E-Projects

<p>John--</p>

<p>I'm thinking some of that was meant to address my questions (?)</p>

<p>If so:</p>

<p>My question/point is not about Navajo, their visual abilities, or whether your viewer is doing their best or not.</p>

<p>It's about the printer making different prints for different lighting conditions, all of which ought to be the best and up to standard.</p>

<p>It seems to me there's not one "best" here. "Best" is situational, context-driven, not fixed and immutable.</p>

<p>Pianists playing in different halls adjust their volume, tone, nuances accordingly. Always their best.</p>

<p>Actors performing the same play in one theater vs. another project and even interpret differently. Always their best.</p>

<p>I don't know why a photographer, given the opportunity and practical possibilities to print for the destination, would think his bests are any less environment-related.</p>

<p>Fred, Sorry for my evasiveness. My emotional "gift" feels at odds with your platonic "best."</p>

<p>I print to the <em>best</em> of my limited ability, according to my single standard. Presently, I'm sulking because in the past week I've seen work by two vastly better printers. One set hangs in Three Rivers Brewery in Farmington, New Mexico (excellent amber ale): melodramatic B&W scenics..I wouldn't want them around the house, but they are perfect for that brewpub. Somebody knew what he was doing. </p>

<p>I don't often know where my print will hang initially, and nobody can know where<strong> in the fullness of time</strong>. An initially badly lit print will, if compelling enough, eventually enjoy better. Do I care when?</p>

<p>In this small room, reasonably well-lit : a 1939 B&W by my mother, a Stanford farm road (Kodak Bantam Special)...a formal north-lit head and shoulders portrait, 5X7, my great grandfather looking a lot like me...a 16X20 flash-powder-lit group in liederhosen, dirndels, and Wagnerian costumes labeled "Weinesfest, 11, October, 1896" (my grandfather may be in it as a boy). The first two are very fine as photographs and prints by any modern standard. They were all forgotten in closets and boxes until mortality made them my concerns.</p>

<p>Got ya.</p>

<p>But my "best" is not a Platonic "best."</p>

<p>Plato would be horrified by my contextual use of "best."</p>

<p>For Plato, "best" was "best," fixed and immutable. Much like your prints.</p>

<p>Your emotional "gift" is actually a Platonic "best."</p>

<p>My "best" is relative to context, which Plato would have thought very much less than Ideal.</p>

<p>That's me, less than an Idealist. :)</p>

<p>Fred, in <strong>Black Swan</strong> terms, my "best" ain't "platonic." It lives in "<strong>Extremistan."</strong> Same print might fail or transcend, depending (including now or later).</p>

<p>If I anticipated the lighting I might print according to a theory (per those effective brewpub photos)...I could print-to-fit...but in some future, wouldn't that print be discarded as mediocre, especially if the owner had forgotten me?</p>

<p>In Black Swan <strong>"Mediocrestan"</strong> I'd print according to anticipated point of display...it would serve... ideally it would be discarded when lighting changed. My shade will haunt with enough mediocrity as it is.</p>

<p>An unasked question has to do with the passage of time. Weston's still looking good. I talk about Minor White here, but I don't think his future is as bright.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>"because I actually care about the recipient."</p>

<p>But care about the print and the possibility of future mediocrity more than the present best.</p>

<p>I get your point and hadn't thought of the "lastingness" of the print. I got it now. As usual, there seem to be at least two ways to see this without one needing to be extreme and one needing to be mediocre . . . unless <em>we</em> need them to be that way.</p>

<p>It's not a black swan, IMO. Nothing transformative here. Just your way of doing things. A totally reasonable way. I understand now. It took a while :-) . . . but I understand now.</p>

<p>Thank you.</p>

<p>By the way, why so resistant to being "Platonic?" You are, in this case, though not often that I've seen. Extremistan is Platonic, you're after the Ideal print vs. Mediocrestan, the more Realist, current, experiential view. The desire that something "last" is Platonic, Idealistic vs. something that will serve but perhaps only termporarily which is much more Realist or Empirical.</p>

<p>All Plato's ideas are good. Some of them work and some of them don't. There's at least a little Plato in all of us.</p>

<p>Fred, I don't especially "desire" a future for my prints (being vaguely-faux-buddhist), but the odds are high (the risk of the bet is low) that if I print in a mediocre way (ie for one particular viewing situation) there will <em>probably be no</em> future for them, there will be <em>little possibility</em>. </p>

<p><strong> </strong><em><strong>Extremistan and Mediocristan are goofy Black Swan frames of reference</strong> having to do with probabilities, possibilities, and risk.</em> In Mediocrestan there actually may be reasonably predictable probabilities and risks. Common statistical methods and the bell curve may work adequately there. By contrast, in Extremistan there are few probabilities and very high risk...the <em>possibility</em> of extreme success and extreme failure. Think government employment vs dotcom. Think Bush vs Obama: one attempted little, the other is rolling many dice.</p>

<p>If I print to my taste the <em>possibility</em> of a future exists. This is the implication of "Extremistan". <em>It might (or might not)</em> be rewarding to someone in the future to possess a print from 2009, just as it's rewarding to me to possess very fine (or finely framed, as in that Octoberfest example) family-owned prints from the 19th century ( Fremont CA, San Francisco).</p>

<p>It happens that these California prints were made or produced or purchased (fine studio portraits)..appreciated and possessed... by photographic enthusiasts (my family). I think the best would be collectable by people who simply like fine vintage images...I'm sure that thes are survivors of culling by the photographers. Culling removed the mediocre and opened a possibility for the best.</p>

<p>I predict (prediction is often possible in Mediocristan, not in Extremistan) that a print made for an inadequate lighting situation will be discarded (culled) when it's viewed in better light. That mildly radical action will elevate the rest of that collector's photos.</p>

<p>The premise that assumes the mediocrity of printing for a particular lighting situation is flawed. It simply assumes longevity to be a more worthy goal (what <em>you</em> define as success) than other goals.</p>

<p>If the so-called "extremist" method were to be assumed lazy, uncaring, or unsophisticated for its negligent attitude toward the current viewing situation, that would also be a mistake. </p>

<p>The "extremist" method seems mediocre on at least two counts:</p>

<p>1) It seems to be the accepted norm. (This is most often a signifier of a lack of extremism -- Jeff Spirer: "I've never met anyone that [prints differently for different lighting conditions].") </p>

<p>2) It has kept things simple. (Those using this method haven't confronted the issue that their prints are being seen in all kinds of situations which are not accurately representing the vision of the photographer in the same manner they are suddenly confronted with it with respect to monitors. The viewing inconsistencies are more obvious and severe with monitors so they have become more troubling -- one of the premises of this thread. There's mediocrity in seeing only what's been made more obvious.)</p>

<p>The "extremist" may feel better comparing himself to dotcom instead of government employment and Obama instead of Bush, but that kind of self-congratulation is mediocre as well.</p>

<p>Like I said, I understand your point and it seems a reasonable way for you and anyone else to work. I certainly applaud the aesthetics and craft of anyone who can make a fine print and make one that will last for the ages.</p>

<p>But that's got nothing to do with your being more willing to take a risk, nothing to do with yours being an extremist method and others being mediocre methods. </p>

<p>It's just your way -- either by choice, by habit, or inheritance -- and just one way.</p>

<p>Fred, I have the impression that you're upset by what I've said.</p>

<p>Your insistance that Mediocristan refers to "mediocre" is understandable, but it does not...you're missing the point: The extreme may also be mediocre. The mediocre may be "best."</p>

<p>Extremistan relates to risk, upside and downside possibility...not merit.</p>

<p>Mediocristan refers to a low-risk world...government employment is a perfect example. Nothing wrong with that. But it doesn't ring certain bells.</p>

<p>You talk a lot about "art," and I differ with you there specifically because the word has devolved to Mediocristanian jargon, whereas I think it refers to high risk, belongs more properly to Extremistan.</p>

<p>Extremistan is inhabited by high risk, not by predictability. </p>

<p>A Mediocristan print might be more <em>acceptable</em> (might make your badly lit friend happier) than a print from Extremistan...hopefully it <em>would</em> be more acceptable, if dumbed down for the bad light you've postulated (and please don't confuse this with monitor viewing...it's a different matter..I don't care much about monitors since they're Edsels).</p>

<p> My best may be Extremistanian because<em> it either works or doesnt</em>...it might be a total failure in your friends bad apartment, but it might be a great success the apartment of someone that more fully appreciated photography or appreciated the gift.</p>

<p>Your several judgmental comments seem platonic (by definition?)....measuring my views with an absolute standard that you evidently possess. I'm in no position to say anything absolute, beyond the personal.</p>

<p>...however I don't think you understand platonicity in application. Taleb may not either, but this seems a fair discussion of his view:</p>

<p><a href="http://obsidianrook.com/doomfiles/PLATONIC_HATRED.html">http://obsidianrook.com/doomfiles/PLATONIC_HATRED.html</a></p>

<p>I am a success or a failure, but the risks I take may be deminimus, I may be a Mediocristanian. If you worked for the government, your understandings would probably be OK, whereas an Extremistanian's might be positively or negatively revolutionary.</p>

<p>A Mediocristanian VP promoted Nam June Paik's "Information Superhighway" and tried to maintain it as a government entity. His concept died, overwhelmed by barbarians from Extremistan (the people who developed a dull Defense Department Mediocristan program into our favorite medium).</p>

<p> </p>

<p>"dumbed down"</p>

<p>That's how I thought you were viewing it. I'm not upset. I enjoy this discussion. Seriously.</p>

<p>It would be helpful if you pointed to something I said where <em>I</em> measured your views with an "absolute standard." You're using the standard, the personal standard that there is one final print that will suffice for all your viewers, referring to anything other than that, for you, as "dumbed down."</p>

<p>You think "Extremistan" is taking more risks or maybe that's how Taleb defines it. It may well be and I accept that. But your printmaking habits are not taking more risks, so they may simply not be as "Extremistan" as you think. They are simply meeting your standards. The person who adjusts for varying lighting situations may be taking many more risks. His risk is clearly that the prints won't last beyond the individual situation for which he's made them. He risks working harder than you in nuancing each print he makes of the same image because he doesn't print to a standard like you. There are risks involved with making tailor-made prints that are not involved with sticking to a standard.</p>

<p>Taleb and I understand Plato.</p>

<p>Taleb and I understand that Plato sought and deified consistency and everlastingness. According to what you linked, Taleb doesn't think much of such consistency. Taleb also doesn't think much of things that are as well-defined as your "standard" print. You're seeking Plato's sort of consistency and Idealism with your prints. You think you have made an Ideal print which will serve all situations. That is Platonic. It is not messy. And it is not evidence of a method Taleb would seem to prefer (at least according to what you linked).</p>

<p>By referring to the "messiness" (which Taleb prefers) of not making an Ideal print, of varying the print for the lighting situation, as "dumbed down," you are disassociating yourself with Taleb and aligning yourself with Plato, who would also refer to it as "dumbed down." Like you, Plato felt that situational adjustments were "dumbed down." It doesn't seem as though Taleb would refer to situational inconsistency as dumbing down. He would rather appreciate the messiness of it. As do I.</p>

<p>Fred, Since few here seem to have read him (I've just finished listening to 12 CD unabridged), I should have explained that Taleb brags about his <strong>trader mentality</strong>. He isn't an investor so much as gambler.</p>

<p>This explains his rejection of Plato. He finds no discernable predictability in Extremistan, postulates no driver-of-the-universe, few certainties. <strong>Plato comforted investors in Mediocristan until the theories Taleb ridicules betrayed them (eg Modern Portfolio Theory, diversification, dollar cost averaging).</strong> Platonic thinkers experienced the negative potential of Extremistan. They will <em>never</em> "recover" without a hugely positive "Extremistan." (try to recover 30% loss @ at a modest 3% inflation number, plus 4% (the goal of institutional investors and expected from treasury bonds), all compounded: you'd need 7% reinvested <em>every year after expenses</em> in an untaxed account)</p>

<p>To gamble, one puts down one's bet and lives with the consequences, prepared to tolerate small losses most of the time, open to very rare huge wins. My prints are bets. I don't choose to adjust them to the inadequacies of characters who at certain times exhibit prints in bad light...after all, who knows when they'll be see the light.</p>

<p><strong>We especially differ here</strong>: I'm distinctly NOT trying to convey "my vision" to anybody..it's more accurate to say that I'm simply putting something out there. That sharing-vision idea is understandable and pleasant, but it doesn't ring true for me...it seems an unexamined notion, and I once espoused it or something similar.</p>

<p>Giving someone a print makes it even more my own than my original file or film. That's a partially formed concept but it rings true for me...maybe I'll eventually decode or reject it. For the recipient to grasp my vision (if I have a vision) she might have to be close to my wave length at some point (similar aluminum foil hats on April Fools Day)... <strong>not</strong> at the moment of receipt of print in your friend's dank, dark NY walkup... maybe in the future, after she's carried off ...to a well-lit New Mexico palace :-)</p>

<p>Yes, indeed. "Pleasant" and "unexamined," says John.</p>

<p>Thanks. Probably now enough.</p>

<p>Fred, for several months I've been writing as clearly as I can about personally evolving thinking...that evidently irritates you, has repeatedly irritated you to the point that you attack</p>

<p>...why not expand on your own experience and thinking rather than sniping at mine? </p>

<p>The problem seems to be that I question some of the "givens" that some photographers routinely embrace... some that I've embraced in the past. In particular, I question the casual, seemingly unexamined "shared vision." </p>

<p>Forget my attitude toward "art" ..how about examining "shared vision"... what does that mean to you? </p>

<p>How does it work?</p>

<p>A self-evident idea?</p>

<p>This Forum tends to rely on ideas that are taken for granted...maybe that's because we're photographers and photography deals with the surfaces of things.</p>

<p>John--</p>

<p>"Shared vision" is what many of us were talking about in the intimacy thread. That thread was about all kinds of intimacy, between photographer and subject, photographer and photograph, viewer and photograph/subject, and photographer and viewer. You may be skeptical about the photographer/viewer intimacy, I don't quite remember. But skepticism aside, it was certainly discussed. I've talked about shared vision a lot over the months. Suzanne Langer has examined it thoroughly. She and I have reached different conclusions about it from yours, even though we have examined it. We share visions through <em>Significance</em>. Empathy of feelings. Symbolism. It's what art, when it's not hanging in a motel, can be about. Photography, too.</p>

<p>The viewer shares my vision not directly but because of an empathetic response to the photograph. He responds to the <em>significance</em> of my feelings not necessarily with those same feelings but with feelings of his own stimulated by the work. Significance, in this regard, means more than importance. It is sort of importance + empathy + symbolic form and feeling. A key to significance is "sign." Signs aid in the sharing of vision.</p>

<p>You have used Plato and Platonic here, in a <em>Philosophy</em> of Photography forum, and your use of them has appeared muddled to me. Taleb evidently presents his views partially in the context of Plato and his distaste for some of Plato's ideas. (While I don't share Taleb's distaste for Plato, I agree with Taleb that Plato's ideas often do not apply well to the world I experience.) Your writing about Plato and the platonic parts of Taleb's work suggests that you have only a vague notion about how they're being used. In some cases, you use Plato and/or Platonic in a manner completely counter to an understanding of his Idealism and love of consistency. You have specifically said that you have avoided the study of Philosophy, so it seems reasonable that you would have only vague notions about these things. Nevertheless, you tell me, someone you know has a lot more experience with Plato than you do, that I don't understand this application of Plato. That's a snipe, no? It's at least very ballsy.</p>

<p>I take your calling my own and others' ideas "pleasant" and "unexamined" as snipes. Admittedly, I snipe back at you. In my mind, you've asked for it by consistently behaving that way.</p>

<p>Here, you set yourself up for these attacks with your own attitude, referring to my suggested method as "dumbing down." Evidently you didn't see that as a snipe, just your way of talking. But it's a snipe. You got the response you got because of it.</p>

<p>I see your several mentions of projection instead of monitors as snipes. This thread is about monitors. Say your piece once and then let it be. We get it. No one really even responded to you on it. Maybe repeat it once because you've been ignored, but at some point you have to get the message that you're the only one who cares right now.</p>

<p>I don't mind your feelings about "art." I mind your harping on them and sidetracking good discussions with them. Just like we all (according to you) accept that we are not "most" people and that we are of a certain class, all of us accept that (perhaps because of that class we're in) we have a good working idea of what "art" is. Rarely does it include what's framed above motel beds or what you refer to as decor. Yet anytime the word is mentioned, instead of attending to what the discussion is about, you interrupt it with the same musings about "art" being Elvis on velvet. Those come off as snipes.</p>

<p>When video or slides are mentioned and you enter with the sole idea that lack of sound is an "atavistic" restriction and it's said for the umteenth time and there is no other critique offered, it comes across as a snipe.</p>

<p>Fred, I asked if you had ideas related to "shared vision." In response you pointed to various formulations made by others.</p>

<p>Taking my reference to "comfortable" and "dumbing down" as personal criticism was your egotistical mistake. </p>

<p><strong>You asked what I would do</strong>. My impression was, back then, that you were being honest. I stated directly that I wouldn't dumb my work down to someone else's limitations. It's hard enough for me to print adequately for myself ! </p>

<p>I don't have your philosophic expertise: when doing what I find best I am not doing it on the basis of abstract absolute qualities, despite your invention of that sort of idea for me. </p>

<p>Taleb assiduously tries to avoid abstract absolutes. Pardon me for my limited education, but I think Plato was exactly the opposite.</p>

<p>This is 2009: I think there's comparable weight to Plato, astrology, and Oprah Winfrey's latest diet... Having suffered through hours of Taleb, I am pretty sure about his understanding of Plato, whether or not he has your expertise in the matter.</p>

<p>If I made a print for your friend I would NOT adjust for his bad lighting. I don't know why that bothers you.</p>

<p>If I cared how he'd display it, I'd ask HIM to do the right thing. I'd respect him enough to assume his values (re lighting and photos) could be improved. You evidently have some sort of opposing position, but you've not attempted to state it clearly. If you had a positon you'd have expressed it in your own words.</p>

<p>My mutable position has to do with my understanding of my limited capabilities, my emotional responses to these matters, and my own muddled, but minutely examed value system. </p>

<p>If you have a relevant value system, please say in a sentence or two what you'd do in response to your friend's lighting. Step up to the plate.</p>

<p>I'm outta here.</p>

<p>Since physical print and screen are two different media, there cannot be one that should prevail on the other. I recently went to check out an exhibition of all Caravaggio's paintings done with digital in-scale reproductions of the original paintings. That show had a great success and would have been impossible to realize it with the original paintings, for obvious logistic reasons. Although the reproductions were done at the highest definition and in scale 1:1, looking at the original paintings (most of which I saw at museums many times) is still an experience unmatched by the digital media. As I said in the opening statement, they are different experiences and should not interfere with each other. If I want to look at a photo by W Evans, I want to see the original print, not a high resolution digital reproduction on a screen. If I want to see Michelangelo's paintings, I go to a museum. If I want to see the work of digital screen artists, I will look at works through screens. There is absolutely no reason why the digital media should replace the physical ones, they are different and should all coexist, giving artists the possibility to choose how to express themselves.<br>

As far as the essay, I agree with the fact that using a reflex or even a Leica makes it impossible to get really close without even getting noticed or spoiling the moment. I also agree with the need of capturing a genuine moment. Personally, I just don't see the need to get all that close to do that, period. Those photos don't make any sense to me, they are photos of people mostly ugly or with deformed facial features or poor devils at the bottom of our social pyramid but I see no presence of the photographer and no real intent of communication whatsoever. The capture of "weird" faces and desperate people is a very banal thing to do IMO, and the fact that you can get so close doesn't really make the experience any better.</p>

<p><strong>Yes:</strong> <em>" ...poor devils at the bottom of our social pyramid ...no presence of the photographer and no real intent of communication whatsoever. The capture of "weird" faces and desperate people is a very banal thing to do IMO, and the fact that you can get so close doesn't really make the experience any better."</em></p>

<p>In the past some of the best almost exclusively photographed subjects they had gotten to know ... Edward Weston and Bill Brandt, for example. That's exactly the kind of photographic closeness that moves me the most.</p>

<p>Well said John, a shot of an unknown random guy in the street, unless he is part of a bigger scene, doesn't speak to me. Sometimes there are unique characters that are worth a shot, I admit it, but 90% of cases we see just poor people that unfortunately are everywhere, thanks to the monetary competitive system on which is based the western civilization... that's a different story. Knowing the person you are photographing, like the old guys used to do (and modern artists as well), it's the best way to establish a connection and show on the photograph both the personalities of the subject and the photographer. A street shot must portrait a scene, IMO, not a random subject disconnected from everything else.</p>