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02/08/2012 05:00:45 PM · #26 |
Alas, I wish I were an alchemist who understood not only the transmutation process but the fundamental essence of what exactly defines an image as base metal or photographic gold. Despite my efforts to scour all the posts and align my limited experience with the "right" definition, I came up with a deep inner blank and cannot offer up any meditative words of wisdom. ::pout::
However, despite the urge to set a course into the deep space continuum and immerse myself into the ecstasy of the photographic experience, I suspect that whatever the answer is will be quite different than what I thought it was to begin with.
But, I certainly look forward to the exploration...;-)
Message edited by author 2012-02-08 17:02:08. |
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02/08/2012 05:06:47 PM · #27 |
Originally posted by hihosilver:
Alas... |
Wow. Compared to your (and others') astounding eloquence, my posts are just snapshots. |
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02/08/2012 05:15:35 PM · #28 |
@ crowis - absolutely. I am not implying that editing is what makes an image. Rather "intention" is.
@ bear - There is nothing inherently wrong with taking "snapshots", and by extension, the word "snapshot" (@ Ken: snapshot, snapshot, snapshot)
I do believe it is possible for someone to just spin in a circle with their eyes closed, shoot with a phone, p&s, Hasselblad, whatever, and capture something interesting. Possible but highly unlikely. The inadequacy of a word used to generally describe "unintentional" and (by most people's standards) mediocre images is an issue, yet for the moment it is "snapshot", which as I admitted, is an imperfect one. There's an interesting post (snapshot photography vs. mindful photograpy) which is along the lines of this discussion.
@ Mae, strap on your hiking boots...
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02/08/2012 05:29:49 PM · #29 |
If there is a good thing about this kind of discussions, is the chance to dig out some really good photographer.
Originally posted by ubique:
I like documentary photographs, and sometimes they can be art of the highest order. Consider Paolo Pellegrin. He's a documentarist, but his work is unquestionably art first and documentary second. Does he intend it that way? I don't know. I've been to an exhibition of his, and when you see his work in person it's literally spine-tingling. It's just like Pollock or Picasso.
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Thanks for that!
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02/08/2012 05:31:54 PM · #30 |
| i try and capture what my eyes see, it often does not work... |
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02/08/2012 06:05:08 PM · #31 |
Originally posted by tanguera:
@ Margaret - you give great consideration to what you are including, the lighting, the time of day, the angle, the composition and balance of all the elements in the image. All this is "intent". It is not someone jumping out of their car, running to the edge of the Grand Canyon, and pressing the shutter (without really looking through the viewfinder) before jumping back in the car. |
Thanks, Johanna. I am actually missing some of the spontaneity I used to have before I came across DPC ;(
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02/08/2012 06:35:38 PM · #32 |
Originally posted by Giles_uk:
i try and capture what my eyes see, it often does not work... |
Indeed. . .if only my camera saw what I SEE!!! |
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02/08/2012 06:41:14 PM · #33 |
I don't think there is such thing as a photograph without intent, intent is what's going on in your head when you decide to photograph. Whether the intent is clear in one's head, and whether one manages or not to illustrate it, that's another thing entirely.
Lack of intent as you describe in the OP is something I can perhaps imagine in a reproduction of an image or a painting, or of a page of book on microfilm. Something that presents the viewer with a close enough reproduction of something that can be examined as being there in person. A medium to the viewer's intention, to read or examine that thing. Sure, if what the viewer is after is admiring the reflection of light on the layered paint, or the feel of touching a 200 year old manuscript, then a type of photography with intent needs to step in, and loose something else on the way.
Or a photographer that mechanically turns mugshots in things of sufficient beauty to fulfill the purpose. Somebody with a good lighting set-up in a retail centre, taking one photo after the other of countless families, with not a moment to consider who is really passing in front of their lenses. No insight and therefore no reaction. I have done something like that, such a sad job, full of unfulfilled opportunities.
I find much more interesting another difference between photographs, and photographers of course.
Some will exploit shapes and forms to evoke something else entirely from what projected those shapes and forms. Cartier-Bresson and the like. Some viewers might even see that as ruthless opportunism, but I don't feel like that. A bookseller in a street market turned by sheer force of perspective into a colossus just out of Greek mythology, no much said of who he really is, so much said of what the photographer saw, that kind of things.
Some others will chisel out anything superfluous on the way of the viewer to see what they think is really in front of their lens. An old man with a childish smile on his lips, peering at a toys shop window, the same eyes of the boy he was, before the war and all of that, that kind of things.
But some will manage to have the two things coexist, which I am in love with. Salgado and the like. Two Canadian fire-fighters have just sealed an oil well in Kuwait. They stand frozen, covered in oil, a biblical scene.
//we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2010/12/autour-de-lextreme.php
A Sudanese father carries his dead child, towering of devastated rage and desolation against the clean sky, again an epic, timeless figure.
//salgadosebastiao.blogspot.com/2009/06/famine-in-sahel-1984-1985.html
But both images document clearly, unequivocally, what's going on. They could be on tomorrow's frontpage if it needs be.
Or Caravaggio. With his fellow drunkards and prostitutes, portrayed as saints and biblical figures, for the admiration of Popes and bishops. An inner joke, sure, you pay me for my favourite lover to decorate your main hall and smile at your guests, dressed as the virgin, while I spend your money on wine and brothels. Or you pay me for having closed the circle and brought you the truth, the real one, that nothing is really one single thing only. Ubiquity is not a miracle, is a state of things and of the human mind.
If I managed to take one single image, one, like that.. It would be time for me to hang the camera and relax.. But I suspect you either take endless of those, or never take one :)
Sorry, I do tend rambling a lot.
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02/08/2012 06:43:09 PM · #34 |
Originally posted by Giles_uk:
i try and capture what my eyes see, it often does not work... |
Hmmm, I try to capture what my eye can't see, but what my brain sees. Unfortunately no one's eyes want to see what my brain sees ;-) |
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02/08/2012 07:21:20 PM · #35 |
@ mcaldo - wonderful, in-depth reply. Thought provoking, really. In the end, I suppose, every image has intent or meaning to someone. On the other hand, if that was the case, all photography would be meaningful, and it is hard to argue that it is.
I've been perusing this blog, and she has many interesting posts, highlighting very varied photographers. Two seem to be most pertinent to this discussion, and illustrate (to me) the influence of "intent" when capturing an image:
Robert Doisneau - street
Timothy Allen - nature |
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02/08/2012 07:44:27 PM · #36 |
Originally posted by tanguera:
@ mcaldo - wonderful, in-depth reply. Thought provoking, really. In the end, I suppose, every image has intent or meaning to someone. On the other hand, if that was the case, all photography would be meaningful, and it is hard to argue that it is.
I've been perusing this blog, and she has many interesting posts, highlighting very varied photographers. Two seem to be most pertinent to this discussion, and illustrate (to me) the influence of "intent" when capturing an image:
Robert Doisneau - street
Timothy Allen - nature |
Thanks Johanna, right on my reading list.
Actually, perhaps we think alike.
Any image can have a meaning to someone, even one taken by chance, even if intent was not there.
And often an image taken with an intent fails to convey this. Countless beautiful scenes where some or many things didn't quite work.
Also, I am fascinated with the trade off between engaging most people in a general feeling, or very few with a very specific feeling and understanding. I could take a cluttered photo of my kid with his favourite things and countless recognizable details of our life, and make the perfect portrait for me and my wife to enjoy.
Or I could simplify ever so much, take that all away, and make a portrait of simple joy, which many more could understand without knowing him at all.
Can I do both with one image, though?
Is the first really pointless as it's too specific. Or the second is pointless because too general, any child could do?
Message edited by author 2012-02-08 19:44:57. |
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02/08/2012 07:48:40 PM · #37 |
Originally posted by tanguera:
Two seem to be most pertinent to this discussion, and illustrate (to me) the influence of "intent" when capturing an image:
Robert Doisneau - street |
These are just incredible, and I assume, none was setup. Apart from the ability to see a potential great shot when taking photos I assume that he also had the ability to pick and crop the best shots - to me this is as important to the final result as taking the photos in the first place - the "intent" after the fact. |
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02/08/2012 07:49:57 PM · #38 |
Originally posted by jagar:
... to see the special in the mundane that brings real lasting happiness. |
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02/08/2012 07:50:43 PM · #39 |
Hey, that's not fair. This stuff is blowing my mind.
I was supposed to be productive and now I'll be glued to the screen for the next 2 hours :D |
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02/08/2012 07:54:40 PM · #40 |
Originally posted by MargaretN:
Originally posted by tanguera:
Two seem to be most pertinent to this discussion, and illustrate (to me) the influence of "intent" when capturing an image:
Robert Doisneau - street |
These are just incredible, and I assume, none was setup. Apart from the ability to see a potential great shot when taking photos I assume that he also had the ability to pick and crop the best shots - to me this is as important to the final result as taking the photos in the first place - the "intent" after the fact. |
The one of the kiss actually was, two actors from an academia in Paris, and it has been at the centre of endless discussions :D
Whether it ceases to be a great photo because of that, it's for you to decide.
I wouldn't be surprised if most of them were not cropped, though. The man lived on the street and knew his business. |
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02/08/2012 08:57:53 PM · #41 |
Actually, it defies the imagination that The Cellist was likewise NOT a set-up...
And that "kiss" image was recreated on this very site
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02/08/2012 09:22:13 PM · #42 |
Actually, I once stumbled upon a bagpiper in the middle of the mountains, though the background wasn't half as majestic :) I assumed he took the thing up there in order to keep his marriage intact.
Like  mcaldo said, I think all photographs have intent. Even if your intent is literal representation, that's an intent. And plenty of photos that are purely documentary in nature are documenting things that we all ignore in the world around us, yet would arguably be just as intepretive if you wanted to argue that point, as well.
All photography endorses a specific view of a subject matter, it all attempts to point us to see something in a specific fashion. Having said that, I think it's awesome that most people will view the same work in vastly differing fashions. This brings me to my next thing to consider- is there anything better or worse about two photos, one which engages viewers in the fashion intended and one which engages the same number of folks for reasons completely disparate from what the artist intended?
I think they are the same, I think the relevance and value in art is in a connection of expression, an intimate understanding that takes place between artist and viewer, even if they aren't having the same conversation with each other. |
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02/08/2012 10:24:27 PM · #43 |
Originally posted by spiritualspatula:
Actually, I once stumbled upon a bagpiper in the middle of the mountains, though the background wasn't half as majestic :) I assumed he took the thing up there in order to keep his marriage intact.
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+1
I can confirm without doubt that going practising in the middle of nowhere is the safest way of preserving intact marital and neighbourhood relationships.
I think in Denmark they still talk about the Italian madman playing in a shed in the woods, with -5 celsius :D
I agree with you that it doesn't matter at all what the intent was if the image resonates with somebody for some reason. Images are like songs, once you leave them free to circulate, what people will make of them is completely out of anybody's control, which is good.
But let's be honest, there are quite a few of us more than interested into ensuring that connection happens as often as possible with our images, and camera tossing has proved not that successful :)
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02/08/2012 10:43:19 PM · #44 |
By  Ubique[b]I dislike 'photography' (studio, set-up, lighting, tripods, all that crap) because it makes for very dull photographs, and almost never makes art.[/b]
I'm the same, I much rather portray someone naturally ( I hope I don't have to eat these words) than a portrait shot. I much prefer reality to to something which is fake, just like in real life I dislike the snobby, the stuck up, and am more attracted to friendly bubbly people.
A photo to me, must have "mood" in it to be effective. Like Ben's shot  I remember when I saw it, how I felt, on first impression. I think I was the first to comment on it....it made an impression on me, that's how I feel about a really good image to me it must impact me, otherwise it does become just mundane ho hum. A good landscape shot is the same, anything other than the ordinary, will get maybe a 5 or a 6, add some mood and earthiness to the shot and it will score higher from me.
I feel though on this site, too many shots get over looked that have that natural aura about it. The shots that win are the highly glossed over shiny over done photos, which in itself are nice to look at, but don't leave me breathless.
That's how I want to feel sometimes.....breathless.
Message edited by author 2012-02-08 23:11:53. |
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02/08/2012 11:25:11 PM · #45 |
Here's a link to The Human Planet, Timothy Allen's new Blog. He discusses some interesting aspects of his work on the first page. Worth bookmarking.
R.
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02/09/2012 12:36:47 AM · #46 |
Originally posted by Neat:
That's how I want to feel sometimes.....breathless. |
:) |
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02/09/2012 12:42:48 AM · #47 |
oh, god. these images make me ACHE. PHYSICALLY, my body reacts to these. |
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02/09/2012 12:43:03 AM · #48 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Here's a link to The Human Planet, Timothy Allen's new Blog. He discusses some interesting aspects of his work on the first page. Worth bookmarking.
R. |
Thanks, sounds pretty interesting and the photos too. |
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02/09/2012 07:48:59 AM · #49 |
Originally posted by Giles_uk:
i try and capture what my eyes see, it often does not work... |
I think that many of us experience this. If only I could capture what my eyes see... perhaps that's why I enjoy the editing process so much :) |
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02/09/2012 08:16:49 AM · #50 |
Originally posted by dyridings:
Originally posted by Giles_uk:
i try and capture what my eyes see, it often does not work... |
I think that many of us experience this. If only I could capture what my eyes see... perhaps that's why I enjoy the editing process so much :) |
Oh! For me it's the opposite goal ... to try to capture what the eyes do NOT see. The best instrument for capturing what the eyes see is actually the eyes. Waste of effort (and money) to use a camera for that.
A camera can do so much more, can see so much more, than the eyes can. Giles, this may be why you are baffled by all that weird posthumous crap. You're standing in the wrong place and looking in the wrong direction.
But not always ...
  
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