de Ville."

Presumably, if Robert Doisneau had photographed the first un-posed kiss that would not show photographic creativity -- but the second, third and fourth sets of photos would?

Yes, I'd go with that; you're getting the picture!

Rob C

[32BT]

There was a documentary shown here just recently about Gregory Crewdson.
He would be right up your alley then, Rob. He looks upon the photographic process as a kind of movie-story-telling without the burden of finishing the entire plot by character development and whatever. He creates a single (defining?) picture from a non-existing movie and the entire image is completely and totally staged, and where necessary digitally manipulated to boot. It was interesting to see, and he did indeed look more like a movie-director then a photographer. In fact, I don't think he actually even touched the camera.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... I consider still life a creative form of photographic art...

The essence of photographic creativity, in my sense/understanding of the term, is that the photographer has put together something that did not and would not have existed without his active interference in the status quo. That's why I can't accept the simple act of picking a pleasing viewpoint or moment in time as being the defining qualities of creativity; it takes more than that: the photographer has to have made the difference.

So, you are basically saying that rearranging a few apples and pears, or peppers, or whatever, on a tabletop is creative, wheres the whole HCB opus (of capturing a decisive moment in time) is not? Or that Steve McCurry's Afghan Girl, another example of just picking a "pleasing viewpoint or moment in time," is not?

If that is indeed creativity, then I do not really care much about it anymore.

I think that the essence of our different views on art/creativity is that you see Art = Object. It starts with objects (peppers or models), rearranged by the photographer, and ends as an object in itself. The viewer then can admire that (newly created) object, and the original objects in it... or not.

If, however, we assume that Art = Communication (as Oscar already mentioned), then the origin of that communication (the initial object) becomes much less important, and even less important whether that object was rearranged or "merely" selected.

In such a case, simply selecting a can of soup becomes art. Or even elephant turd. In both cases it initiates a communication with the viewer. And that is the bases of much of modern art, as much as I acknowledge that many people wouldn't consider it so.

In such a case, simply selecting a "pleasing viewpoint or moment of time" in landscape photography is not an end in and by itself (an object), but a beginning of a communication with the viewer, conveying a certain emotion or state of mind. Hence Art.

[petermfiore]

While this is all very entertaining it is almost useless banter for those that make Art.
There is nothing new under the sun, but that is not the point. It's the artist's interpretation what makes it art , never the subject.



Peter

[Tony Jay]

...It's the artist's interpretation what makes it art , never the subject...

Hallelujah!

Tony Jay

[Isaac]

[Robert Doisneau] Yes, I'd go with that; you're getting the picture!

Let's develop the picture further: I seem to remember that in one of Tim Fitzharris' books, he'd used a reflector to light a yucca plant in the foreground of his landscape photo -- does that active interference show photographic creativity?

[Rob C]

Premature congratulations, Tony.

I think I can resolve this to everyone's satisfaction by quoting one of my heroes, Jean Loup Sieff: there is no art, only artists.

Slobodan. Not even HC-B claimed that his photography was art; he did though, think of himself primarily as painter/pencil artist. In fact, that was the love to which he returned at the close of his life. If you watch any of the later interviews, you can't but help realise that photography was something he eventually found very boring, if not quite as boring as the questions about it that he constantly found himself fielding. (An extreme example of that boredom can be found in his interview by a queasily sycophantic Charlie Rose.) That his photography is art was something foist upon it/him by the world of curators, publishers and television  crews, and their influence has informed most of the voices I hear here. At the most, from what I can glean from his own words, he thought of his photography as geometry, and I can see the relevance and appropriateness of that thought.

Take consolation from Sieff, as quoted above: we can all think of ourselves as artists, regardless of the cream or the crap that we may or may not produce: everybody wins! True democracy at its very best! I love it.

Rob C

P.S. Afghan Girl. I have no way of knowing how he did the shot; whether he directed her, caught her on the hop or bought her photographic favours. How could I, then, possibly judge?

[Rob C]

Let's develop the picture further: I seem to remember that in one of Tim Fitzharris' books, he'd used a reflector to light a yucca plant in the foreground of his landscape photo -- does that active interference show photographic creativity?

It shows technique.

Rob C

[Dave (Isle of Skye)]

...I don't see any painter as being relevant to this chat: a painter starts of with a blank canvas and an idea - I trust - and then tries to give that life in a medium that takes huge skill to do it well and that's the first difference you encounter with photography...

Rob C

Hi Rob,

In the past I have given and occasionally sold some of my landscape images to artists/painters (one artist in particular who ran art classes and who became quite a regular customer), he and his class then created oil paintings and water colours fully based on my images. I am sure the artist/painter thought he was being creative when he and his students produced these works, which he then occasionally sold and for which I was happy for him to do so, do you think he was being creative when he painted these pictures based on my images?

Dave

[petermfiore]

Hi Rob,

In the past I have given and occasionally sold some of my landscape images to artists/painters (one artist in particular who ran art classes and who became quite a regular customer), he and his class then created oil paintings and water colours fully based on my images. I am sure the artist/painter thought he was being creative when he and his students produced these works, which he then occasionally sold and for which I was happy for him to do so, do you think he was being creative?

Dave

If they copy it no. If they interpret it, yes. Same goes for painting from life.

Peter

[Rob C]

Hi Rob,

In the past I have given and occasionally sold some of my landscape images to artists/painters (one artist in particular who ran art classes and who became quite a regular customer), he and his class then created oil paintings and water colours fully based on my images. I am sure the artist/painter thought he was being creative when he and his students produced these works, which he then occasionally sold and for which I was happy for him to do so, do you think he was being creative when he painted these pictures based on my images?

Dave

As a kid, I used to trawl art galleries and buy postcards of Monet, Manet, Vincent, Cezanne, Renoir, Dali, the lot of them. I'd then copy those to the best of my ability because I enjoyed doing that. I remember with affection a particularly accurate one of Christ of St John on the Cross. Do you think that I was making art? I don't think that I had that delusion, but it was all so long ago and perhaps I did...

Rob C

[Dave (Isle of Skye)]

If they copy it no. If they interpret it, yes. Same goes for painting from life.

Peter

I refer you to Slobodan's question regarding Cézanne.. 

Dave

[Isaac]

[a reflector to light a yucca plant] -- It shows technique.

So, by active interference, you mostly mean re-arrangement of the objects in the scene into a composition?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

So, back to Cézanne. I know there are people who hate to click on provided links. As a public service, I am attaching the cover of that book

What do we see there? If just glancing casually, and without enlarging, we see, of course, a Cézanne. But look closer, and you'll see that the left third is actually a photograph. The rest of the book is full of such examples, of almost photorealistic representation of found reality (again, in terms of viewpoints and elements, not technique). In other words, and as Peter already has pointed out, art/creativity is not about the subject, but its interpretation, and the connection it creates with viewers (i.e., communication).