Police guitarist Andy Summers in AP & London

<I>Stephan Hugel , apr 26, 2005; 02:48 p.m.<br>

William, Do we get to have a field day with your appalling grammar and incorrect spelling...</I>

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Stephan, apologies for my errors, English is my third language.

William, thanks for answering. I do not own any Police records and am not enamoured of celebrities, but I now understand the point you were making.

Well said,

 

Welcome to the judgemental and assumption forum. Your continued participation is appreciated. My own spelling and grammer sucks, but don't judge me on that. I (we) are quite capable WRT our profession(s).

Where one may take lack of shadow detail as naive or amateurish others may find it an interseting use of light. He's obviously taken with Gibson and there is a lot of that emulation of style. I liked quite a few of them. Since it was mentioned, I also like Linda McArthy's portrait work, thought she was a decent photographer, but the main interest is her access to the people she had and caught interesting moments with them. She wasn't "fancy" or daring, just pretty straight-on documentary/journalist style with the added benefit of having a personal relationship with many of her subjects. If you are bored by her subject matter or her style then you are bored. The sweeping dismissal of all of these people's works sounds to me more like a sneer than a critique. Yet there are some people who mistake that style for intelligent analysis.

<i>"Not surprisingly there's nothing that I found that is either interesting or anything that would warrant any form of excitement. After viewing his work it seems as if it would fit in well here. Photographs of people's backs, lack of shadow detail, people bending over, rather amateurish work in my opinion.

"</i>

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While William doesn't need to show evidence of his own skills as a photographer to criticize the work of others, no critic I would listen to or respect would word it in such an acid bitter way. Plus, I have yet another soured thread in our forum. The use of the phrase "Not surprisingly" was uncalled for unless William knows something that I don't. Then, because the works in question are so bad, the work of the entire forum membership was dismissed as being similiar to it. Or am I just reading this the wrong way?

William, thanks for doing us all such a great service!

 

You have taught everyone so much with your erudite posts. No one who has read this thread will ever need to reach for a dictionary to discover the meaning of the word "pompous." And secondly you now serve as a bright un-missable signpost warning any aspiring writer to the pitfalls that await them on the path to greatness.

 

Great work William, keep it up! We all look forward to observing your progress over the coming years and decades.

 

Oh, finally, please, please, let us see some of your photos. This is cruel and unusual punishment to be denied the pleasure. If you persist with your non-compliance, we will have to add the title of "sadist," to your many qualifications.

 

All the best,

 

Batman

Jeepers Creepers! I hadn't actually seen Andy's pictures when I made the last post. They are really good aren't they. Hmm..excellent photos. Makes that guy William's comments all the more strange..

Trying to figure out why all these arrows were flying WTF's way; normally polite members reacting so strongly, so I thought I'd check out the images in the exhibition.

 

No wonder everyone's so nasty; they're excellent.

 

I can think of a couple of deleted members from the past who were both not native speakers of English and had a tendency to throw crap around indiscriminately.

 

'zat you Michael Bender?

Tony, in my original post perhaps I was stepping over the line in my choice of words and I did apologize in my most recent post and will do so again now. Whether we agree with it or not the fact remains that when viewing photographs in any venue whether it be a museum, gallery or an internet forum there is a mix of thoughtfully done works and to a larger extent there is the end of the spectrum. If this were not the case we would all be reaping the same recognition as Ansel Adams or Edward Weston.

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Claude, it seems as if your capacity to comprehend has once again escaped you. I previously stated that I do not consider myself even slightly competent as a photographer nor do I pretend to either and I can witness the fact by looking at your work that neither do you.

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WTF?

CALLS IT WHEN HE SEES IT. ring your bell?

WTF, for all your apologizing you just keep digging yourself in deeper and deeper. You can't resist getting in another snide comment or expressing another put down. You now claim to be here because of your interest in Leicas as a collector but offer no insights into that aspect of Leicadom.

Mr. Kaplan,

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With all due respect, I apologized where apologies were due and when warranted I give praise where praise is due. Though I must state that your commentary has me to some extent moderately perplexed. You incessantly persist in referring to me as "digging myself deeper and deeper". What precisely are you talking about, "digging myself" deeper into what?

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Secondly, where did I ever assert that I collect Leicas or that I have insights concerning Leicadom too put forward? I purely acknowledged that I take pleasure in using Leicas and that my interest in "photography" is in collecting. Collecting photography, prints Mr. Kaplan. As not risk yet another accusation of making "snide comments" or "put-downs" I will refrain from commenting on your reading abilities.

although i think william's criticisms of andy summers' "photos" ("experiments" is a better word, a word i use for my own efforts at the moment) is a little hyperbolic, i have to defend his right to voice them. al, with all respect, if you can read and judge the written review with your own eyes/brain, why give a toss about "credentials"? my recent experiences with two prestigious gallery owners suggest you should consider adopting the reverse position...

I think that we have far more people here who collect cameras and lenses than prints, so please forgive my assumtion that you were referring to collecting cameras. You were early on requested to state your qualifications as a critic and ignored the request. "Digging yourself deeper and deeper" is an expression that refers to getting more and more into a situation that isn't where you want to be. Instead of explaining who you were, what you meant, what your qualifications were, you continued criticizing the work of photographers that other people like. Hell, some people really like my photos of famous people while others have described them as "competent" but nothing special beyond my having access to be there. I'm not complaining. They have a right to their opinions, as much as do those who like my photos.

 

As a collector of photography, a fact we only just found out, you are no doubt familiar with the work of many photographers. You have a right to your opinions about what's good and what's bad. Rather that just making nasty remarks perhaps you could write something about what makes a photograph great. Teach us something. Put your knowledge to use for the greater good. Thank you.

"Critic and photographer are two different things. Many good photographers are terrible critics, many good critics are terrible photographers."

 

To which I add: Many good critics are not photographers at all.

Who decides whether a critic is worthy or not?

The editor who hires the critic decides. Often the same editor who hires the photographers ;-)

Betcha don't have a lot of friends, do you William...(suck up aquaintences don't count).

"Betcha don't have a lot of friends, do you William...(suck up aquaintences don't count)."

 

What kind of crap is this? What place does this have in this forum?

 

These kinds of personal attacks should be banned from this forum. Why can some members post these attacks? Why are others banned?

Marc, let me explain. One of William's first statements < After viewing his work it seems as if it would fit in well here.> disparages a lot of people whose work Willima has: a)seen but a small sampling, b)is on a quite personal level...all aimed at people he has never met. If this is his attitude in person, I doubt many people would put up with him, other than the ones who are impressed by his actually quite well spoken manner. I have two problems with Mr. Faulks assesment of Mr. Summers work (and others in this forum). Firstly he says (quite rightly) that one does not have to be a 'shooter' to have an opinion or state said opinion. But if he wishes to be respected he had better than, at the least, have some credentials to back up his critiques, such as an art history degree or a degree in gallery managment, neither of which I suspect Mr. Faulk has. If not his vitriolic critiques are, in my mind, nothing but the ramblings of someone who falls into the old 'if you can't do...teach, and if you can't teach...critique' camp. Mr. Faulk does indeed sound educated (he himself tells us that English is his third lanquage). But he strikes me as someone who had gone to university...has excelled at memorizing facts and figures, but lost out on what a good education should give you...an open mind that allows you to look at art (in this case) that is not strikes your fancy, but keep an open mind to other stlyles. He has disparaged in this thread, among other genres, street shooting, in situ nudes, etc. It appears Mr. Faulk has his opinion of what he likes (good) and everthing else (bad). Sorry, but I'll stand by me previous post.

<P>All forum members are equal, but some are more equal than others. <img src="http://img68.exs.cx/img68/851/pork.gif">

Amuse yourselves by reading WTF's posts in other threads. They read like the second coming of Humbert Humbert.

preston -- whilst i agree with you that a good critic need not be a good artist, i think most of us turn to photographers whose work we respect for advice. sure clement greenberg never painted, and sure he was the towering fine art critic of the second half of the 20th century, but did franz kline or mark rothko ever ask his advice on how to paint??

 

there is also another point having more to do with sportsmanship than anything else. if uou are going to give it out, you should stand ready to receive. i think people who feel free to savage other people's work (especially -- or maybe even only -- the work of other forum members) should put their own work up to make themselves vulnerable to the same abuse. otherwise, you're sort of like a candyass american league pitcher throwing beanballs.

whoops -- sorry preston -- meant to say "jeff."