Idealism

<p>I ran across this quote this morning and have been trying -- unsuccessfully -- to sort out whether I agree with it and how it might tie in with this thread. Thus this rather incoherent post. Here is the quote:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>... I have been trying for some time to bridge more intimate poems (which offered immediate emotional connection for the reader) and more public poems (which would contextualize those feelings, give them scope, breadth, and ambition). I'd been frustrated by how feelings are always privatized in this country, as if they only originated in an interior which was insulated from culture, when in fact those attitudes toward feelings are very much a product of American culture. I've always felt the greatest poets make the greatest connections, which is why we call them "visionaries." -- <em>Ira Sadoff</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>The personal, individualized or intimate seems to often be referenced as an area where un-idealization is especially desirable or valued. Ideals accent, emphasize or base their meaningful value on how that which is portrayed matches or conforms to the ideal; the individualized or intimate emphasizes or bases its meaningful value on how that which is portrayed deviates from or is uniquely identifiable by its departure from the ideal or the norm. [<em>The word 'norm' is not quite right, but it's the shortest/easiest one that comes to mind</em>.]<br>

　<br>

But the norm that the idealized is referencing need not be the same norm as the one that is referenced by the individualizing content of the picture.<br>

　<br>

Is idealized/unidealized a zero sum game in a photograph? Can you look at <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migrant_mother">Migrant Mother</a></em> as both an idealized depiction of hardship <em>and</em> as an intimate portrait of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migrant_mother">Mrs. Florence Thompson</a>? Or is idealized/unidealized content in the same picture <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_illusion#Explanation_of_cognitive_illusions">a cognitive illusion</a>? You can see one and then the other, but can't hold both in your mind at the same time? Or, is it possible to see both at once -- additive value, not zero-sum or either/or?</p>

<p>Getting back to the quote, above, can you build a connection(s) -- bridge -- capable of simultaneously carrying both the idealized and the unidealized to the viewer without conflict? If you can look at <em>Migrant Mother</em> both as an idealized photo of hardship and as an intimate portrait of an individual woman is that (only) because the 'hardship' norm is separable from (not the same as or in conflict with) the 'individual woman' norm?</p>

<p> Julie, it depends. Sometimes a heavy, prominent idealism can make a photograph. Many of Helmut Newton's pictures of women work well this way. For it to work more subtly, from the photographers' side, <em>fluency </em> is of paramount importance. Just like people who drop french/latin phrases incongruously and the result is that they are sophomoric and always seem out of place because they are <em>not integrated</em> with the rest of ther image/story/text. This is why Migrant Mother works, because we never forget that this is a real person, with her children, in a bad situation, not merely a Depression era icon. The documentary style helps quite a bit in this instance (and many others), by inserting a set of specifics into the image. In this image, the ideal and real are <em>one seamless, integrated whole.</em></p>

<p><em><br /> </em></p>

<p>julie--</p>

<p>I think the unity you point to in some matters of idealized/non-idealized elements (I don't want to say "content" because I believe there are idealizations even in technique, grain in some cases, the use of black and white, for example) is of great help here. The bridge of simultaneity you talk about, Luis's seamlessness . . . appreciated insights.</p>

<p>Two of the examples I originally gave can probably be looked at from this new schema. Ford's use of headstones/cemeteries/graves seems to be of the more <em>seamless</em> or <em>unitary</em> type and Magritte's skies seem more about <em>juxtaposition</em> and <em>context</em> rather than embodying the unitary ideal/non-ideal.</p>

<p>The blueness of the daylight and almost perfect cloud formations (perfect sometimes to the point of intended silliness) of Magritte are "undermined" by their blending into the wallpaper of the room or their appearing above a nighttime scene lit by gas lamps. He is most often intentionally not seamless, though one could say his clouds move from sky to wallpaper seamlessly (but that's a different usage of "seamless"). I sometimes think of him as deconstructive in an early stage.</p>

<p>The humanity and personal nature of Ford's graves, on the other hand, seem to be precisely in their idealized status. How does one separate Ford's intimate and grand points of view, established with perspective and camera angle, with what's included in each frame? Each shot of fire light reflecting on a face, of evening light brushing a headstone or valley monument is so ideal because, it seems, it is so human, so real. This does not seem to be about juxtaposition or context but rather about something residing in the elements and scenes themselves.</p>

<p>I've been ironically playing with preconceptions of the beautiful. It's fairly obvious that many photographs, here and elsewhere, are about creating souvenirs of beautiful scenery. When the beautiful scenery doesn't cooperate (and the Shenandoah Valley is interestingly uncooperative since the human eye strips away the haze that the camera catches), then we try to figure out how to make an analogue of that experience. I watch people taking pictures (and sometimes photograph them) and wonder what the people pointing their cellphones at the landscape get or expect to get. <br>

The posing people do is often a way to present themselves, to control their self-presentations against other interpretations of themselves. Occasionally, with real extroverts, probably with actors and dancers, the self can pull this off in interesting ways. But the average person tends to fail at this, to be more interesting when not overtly posing, but the pose is based on an idea, whether the person has the physical capacity to move with that imagined grace or not. The typical shot is the grinning couple in front of famous scenery.<br>

The typical nature shot tends to be about the capture of something beautiful. I found that my frogs and my snapping turtle didn't get as many views or favorable ratings as my orchids, but for me, the orchids are a technical problem as much as something beautiful.<br>

I kinda think that there's a borrowed beauty in some shots that makes fairly typical lighting and composition look good. </p>

<p>I find myself more and more attracted to photographing people and their reactions to place than to photographing place, bouncing off their cognitive dissonance between how they're supposed to react to the place and how they are reacting. Need to go into DC for some of that, I suspect.</p><div></div>

<p>Fred,<br>

Once again a thoughtful question, elegantly posed. In my own photography I try, and most frequently fail, to express the extraordinariness of the everyday; the hollow tree past which I have walked a hundred times until finally I respond to the very fact of its existence; the small outcrop of rock which has endured through aeons of time, long before the human race emerged, almost waiting, as it were, for us to record it; the fleeting encounter with another person whom, in all probability, I will never see again and which I feel bound to record.<br>

The French have an expression which translates as ' the miracle of meetings' and I think of a photograph as the record of a fortuitous meeting and an expression of that miracle.</p>

<p>"Occasionally, with real extroverts, probably with actors and dancers, the self can pull this off in interesting ways. But the average person tends to fail at this, to be more interesting when not overtly posing, "--Rebecca Brown</p>

<p>"I kinda think that there's a borrowed beauty in some shots that makes fairly typical lighting and composition look good." --Rebecca Brown</p>

<p>Having photographed a couple of actors and dancers, I know what you mean. There is an ease with which they are used to and understand how the visual translates to the emotional. Most people are more uptight than that. But I think some photographers, therefore, may mistakenly conclude that candid shots of most "regular" people are better than more intentional and deliberative ones. That may be the case sometimes, but I think what's more the case is that the burden is on the photographer to get his "regular" people to be able to be aware of the camera and of themselves as subjects or become less aware of the camera if necessary in such a way as to be able to actually pose and for that pose to be quite genuine. A pose is often something we strike, but in a photograph pose is somewhat inherent. Even in a candid shot, we will likely describe it by saying "the subject is posed . . . this way or that" or "the pose of the subject." The subject is posed, whether they have consciously posed or not. Their body is in a certain position with a certain expression. Can one, as a photographer, create that pose without the person feeling as if they've struck that pose? Can that pose be created in such a way as to not be trite and not appear disingenuous. Smiles are often quite genuine but often simply substitute for an actually meaningful expression. I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with controlling one's self-presentation in a photo, especially when that self-presentation has a ring of truth or genuineness.</p>

<p>Your idea of "borrowed beauty" is fascinating to me. I love it. I also appreciate your emphasizing the notion of the "typical." I think much of the "beauty" we recognize is typical, what we have been taught is beautiful and what we have seen over and over again and called beautiful. The "beauty" that we appreciate in a sunrise, for example, day after day after day is not the same thing as the esthetic beauty we might appreciate in a photo or painting. What may be more than enough to qualify as beautiful when we are walking along the mountaintop, feeling the air on our face, smelling the grass, and seeing the sun go down may not be nearly sufficient when photographed or painted if there is not something MORE to it. I think many of us respond differently to the kind of beauty that is either imposed, borrowed, or comes from without a subject or object in contrast to the kind of beauty that seems to be coming from within that subject or object.</p>

<p>Chris--</p>

<p>The extraordinariness of the everyday does seem like something that appeals to many and is also very hard to accomplish. What takes it from simply staying and reading as mundane to being extraordinary? I think a good start is the photographer being in tune with the extraordinariness of other factors combining to make the mundane object worthy of photographic interest, light, shadow, texture, etc. Also his or her relationship to the object itself. That the photographer feels this way toward the object is one thing and a significant thing, but that he somehow translates that through his camera and onto the image is another thing completely. You say you frequently fail. Can you articulate anything about your successes that will help you recreate it with more regularity? Other people's successes?</p>

<p>Fred,<br />I can cite one example from my own experience. I had it in mind to photograph a small copse of trees about a mile from where I live. So, every so often I would load up the camera and go and shoot a roll (12 shots, 6x6), and process the results. I must have shot 10 to 12 rolls over a period of months but still wasn't getting what I was seeing - or what I thought I was seeing. So one day I just walked to the location, no camera, and sat on the stile at the end of the footbridge that crosses the stream alongside the field. I sat there for maybe an hour just looking, watching the light change, watching the clouds drift past. Then suddenly, as if in a moment of epiphany, I saw the shot. The next time the weather was right, I went back and got the shot. Before that, I had been too intent on 'getting the shot'; I had not given enought time to the emotional/intellectual process of 'seeing' in its truest sense. Once I was prepared to allow the subject to 'propose itself', I could see the shot.</p>

<p><strong>Rebecca</strong>, for another perspective on snappers, click my name.</p>

<p>Like the rest of "nature" you snapping turtle is far more significant as a physical object than it can be as an image. Lose your finger in the jaws and deny that. Hike the Sierras, experience hypothermia, and consider if Ansel Adams conveys what's most significant about his mountains.</p>

<p>Some portrait photographers are mediums, conveying something subtle between subject and viewer BECAUSE the subject's face is literally a highly sophisticated communications device...it evolved for that purpose, beyond an ape's crudely-muscled face.</p>

<p>That's why photos of children (including teen girls and models) say so little...their facial muscles are undeveloped ...fashion and wedding (see their portfolios) photographers are drawn religiously to faces that say the least (cute, blank faux-sexy or faux-macho).</p>

<p>I think even snapping turtles can be compelling images -- and there's always a tension between photography as documentation and photography as thing in itself, for the esthetics of a given composition. Part of the esthetics can be wrapping the photograph up with a implied narrative of beautiful things/spaces. The implied narrative of much nature photography is technically correct shots taken of real toads in beautiful settings (Marianne Moore said poetry was read toads in imaginary gardens), of the more charismatic and prettier critters. A bear against the telephone relay tower, or surrounded by cars, not really the shot that most nature photographers are going for.<br>

The turtles in that pond are habituated to people and come cruising over looking for bread. As far as I know, nobody has been bitten. The pond is scruffy, not beautiful in the way that the Shenandoah National Park is.</p>

<p>Rebecca, writers about photographs scribble things into images. It's as easy to find beauty in mud as it is to interpret the mud as ugly, the result of technique. Deciding some things are beautiful and others are ugly is a particular frame of reference. It's harder to make photographs without words.</p>

<p>"Implied narratives" are words about words, they are never found in images. </p>

<p>Implications aren't found in things...they're applied onto things. "Implied" means we've made a decision, it doesn't mean we've seen.</p>

<p> Snapping turtles drag herons under water, bite off their legs. Crunch. Carnivores, they probably can't eat those herons but they do eat ducks. Highly territorial, they attack each other...seemingly simply on the basis of proximity. One could, of course, reduce them to passive concepts in mud puddles.</p>

<p>A local couple and their kids were struck by lightning on the 4th, walking through the parking lot in light rain after a "safe" municipal fireworks display. The man died, his wife remains in a coma. All three kids were injured, are OK now. What's the implied narrative in the photo of the family, taken earlier as they left the pizza parlor?</p>

<p>Why do some photos have implied narratives ...and why don't others?</p>

<p>I was thinking about the Pictorial School photographs in particular, and PJ as a sort of side to that. When I worked for a weekly, the most controvsial photograph on a front page and the one that pushed the newspapers off the racks was a photo of a dead woman's legs, taken by one of the guys. The photo wouldn't have been as compelling without the caption.<br>

For a lot of people, photographs are souvenirs of their visit to a place (this weekend, again, I went up to the Shenandoah National Park and watched people taking vista shots with cellphone cameras and small point and shoots. They don't know how the vista they're photographing will turn into a photograph. I think I'm still learning how to do photographs up there that have their own quality as images. For me, the Park is stimulus for seeing and trying to make photographs that work without the narrative, but for many people, the photographs they take are about their trip, not about looking at a photograph.<br>

When I was a reporter/photographer, the difficulty part was switching brain functions. The photographer function was non-verbal. <br>

I took a picture of a mud puddle -- have to put it up when I get home.</p>

 

<p><em>"That's why photos of children (including teen girls and models) say so little...their facial muscles are undeveloped ...fashion and wedding (see their portfolios) photographers are drawn religiously to faces that say the least (cute, blank faux-sexy or faux-macho)."</em></p>

<p>Many many exceptions to that "rule" - at least as far as wedding photography goes. The <em>more</em> expression the better! I had to chime in because I hate blanket statements. PS I'm a wedding photographer *;-) (note the non blank expression)</p>

<p>The mud puddle -- a crop of the shot.</p>

<p>Trying again with smaller version.</p><div></div>

<p>"Many many exceptions to that "rule" - at least as far as wedding photography goes. The <em>more</em> expression the better! " - Mary B P<em> </em><br>

<em></em> <br>

"<em>more expression</em>," as seen in wedding portfolios, may be different from<em>"meaningful expression." </em><br>

In my limited first-hand experience (attended a dozen, photographed a half dozen badly) <em>"meaningful expression"</em> seems more typical of middle-aged and elder B&G (more life experience, more to say, brains more convoluted, faces physically more complex) than of younger B&G. </p>

<p>The expression is not always or only up to the face. It's up to the photographer.</p>

<p>After photographing several older faces with character, a friend challenged me to photograph a young, handsome, more generic-looking guy. It's harder, requires more photographic skill and savvy, but it's there to be found or made.</p>

<p>Whether it's a green pepper or a handsome, white, suburban, middle-class youth, the good photograph will express interest, some unique point of view, uncover a "truth" (sorry 'bout that). A good photographer will see it differently and make it expressive.</p>

<p>Fred: You're right to point out that photographers can "make" expression...by which you evidently mean the expression didn't originate in the subject. But that gets back to your hesitation about "truth." :-)</p>

<p>John--</p>

<p>Can you say more about how you're thinking of "truth" in this context. I'm reading you to be suggesting that the expression in the face might somehow be more true than the expression of the photographer. Is that a correct reading?</p>

<p>I should clarify what I mean by an expression being made by the photographer. I can think of at least two different approaches or situations.</p>

<p>The photographer may pick up on who the subject of his portrait is (in conversation, interaction) yet the subject's face might not be particularly expressive or the subject may react to the camera in such a way as not to provide a very true expression of who he is. The photographer has certain tools -- lighting, focus, perspective, inclusion of other details, context, and environment -- that can "make" the expression, maybe I should say "make the expression visible."</p>

<p>On the other hand, the photographer may also make it more or less his own expression or a more universal expression than just the subject's. Of course, the subject will be a player. Some of my portraits are as much about me, or about "an" expression vs. "his" expression, or about the viewer, as they are about the subject. Some are very much about the subject and also about me, either distinctly so or about our relationship.</p>

<p>Often, I will look at a portrait and really not concern myself with how true a rendering of the subject it is or whether or not the expression "originated" with the subject. Portraits can go beyond the individual pictured and that is as "true" as accurately representing who the subject is.</p>

<p>My hesitation in using the word "truth" had to do with the philosophical problems that history and these forums have in figuring out what it means and how to use it. My hesitation wasn't specifically related to expression not originating with the subject. The truth coming out of the portrait of the handsome, white, suburban, middle-class youth might not be about that youth to much of an extent. And the truth coming out of Weston's pepper might have to do with many things in addition to peppers.</p>

<p> Facial expressions tend to be transitory. Any portrait photographer, documentarian or street shooter worth his/her salt can see people's faces going from one state to another. I was at a photography exhibit last friday. I saw an acquaintance across the room, one who happens to have an extraordinary face, IMO, and I watched her going through masks and personae depending on who she was talking with, or I imagine, what they talked about.</p>

<p>All of these expressions, and their transitional states, emanate from the subject. The photographer can elicit or direct expressions to a degree, but more importantly, chooses which to expose for.</p>

<p>"Brain weight starts to decline between the ages of 45 - 50 and decreases by around 11 per cent from its maximal weight in young adulthood. In the older brain tissue loss is most obvious on the surface and is seen as shrinkage of the natural convolutions in brain tissue."<br>

--- Dr. Gans, Harvard Psychiatry <br>

"The characteristic morphologic changes frequently observed in the brain of an old adult include a decrease in weight and volume, a change in the pattern of cerebral cortical convolutions, and an increase in ventricular size."</p>

<p> --- Journal of the American Geriatric Society</p>

<p> So if we take John's theory that facial expressions derive from brain convolutions (it's actually much more complicated than that), then meaningful expressions <em>would decline after 45-50</em> , since the sulci begin widening, losing volume and thus surface area in the tissue that comprises them. </p>

<p> The musculature of the human face is complete far earlier than the neural pathways that affect and control it.</p>

<p>Maybe it's just the ability of individual photographers interpret faces, and/or their strictures & biases.</p>

<p>http://vongloedengayhistory.free.fr/classical.html</p>

<p>http://www.laurencemillergallery.com/Images/levitt_sbs1.jpg</p>

<p>http://www.nysun.com/arts/cartier-bresson-and-levitt-modern-masters-old/79815/</p>

<p>http://www.laurencemillergallery.com/Images/levitt_sbs10.jpg</p>

<p>http://www.masters-of-photography.com/B/brandt/brandt_lambeth_walk.html</p>

<p>http://www.agallery.com/Pages/photographers/penn.html</p>

<p>__________________________________________________________</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Is the face required to capture expression?</p>

<p><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3374/3627675165_68209f5ae2.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>Luis and Fred, Great posts. A lot to think about, agree and disagree with :-)</p>

<p>Luis, you've projected something on what I said about physiology (including brain structure) and "expression."<strong> <em>I didn't say expressivity "derived" from convolutions</em></strong>: physical anthropologists and people who study apes find a positive correlation suggesting evolutionary development resulting in humanity's unique expressivity: smoother brains (as in dissected apes, infants and presumably young blonde celebrities) operate less-experienced mammals than do the convoluted brains of middle aged Paris denizens. No? </p>

<p>Have we stumbled into PETA's science-free-world? : "A rat <strong>is</strong> <strong>a</strong> <strong>pig</strong> <strong>is</strong> <strong>a</strong> dog is a boy." ?</p>

<p>The reality of of shrinking geriatric brains do not preclude the common experience that an enfeebled elder can be more highly expressive than a teen or ape. Visit a nursing home after visiting a zoo or high school. </p>

<p>The musculature and neurology of the face are, like the musculature of the body, formed and developed during and beyond maturation. Only partially genetic. The body that distinguishes an athlete from a desk jocky is not defined at birth, natural "gifts" notwithstanding...nor is an expressive adult's facial ability defined at birth...it's sometimes enhanced by therapy, life experience, even formal training (Actors Workshops).</p>

<p>"Maybe it's just the ability of individual photographers interpret faces, and/or their strictures & biases." </p>

<p>Sure ...though not "<em>just</em> the ability," more like "<em>partially</em>" or "<em>especially</em>." That "<em>strictures</em>" idea is perfect: <em>Strictures</em> evidently made Karsh's faces look very similar to each other, as do fashion model's faces.</p>

<p><em>If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it. <br /></em><a href="../quotes/quotes/a/andywarhol109666.html"><em>Andy Warhol</em></a> </p>

<p>Can't we all just keep it simple ?</p>

<p>Bill P.</p>

<p>In another thread, William, you wrote:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"I find very little discussion on this site about art. There are endless forums on equipment, software and editing, but editing what?</p>

<p>"As a retired Art director, I find that most photographers have little to no artistic training and are typically consumed by the 'magic' of the perfect lens that would give them that award winning photo. I hear precious few discussions of the aesthetics of light, form, composition, space, texture, and the like."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>When I first read your comment above about keeping it simple, I was baffled. I thought you had said in that other thread that you would like to see just the kind of discussion we are having here about Idealism, a substantive aesthetic discussion. Seems like you would welcome it rather than use it as an opportunity to make one of those annoying drive-by comments I had talked about in that very thread.</p>

<p>But then I went back and reread this subsequent statement of yours in that same thread:</p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>"Texture sure is an important component, but what I'm talking about here are the basic-basic fundamentals of placing one object in a frame, composing it within the frame, lighting it and photographing it to produce something more appealing than a snapshot done by your neighbor's kid, then placing a second object in the frame, rearranging both objects to be relevant to one another within the frame, etc."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Now I wonder if we'd need two separate forums to satisfy your desires to get away from the gear head mentality. One for the "basic-basic fundamentals," which I suppose would include light, form, composition and then one for the more abstract concepts of things like idealism, symbolism, and gesture.</p>

<p>Is the best way to accomplish that to come to a thread started by someone who clearly showed you support in the way you wanted to approach photography and belittle a topic he'd been discussing over the course of a few weeks, and discussing with people who, like you, are approaching photography from a non gear head perspective. Doesn't seem like that smart a move in starting the kind of community-within-a-community you seemed to be after.</p>

<p>Originally, you had included texture in your list but in the subsequent quote you seem to differentiate between texture and other basic-basic fundamentals. I imagine if you heard me discuss texture you'd again ask me why I don' just keep it simple. Because not only would I talk about individual textures in a photograph, like the use in a recent photo I critiqued of bricks, cobblestones, and smooth pavement in linear juxtaposition to add some depth to the geometry of the composition. I would also talk about the more abstract kind of textural considerations, as we do when we talk about the texture of the overall sound of an orchestra, for example. Not just surface textures like rough, smooth, hard, soft, but relationships that form their own textural quality, that give a "feeling" to a whole. And I suppose it would be at that point that keep it simple would come to your mind.</p>

<p>You, yourself talked about the aesthetics of light, but I guess your notion of that aesthetics would exclude how light can act as a symbol or how light can suggest Idealism or perhaps even be used to undercut Idealism, for instance if the light were traveling through urine as in Piss Christ. In any case, by belittling a discussion of Idealism, you show me that you have way too narrow a sense of "aesthetic" in mind for it to be of much interest to me. A shame, really. I thought your original thoughts showed potential.</p>

<p>Maybe it's simply a matter of the difference between art and art direction. You originally had bemoaned the lack of discussions on art. Maybe you meant to say we were lacking discussions on art direction. Because if you really meant art, you wouldn't want to simplify discussions on something like Idealism. You'd appreciate the nuance, which is such a significant aspect of much art.</p>

<blockquote>

<p><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=2361079"><em>Fred Goldsmith</em></a><em> </em><a href="../member-status-icons"><em><img title="Subscriber" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/sub3.gif" alt="" /><img title="Frequent poster" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/3rolls.gif" alt="" /></em></a><em>, Aug 18, 2009; 10:50 a.m.</em><br /><em>When I first read your comment above about keeping it simple, I was baffled.</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>I'd like to see a forum on Photography, plain and simple, start here, with the four fundamentals needed to produce a photograph. Next step, how to create a photograph that's more than a representaion of a three dimensional article on a two dimensioned surface. Real basic stuff that would be of tremendous aid to beginners and some 'pros' alike.</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>Now I wonder if we'd need two separate forums to satisfy your desires to get away from the gear head mentality. One for the "basic-basic fundamentals," which I suppose would include light, form, composition and then one for the more abstract concepts of things like idealism, symbolism, and gesture.</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>It's not my desire, it's what the name of the site implies. It's "<strong>Photo dot net</strong>", right ?<br>

It's not "Cameras dot net", or Editing dot net"<br>

Nothing abstract, no 'philosophy', no heady cocktail party jabber, just the basics of light and composition.</p>

<p>I hope that clears it up for you.</p>

<p>Bill P.</p>