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08/01/2015 06:15:59 AM · #1 |
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08/01/2015 06:33:24 AM · #2 |
| Very enjoyable and something I have worried about for a while in relation to my own 'work'. |
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08/01/2015 07:54:24 AM · #3 |
| digital photography has no clothes |
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08/01/2015 08:08:52 AM · #4 |
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08/01/2015 08:31:32 AM · #5 |
Street photography needs me to stop doing it and start criticizing it!
Btw, this is astonishingly similar to the situation with poetry. |
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08/01/2015 08:52:52 AM · #6 |
| That was good, and sort of explains why I feel the way I do about street photography in general. The comments were interesting also, looks like he hit a nerve, which is a good thing. |
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08/01/2015 10:13:29 AM · #7 |
| I think that article was refreshing because he dared to speak the truth. I find myself looking at a lot of street photography that people go ohhh and Aghhh over, and scratch my head and wonder what all the fuss is about! |
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08/01/2015 10:39:03 AM · #8 |
| Speaking of interesting points of view, here is one : the power of kitsch |
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08/01/2015 11:46:08 AM · #9 |
Originally posted by mariuca:
Speaking of interesting points of view, here is one : the power of kitsch |
That's a fascinating article, Mariuca. Thanks. I was particularly gripped by the bit about 'pre-emptive kitsch', and the presentation of the banal as a kind of 'sophisticated parody'. I often feel this way about the work of Magnum photographer Martin Parr whose stuff both thrills and repels me. He strips all artistic pretention out of his photography, and thereby makes art. It is what it isn't. Or it isn't what it is. And I've come to love it. Except when I don't. |
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08/01/2015 12:18:15 PM · #10 |
Originally posted by ubique:
I often feel this way about the work of Magnum photographer Martin Parr whose stuff both thrills and repels me. He strips all artistic pretention out of his photography, and thereby makes art. It is what it isn't. Or it isn't what it is. And I've come to love it. Except when I don't. |
Never heard of him before. Thanks for sharing the link. So much gold in that portfolio! |
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08/01/2015 12:21:15 PM · #11 |
I wonder if the greats would be great if they got started today, or if they would be seen the same way everyone else apparently is seen by this author.
I will defend the not-so-great street photographers (and every not-so-great photographer that prefers other genres, as well) by saying that you don't become great simply by picking up a camera. It takes effort, feedback and lots of failures. How many people started on this site entering crappy snaphots and later on went to pulling high scores on a regular basis?
I kind of agree with the article, but also found it discouraging. It is telling me that I shouldn't bother to engage in this past time, because I am part of the problem.
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08/01/2015 12:32:19 PM · #12 |
Curiously, while I'm broadly in agreement with the Street Photography essay, I don't really see what's going on as any sort of "lessening of the genre" (as it were), but rather a "naming" issue. That is to say, the issue isn't what these people produce, but that they (and those who follow it) CALL it "street photography"... Might as well call what Google Street View gives us "Architectural Photography"...
Of course, Google IS giving us photos of architecture, and the current masses of street photographers ARE giving us photos taken on the streets, so maybe that really ISN'T the issue... Isn't this vaguely reminiscent of the arch-conservatives saying that gay people can't have "marriages" because it devalues the concept of marriage?
So in the end, ti's about what you do or do not call yourself, it's a semantic issue. Meanwhile, as always, the work of real value is out there, and as always you have to wade through the dross to discover it. In fact, some of it may never BE discovered (cf the incredibly fortuitous, posthumous discovery of the work of Vivian Meier): even now, if we only knew, one of us might have a grandfather or grandmother who created a unique and moving body of work that they themselves dismissed as family snapshots and that never survived.
Do the work for yourself, and cherish it for yourself; that's all that matters. |
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08/01/2015 12:52:26 PM · #13 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Do the work for yourself, and cherish it for yourself; that's all that matters. |
And, for that matter, please keep it to yourself. The author makes some good points. Everyone's doing it and sharing it in hopes of being called out as the next Winogrand. That your picture of the guy across the street playing with his phone, in dreamy black and white, has a hundred likes/faves says more about your ability to manipulate social media than to take good photographs. Too few people are publishing this work, buying this work, or offering informed criticism. It's a big circle jerk.
For my own part, I burned out. Tens of thousands of frames, and I'll be the first to admit that I have maybe a couple dozen keepers, and a couple hundred more "decent" shots. That's the reality of it that no one wants to acknowledge. |
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08/01/2015 01:38:01 PM · #14 |
I really enjoyed reading that. The culture most of us here share isn't very refined, and to me that's the greatest point made.
Cull your massive street photography libraries, adopt an essayist mindset, and assemble a well curated catalog of photos that work within any form of context (or eschew all forms of context), and you'd have something. |
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08/01/2015 01:39:34 PM · #15 |
Originally posted by bvy:
Tens of thousands of frames, and I'll be the first to admit that I have maybe a couple dozen keepers, and a couple hundred more "decent" shots. That's the reality of it that no one wants to acknowledge. |
I think we all need to sign up for Deletion for Dummies. |
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08/01/2015 01:39:40 PM · #16 |
| Interesting take on the state of street photography. I wish he hadn't tied success to sales but I tend to agree with him. |
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08/01/2015 02:00:34 PM · #17 |
I have to agree with this, it's all about patting backs and getting yours patted in return, everything is being watered down to a cloudy lukewarm mix of mediocrity. The need to fit in kills any art even before it's had the chance to breath, this place is a prime example of the trash that comes from not daring to be different but wanting to do (score) well.
Thanks for the essay. |
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08/01/2015 03:47:55 PM · #18 |
This street essay can be applied to a lot more other genres {and not only in photography}. What I find extremely important is:
One direction might be to return street photography to its roots in terms of vision or purpose. Many of the early street photographers (now hailed as the greats) had a vision and a purpose to advance some aesthetic, which was often further connected to some form of documentation - be it social, economic or political, for example. They wanted to show us something. I'm not convinced much of the current street photography has such lofty ambitions, or any ambitions at all.
I am surprised for instance that in our circle at DPC people are not attracted more to the photo essays. Putting together a little booklet makes one have "a vision and a purpose to advance some aesthetic".
We seem more preoccupied to get a ribbon than to put together a conception. We want style - (well, style was scorned by Picasso for instance) - the idea of having a style and being instantly recognized instead of making something durable from an artistic, aesthetic and practical point of view is so prevalent in what's happening in the arts in our times (and I would say especially in architecture).
I introduced the link about kitsch because to me it addresses pretty much the same audience.
For whoever is interested in more opinions there is one more :modern art and the urge to shock. |
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08/01/2015 11:38:56 PM · #19 |
| Quite interesting. Like Rachel, it explains how I feel about most street photography. There are obviously exceptions, many of them photograhers on this site. |
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08/02/2015 12:42:19 PM · #20 |
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08/02/2015 01:09:35 PM · #21 |
It seems like a somewhat lengthy restatement of Sturgeon's Revelation (a.k.a. "Sturgeon's Law" -- that "Ninety percent of everything is crap."
I also think that if you showed a mixture of images by those listed "masters" and stuff randomly drawn from the internet and showed them to "ordinary" people I have strong doubts they would be picked out as especially good -- the problem may not be that people can't take "artistic" street photos, but may not have the training or experience (or values) to be in agreement with professional "critics and editors" about what constitutes a "good" photo ... |
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08/02/2015 01:22:54 PM · #22 |
certainly something we think about, or should. (the writer, Robert May, gets a bit tangled up in personalities, and grammar, but his own work is respectful, though not at all "street").
I still remember pawdrix's question, Why are you showing me this person? |
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08/02/2015 01:34:57 PM · #23 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Meanwhile, as always, the work of real value is out there, and as always you have to wade through the dross to discover it. In fact, some of it may never BE discovered (cf the incredibly fortuitous, posthumous discovery of the work of Vivian Meier): even now, if we only knew, one of us might have a grandfather or grandmother who created a unique and moving body of work that they themselves dismissed as family snapshots and that never survived. |
My parents' wedding photos were taken by LIFE magazine photographer Otto Hagel, an acquaintance of (and fellow chicken rancher) my grandfather in Sonoma County. |
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08/02/2015 01:48:33 PM · #24 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
My parents' wedding photos were taken by LIFE magazine photographer Otto Hagel, an acquaintance of (and fellow chicken rancher) my grandfather in Sonoma County. |
That's awesome. Still got those? |
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08/02/2015 01:51:16 PM · #25 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Originally posted by GeneralE:
My parents' wedding photos were taken by LIFE magazine photographer Otto Hagel, an acquaintance of (and fellow chicken rancher) my grandfather in Sonoma County. |
That's awesome. Still got those? |
I think I have some 2x2 negatives "somewhere" ... |
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