I haven't been here long at all but it's definitely occurred to me that, on seeing people's photos, that their inspiration/motivation has been mainly technology based and not art based. The photos here have a definite ring of "look what my camera can do!" instead of "look what I can do with my camera!". People here are clearly in love with their mechanical eyes, but tend to hold back the human eye: the imagination.
Now, that post over on POW 4 just got me thinking. I'm nothing but a hobbyist but I certainly try to take photos that have some kind of concept behind them (even sometimes taking photos with deliberately no (conscious) concept behind them). As much as I'm trying to master the technical aspect of photography to get what I want out of my cameras, it's only so I can develop my technical capacities to the point where I no longer have to think about them so I can concentrate on style and content.
Style and concent is, by definition, a very subjective thing; composition is a personal thing, so is colour and exposure settings - effects. The only thing required of a photographer after technical profficiency is for his vision to be supported by a photograph's, or a series of photographs' inner logic. Basically: does it work as a photograph or not?
That guy on POW4 suggested everyone go out and study their art history books. What a wonderful suggestion! By all means, everyone should continue to tinker around with their weapons of choice to attain technical profficiency but I think anyone serious about photography should also crack open those art history books, crack open their journal or blog and get writing about where you're at and what you're trying to do. Study past masters and critique your own work. And shoot every day.
Technology is an amazing thing but it's no replacement for the human eye.
I'm curious about what anyone things about all that...
I almost agree with you. Yes we should be taking pics every day, developing out vision, looking at other people's works, and not just pointing and shooting. This exactly was my reasoning behind choosing Long Exposure as a topic, because here - for the most part, it's what your subject is and how long you choose to keep that shutter open. All cameras do that pretty much the same, with the exception of ultra-bright colors on digital cameras.
As far as reading art history books goes, I've read some, and nothing in them told me how to make a better PHOTOGRAPH. Art history is for painting, not photographs. If it's all the same (AND IT IS) to Rawbot69 and other similar-minded people - good for them. I disagree. Photography is representing things not only the way you see them, but also the way THEY ARE. Art is just the artist's perception.
Style, concept etc shouldnt come from art history books - they should come from within oneself. Yes, that feeling has to be nurished - it is not there by default. That is why we should be sharing and CRITICIZING our works here, because mere SHARING is more like Showing off, and as you said very precisely, "look what my camera can do"
But not all pictures presented here are in that category. Some definitely show some vision and maybe even talent. If one (or even two) guys come and say THIS IS CRAP - it doesnt really make it so. Its only their opinion. Of course, noone here is claming to be a professional photographer, or posting a picture which would be considered a real professional Photograph. If we were at that stage - we wouldnt be posting our works on a forum - but rather National Geographic, or Playboy, or American Photo, or any other Professional Magazine.
I am only a student. I study photography in college, and take pictures when I have desire and time to do so. This is why I would LOVE my photographs to be criticised. If some people feel insecure about their work, and choose to just Share it - I'm fine with that, it is their work after all.
quote:Art history is for painting, not photographs.
I disagree - you're placing a pretty narrow scope on what constitutes art. History of art isn't just about looking at pretty pictures and understanding how they were made, it also studies the social and political circumstances in which styles developed and how and why artists worked and who for.
quote:Photography is representing things not only the way you see them, but also the way THEY ARE. Art is just the artist's perception.
I've been thinking a lot about this and I'm afraid I just don't see it so simply. The difference between painting and photography is that painting is slow and manual, photography is quick and mechnical. In both cases, the photographer has to choose what to show and what to leave out; both have to think about how best to achieve their desired effect - in painting, that comes down to materials, composision, colours, style etc. In photography, the artist has to do the same except his materials are significantly different. The difference is that paintings are open to the whims of the painter's imagination and bodily movement, the photographer is limited to where he points his camera and how the light enters the camera. The camera actually gives the photographer an enormous amount of control over how he wishes to portray 'reality'. Lazlo Moholy-Nagy commented that photographs present to us a view of objective reality (that is: reality untainted by the preconceptions of the human mind). What he actually meant was that photographs only give optically true images, not reality as it's perceived by human beings.
So really you're splitting hairs about what you consider 'reality' to be.
ASPTAMER: "As far as reading art history books goes, I've read some, and nothing in them told me how to make a better PHOTOGRAPH. Art history is for painting, not photographs. If it's all the same (AND IT IS) to Rawbot69 and other similar-minded people - good for them. I disagree. Photography is representing things not only the way you see them, but also the way THEY ARE. Art is just the artist's perception. "
Well then you arent trully reading and understanding what Art History is all about. Art is a form of expression, a creation... In the next few sentences I will compare/equal art to life... In order to create any form of art you need to understand line and/or colour (this is merely an example).
LIFE AND ART
All vertibrates and insects pose of 8 simular building steps, humans pose 32 of these basic building steps which we call genes. but they are 32 because through 400,000 million years of evolotion we have managed to evolve more than 1 copy of each building step, to be exact 4, which differ one from another. So it is an array of 8 elements with 4 elements in each element which slightly differ one from another. But what is interesting is that the same 8 "steps" or basic statements are used to generate millions of different insects and vertebrates (birds, animals), the reason all of them are different is due to DNA structure... yet steps of the building process stay the same. For example a BAT has fingers just like we do, but they are longated with skin in between which make its wings. This same mechanism to create a bat is used to create humans as well. Also if you study bone structure of many mamals vs bone structure of bugs you will find much of simularities between connection of these bones.
I can apply the same notion to creating of any form of artistic expression. There are key elements that go into that expression... some of the fundemental elements are you (the creator) and your tools wether it be a canvas, brushes, paint vs film & camera. Exact same fundemental approach is applied during the creation process. That is... you are not the creator. The painting is what is creating itself you are simply providing the vital force and your input. The same goes with a phograph or a poem. When you walk around and you make attempt at writing a poem, you don't actually have a specific plan in mind. You think of a word and then another word "appears" and so on. You are affected by every word you put into a poem therefor you are not the one who is making a poem. You are simply a tool in the "hands" of a poem because you are beeing affected / inspired by the poem itself. And the environment serves as an inspiration as well, everything you see affects your brain. Because you did not actually pre-plan the poem you weren't the creator of the poem, but there is a fundumental set of ideas on which your poem was created. Same goes with photography. When you walk around taking images you pose of no vision, no pre-plan or set of ideas. You carry the tool - a camera with you and I hope some charged batteries or film and take images as you find something that looks particular and you take a snap shot. The fact that you captured it doesn't mean that you controlled the process of creation for situation needed to happen, you had not pre-planned that manifestation. You only pose of an exquisite attention and that is your job in the process. And what you try to find is something that fits your description of a good image, that is composition, good colour, depth, quiddity, spiritual notion etc. And the more of these fundemental momentous signitures collected the better the image. At times an image may pose of beautiful colour and pose no balance in these fundumental signitures or a particular theme which one tries to capture. Images are like beeings in their own manifestation they live through our persception, we are tools to creation and we are creators all in one, a helix of life.
Painting and Photography are two very simular subjects, they both are geared towards capturing essence of a particular subject. You may walk on the street, get inspired and go home paint that image and since you have had more time you will decept that image and create your own reality.... and the same concept can be EASILY applied to photography. Again one walks on a street and gets inspired by a particular subject, whips out a camera, puts on all the filters he wants and captures an image or no filters at all. You are still holding that camera and you are still pointing and capturing and controlling that camera and you are to choose the "Kodak moment". With even a slightest attempt or no attempt at all you have distorted reality and when I look at that image I am looking at a biased version of God's manefastion. If you capture an image of a child crying or paint an image of a child crying and manage to capture that essence... you will create a partical response in those that view it. Chinese belive there is no difference on real and what is seeing in either forms of artistic expression or in any form of artistic expression. Good work is considered good by the essence of manifestation captured but one may question what is a good way to capture ? and that is a different story.
BY SPECIALPURPOSE:
"I disagree - you're placing a pretty narrow scope on what constitutes art. History of art isn't just about looking at pretty pictures and understanding how they were made, it also studies the social and political circumstances in which styles developed and how and why artists worked and who for."
I AGREE !!!!
BY SPECIALPURPOSE: "The difference is that paintings are open to the whims of the painter's imagination and bodily movement, the photographer is limited to where he points his camera and how the light enters the camera. "
Its alien to me that photography is considered by majority of phographers as a point and capture medium. There is some agreement to special purposes's statement but there is so much disagreeing ! What an obscure statement ! Best of photographers do a lot of planning before their shots. Best of photgraphy works are pre-planed as much as a painting ! One picks a theme, finds a model, sets up lights, gets decor. Shooting is not just walking on streets and taking images ! That is crazy ! Its simular to shooting movies !!!
quote:Painting and Photography are two very simular subjects, they both are geared towards capturing essence of a particular subject. You may walk on the street, get inspired and go home paint that image and since you have had more time you will decept that image and create your own reality.... and the same concept can be EASILY applied to photography. Again one walks on a street and gets inspired by a particular subject, whips out a camera, puts on all the filters he wants and captures an image or no filters at all.
Like I said... It's all the same to you. What you're calling "the same concept" is actually the essense of what makes them different. In art, whatever you project on paper, or stone is from your mind. It was compiled by your brain, and is Biased, and says more about how you few the subject, than what the subject itself is. When you make a photograph, you eternalize the object itself. Yes, it maybe from a weird angle, or in deceiving shadows, but it is still that very object that was in the real world.
So... what does 'how you see it' have anything to do with 'how it is' ? When looking at an orange bridge, you probably think "heh in my mind I can make a bridge any color" and dont even ask yourself if u've ever seen one in real life.
quote:Its alien to me that photography is considered by majority of phographers as a point and capture medium. There is some agreement to special purposes's statement but there is so much disagreeing ! What an obscure statement ! Best of photographers do a lot of planning before their shots. Best of photgraphy works are pre-planed as much as a painting ! One picks a theme, finds a model, sets up lights, gets decor. Shooting is not just walking on streets and taking images ! That is crazy ! Its simular to shooting movies !!!
I was referring to execution, not process. Maybe you've found a way to slow down light but the real art in photography (I understand, I've never done it myself) is printing. Buf if you've managed to slow down light so photographing something can be anything other than a 'point and capture medium', I'm all ears.
Take, perhaps the world's greatest living photographer, Andreas Gursky. He plans (or waits for) his photos, takes them and then spends months and sometimes years compositing them to make them more real than real. What does that tell you about photography?
You also assume photographs have to be 'planned'. They don't, they can be spontaneous. Or, like Bresson, you can wait in a place forsomething to happen, but when it does, you better be ready to think on your feet.
Rawbot69, I'm not quite sure what you're on about. Maybe you could boil it all down to a few pithy sentences?
Look, almost anything you plop down on canvas, paper, film, walls, floors, ceiling, etc, etc, etc, etc, is considered art in it's most basic form. That hand-ashtray I did in preschool, oh yeah baby, that's art. Now, whether or not something is good art is a question to be left to the ages.
There is no "good art checklist" anywhere in existence; it's all in the interpretation. I dare you to show me one work of art that has appealed to every single person that viewed it. I dare you to show me one that was never criticized in a negative way by someone.
Just because you don't think something is art, doesn't mean it isn't. Just because you don't think something is creative, doesn't mean it isn't.
As for the "see what my camera can do" argument, well, I think that's just silly. Even the most basic cameras need some tweaking with the aperture and shutter to acheive certain effects. I don't think any of the pictures shared in these POW challenges have been examples of that. Even with the best professional equipment you still have to frame the photo, consider the light source, and come up with the best settings to acheive the photo you're picturing in your head.
Even a photo shot on complete auto-focus can turn out to be amazing if it is framed right and thought out. Hell, even a quick snapshot that was completely unplanned can turn out to be beautiful.
I think someone has to be pretty damned pretentious to assume that they know exactly what is, and isn't, art.
quote:As for the "see what my camera can do" argument, well, I think that's just silly. Even the most basic cameras need some tweaking with the aperture and shutter to acheive certain effects. I don't think any of the pictures shared in these POW challenges have been examples of that. Even with the best professional equipment you still have to frame the photo, consider the light source, and come up with the best settings to acheive the photo you're picturing in your head.
Then you just reiterated my point. As someone above said, photography records reality. I don't agree. Let me quite Moholy-Nagy:
quote:The secret of their [cameras?] effect is that the photographic equipment reproduced a purely optical picture and thus shows optically true images, distortions, foreshortenings and so on whereas our eyes take up what is seen and, with the assistance of our intellectual experience, make associative connections and round it out formally and spatially into some ordinary image. Thus in photography, we have the most reliable aid to achieving the first stages of objective seeing. The individual viewer will be forced to see the optical truth, which can be understood from within itself, before even beginning to come to some possible subjective attitude?
Art comes in many forms, as has been stated. Photography is itself considered by many to be an art form (as has been stated). To say that art history does not apply to photography is at the least, misinformed. But no one holds it against anyone that they've been misinformed. Mild redirection is all that's needed.
Color, composition, line, light, shadows, balance, all of these things that make up a painting should be considered in the process of taking a photo for "art". Sure, you can snap of any kind of candid image. And, as was said before, sometimes those candid images turn out to be really great art. What makes them art? A combination of color, composition, line, light, shadow, and balance. Whether it was intentional or not doesn't make a difference.
Studying art history can only make you a better photographer. Whether you are intentionally trying to create photographic art or not. Learning to "see" the elements of a great piece of art teaches you to see the world differently. So that even when you take photos on the fly, without all that wonderful pre-shot setup, the photos you turn out will still be artistic in nature. The great painters were masters of light, color, line and shadow. They practically invented the idea of "composition" in a painting. Painting is how they captured what they saw of the world before photography was invented. It's not their fault they didn't have cameras then. Otherwise, we'd be studying the great photographers, instead of the great painters.
And you don't have to bog yourself down in the text and prose involved in studying art history. Visit museums, look at the pictures of paintings in art books. No need to read all that stuff unless you're really interested in it. An intelligent and observant person should be able to pick up on the elements of art after some visual exposure, regardless of what you actually read about it. Though, reading most of that stuff might help you to better understand what you're seeing...
You don't have to study art or art history to take pictures. But if you really want to be a great artistic photographer, you probably should.
edit - I hadn't gone into the POW4 thread yet to see the discussion this all came from, but having read all of that, my opinion on the matter still holds.
Rawbot, I wanted to go look at your work on the link you posted, but all of that flash stuff just took so long, I got impatient. Do you have anything that isn't hidden behind the flash on that website? I'd like to see what you do. How 'bout a link directly to a page with some photos on it?
I tend to take an anarchical approach to art. Absolutely anything can be art to some people and it is pure subjectionism. I have very strong opinions about what *I* like but I don't tell anyone else what they should like.
I really don't think there is a right and wrong when it comes to art. I am not saying that studying from the masters is wrong either. I think that is a great suggestion and, in fact, I prefer most of the classical art anyway. But I understand that works for me and not necessarily the next person.
I didn't post originally so that people could discuss what art *is*, I posted an open question about the relationship between technology and creativity that give way to a 'good photo'. Some photos are clearly inspired by the technological abilities of their weapon of choice, others are flights of fancy that look nice but aren't technically good. Obviously there's some kind of a balance between them but I was curious about where each person's particular approach falls between each of these extremes.
Personally, I've gotten a lot more into snapshot photography which has come to dominate my general approach. I have an SLR but I don't use it so much because it slows down things too much for me. I use my Lomo LC-A and Holga because they produce 'arty' results but are very simple so that allows me to concentrate on developing me eye - capturing the moment, developing composition skills, pushing my aesthetic sensibilities. They're also so old-fashioned and rudimentary that there's a strong element of chance in using these cameras so the results are always a bit of a risk. This is an approach in art I've admored for quite some time. As for my SLR, I'll return to it once I develop my eye (which I think is the most important starting point for a photography enthusiast) and start improving my technical knowledge/knowhow.
In that case:
I currently use a completely automatic 35mm I picked up at the local Wally World a couple of years ago. So I don't have much experience with all of the wonderful things you can make happen on film with a manual camera. But I like photo "art" anyway.
I'm pretty particular when it comes to taking even general snapshots. I look for a snapshot subject in the manner in which I would look for a painting subject. That involves all of the qualities I stated above: color, composition, light, shadow, lines... For me, those things create great photos and great paintings, regardless of the purpose for which I am creating the image.
Except where my cats are concerned. I fill up rolls and rolls of film with cat photos. Those critters do some of the cutest, strangest things! And I always want to capture it for future reference, because people never believe me when I tell them about it later, and the buggers never want to perform on command. Just my personal quirk...
My opinion: Art comes from the eyes, the mind, the heart and sometimes from all three. The camera, computer paint program, or the canvas are only the tools we use to re-create it.
posted 04-15-2003 22:38
