yesterday a brief discussion came up under "student work/workshops" that i thought might be interesting to bring up right here….herve brought it up, after seeing my India student essays, with regard to what he described as a "trend" by workshop students in particular and many photographers in general to photograph what he described as "incomplete" or "not quite" photographs….photographs which could possibly require just too too much imagination on the viewers part…not enough "explanation" perhaps….
simply put, probably most would say the above picture to be rather "incomplete" and the photograph below sufficiently "straight"….or not??? i only use these two since i made them last week and they happen to be in my camera this minute and i promised herve this discussion…and i am either too lazy or too jetlagged or both to go searching for surely better examples….
in any case, my answer back to herve’s comment was that i thought that what we are seeing today among serious photographers is not what i would call a "trend" , but simply our evolution in seeing…artistic evolution/revolution based on our intractable human nature and our most basic and eternal deepest desire to just "shake it up" .. my theory is that tastes obviously change from one generation to the next, or there are parallel and perhaps conflictive artistic developments within the same time frame…in any case, this is not a new discussion…but, we have not had it here….
so i ask you…..do you see a "trend" towards the non-literal in documentary photography??? if you answer "yes", do you think this is a positive or negative trend? if you say "no", do you see the positive "norm" for photographs to be getting looser and looser with no end in sight ??
http://www.davidalanharvey.com.temp.livebooks.com/
Michael :)))))))
the damn Aussie is the think (real deal) indeed ;))))))…and that goes double for my brother Glenn, the Gladiator of the Outback, Campbell :)))))…
one last post for wrobertangell:
how about chuck close: painter and photographer extraordinaire:
some of his paintings: http://www.paceprints.com/artistportfolio/artistportfolio.asp?aID=18&UID=904&offset=
some of his photographs:
http://www.mocp.org/collections/permanent/close_chuck.php
and from his remarkable exhibition (OF PHOTOGRAPHS) here in TO, at the AGO:
http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/07/06/23/
I ask you Bob,
what is the purpose of your photography?
do you want me to understand something in your pictures? or look at them as abstract pieces of art, something that comes purely from your imagination and understand them as that. untangable and personal.
are you representing something real .
what do you want me to experience when I look at your images.
the camera obscura was a pre text to photography. not photography.
H F Talbots negs were street scenes. they were reality.
reality existed in the way his camera showed us.
please, you have got to be kidding. that comment about the photo elite.
I try’d my damndest to make portraits that represented the physical nature of the people that sat in front of the camera.
there is no way I was going to try and presume that I could understand what was going on inside their minds. all we have is what is on the surface, in my oppinion, thats it.
I wanted to be as clear and honest as possible. to represent their physical atributes as honestly as I could. and create a sense of equility.
no freaky angles, blurry shit, dark shadowy suspect light, none of that. I am a realist. thats it.
I want to represent the nature of the things I shoot as honestly as I can.
to me thats discriptive. that is not pictorialist. huge fucking difference
Michael,
thats what its boiling down to. discriptive photography slipping into the fuzz of pictorialism. is that not what this whole discussion is about.
In the end it all comes down to personal preferance though doesn’t it? One man’s meat, another’s poison etc??
As long as you are trying your hardest to be creative (without being gimmicky), that’s the main thing.
You’ve only got to work for a variety of editors to realise everyone’s got different tastes.
Closer to home; my partner has difficulty “getting” some of my work (& plain old dislikes some of my styles!). Yet she will, love something that I want to throw out or delete. It’s all pretty subjective really….
I find that I subliminly take slices out of a variety of work styles (not limited to photography) & it somehow forms my own style. I’m not talking about being a copycat though.
Cheers
W Robert,
Just came from your site. Love…LOVE your submission to Dave’s project.
However, after reading your recent posts I do wonder…you talk about honestly representing, clearly representing, being a realist, etc.
You used a very unique and interesting lighting technique, a unique and interesting development and printing process, very shallow depth of field, display in tryptich…how is this more “honest,” more realistic than the “blurry shit?” Isn’t all we do, or try to do, honest? Real? To us, at least?
You seem to have a seriously strong negative reation to what is being described as the loose stuff. What’s with that?
cmon Bob, its not me that writes 10,000 words per post, not so enamored with my own forking syntax…
Please read the statement that I posted with the images.
the shallow depth of field was a product of 2 things.
1. the lights very low output, and
2. bellows extension factor forced my exposures to be 15th sec @ f 5.6
also I like shallow depth of field.
It forces the viewer to look at what the photographer wants the viewer to see.
that is a subjective decision,
I think all the photogs that did not have their work selected by DAH, should post up on their sites that work, so we can all see what got side lined.
I would really like to see all that work.
lets not let it go to waste.
MK,
thanks for looking, lets just shake it up a little…
PANOS THE “WRAP UP SHOW”…….
JONI KARANKA (one of my heroes in this and ONLY blog) SAID:
“…Keep on moving is a mantra…”
SHERMAN said
I think the digital age has given a generation the license to be more trendy. More hip. “Screw the old dudes, just click man.” To take a thousand pictures and see what “sticks”.
panos says… Sherman i would be the first to say that “screw the old ways”… but i’m not so sure about that “screw old DUDES”… thing… it made me laugh… kinda creepy though… Dont get CONFUSED… using a DIGITAL camera DOES NOT show any progress or make anybody more “updated” or even more… any kind of “breaking barriers” or ” rules”… man
Now , tell me which canon-like, i didn’t say canon, o.k?, i said canon-like…so which dslr can say “SCREW YOU “.. in the face to someone like
HENRI.C.B, or DAVID A H, or…. Koudelka or Josef Saudek…
or any motherfucker out there that uses MEDIUM FORMAT & up…
Peace
HERVE….
this is a word forum…..not a photographic gallery…..this whole forum has the feel of “work in progress” , not “final production”…i like the look of a room with prints all over the floor and coffee spills or thumb tacked to the wall all crooked…
when i posted those two pictures it was pretty clear to me that whether they represented the “best” of a genre or not, they at least were clearly two different kinds of pictures for the sake of this discussion…plus , maybe even better, they were a “raw” take fitting the general spontaneity of this forum…recent thinking….how i think in the course of a day….
the “rawness” of this picture pick is very much like the words we all write here….does anyone here go back and do a rewrite?? herve, you are a good writer, but would you stand by every sentence structure even though you made your point?? spellcheck maybe, but i think we write here “freestyle”, and were we to think that maybe our words here were to be immortalized in print, we would move a few words around….
by the way, i think both “literally” sometimes and i “freestyle” other times depending on my mood and the subject and do not see any conflict….i do not think the choice of those two particular pictures has stinted this discussion one single bit…everything we do here is relatively spontaneous….it was in this “unplanned” spirit that i pulled those two “out of the bag”….but, i think i will keep the dog picture…at least for awhile!!!
also related to this discussion is the feeling a photographer should have when working…not a good idea to “over think” or be overly self conscious when actually photographing…self conscious “literal” or self conscious “incomplete” looks about the same…self conscious…
BOB, W.ROBERT….
calm down boys….
both of you do very interesting albeit very different work….both “honesty” and “reality” are pretty relative terms when it comes to photography or any other art form…just because one of you is doing slow shutter speeds and trying to get inside the head of someone or inside your own head and the other of you has a big camera on a tripod and the pictures are “sharp” does not preclude either of you to be either “honest and literal” and the other to be “esoteric and abstract”….
i must say however, that i am always suspicious of an “artist” who “hates” the work of another…..i.e. working with a “chip on the shoulder”….wrong mood to be in i think….and what photo elite?? i do not know anyone who would walk in a clubhouse with that sign over the door….
bottom line: i would proudly display prints from either/both of you on my wall!!!
cheers, david
something for BOBB from panos:
or maybe i should let DAH say it…
“…BOB…
you are always “on it” amigo….nobody says it like you…and THAT really is the longest comment ever…”
Wrobert nailed it here… let’s go back at his words…
“who is a good photographer? who cares. bunch of self centered hacks that just want to be noticed. look at me! my works the best, its “different” and if you say something bad about it its really going to hurt my feelings.
jeezus. fuckin cronies.
all that shitty distortion or fake digital realism, man that shit really bugs.
in my book, there is a grand fucking canyon between the work that is worth it and all the other piles of garbage that have saturated the world.
a crutch for a lack of talent
Posted by: wrobertangell | January 31, 2008 at 08:48 PM…
panos agrees:
NOW THATS TRUE PEOPLE, LET’S ADMIT IT… Wrobert… continues:
hey, if you want to represent something in your imagination, then grab a paint brush.
what have you got.
pictorialism and discriptive.
thats it.
I am definatly not into the pictorialist sensability, and personally I find photography that mimcks a painterly approach as LAME!
Posted by: wrobertangell | January 31, 2008 at 08:59 PM
BOBB nailed it below
“Wow, wrobertangell: that’s some righteous shit indeed….”
but BOBB messes up royally below:
…incidentally, i know of noone in this world who is a member of the photo “elite”, do you?…
DAVID ALAN HARVEY SAID:
“…LIAM….
my oh my, we need you as a negotiator in the mid-east peace talks….you keep your cool and call it straight….nice…”
That totally sums it up…
Liam L. i didnt forget about you all day…
This time ( and not the only one i’m afraid …) … i fucked up…
totally misunderstood your sense of humor… i need to promise myself to never skip my medication EVER again ( bong just been replaced…)
I totally challenge you in “cellphone-typing” battle… I wanna see your ( 0 to 60), and your quarter to a mile… times… with youe eyes on the phone… biatchhhhhh!
Anyways like said above i totally fucked and i should apologize…
Now lets go back to “Wrobert” comments…. enough with me
PANOS SCREAAAAAMS:
BOBB WE NEED SOME EXPLANATIONS HERE :
WHAT IS “ELITE”??????? i mean for you???
…incidentally, i know of noone in this world who is a member of the photo “elite”, do you?…
and QUESTION FOR DAH… although he never said the word “elite”..anywhere…
So DAVID if there is “ELITE” then ….do you belong to that ???? elite?
If yes… what the FUCK that ELITE shit is???????????
ALL….
who in the world is a member of the photo elite??? maybe an effete curator or two?? certainly not any photographer i know….if you disagree, please list any photographer who you think would consider themselves to be in the “photo elite”….
cheers, david
David
you brought this topic to the table. its a real one.
I am calm and this is not about BobB either although he wanted to weigh in and so, you know, I responded.
But don’t you get sick of all the “churning it out”.
anyway, who said “hate”.
I never use words like that. in fact I hate people that do!
what am I supposed to do David…dum dee dum…
keep my mouth shut.
I mean, don’t you get sick of all the BS.
I have $7000 hanging around my neck, I am a photographer,
on the weekends. anyway back to the office…
David,
If you think I have a chip on my shoulder, yer all wrong mate.
( not really sure what that meant, kind of cryptic )
also “photo elite” well.. now theres a subject…
I think the question is
“who would admit that they are in the photo elite”
OK..here is the websters def jam…
” a group or body consideredor treated as socially superior “.
boom.
wouldn’t the finalists be descibed as such?
i’m not sure if incompleteness in pictures is a trend or something more permanent. but i definitely like the look of it. an “incomplete” picture has drawing power that i often find irresistible, perhaps because its very “incompleteness” is an invitation for me to participate in the image-making process. like in david’s sample photo: who is that man? what does he look like? where is the dog going? what has attracted its attention? does it have a tail? our human brain likes things whole, neat, understandable. its first order of business when it encounters something baffling is to make it comprehensible, to rein it in. or in photographic parlance, to frame it. i like david’s man-dog photo because it’s frameless. or rather the frame is not where i expect it to be. the “incompleteness” wakes me up.
actually, i think an “incomplete” picture is straighter than a “straight” picture. by straighter i mean closer to raw experience. because that’s how we see the world everyday, as a stream of sensory stimuli. (hmm, am i going the james joyce route here?) when we want to understand we pause to take stock of things. when we want a photo we pause to frame a scene. often we get a “straight” shot. going back to david’s man-dog picture, i think that’s how we’d actually perceive the experience if we were there: a man we don’t care for standing in front of us and a dog darting about for no apparent reason. it’s a confusing scene, it doesn’t make sense, so conventionally it doesn’t make for a pretty picture. but it’s as straight as we can get to experiencing that particular reality. to make a “straight” photo out of it, we may ask the man to pose for the camera, and please put a leash on your dog so he can get into the picture as well. for me that’s not “straight” but “straightening.” there’s human mediation involved. the frame is a mediating element– this is how i see the world, this is how i make sense of it. maybe that’s why i think a “straight” picture can be less interactive–because it’s already trying to tell you what it means. maybe that’s why i’m fond of “incomplete” pictures–because i get to play the meaning-making game too. which is not to say at all that a “straight” photo is static or boring. i’m talking about degrees here. we can make a case for an “incomplete” picture to be an instance of mediation too. i just talked about the polar extremes to simplify things.
bj
p.s. again, i like the idiom (btw, i love how monty python uses the word in the holy grail movie) of “incompleteness” but that’s different from particular expressions of it. one example that quickly comes to mind is that kind of shot where you have a scene, any scene, and then in the foreground is a head jutting out from the bottom frame just so to reveal the eyes. i saw this the first time in a photo by nachtwey. that blew me away. but since then i’ve seen it replicated in the works of so many photographers. i don’t know about chronology, i.e. who did it first, but regardless, i think it’s now developing into a cliche. so my feeling is– let’s keep the idiom but lose the cliche
WROBERT said:
“…, and personally I find photography that mimcks a painterly approach as LAME!
Posted by: wrobertangell | January 31, 2008 at 08:59 PM…”
BOBB SAID:
“…what the hell is a “painterly approach”?…as a dude that painted…, ”
PANOS ASKS: “..Why the hell did you you use “PAST T.” BOB?…
what do you mean “painted”…?? Not , “painting” No more… ???? why NOT ?
Michael Kircher, I didn’t critique them. I simply typed that I didn’t like them. Seemed valid to me as the discussion is about a style of image making, is it not? These, as examples, I didn’t like. Simple as that.
It’s late. I’ll read more on the morrow and venture further opinions then, perhaps. Sorry if I’ve annoyed anyone.
Good night.
WROBERTANGELL…
i AM posting all of the work you describe as “sidelined”…and much of it was not “sidelined” but just on “hold” until i could fix the new website….i was hoping you were going to forgive me for being slow on this considering i was in India with slow internet connect and then evicted from my loft and with all of my stuff rapidly packed in boxes and in three different storage areas ….i feel lucky to even be using a friend’s computer….
this forum comes with no guarantees of any kind for anything….i just do the best i can with the time i have to create a free discussion…and paramount for me is to provide funding for some of you to finish your projects…this is now a reality that started out as an idea that blew in on the wind during my family time at the beach last summer….
but, this is not my “job” nor my obligation …when i make enthusiastic predictions of what we may be able to do here, i hope you will please take it in the spirit of “let’s do it if we can”….and for heaven’s sake WE have done a lot in one year….this is just a little photo blog….but WE have created enough interest to get some non-profit funding and more is on the way…many of you will be exhibited in two key photo festivals this summer (so mentioned in a previous post)….
honestly, i cannot do much more than what i am doing….not unless i go BIG, and we will all have to take a vote on whether you want me to do that or not….i like it like this..small, personal…..i do my workshops, do my personal shooting, take some good assignments, work on a book, and spend time with you here on this forum to share some of these experiences for those of you who perhaps seek a little insight…but , i am not THE ANSWER to anything….i am a photographer….that is all…and , for me, that is enough…
all i really do here is get all of you going at it with each other…like the guy who sets the napkin on fire and then walks out of the bar!!
sorry for the ramble!!! 6 cups of coffee and still on India time takes the mind off and off and off!!!!
peace and goodnight, david
“PEOPLE OF THIS FORUM, ALL or whatever…”
QUESTION: ” what creates, consists, holds together …) that ELITE…?
Who is on the top of that ladder, and who in the bottom…
C’mon BOBB , talk to us..
We are ALL ears…
p.s : Not to diss you or anything, but BjAPatino… sorry for skipping you at this point… you are out of order … you need a new “altenator” or something… I mean , for the car!!!!
hey… by the way … BONG is working…!
Peace…
“motherfucking “elite”… i wish i could make it there … sometime
peace out..
David,
On a re-read, I find my text message analogy a bit confusing as well…with a little wine in my belly, I will try to clarify (?).
I could be wrong, but Bob B’s words got me thinking about vocabulary and how vocabulary has changed over the years. Not so long ago, we had to write down our thoughts on a piece of paper…fold said paper into an envelope, and give it to somebody whose job it was to make sure this paper was delivered to any far flung destination we dared mail to. The energy (or perhaps more importantly the TIME) it took to compose this message, send it, and receive it, was valued far more then than now. Because we valued this communication, our vocabulary was more…thorough, or perhaps less open to interpretation. I would argue that the same energy, time, and value was placed in the photographic process relative to it’s station in history. Glass plate negatives, poisonous developing chemicals, hours in a darkroom for a single print – it was WORK to communicate this visual message, and perhaps we (the photographers) were less willing to risk the message being misinterpreted.
We are asking if there is a trend today in making images that aren’t quite there…that are “incomplete” or open to more interpretation…but aren’t we really asking if these “incomplete” images have value or merit? In other words, we value images differently today – a single image means less because it is so easy to give it away to the masses. The author and reader of this message care less about the way it is composed. We care less about the preciseness of our vocabulary…our aesthetics. We accept these images the way we accept a text message:
but…AISB @TEOTD, ICBW.
C4N,
Joel
WROBERTANGELL…
i was off to bed , then saw your last post…ok , maybe “hate” a bit strong…but, you sure seem angry at best….but, of course you are not supposed to keep your mouth shut!!! we are having a fine old discussion…the whole point…keep talking mate!!! and it is quite possible that i misinterpreted what you were saying…this form of communication is not perfect….if i confused what you were saying with a “chip”, then my mistake…
i do not “churn” anything out…ever…the minute i start “churning” is the minute you will never hear from me again…
but, i did not bring this “photo elite” topic to the table…i do not remember who did (it is late), but it was not me…i just responded..
wow, you think the finalists would think of themselves as “photo elite” ?? i doubt that…
ok, now really to bed….
back to you tomorrow….
cheers et al, david
seems like sometimes you have to kick up the dust.
for what its worth, this is the forum that I like to visit, and I think its pretty amazing that you give so much.
I am just speaking my heart, and even though I may seem hostile or whatever I am a pacifist all the way.
Like i said in “homeless” although this place is raw, beautiful but raw, you are all welcome here.
now to lay low for a few.
for the record,
jan 31st 2008 08:22pm
wrobertangell references the “photo elite”
wrobert,
You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, but I’ve been reading the comments here and had a few thoughts:
The first time I saw your photographs I thought they were really fantastic precisely because they brought to my mind a painting, a portrait by Hans Holbein here at the Met. There is something equivalent, the 3/4 pose, the almost scientific observation, and the strong humanity that breaks through the illusion, and illusion it is in both painting and photographs (simulacra). You may not be referencing that work or painting, but I did, and because your photos now reside in my head, that reference stands. In my head. Along with your photographs… in my imagination, or cognition. So I offer this just as something for you to think about. If strangers are making this connection perhaps it is something you could use.
A direct suggestion, not that you asked. The eyes of your subjects gaze away from the camera in the 3/4 views. I imagine that if they were looking straight at the camera, the resulting triptych might have a very strange energy, viewer confronted by gaze times three… might triple the energy already there.
Ironically, I found the out of focus passages really quite beautiful and luminous. Push that? 8×10 with a 150 year old Dallmeyer and cut the dof to the length of an eyelash. Sure, pictorialist, but imagine how a “realist” like yourself would approach the problem… could be some interesting friction/energy there, too.
I have a good dozen more ideas… I love the work though, and I don’t think it is lacking in any way… to the contrary, it really got the synapses firing, and I just got to thinking about your current work being a springboard to something… something you may not have considered. Just some ideas, take them for what they are worth.
Maybe livebooks will host a “Website de Refuses”?
Getting to the party late — and hoping not everyone has left yet — I’ll add just a few thoughts to what’s already been said…
BOB, you said: “to negotiate sight from blindness, this is our human aim.” This seems to be true in more ways then one, literally and metaphorically (and I’m certain you meant it both ways…) I’d just add that it is not only our aim but our human condition… one from which rarely and with strenuous effort, and often only through compassion (intellectual, as well as spiritual), can we lift ourselves….
As for David’s original question, and without reopening the whole discussion about merits or demerits of one style versus another, it does seem to me that one might readily identify a trend toward fragmentary images, an impromptu style, so to speak, and often a careless one at that. I see the same approach towards exposure and tonality: many just don’t care if their shadows are a black indistinct form. Having gone through some fascination with the apparent easiness and informality of such style myself, I wonder how much of this stylistic “development” is due to deliberate choice versus plain old aping around…
Giancarlo
mike SAID:
(and that’s it… i’m going for a new “fatty”…:)
so mike said:”…The first time I saw your photographs I thought they were really fantastic precisely because they brought to my mind a painting….
panos says…: (“mike , you are really pissing people off now, man…please…!)
MIKE continues:..
“…I have a good dozen more ideas…”
panos begs!!!:
please… tell us yiur DOZEN ideas…”
mike “hits”, again:…”If strangers are making this connection perhaps it is something you could use…”
panos says: “medication”… to use, prescribed though!!!!
mike all over the place, again:
“…got to thinking about your current work being a springboard to something… something you may not have considered…”
…you are retarded … so there is something -you never considered-, well executed mike,
MIKE FINALLY SUMS IT UP??!:
“…Maybe livebooks will host a “Website de Refuses”?…”
panos ends here and goes to hell…. :
“…how about , let’s see some of YOUR pictures, mr, JUDGE… or should i say… YOUR HONOR… mr mike…”
peace
oh before i really go … hey GIANCARLO… what’s up… where you been motherf***er… we missed you … WEST COAST!!!!!!!
Mike,
thanks for the words. I had not thought of the subject having eye contact with the perspective angles.
I was really thinking about the structure of the face. the front door so to speak and trying to show it as an architectural idea..definately curios about your input though.
anyway, this whole mad tirade, well I have got to break from the forum for a while.
I have been hogging pretty hard, and just want to step back into that shadowy area and read.
but really Mike, thanks.
Hey Panos!
Been busy working and shooting, but am reading this blog every day! :)
Giancarlo
Some questions:
* Is an incomplete ‘better’ to catch a moment and everything involved, specially because it can refer to stuff happening outside the frame?
Can an incomplete picture easier bring in emotional subjective elements?
* Could it be that an incomplete picture forces the viewer to look and think about what he is seeing?
Mike:
Language is the symbolic representation of ideas.
——
What I meant is that language and languages use symbols (words) that are very precise, whereas photography uses the effect of light to represent concrete objects, not symbols of them. This is relevant to the discussion, as interpretation of a photograph can be a lot more wayward than the mere assembly of words. It may require work, deciphering, as david said earlier (and poetry is close to photography, or vice-versa, here) . I am not saying that if a photo is taken “incomplete”, it is not worth deciphering, but that it may be part of a photographic language that represents a very personal way of seeing, at times, rather than an evolution in seeing happening all over.
David, all my points were taking in consideration of that word, evolution, so that just as in any evolution, something has changed irremediably (in the way of seeing). I am not sure about that across the board, that was really my point. Here, I think of serial music, which came as an evolution of western music but ended in a dead-end street, while at no point ever becoming a decipherable language to most people. But serious new photography needs to be seen a lot more than serious new music needs to be heard. Therefore, unlike serial music, the public, the viewers, the profession will have a “say” in validating a possible new way of seeing.
Other than that, I am sure that unliteralness is as valid as literalness, and photography does even a good job of disguising one with the other, after all, and many times. Let’s say I see both as visual tools of expression, that the photographer does have, and always had, at its disposal.
For me the only thing that really matters is the emotional response that I have to an image, or any art form for that matter. When a piece of art connects with you on an emotional level it changes you. It’s that epiphany, that moment of revelation where everything seems to come together.
While literal photography can potentially communicate at that level, it often times gets lost in all the static, and never seems to penetrate that emotional core. When I look at straight up photography (including my own) I kind of see through the array of gimmicks made in an attempt to make something look interesting. Perhaps it communicates what it looks like when I long to know what it feels like.
In recent memory everything that has had a lasting emotional mark on me has leaned toward the ambiguous side: Trent Parke’s mysterious “Minutes to Midnight,” or Wulf Barsch’s work, or one of Gueorgui Pinkhassov’s beautifully elaborate compositions. Alessandra Sanguinetti’s project “The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and the Enigmatic Meaning of their Dreams” awakens in me a nostalgia so profound that I’m overwhelmed with a longing to return to my childhood and perpetually relive that last summer of innocence before everything became so complicated.
I think that as photographers we tend to make literal images by default. It is much more exhausting to create an image with emotional substance because it requires more from the artist, and often times the difference is in the subtleties. When it comes down to it you just have to shoot what you feel, and that will trickle it’s way down into the final image.
David, point taken on the 2 shots you posted. I am also glad that here, and also on the review of my essay you e-mailed, that there is definitely such a word as “better”. Better photo, better work.
Lately, in a recent discussion, it almost had seemed as if quality (within a single photo, or processing a print or a B&W conversion) was a notion not worth mentionning.
i think it’s about time that we buried the arguments about camera type, film type, colour and b&w, art and documentary: who gives a fuck! make the pictures YOU want, in the way YOU want. people should stop worrying about what others are doing, or what others think and saying. just get on with it.
i agree total with bob black in his last response. photography is always abstract and subjective always surreal. its not about cameras and film, or sharp and blurry, they are tools and aesthetic devices, just like a paint brush, or chisel and hammer, oil paint or wood. tools that are used by the the mind of the photographer to CREATE. and why bother to argue about the out come. if it COMMUNICATES something then it is good.
J,
w robert said:
I wanted to be as clear and honest as possible. to represent their physical atributes as honestly as I could. and create a sense of equility.
no freaky angles, blurry shit, dark shadowy suspect light, none of that. I am a realist. thats it.
I want to represent the nature of the things I shoot as honestly as I can.
to me thats discriptive. that is not pictorialist.
i think that this is a good point and found that there was much truth in this. many people try to express or develop their oiwn style to the point where that style seems to be the message. I think it is a good thing for the subject be the message and the photog be striving to let the subject show through and not thier style. sometimes it may take a conscious effort to get the ego out of the way.
from here forthwith, i shall reduce, in honor of non-elitism, to reduce each of my comments from 10,000 words to 8,000 words.
so funny these proclamations about what is and isnt good photography…
i dont belong in the elite, just the rabel.
u guys can home there, photography just aint that important to me…nor concern for such tripe as a a “competition”…
wrobertangel: u work is very strong and i like the “objective portrait” series very much…though your words are hilarious and, well, like a teenager, and that’s cool, whatever…incidentally, a triptych? not painterly?…
panos: my dig is this:
arguing over photography is a trip when stoned, but it’s just that: a game, funny, sometimes stimulating sometimes boring as shit…
i regret having knocked on the door last night….
that’d be the word from me: a copout:
but, it’s all so funny, still this idiocy about the photos selected…
we’re all in the same stupid game, and not a one of us has any more insight than another…to think differently is a real, “foreshortening” of the old cranial lens…
peace, yea indeed…
running
b
MARK J. DAVIS….
now that was just perfect!!! thank you
HERVE…
well, our tongues are getting all tied and the semantics are getting clogged…throwing around words like “quality” is as bad as me using “better”…we would need a ramped up preamble outlining “definition” and/or context to either of those words beyond the “technical” and even there they would both be highly subjective….i will have to go back and see the letter i wrote to you to see the context of “better”…
but, at least, you are the progenitor of some interesting discussion bro!! and you slipped in another little comment way back there that i want to riff off of later…i think you said something about if a photograph had a “famous name” attached to it that it would go further than otherwise…is that right?? bring that thought back or whatever your thought really was….or slip it to me in my email and i will put it out as “breaking news”!!!!
JASON…
yes, of course…i have always come from the “sail your own boat” school of life…nevertheless so many changes are taking place so so fast around us, that what might be a very time worn discussion for you might just be something new to think about for someone else….besides, we are not “concluding” anything….but, sometimes rolling ideas around does help some to get out of bed the next morning with a whole new plan…if you do not need that , then cool!!! go for it!!
one thing i have noticed as a workshop teacher in the last four or five years is that photographers are “learning backwards” from the ways of yesteryear..for example, we used to learn how to develop a roll of film and then go to another class and learn the history of photography etc etc..we didn’t even think about mounting a print on aluminum for a show before we knew how to develop film….however, so many of my students these days have very little clue about the history or the basic tech of photography…yet, they may be doing brilliant work…i will take brilliant work anyday….so, i just gently get them to back to “basics” at some point as a frame of reference..i do not hammer them for being “uneducated”….it is like learning to play the piano before learning to read music…instinctive….probably the best way…play a piece you like, then learn what the notes were…or not!!!
i do hope to see you again in london soonest….
cheers, david
JAY…
show me a man/woman with “their ego out of the way” and the Louvre and MOMA etc would be empty and you would have no books to read or music to listen to or films to watch!!!
peace, david
OK…all the above has been fairly interesting. But tame! So let’s really go for it now! Let’s really get into it! Ready?
Alright David,
Patriots or Giants? ;^}
There was a band here in Oz in the 70′s called ” skyhooks ” who’s signature tune was EGO! …It’s not a dirty word!
Is’nt the whole thing about finding your own wayt of doing things? I have been taking pictures for papers for a little while now but the things that get me psyched ..the thing that makes me think that maybe there is a voice there is the stuff I do when the assignment is over ..when you don’t have to do more…You have done enough! to fulfill your brief , probably harking back to a previous post ” when do you know it’s over?” the film piles up in the fridge long after the digi files have been sent , published and forgotten!
It’s never over!
If you are not looking to take pictures that initiate an emotional response, then you shouldn’t be there!
who are the patriots???
MICHAEL…
i am just not a “fan”…seems “passive” to me….i would rather go out in the backyard and play a game of touch football with a few friends, than watch the Superbowl!! playing the game i like, watching the game on tv..boring.. pretty damned un-American, huh???
cheers, david
wrobertangel:
I will try to keep it short ;) (promise).
1. I meant about “teenage language” im talking about all that nonsense about: when people make and present pictures that cannot really be understood, because of negative space or obscure angles, or psychedelic colors, or because they have 1:1000 hit ratio, I believe its due to a real lack in personality, talent. weekend warriors, kiss-asses, suck-ups, test-tube babies, churning out the homogony that surrounds us” etc…that’s just really stupid and simply lessons the the strength and insight and frankness of your concerns.
2. Your portraits: As I said, I think they are very strong and i love the triptych, yes that beautiful painterly triptych. Your attempt to express their physical reality as an indication (a subterfuge of the lie of the camera) through the means of triptych is wonderful, intelligent and, in truth, a quite painterly approach to the rendering of a life. I respect that (would argue that’s what I am after as well) and (as writte above) like the series very much. Why do you think i posted chuck close??…that’s what his paintings and the rejection of that have attempted to wrestle with, and now too his photography.
2. what am i after in my photograph. That’s a complicated question, and I’ve promised u and others to keep a limit to the words here. So, i will say only this: i use to have the same approach as u: in otherwords, i wanted my camera to be as “honest” as possible: use sharp lenses, nice cameras, good lighting, remove “myself” as much as possible, etc. To “represented the physical nature of the people that sat in front of the camera.”…and then i realized that that was a delusion…that who was i to say who these people were, especially how they appeared in my camera. Oddly, a camera records exactly what a person does and doesnt look like (and that’s not even going into the “them” inside them). Also, the cameras and lighting you use are just as “questionable” as the technique you criticize others. That’s just it wrobert: each time you, or I, or anyone attack critically other work, it becomes increasingly clear how hypocritical that criticism is. My work, and i’ve said this again and again, is really about my own struggle with what it means to see, what it means to photograph, what it means to attempt to convey expression, the living of the light in the face of what is inevitable: death and unknowning and all that shit. Yea, that sounds totally shit, but tha’ts it. I spend lots of time talking to people i shoot (i dont shoot in a studio, i dont, not anymore often, shoot people i havent spent time with, listened too,e tc). I dont make any claims for my work: none. If people gather something from the work, fine. If not, it’s ok. I dont think my work is anything, zero, just photographs that were born from my own struggle and as a way to replace words that I often have when watching, listening, rhyming with people. I’m also trying to render the emotional and visceral and yes “physical” experience of the people i am photographing…and how is this different from your own work? I have no idea: for it seems we are after the same…only this: i never though my work was better or more important than your work anyone else…in fact, i actually embrace all work…this doesnt mean i like all work, just for me, it’s a simpler equation:
whatever speaks, is all that matters to me. That can be your portraits with the expensive cameras and the strict lighting (by the way the light in the eyes, and especially glasses, of your portraits reminds me of the brilliant light in the Eurgene Smith pic from Pittsburgh photo of the steel welder, know the pic?: so u see, i see botherhood in all that) and the obsessive control to attempt to render objectivity, or my own stupid pics using small 35mm cameras (using both good/famous cameras and shit/cheap toy cameras)…it’s all the same…
what do i want from my work?
no delusions. at the end of the day, it’s just this:
was i able to tell someone’s story, if even my own, that registered somewhere with someone as an expression of the wonder and the sadness and the odd, ineluctable and fucked nature of what it means to be a live…
call that Xenos (that’s for Panos)…
nothing more than that…
and now im tired and tired of my stupid words…and this entire onslaught..
b
ok, that wasnt “short”…fuck…sorry wrobert, david and the rest…mean that sincerely…fucking diarhea of the mouth…
(slinks away slowly)
b
hi david,
thats a very good point. i’m definitely not knocking education, not for one minute. i hope this doesn’t sound trite, but i think the pursuit of knowledge is one of the noblest things life. and that definitely pertains to photography in its mechanical, historical and aesthetic aspects. i think we all need to know and understand as many aspects of photography as possible, how else can we find our place within it? how else can we drive it forward?
i just don’t like the debate, and it has raised its head in the posting above, which suggests that one mode is better or has a greater quality than another. i.e. film v’s digital, large v’s small format, blurry v’s sharp, the use of deep shadow etc., i think we should all welcome the freedom to explore all of these. not because its a fashion or gimmick, but because it is a tool or a mode of working that allows us to express ourselves.
thats why i love sally manns’ work for example: she uses a large format camera with 19th century glass plates and defective lenses. what she creates is something that is very powerful. i never get tired of looking at deep south. in that case her mode of working fits perfectly with what she photographs and i think it shows in the work. on the other extreme look at alex majoli and his olympus point and shoot cameras. he uses them to amazing effect; is his work any less powerful because of it?
it’s be great to meet up again. just let me know when you are here.
peace to all,
J
here is the Smith pick that wrobertangell’s portrait remind me of: that is a complement robert…so u see, different phtoographers, regardless of the cameras/situ/idea/orientation of arrive at the same place…
http://noravr.blog.lemonde.fr/files/2007/03/steel-worker-photographie-extrait-du-projet-pittsburgh-1955-de-e-smith.1173804156.jpg
GLENN…
good boy!!! i barely know who the Patriots are myself…only because my brother lives in Boston and i have read a bit about some illegal stuff they did to get ahead (spying on plays i think), do i know about them at all!!!
i did exaggerate just a bit with michael above…i CAN get into watching a game…any game….BUT, i never did achieve fan status…not a die hard “yankees fan” or whatever…i always looked at fans as people who lived vicariously through sports..you know, had 8-5 office desk jobs and needed the “outlet”….i am probably all wrong, but that is just how i saw it in my own perspective….growing up i was wandering around shooting or in the darkroom, not in front of the tv…
surely though if we had pubs like you have pubs i mighta done some time looking up at the bar tv!!! maybe it ain’t too late!!
cheers , david