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02/11/2003 10:56:25 AM · #1 |
I didn't want to hijack another thread by discussing snapshots further, but I have found some things I'd like to show you guys. A few years ago there was an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco called "Snapshots: Photography of Everyday Life". First I will paste an essay about the exhibition by Richard Rodriguez, from PBS's Newshour, then 3 of the photos from the exhibition.
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SAY CHEESE
July 15, 1998
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript
Essayist Richard Rodriguez discusses taking pictures.
RICHARD RODRIGUEZ: All of us have taken snapshots like these of the family dog, of grandpa, or the new baby in bed, or the newlyweds. Alternately, all of us have stood in front of the camera, waiting impatiently as kids, waiting for the camera to click before running away. Such an odd, such a lovely notion for a show here at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, a show that examines snapshots, photography of everyday life.
It was a Rochester, New York bank clerk, George Eastman, who sold America on the idea of taking snapshots. Eastman's genius, like Henry Ford's, was democratic and thoroughly American. The Kodak camera-introduced in 1888-made a new technology inexpensive and made it attractive to the common man, or, more assuredly, the Kodak woman-at the beach-dancing-eating ice cream. Because of George Eastman, Americans began taking pictures of each other and of nearly everything in sight: snakes, houses, sky. It is winter in some of these snapshots.
More often, one feels summer, the best season for snapshots, when the days are long and the nights late, and the cat gets herself caught out on a limb. Etymologically snapshots is a hunting term referring to a rapid round of gunfire. Click, click, click. Randomness is crucial to the snapshot. There is little art here. Life caught without design. And who fondly remembers a photographer-the person who urged these children to say "cheese?" Our interest in looking at snapshots is with the people in front of the camera, not in the person shooting the picture. Before Cartier Bresone, or Ansell Adams, there were these photographs of people, these pictures of nature. Art photography-the sort of photographs that usually hang in museums-was a notion developed in reaction to snapshots.
Alfred Stieglitz, for example, deplored the little effort and little self-knowledge required by snapshots. He wanted a middle way between the stiff formalism of 19th century studio photography and random snapshots. And in the same way that a folk song touches something in us that is deeply human more easily than a complex aria, snapshots touch us precisely because of their artlessness. To see these lives caught for an instance is to realize how sudden and how random, how unadorned are the moments of our lives.
Looking at these snapshots I keep thinking of the last act of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town." Emily from the grave is watching her mother make breakfast. It is a terrible scene. Emily weeps at the magnificent details of a life that as a girl she could not fully absorb: newly-washed linen, her mother's sunflowers, hot baths. Life moves too fast. The snapshot catches the face in the passing train or the horse in mid air, but, of course, the snapshot doesn't capture the second at all. It only reminds us of how quickly the moment passes. To look at old snapshots-one's own or another's-is to feel finally the weight of time. Was that really me? How young Mama seemed, though I had no idea at the time.
The odd thing about posing for snapshots is that we do not fully appreciate how someday we will look at this moment and wonder. We hear the camera click. The snapshot preserves the moment forever. Only dimly do we realize how we will stare at ourselves looking back from the future. Finally, snapshots amuse the young and console the old.
To study a snapshot, to see a moment in any life, the stillness of a lake in summer held forever, is to see the world as Thornton Wilder's stage manager tells Emily, As only saints and poets see the world, aware of the wonder, the mystery, this ordinary moment.
I'm Richard Rodriguez.
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02/11/2003 11:00:58 AM · #2 |
I haven't read this whole thing.. I will come back to it..
But...
I don't think anyone ever said a snapshot is without meaning or purpose. We all have them, and will continue to shoot them.
You will notice, however, that the three examples you give have elements (or, rather, are missing elements) that elevate them from a typical snapshot. Esp. the last one! Wow! great catch on that shot! Right? I mean.. It is not too busy.. it is showing an event, it caught the guy in mid air... quick...snap. great! A lot of photojournalism is done quickly.. However, it is the eye of the photographer, and the experience to judge or feel when something good is about to happen that leads to a great photo.. snapshot or otherwise.
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02/11/2003 11:18:40 AM · #3 |
Karen, you say snapshots have meaning and purpose, so what makes them bad photos? There are very rigid rules that govern here, that no art curator would ever apply. Meaning and purpose, to me, are the important thing. Composition, exposure, focus, etc. are secondary. They should support the meaning, not overwhelm it.
Often, that snapshot "look" is very appropriate to the subject you are depicting, because it borrows elements from the genre of everyday, suburban photography. We've talked about William Eggleston here before, an artist who specialised in taking snapshot-like photos. He's now seen as one of the masters of photography.
To me, a classic snapshot full of life and meaning is much better than a half-hearted, awkward attempt at a studio shot, where someone plunked some object or a piece of fruit on a crumpled sheet and took a photo with no tonal depth and big, ugly, black shadows. But those shots often do better here than any that are regarded as snapshots.
Message edited by author 2003-02-11 11:21:43. |
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02/11/2003 11:30:03 AM · #4 |
I probably won't be posting anything more on this thread tonight (in my timezone) because I have to get a 3D model finished and textured before tomorrow and it's already past midnight.... (I always post the most when I'm under stress, it's just something about me). But here is one photo that I absolutely loved in the recent "Windows and Doors" challenge that ranked near the bottom, largely, I suspect, because of the dreaded snapshot factor - "katie-mac smile-wipe" by johnny-4-president:
I've enjoyed a lot of his photos, because of his ability to capture all kinds of meaning and emotion, but often they don't do anywhere near as well as they deserve. He's really quite a talented guy, and so are many other people on this site who submit photos like this and get rated down for no good reason. |
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02/11/2003 12:08:09 PM · #5 |
You'd have to agree, Lisae, that most are bad photos. The examples you give are exceptions.. and I am sure there are others. I like snapshots, in general. They give meaning to me about time and place...but are probably most important to me and not others. People might also say that about kids photos, but it depends on how they are done. I probably agree with you more than you think, Lisae. But, when I see a photo entered in a challenge, I will expect to see something that makes it rise above, and maybe it will be a snap shot.. and maybe it will not be.
Here is a snapshot.. would you consider it one? I do.. but I think there are elements that make it a good one.
ack. pbase is down. I will insert it later when the site comes back up.
Good luck with your 3D.. sorry I did not respond quicker to this before.. I have kid with the flu in the house .. and.. oh no..look at that.. I burned the pancake :0(
:0)
EDIT: Here is is surfer dude wanna-be's
Message edited by author 2003-02-11 13:25:48. |
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02/11/2003 12:10:36 PM · #6 |
I've found that no matter how close Computers and Cooking are in the dictionary, they should otherwise be kept far apart...just hope it didn't set off you smoke alarm!
Did you at least take a nice macro of the edge through the intriguing smoke curls?
Message edited by author 2003-02-11 12:11:27. |
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02/11/2003 12:11:21 PM · #7 |
| LOL.. nope ... all is well.. just down to one less pancake :/ |
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02/11/2003 01:00:38 PM · #8 |
Originally posted by lisae:
But here is one photo that I absolutely loved in the recent "Windows and Doors" challenge that ranked near the bottom, largely, I suspect, because of the dreaded snapshot factor - "katie-mac smile-wipe" by johnny-4-president:...
....He's really quite a talented guy, and so are many other people on this site who submit photos like this and get rated down for no good reason. |
I gave this a 5. And I looked at it for a relatively long time. It is well composed and does a good job in expressing emotion. I don't consider it a snapshot, but pure and simple: street photography.
The thing that "ruined" (big word, not meant in a bad way) it for me was the awful reflection. A wall running trough here smiling face and body, with a door on the other side and next to her head something that probabaly is Johnny's camera. For me those reflections were just to distracting, without that I would score it a 7 to 8.
edit: I was browsing trough my pbase galleries for some photo's for the hobbies thread.... If you wan't to see some bad snapshots, check out my pbase url. Everything has been bulls-eyed drop dead in the middle. :(
At least with my APS and 35mm I would pay a bit of attention to the composition (I wanted my photo's to express what I really saw in the broad sense) but between the first digital and dpc, what a mess. :(
Message edited by author 2003-02-11 13:19:45.
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02/11/2003 01:26:09 PM · #9 |
| Okay.. I inserted my pic above. |
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