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Does humour belong in photography?


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Tom, I have sold this image to Hallmark Greeting Cards, Chromozone Images as well as my own Notecards, It was also selected for publication

in American Photographer Magazine in New York, I have been recieving royalies for my Frogpeople images for almost 6 years, one image won photo of the month on the now defunct photocontest.com and won a $5000.00 cash prize, when the internet stock boom was in full swing. I have sold many, many prints of this photo to many frog enthusiasts and my images have sold over a 1/4 million in Europe, don't underestimate the value of humor in photos, hows your stuff selling?

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Well, if you try to picture people you should either be able to catch some humor you should really look for other friends! In my oppinion humor should belong to portrait photography. I always try to laugh about myself before others do.

But it is hard work to express humor in landscape photography - of course there is some, when you carry empty film holders for miles and wait a couple of hours for the right moment... but I don't know how to picture this, especially with empty holders.

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I have seen a few cases where it's worked. A lot of the time the humor is, as Tom said, fleeting, a one-time occurrence.<p>

 

However, <a href="http://www.huanghenews.com.cn/pic/90101458.gif">this photo</a> by the excellent Cristina Garcia Rodero is in a book I have and makes me laugh every time I see it. Maybe it wouldn't be so funny if I was Catholic.

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I guess P.T. Barnum was right. I hear Thomas Kinkaid is doing quite well. And McDonalds has sold, what, over 10 billion of the worst tasting hamburgers on the planet. I see them dogs playing poker in mobile homes all across this fabulous country, and Velvet Elvis painintings too, not to mention the fabulous success of internet porn sites. I guess I've underestimated the taste of the American public... is that yer point?... t<div>0094e8-19070084.jpg.1cf059a4f936252101085ac079b11040.jpg</div>
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If your "Frogpeople" images bring you such rewarding successes, why so defensive? did my comment about the superficial nature of it's "message" somehow offended your artistic sensibilities? Have I insulted your Master Work? Will I be knee-capped by a pizza delivery boy with a 38 Special? Lighten up, dude... it's a picture of a frog in a party hat! (jeez)<p>Jeff, I think that image would be funnier to a Catholic... well <i>some</i> Catholics. It actually takes a few minutes to get and then I wonder if it's a deliberate move by the priest? Or had he been resting on the chair with nothing to do when the "confessional" was suddenly occupied. It's a great image that lets me go with my own imagination... t
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" I can also see and imagine paintings and sculptures with a touch of humour and again without them losing on a more deeper level."

 

Like everything else humor depends on taste. Tasteful humor will not loose on a deeper level, on the contrary it will add. Why do want to exclude photography from it?

The picture posted by Jeff Spirer is humorous but it is on the edge to be sarcastic.

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yes, incredibly edgy picture...can barely stand to look at it. How dare some real humor be put into these postings. Excuse me while I go back to rating 1,000 pictures tonite, I also want to be a curator...There are some really good flower and grasshopper pictures being posted tonite, don't want to miss them....Ta-Da.
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A friend once dropped a camera in a toilet; Kodak fixed it free of charge.<BR><BR> Here I bought a Nikon F in 1964; it has never had a CLA or repair. It is humorous how folks preach about CLA's; refoaming; that cost alot..<BR><BR>A buddy dropped a Topcon Super D from a top while replacing the bulbs on an AM radio tower; it hit the concrete; and scared the living crap out of the assistant on the ground.<BR><BR> My moms dog spooked after a flash; and knocked down the Christmas tree. The tree had candles; the flash was flash powder. The men dug the burning tree out of the house into the snow. <BR><BR>
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Maybe the quastion should have been 'is humour equally used in photograhy as it is used in other mediums?', cause I don't think that's the case. In a medium like film or writing, humour can be a genre on it's own. But as I see not so in photography, cause have you ever heard besides for example landscape-, street-, portrait- photography about humourphotography ? Ok humour can be incorporated in each of those examples but it's no genre on it's own in photography as it is and easily can be in film or writing or music. So in this perspective I asked the quastion 'does humour belong in photography?' (and not in the perspective of someone who thinks it doesn't!)cause maybe it's something in photography's strange character that makes it's users not explore humour so widely as the creators in other mediums like tv or film.
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I saw a photograph some time ago of a road leading into a town in England. There was a sign at the side of the road saying, "Little Snoring (or wherever) Welcomes Careful Drivers". A car had veered off the road, flattened the sign and rolled into the ditch. Now, that's funny.
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  • 2 weeks later...

Phoenixville, PA 1974 : Yes! That's a classic right there on the spot,

first real photograph I've seen also with the kinda humour in it that I meant in my question,it's a strange photograph that makes one (me at least) smile and wonder at the same time,for me it's a great example of how humour can work in photography without it just beïng a simple joke...

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