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12/15/2010 11:31:26 AM · #51 |
| This might be irrelevant but I find if I think to much I tend to get a headache. |
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12/15/2010 11:57:02 AM · #52 |
| So the question for Don and Clive would be this: You go out to shoot and come back with a dozen frames. How do you decide which ones to use? Wouldn't any such decision defeat your stated objective here? |
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12/15/2010 12:00:57 PM · #53 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
So the question for Don and Clive would be this: You go out to shoot and come back with a dozen frames. How do you decide which ones to use? Wouldn't any such decision defeat your stated objective here? |
If you look at what I wrote, the artist is still "crafting" here, and therefore still has decisions to make. Creating an "open" piece of art is a conscious, deliberate process. There is no conflict with the "stated objective." |
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12/15/2010 12:05:22 PM · #54 |
Originally posted by posthumous:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
So the question for Don and Clive would be this: You go out to shoot and come back with a dozen frames. How do you decide which ones to use? Wouldn't any such decision defeat your stated objective here? |
If you look at what I wrote, the artist is still "crafting" here, and therefore still has decisions to make. Creating an "open" piece of art is a conscious, deliberate process. There is no conflict with the "stated objective." |
Yes. Agreed. Your statement was a little more active than clive's. But what criteria does one use to maximize the photos potential for others to craft the purpose? And doesn't that process, on some level, push the viewer into a prescribed direction? I don't think that's bad (in fact I think that's good), but I'm unclear whether you think that's bad. I'm trying to see photography through someone else's eyes, and that's naturally difficult.
Message edited by author 2010-12-15 12:06:07. |
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12/15/2010 01:47:01 PM · #55 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Originally posted by posthumous:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
So the question for Don and Clive would be this: You go out to shoot and come back with a dozen frames. How do you decide which ones to use? Wouldn't any such decision defeat your stated objective here? |
If you look at what I wrote, the artist is still "crafting" here, and therefore still has decisions to make. Creating an "open" piece of art is a conscious, deliberate process. There is no conflict with the "stated objective." |
Yes. Agreed. Your statement was a little more active than clive's. But what criteria does one use to maximize the photos potential for others to craft the purpose? And doesn't that process, on some level, push the viewer into a prescribed direction? I don't think that's bad (in fact I think that's good), but I'm unclear whether you think that's bad. I'm trying to see photography through someone else's eyes, and that's naturally difficult. |
I believe seeing "art" through someone else's eyes is called working by commission. ;-)
But, I digress...carry on! |
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12/15/2010 01:49:14 PM · #56 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I'm trying to see photography through someone else's eyes, and that's naturally difficult. |
Did you vote Horizons, and if so, what did you see for pointy's entry? If you saw windswept hay on a hillside, then you did a great job of seeing through someone else's eyes! |
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12/15/2010 01:55:28 PM · #57 |
Originally posted by Melethia:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I'm trying to see photography through someone else's eyes, and that's naturally difficult. |
Did you vote Horizons, and if so, what did you see for pointy's entry? If you saw windswept hay on a hillside, then you did a great job of seeing through someone else's eyes! |
My statement was actually confusing (and I did see windswept hay). I didn't mean viewing photography through someone elses's eyes, I rather mean viewing the act of creating a photograph trhough someone else's eyes. |
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12/15/2010 02:38:31 PM · #58 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
But what criteria does one use to maximize the photos potential for others to craft the purpose? And doesn't that process, on some level, push the viewer into a prescribed direction? I don't think that's bad (in fact I think that's good), but I'm unclear whether you think that's bad. I'm trying to see photography through someone else's eyes, and that's naturally difficult. |
First of all, questions like this are going to show fractions within the "underground" or "artsy" movement here, because we will have different answers.
Personally, I feel there are many ways, many creative processes, that result in art. For myself, it starts by taking lots of pictures. I then go through those pictures looking for an image that will indeed "push" a viewer but not in a "prescribed" direction. What I like most is surprise, so I will look for an image that has certain expected elements combined with elements that "don't belong." My post-processing will accentuate that unbelonging, that sense of something-is-wrong. Perfection is boring. charliebaker perfected perfection and he gets brown ribbons for it.
I am not merely reversing the considerations of a stock photographer. I have my own considerations. |
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12/15/2010 03:02:19 PM · #59 |
| Yeah. I see 1/2, 1/3, 1/5, 1/7. I'm primed, baby. |
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12/15/2010 03:31:37 PM · #60 |
Originally posted by posthumous:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
But what criteria does one use to maximize the photos potential for others to craft the purpose? And doesn't that process, on some level, push the viewer into a prescribed direction? I don't think that's bad (in fact I think that's good), but I'm unclear whether you think that's bad. I'm trying to see photography through someone else's eyes, and that's naturally difficult. |
First of all, questions like this are going to show fractions within the "underground" or "artsy" movement here, because we will have different answers.
Personally, I feel there are many ways, many creative processes, that result in art. For myself, it starts by taking lots of pictures. I then go through those pictures looking for an image that will indeed "push" a viewer but not in a "prescribed" direction. What I like most is surprise, so I will look for an image that has certain expected elements combined with elements that "don't belong." My post-processing will accentuate that unbelonging, that sense of something-is-wrong. Perfection is boring. charliebaker perfected perfection and he gets brown ribbons for it.
I am not merely reversing the considerations of a stock photographer. I have my own considerations. |
Thanks. That's helpful and helps me to understand your own photography. You see, if I took a picture that tries to push a viewer toward feelings of peace, wonder, and serenity and they walk away with feelings of chaos and violence (just to pick some obviously opposite emotions), I feel I have failed in a real sense. Sometimes I imagine factions of the underground group saying, "hey, that's great! You take away whatever you want to take away and I'm just glad you had a reaction!" Personally I cannot identify with this perspective. To think someone might walk away with the opposite idea of what I intended and think it's ok is alien to me. (Just trying to explain my own point of view in how I approach photography.) Perhaps this is why my own photography might seem sterile to you? I attempt to control all the elements within the canvas because I want to control the purpose. If I have chaotic accidents in the BG (ie. people or action or geomentry), I risk someone focusing on that and missing the intended purpose. I don't necessarily mean black of white backgrounds, but I will often clone out elements on purpose for this reason.
Take this shot:
I cloned out probably two or three people in the BG because I felt there were too many and it drew the eye away from the subject and purpose of the shot (the elation of flight). I'm guessing many in the underground wouldn't even think about cloning a person out of the BG or actually would consider it to be sacrilidge to the art. |
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12/15/2010 03:42:37 PM · #61 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I'm guessing many in the underground wouldn't even think about cloning a person out of the BG or actually would consider it to be sacrilidge to the art. |
I'm not sure why you're terming the "art people" the "underground", but in any case what you're describing wouldn't typically be a part of that culture. More often than not, to "be an artist" means to manipulate the environment, so to speak, in the process of making or creating one's art.
There IS a "purist" subcategory that objects to any monkeying with "reality" at all, but I think of these people as photographers, not artists. From a purely photographic point of view I can relate to that perspective, but less so from an artistic POV.
I'm not sure I'm making sense. I'll have to think about it. Don't hold me to any of this, LOL.
R.
Message edited by author 2010-12-15 15:43:00. |
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12/15/2010 03:46:52 PM · #62 |
I agree about the purist subcategory Robert, but I wasn't speaking directly to that. I think I ask, "What allows me to better control the message of the shot?" (answer: Removing a few people from the background.) when there are people who would just ask, "why would I want to better control the message? That's silly. I wouldn't have even thought about removing someone."
Message edited by author 2010-12-15 15:47:36. |
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12/15/2010 04:01:18 PM · #63 |
Originally posted by posthumous:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
But what criteria does one use to maximize the photos potential for others to craft the purpose? And doesn't that process, on some level, push the viewer into a prescribed direction? I don't think that's bad (in fact I think that's good), but I'm unclear whether you think that's bad. I'm trying to see photography through someone else's eyes, and that's naturally difficult. |
First of all, questions like this are going to show fractions within the "underground" or "artsy" movement here, because we will have different answers.
Personally, I feel there are many ways, many creative processes, that result in art. For myself, it starts by taking lots of pictures. I then go through those pictures looking for an image that will indeed "push" a viewer but not in a "prescribed" direction. What I like most is surprise, so I will look for an image that has certain expected elements combined with elements that "don't belong." My post-processing will accentuate that unbelonging, that sense of something-is-wrong. Perfection is boring. charliebaker perfected perfection and he gets brown ribbons for it.
I am not merely reversing the considerations of a stock photographer. I have my own considerations. |
But aren't you still pushing in a certain direction by the choices you make both in-camera and when you edit down your work? I don't see how that can be avoided without adding a healthy dose of randomness into the equation. Without that you inevitably create a reflection of yourself in your work. The more work you produce the stronger the reflection and the stronger your direction will be. |
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12/15/2010 04:17:50 PM · #64 |
I love looking at the photo's here, and one thing I have always said (about any art) is that the effect of the art on the viewer says more about the viewer than the artist.
That said, I have a real issue with abstract photo's in contests with definitive boundaries. I'm not saying I rate these uniformly low. . .but, if the contest is "cars" and the person blurs a picture of a car to an unregcognizable abstract, I am going to hammer it for DNMC. . .because if the focus is a noun (not a feeling, or abstract/free-study) then the submission should relate directly and in most cases, apparently.
Note, if the contest were based on doing an abstract, and someone subbed the greatest land-scape pic since Ansel Adams, I would judge that equally harshly for that contest!
The joy of being on DPC, however, is that someone else may love that same photo, and balance out the vote. I've had people hate and love the same photo I submitted. In the end they balanced out, and my often "poorly" shot photo would earn the score it had coming.
I think that the results of these contests however prevail on popularity of that type of shot, site history, and current photo trends. Not rawly on the artistic skill of the photographer. . .which honestly, is how I think it needs to be. If you wanted a photo judged only be people who shared your opinion, you could start another site. . . Say, Abstract Challenge or Babies Only Challenge. . .
Sorry, not really threaded to where the conversation is at, but wanted to toss my bits into the pile.
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12/15/2010 04:22:26 PM · #65 |
Jason, all of us control what goes into an image, by whatever means, even by the absence of intent. Sometimes it seems to me that you have extremely narrow concepts of concepts, if that makes any sense, so that intuition and spontaneity are blocked at the pass. The one photo you did which was an exception and which did extremely well, was the one of your child in the water at a water thingy place. By the grace of who or what you allowed it to be what it was, a sublime gratuitous moment, something you didn't have to set up or heroically edit.
I don't mean to say that you are narrow minded, only that your talent for precision, which I respect more than I would like to admit publicly, seems to get you into trouble when it comes to the imagination. which is what this tiny strange business of making shapes and such in small rectilinear slightly more than 2 dimensions is all about. Meaning is more than intent. If meaning were restricted to what we can intend, life would be meaningless, and imagination to what we can imagine then the salt will have lost its savour.
I have no idea if the underground exists, or if it does whether I am a fraction of it, but for me image making is a sort of groping in the dark or in the dawn or at ducks. |
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12/15/2010 04:37:36 PM · #66 |
Originally posted by tnun:
Jason, all of us control what goes into an image, by whatever means, even by the absence of intent. Sometimes it seems to me that you have extremely narrow concepts of concepts, if that makes any sense, so that intuition and spontaneity are blocked at the pass. The one photo you did which was an exception and which did extremely well, was the one of your child in the water at a water thingy place. By the grace of who or what you allowed it to be what it was, a sublime gratuitous moment, something you didn't have to set up or heroically edit.
I don't mean to say that you are narrow minded, only that your talent for precision, which I respect more than I would like to admit publicly, seems to get you into trouble when it comes to the imagination. which is what this tiny strange business of making shapes and such in small rectilinear slightly more than 2 dimensions is all about. Meaning is more than intent. If meaning were restricted to what we can intend, life would be meaningless, and imagination to what we can imagine then the salt will have lost its savour.
I have no idea if the underground exists, or if it does whether I am a fraction of it, but for me image making is a sort of groping in the dark or in the dawn or at ducks. |
A completely fair and well said statement. I am somewhat aware of this limitation and at times attempt to explore outside it. At other times I believe having a narrow purpose allows one to push further down the road (like a thin arrow penetrating a bale of hay further than a fat one). For example, believe it or not, I was toying with doing a number of months of purely B&W photography. *Gasp*. That's outside my typical field as my photography definitely uses strong colors as part of my "crafting".
Message edited by author 2010-12-15 16:38:34. |
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12/15/2010 04:39:57 PM · #67 |
I've been reading this whole thread with interest, but I'm now starting to get confused as to whether I am a "photographer" or an "artist". Is "imitative talentless hack" a choice?
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12/15/2010 04:41:35 PM · #68 |
Originally posted by jmsetzler:
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
"Just how important is it that we know what an image is "of", anyway?"
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It obviously depends on the viewer. Everyone has expectations when they are looking at photography (or anything for that matter.) Some viewers require a visual connection with the subject. Others may be able to connect with an idea or a mood created by the image. It's all in the biases created through who you (the viewer) are and what you believe. |
If this post has any validity, I'm purely baffled how a photographer can control the elements solely to the point of pushing only the photographer's message to the viewer that disallows any other interpretation but that message?
I suppose that is the purpose of propaganda...
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12/15/2010 05:07:35 PM · #69 |
| I don't think I ever craft a photograph with a message in mind, or a direction in which to push a viewer. I think that, more than anything else I've seen or read here, truly describes the difference between an "artist" and a "photographer". I am most definitely not an artist. I love when a photograph generates a reaction - ANY reaction - but that's a lovely byproduct of my recording something with my camera. |
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12/15/2010 05:14:28 PM · #70 |
Good for you, Jason. Have a crack at altering your accustomed route from time to time. Maybe there's some liberating epiphany to be experienced there, or maybe no more than riding the fences of the bubble in which one lives. I've a fairly strong feeling that you should probably keep doing as you do - to thine own self be true, as it were - and while I address this to you and to this thread it's as much a personal reflection, I think.
I once told someone that he was a failure. It wasn't an unfriendly statement and very little offence was taken, but I wondered later why I had said it (he was patently by no means any kind of failure) and I found that a) I have a penchant for saying daft things and b) had I been in his position, I might well have looked on myself as a failure.
I'm not at all sure I'd think I were a failure had I produced a number of photos in the style of dr achoo, but I do think we tend to externalise our internal criteria. While that may not always be so bad, it probably gets in the way of objective evaluation of others' work.
Pictures taken for advertising, product presentation or visual references such as one might expect to be the case with stock photos, are generally speaking expected to have a similar effect on a wide sample/audience. DPC sort of pans out to the same demands, what with varied voters and targeted challenges.
If the paragraph above makes sense, then it should follow that a cliché is not wrong in those circumstances. Then again the majority will, I think, at least pay lip service to the principle of avoiding clichés. On the other hand (how many hands do we have here?), as Kerouac said in one of his self-referential streams of consciousness while bemoaning his over-use of cliché: clichés are truisms and truisms are true.
Anyway, don't sweat it, eh? Thanks for nudging me into jotting this down. I'm sure I've got a sonnet to Jack the Dripper somewhere if anyone seeks further confusion... |
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12/15/2010 05:18:54 PM · #71 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
I'm guessing many in the underground wouldn't even think about cloning a person out of the BG or actually would consider it to be sacrilidge to the art. |
you may be right, but this doesn't describe me. ironically, it's dpc values that have made me unlikely to clone things out of a photo. I had no respect for the original photograph until I had to contend with dpc's editing rules. but then I'm not really a photographer. I'm a poet first, a doodler second, photographer third.
all my aesthetics apply to drawing and painting, so ideas about "purity" of the "original" go out the window.
ah, but then there's this bit you said about controlling the image and what it conveys. the problem with that is if we control the message too tightly, we generally create an image that has a single message and is finished. a piece of art ideally will have an initial impact but will also reward additional viewings. that multiplicity of meaning requires a certain amount of "letting go and letting God." :) I phrase it that way because I think you understand that concept. The trick is letting go and then afterward checking it to make sure it actually went somewhere... rinse and repeat... see? there is a craft to this. |
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12/15/2010 05:19:18 PM · #72 |
Originally posted by hihosilver:
Originally posted by jmsetzler:
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
"Just how important is it that we know what an image is "of", anyway?"
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It obviously depends on the viewer. Everyone has expectations when they are looking at photography (or anything for that matter.) Some viewers require a visual connection with the subject. Others may be able to connect with an idea or a mood created by the image. It's all in the biases created through who you (the viewer) are and what you believe. |
If this post has any validity, I'm purely baffled how a photographer can control the elements solely to the point of pushing only the photographer's message to the viewer that disallows any other interpretation but that message?
I suppose that is the purpose of propaganda... |
If the photographer intends a message of any kind, it may or may not be received by the viewer. What is important is what the viewer actually does perceive. The viewer is only able to perceive what his biases will allow and nothing more. There is nothing that will disallow any possible interpretation.
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12/15/2010 05:38:14 PM · #73 |
Originally posted by posthumous:
ah, but then there's this bit you said about controlling the image and what it conveys. the problem with that is if we control the message too tightly, we generally create an image that has a single message and is finished. a piece of art ideally will have an initial impact but will also reward additional viewings. that multiplicity of meaning requires a certain amount of "letting go and letting God." :) I phrase it that way because I think you understand that concept. The trick is letting go and then afterward checking it to make sure it actually went somewhere... rinse and repeat... see? there is a craft to this. |
Awesome post. I thought of this maybe 30 minutes ago that if you control the message well enough, you wind up with only one message. And while that is good, it is also bad because the picture has only one dimension and thus leads quickly to boredom. The trick, I guess, is to loosen up enough to allow for a richer photo, but still control enough to prevent antithetical intepretations (because at the end of the day, I'm just not ready to allow this. :))
Good discussion. Good food for thought. |
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12/15/2010 06:05:18 PM · #74 |
Originally posted by jmsetzler:
If the photographer intends a message of any kind, it may or may not be received by the viewer. What is important is what the viewer actually does perceive. The viewer is only able to perceive what his biases will allow and nothing more. There is nothing that will disallow any possible interpretation. |
So, if a photograph takes on a message to a viewer per his/her biases other than what the photographer originally intended does that mean a failure on the part of the photographer, or may we allow an image to bloom and mature within it's own right to an audience of any possible interpretation?
That sounds mightily dangerous...;-)
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12/15/2010 07:04:39 PM · #75 |
| Oh it is! All art is subversive. We must ban it from The Repulsive. Playdo would agree. |
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