beeman458 Posted June 24, 2007 Share Posted June 24, 2007 Not being argumentative but my style is opposite of what you describe as it's purposeful and well thought out. It's a planned for image where all aspects, including post processing, of the image are considered before the shutter is tripped. "If anything, it gets in the way,..." Philosophy doesn't get in the way as to me, it's nothing more than part of the overall thought process. The philosophy is as much a part of the process as are the technical aspects. Each of the exampled images were envisioned, before the shutter was tripped as I drove to the location, philosophy in mind, before starting the vehicle, or pulling the camera out. "http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/3156192-lg.jpg http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/5604283-lg.jpg http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/2192146-lg.jpg http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/3805361-lg.jpg http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/3955716-lg.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
don_e Posted June 24, 2007 Share Posted June 24, 2007 Yes, I understand. It is different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DickArnold Posted June 24, 2007 Share Posted June 24, 2007 Don E. I agree with you. I have taken a lot of bad or mediocre pictures to learn about mistakes with composition, focus, exposure, missing good shots etc. I take a lot fewer pictures after having my own photo business because I see bad pictures before I shoot them and consequently don't fire the shutter. So my ratio of keepers is much higher than when I started to seriously take pictures. The point is when I see a good photo I am more likely to take it now. I suppose there is some philosophy behind it but like flying airplanes it becomes rather instinctive and I certainly am not able to articulate it any more than I could sit around a bar and rhapsodize about flying philosophy. I am more likely to tell long winded tales about how I almost killed myself at one time or another after listening to other old pilots telling their unique stories. Some things defy explanation or are inexplicable. When I see what I think is a good picture I take it. Don't ask me why. Like flying it becomes instinctive. Most of my good ones are taken without much of a plan except placing myself in a place where I might find some like Big Cypress swamp for birds. My newspaper experience taught me a lot about grabbing opportunistic shots. I was testing a new body when I did the lighthouse in my gallery. I was not thinking about art. I chanced on friendly light and a cooperating surf. That picture has received a large amount of comment and I will shortly enter in a competition. My philosophy had very little to do with it. I have photographed that light house a hundred times and never got this picture before but when I saw it I knew it might be better than my average picture so I took about twenty pictures and got one good one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rosmini sukardi Posted June 24, 2007 Author Share Posted June 24, 2007 my photographic journey has been a pretty short one - less than 3 years, so perhaps i am a 'baby' compared to many on this very forum. i struggled with the technical aspects (actually, i still am...) but at the back of my mind, there is a nagging feeling that there is a lot more to photography than just that. i eventually learnt that i have to overcome these technical side in order to dwelve into anything beyond that. in the first 2 years, i took thousands of shots that rarely went beyond the 'literal'. a factual record of a subject, devoid of emotion or intellect. i soon found the need to stray away from these types of photos - to move into the realm of 'something more. and i discovered that one of the ways of getting there is to understand the philosophy behind this artform. certainly there has been many illustrious and gifted people before me (some on this very forum) who have pondered and deliberated on this very same issue to death. so there is certainly a lot to learn from. lastly, thank you everyone for your generous contribution. i seek to learn from each of you. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robertshults Posted June 24, 2007 Share Posted June 24, 2007 "Throwing paint on a canvas and poking at it with sticks seems tantamount to throwing a camera in the air and letting it 'do its thing.'" It would seem that <a href="http://www.kineticphotography.net/" >this</a> endeavour, in addition to its striking aesthetic, is built upon a compelling philosophical foundation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
don_e Posted June 24, 2007 Share Posted June 24, 2007 Thomas, I should have written: it is different than the way I prefer to shoot. Coming back from a hike last March (you may recall the discussion where I posted several different post process images...that hike) I saw a potential "money shot". Yesterday afternoon, I returned to the location to gauge what focal length would work best, and how the light had changed and how long it would last now, since the "good light" would be filtering through the Great Wall in Arches and changing quickly. 300mm, I think, for the composition I want from where the camera would have to be situated. I don't have a decent 300mm, though, and not being pro and having no outlet for the photo, I have no reason to use anything but the superzoom. I don't want it bad enough to spend the bucks. Maybe I'll give the shot to a local pro for the goodwill. I just don't enjoy such carefully planned photography as much as I do the more casual sort I described. I don't find the photos (or the photogaphy) as interesting. Dick, my practice is to tread lightly and to engage the world by letting the subject/frame materialize, so to speak, before my eyes, rather than imposing a concept on it and constructing a subject/frame. I obviously have the intention of taking photos. I'm carrying a camera kit. I am out for that purpose...but just that purpose. I have no specific subject, no photo in mind, mainly because it is likely I have never been there before and have only a sketchy notion of what may be there -- It's original surface Navajo Sandstone, there may be potholes with water, the eroded faces will likely be delaminating... Macros of lichen, Atila Faults, concretions. And the real keeper turns out to be the tumbleweeds blown up against a culvert that I snapped as I stepped off the road and into the landscape 8-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beeman458 Posted June 24, 2007 Share Posted June 24, 2007 "it is different than the way I prefer to shoot." Based upon what you wrote above, your photographic philosophy. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rosmini sukardi Posted June 24, 2007 Author Share Posted June 24, 2007 Thomas: Thank you for your explanation. It is in many ways, what I feel but perhaps unable to put in so many words. Cheers. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
don_e Posted June 24, 2007 Share Posted June 24, 2007 Btw, Thomas, referring back to that old discussion, I did buy a roll of Velvia as someone suggested (Carl Root?), but the weather has not cooperated until recently. It is still sitting in the fridge, and I'll likely run the roll through the Pentax on a tripod soon. Then we shall see. 8-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jgalyon Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 I agree with Anthony Stubbs ...and with Fred Goldsmith, both of whom I respect greatly...and apparently couldn' be further apart on the subject. Some might say I'm straddling the fence... if so, it takes "balance" to do so...and balance is a word that is high on my list of "most important words to live by". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
don_e Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 "Based upon what you wrote above, your photographic philosophy. :)" Something happened to me last autumn. At 62, injuries now run a race with aging and injuries are in the lead. Maybe this time they'll keep it. As it is, I am not able to move as well as I need to be off-trail in the desert. I'm confined close to the roadside or to my neighborhood. This effectively ended the photography I had been doing and mothballed (temporarily, I hope) some projects. The question I had to answer was: what do I photograph in a common residential neighborhood in a small town? I had no idea. Had not ever done such a thing. I was still looking for the "interesting" main subject in the "good light". There didn't seemed to be any. Just houses and cars and telephone poles. The ordinary. The commonplace. The place I left when I went out for photography. So, I decided to stop myself thinking like that and let the photographs come to me. I began to see it last winter, and began to work with it this spring. Now that I can get out a bit more, this approach goes with me into the desert as well. The "philosophy" didn't come first, the experience of it did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
des adams Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 Jennifer Durand, Jun 24, 2007; 07:25 p.m. Al Durer & "Artists have something, a mystery ... that not even philosophy can penetrate." I think you'll find its just plain hard work. Artist don't work ... they play. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fullmetalphotograper Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 To Quote Bruce Lee- Learn the principle, abide by the principle, and dissolve the principle. In short, enter a mold without being caged in it. Obey the principle without being bound by it. LEARN, MASTER AND ACHIEVE!!! A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Photography is a constantly evolving beast, yet it is an art with classical roots. The rules of composition goes back to ancient greece. Technique is something that develops over time. The trick is to understand the rules and challenge the rules. By understanding how it works means you now truly push beyond the limits. This reminds a little about natural talent verses experience and technique debate. What i have tend to find is you can the greatest natural eye for shooting, but need the tools of skills or technique to bring those visions to life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saskphotog Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 Interesting discussion. Seems to be splitting between those who think of themselves as philosophers, and those who don't. Everyone is a philosopher. Not everyone is a good philosopher any more than everyone with a camera is a good photographer. To deny you have a philosophical basis for your behavior is just silly. Your denial is part of your philosophy. It may not be rational, or coherent, or practical, or even honest, but it is a philosophy. It's just like closing your eyes, aiming your camera some direction, and taking a shot. The act makes you a photographer, but it doesn't make you a good one. Only careful examination of all aspects of photography will make you a good photographer just like only careful examination of all aspects of flying will make you a good pilot. The flying may become instinctive after such training (that's what practice is all about) but the skill did not arrise from nothing. Good photographers, pilots, martial artists, skiers, doctors, carpenters, and philosophers all come from studious examination of principles and lots of practice. Someoone once said that you become educated (read that as think about things) for the same reason you allow yourself to fall in love. Life is just better that way. Awareness is always better than ignorance, despite Nike's slogan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtk Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 Larry, much of what you say makes sense. This, however, is just your assertion...nothing more. "To deny you have a philosophical basis for your behavior is just silly. Your denial is part of your philosophy. It may not be rational, or coherent, or practical, or even honest, but it is a philosophy." Philosophy is a study and a deliberately intellectual way of structuring ones behavior, it's not equivalent to the behavior of people who don't claim to operate with a philosophy any more than the anti-evolution assertion that atheism is eqivalent to a religion. Nike's slogan doesn't conflict in any way with awareness, as any highly tuned athlete knows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norma Desmond Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 I don't see Philosophy quite as normatively as you do, John. I think, for many philosophers, it is more analytical. You will find many professional and/or published folks who share similar philsophies exhibiting very different behavior patterns, even behaviors that belie their own philosophies. We didn't need dialogue. We had faces! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DickArnold Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 Larry, I agree that everyone has a philosophy. And my fundamental philosophical and enthical grounding led me to be a professional pilot and aviation executive. It also led me into an active photo business after I retired. I do not, however, think it helped me fly better or to take individual pictures better. Hard work, experience and intellectual curiosity drove me to achieve in aviation and to run my business. I don't spend time thinking about such esoteric subjects and could not impart my philosophies to anyone save my children and grandchildren anyway. It has nothing to do with their taking pictures and is not relavent here. I take pictures for my own satisfaction and that is "my philosphy". In my mind my underlying philosophy is like my navel it is a waste of time at my stage in life to examine it. It's better to go take some pictures and examine them. Maybe it will help me take better pictures. I intuitivly know what I like and what I dislike and I am the only one I have to please(well maybe my wife, also). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k5083 Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 I'll disagree with the statement that everybody has a philosophy. Also, many of the things I see cited here as "my" philosophy of photography don't sound like philosophy to me. "Philosophy" implicitly is being defined here as almost any type of thought, introspection, or advance planning. Just a grandiose name for people's values, opinions, and aesthetic preferences. Of course those things affect our pictures; that insight is too banal to bother discussing. Philosophy to me is a body of scholarly writing and thinking which one must study for years to begin to grasp, let alone have one of one's own. Saying everybody has a philosophy is like saying everybody has a quantum physics. To me the interesting question is whether an understanding of philosophy in this more limited, perhaps elitist sense of extended study and mastery of different philosophical theories of photography contributes to image-making. I agree with Dick that philosophy in this sense does not contribute to flying airplanes, but then flying airplanes is not an art or form of expression (Bob Hoover, Patty Wagstaff et al excepted). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DickArnold Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 Excerpted from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary under "Philosophy". "4 a : the most basic beliefs, concepts, and attitudes of an individual or group b : calmness of temper and judgment befitting a philosopher" So I guesss it's all right to say "my philosophy is". At least that is what I had in mind when I said that above. Bob Hoover got into a bit of a rhubarb with the FAA because their philosophies differed somewhat. All I can say is that flying on occasion in eight thousand hours was an unbelievable form of self-expression(like doing a barrel roll around a cloud). More to me than my photographs most of which were, when I was paid for them, were pretty common place images made to satisfy my customers. Writing some of this stuff is a form of self-expression albeit it gets pretty clumsy and not making much sense when I get into ephemeral subjects like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saskphotog Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 "4 a : the most basic beliefs, concepts, and attitudes of an individual or group" So everyone has one. Whether those beliefs are examined, tested, and consciously adopted, or whether they are just accepted in a kind of chauvinistic faith is the question. Here's a thought. All the most dangerous ideas of any given time are always contained in that body of ideas that the people of that time call "common sense". Common sense is always unexamined philosophical assumptions. At times, if we are lucky, those assumptions may be correct, but that's just luck (like pointing a camera randomly and hoping for good photography). I believe we would be better off not depending on luck in either photography or philosophy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beeman458 Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 "Philosophy to me is a body of scholarly writing and thinking which one must study for years to begin to grasp,..." It's a good thing we have dictionaries so as to make sure comments like the above don't take control of rational thought. :) http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Philosophy "1. the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct." "4. the critical study of the basic principles and concepts of a particular branch of knowledge, esp. with a view to improving or reconstituting them: the philosophy of science." From the title page of this forum. "What is the Philosophy of Photography? It's more about the "why" of photography then the "how". It encompasses ethical, aesthetic and sociological aspects of the subject." You don't even have to be aware in order to have a personal philosophy on life or photography but it does help. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcpoljak2003 Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 I'm all for a good philosophical discussion, having spent the last 10 years buried in the works of Hegel and Aristotle etc. However this discussion reminds me of the Monty Python skit with all the philosophers playing a game of football. The point I'm trying to make is, stop thinking so damn much and go out shoot. Leave philosophy to the philosophers if you know what's good for you. Look what happened to Nietsche - drove himself crazy thinking too much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DickArnold Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 I never have had much conscious thought about philosophy until I got on this forum. I am going to swear it off right now. I am in over my head. I will leave it to the more erudite among us. I think I will go back to taking pictures since I don't fly any more. My advice is to take pictures and develop your own rising standards of excellence and then try to meet them as your capability rises. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beeman458 Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 "The point I'm trying to make is, stop thinking so damn much and go out shoot." Forgive me, but that's what this forum is about, BS'ing about photographic philosophy. What this forum isn't about, is taking pictures. :) Besides, when did it become a crime to write about the philosophy behind people's photography in a "Philosophy of Photography" forum and why is it now a crime to respond to an OP's philosophical question below in regard to photographic philosophy on same said forum? I want to know what the civil code is that makes this act such a horrific crime that requires purposeful chastisement even with consideration of what kinda forum this is. :) --------------------------- How important is an appreciation / understanding of the philosophy of photography in the actual making of a photo? Specifically, does it enhance your work or provide an extra dimension to the photo that you produce? Free for all... lets hear it. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beeman458 Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 Forgive my last post. I was trolled and bit on the bait. My apologies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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