"meaning"...in photos but not music?

<p>Alan, my view is quite traditional for most film-experienced photographers (it's not the DNA that makes you and me different in this respect: it's experience). </p>

<p>I use Photoshop in order to do what I've done forever in darkrooms, but more conveniently (starting with scans or DSLR files). </p>

<p> I'm not drunk enough Kool-Aid to fantasize that I "capture reality" (or anything else): I photograph in order to make prints that have some sort of value to somebody (me, at least) in and of themselves. All but one of the images you mentioned, save the color, were made with that intent. They span about 35 years...</p>

<p>The rules you enjoy are simply rules you enjoy. People who enjoy rules usually try to convince others that those rules are truths, rather than popular conventions.</p>

<p>Sitting near my idea of a perfect portrait, made in a San Francisco studio around 1900: my great grandfather at my age. Neither of us are B&W, and neither of us are or were photographs...we are/were whitebread caucasians with white hair, the same cowlick, and identical bone structure. I think you'd see rules in this photo...I see a beautifully executed image and print, conventionally/beautifully composed in a way that you'd love.</p>

<p> I'm certain that I could crop it in ways you'd hate, perhaps to "say something" about what I know about this man...something you'd probably discourage given your stated high regard for certain tonalities. For example, the shadow side of his face might, with the background, cropping up into his chin, might constitute the entire image: something psychologically valid (per family lore) might be conveyed by conflicting with your rules. </p>

<p>Today there appears to be much more of an obsession with "reality" than in years past: Stieglitz made prints..."reality" could have been more easily simulated by painters. Today people operate digital cameras to produce JPEGs with "settings" (other than shutter speed and aperture) in pursuit of someone's idea of photo normality. You may be familiar with that goal...I cared about it when I made my living with it (E6 etc), but never much otherwise. </p>

<p><em>please ignore my previous badly composed post (sorry): </em></p>

<p>Alan, my view is consistent with long tradition for film-experienced photographers (much of our tradition is science-informed. It's not the "DNA" that makes our photography different: it's our different experience).</p>

<p>I use Photoshop in order to do what I've done forever in darkrooms, but more conveniently (starting today with scans or DSLR files).</p>

<p>I've not drunk enough consumerist Kool-Aid to fantasize that I "capture reality" (or anything else): I photograph in order to make my own prints that have some sort of value to somebody (me, at least) in and of themselves. All but one of the images you mentioned, save the color, were made with that intent. They span about 35 years...</p>

<p>The rules you advocate are simply rules you enjoy. People who enjoy rules often believe they are truths, rather than popular conventions.</p>

<p>I'm sitting near my idea of a perfect portrait (and a perfect print), made in a San Francisco studio around 1900: my great grandfather at my age. Neither of us are or were B&W photographs...we are/were whitebread caucasians with white hair, the same cowlick, and identical bone structure. I see something beautifully executed as image and print, conventionally/beautifully composed in a way that you'd love.</p>

<p>I think I could crop it, in a way your rules would reject, to "say something" about this man. For example, the shadow side of his face might split the image 50:50 with the near black background, cropping up into his chin: something psychologically credible (per family lore) might be produced by conflicting with your rules.</p>

<p>Today there appears to be much more of an obsession with photographic "reality" than in years past: Stieglitz made prints, knowing that "reality" was more easily simulated by painters. Today people let digicam/DSLRs produce JPEGs with "scene settings" (snow, sports, night, fireworks etc) that produce an unknown technical committee's idea of photo normality. You may be familiar with that idea..I made use of it when I made my living related to it (product/food photography etc), but never much otherwise.</p>

 

<p>John: I wasn't trying to say one is better than the other, only different. If you check my gallery, there seems to be an innate obsession I have with balance. I shoot and crop to create a balanced picture. Sometimes I think if I was to print my pictures, I could stick a pin in the middle and the thing would balance on it even thought the weight of the ink makes it imbalanced. It's not that I'm following "rules". I did that long before I heard of rules of thirds and stuff like that. It's just that my brain does not like imbalance. It has nothing to do with truth. Does that make balanced pictures better? No, although I believe they are more acceptable to more people because it seems to "works" in most people's minds. That's all. Doesn't mean imbalanced pictures are bad. In fact, skewing a picture creates an edge, something that you may want to present to the viewer. And maybe a picture that isn't balances is what someone else favors in their mind. That's OK too because that's normal to them and to people like them. To each their own.</p>

<p>Alan, if "my brain does not like inbalance" enough to make me advocate "rule of thirds" and all that claptrap enough to make me forget to ask myself "why make a photograph" I hope some other part of myself, perhaps something like me, myself, will recognize that my brain has sold out.</p>

<p>Blaming photographs on one's brain seems like a way of avoiding the risk that comes with responsibility. Wandering streets or woods hoping to stumble across an image is avoidance of risk and responsibility. Risk and responsibility are what I live for and by.</p>

<p>Perhaps this is where we differ: I don't buy the idea that a photograph is particularly important by itself, I think is context in our (yours and mine) bodies of work tells the tale. If most of my stuff looks like tourist photos or random scenics, the occasional image that doesn't look touristic or scenic may not even be importantly my own work. I want to take responsibility for my images. I think what we "want" as human beings gets evaluated by each of us, occasionally, in comparison to what we actually accomplish....</p>

<p> </p>

<p>John: I don't need anyone's approval for my style of shooting anymore than you or anyone else does for theirs. I'll let my gallery stand on its own. I think it's pretty good. If some people enjoy looking at my photos, great. If they don't that's OK too. </p>

<p>Alan, I didn't suggest that you "need anyone's approval." You have, however, written several posts here in which you expressed concern about popular response.</p>

<p>I'm concerned about that too...to a very small degree: If someone has never been enough of a photographer to make his/her own prints, I think his/her response to mine (or the work of any printing photographer you can name) can very occasionally be interesting, but not often. A perceptive person responds in a perceptive way, they don't just rate something or say they "like" it.</p>

<p>In addition to tentatively and temporarily satisfying myself, my equally important concern is the response of a few people with whom I identify on the basis of life experience and their own kind of work.</p>

<p>That's why I don't ask for P.N "ratings." At least monthly I send a dozen B&W prints to two print exchanges, looking for detailed responses from my peers: photographers committed to completing the photographic process in a traditional way: they make their own fine prints (half of them also make better-than-lab color prints for a color Exchange). Most of these people do actually know, from multiple examples of my work, what I'm trying to do. So I care deeply about their responses.</p>

<p> </p>

<p><em>John Kelly said:</em></p>

<blockquote>

<p>Why is music (or ambient sounds) different?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I don't think it is about meaning as much as it is about feeling. I am quoting below some comments that go along the line I'll explain below:</p>

<p><em>Thomas Powell said:</em></p>

<blockquote>

<p><strong>First</strong>, I think scientifically, photography is a visual medium and music is an auditory medium. Completely different areas of the brain, which alone is significant.</p>

</blockquote>

<p><em>Alan Klein said:</em></p>

<blockquote>

<p>Steve hit it when he said it brings out emotion, moods and feelings on a base, primal basis. Hence, Hollywood's use of background music to magnify the scene.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Basically, hearing is for us a more important sense than seeing as far as feeling goes. Alan's reference to movies is excellent in this respect. Silent movies, even the best ones, aren't as impressive as the ones with sound. It is especially interesting to watch a silent horror movie - it just isn't very scary. Horror movies may not be everyone's idea of good movies, but their reliance on sounds is very telling. Sounds are more important to us than seeing because long ago, when we weren't the dominant species, they would be the first indication of danger - we would normally hear an enemy before we could see it, unless what we would see was the last thing we saw. So the bottom line would be that we will react stronger to sounds than to images. And we'll react even more to tactile feelings than to sounds, but there really isn't any tactile art around - only "adult" play. The stronger impact of music is not unknown:</p>

<p><em>Paganini said:</em></p>

<blockquote>

<p>I am not handsome, but when women hear me play, they come crawling to my feet.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I don't know of any painter obtaining similar effects to Paganini's. Did anyone faint watching a painting?</p>

<p>It is also interesting to examine what images get a stronger response from viewers. Sex and violence will always produce a more emotional response than a landscape. The reason is that our subconscious is a powerful thing and if you can speak directly to it, bypassing the higher cerebral functions, then you're driving the conversation (as usual, the ad guys have figured this out first with their use of subliminal messages). That explains why nudes are the most viewed images on photo.net. Most photography is simply too cerebral - it requires analysis, evaluation, contemplation - it is also fairly static, unlike music, which develops in parallel with the feeling of the listener - music is dynamic, not just a static influx of information that requires an effort on our part to tune in and see it in different light. Music controls us, but with photographs, we have to control our interpretation.</p>

<p>Sorry, if this doesn't make much sense. Blame it on Sam Adams - an artist of another sense - taste. Cheers!</p>

<p>Laurentieu, you've made many interesting points.....<br>

But I do disagree strongly about one point, that being your claim about absence of a "tactile art." I think that's totally wrong, overlooking the tactile experience of anyone who handles sculpture, ceramics, intimate musical instruments (guitars, viols), dances, plays a sport.... As well you're missing the kinaesthetic joys (musculoskeletal feedback) experienced by many when they watch masters at play, whether in dance or sports. I hope you'd concede that sports and dance are part of the same continuum, and much like sculpture ...<br>

Anyone who practices a sport responds in a muscular memory way when they watch someone else in a similar sport. I watched Nadal beat Federer today and had continual, sometimes grueling muscular experience. Unfortunately I lost to Rafa!</p>

<p>Taking sculpture apart, I don't think its purpose is to be touched. The sculptor may derive tactile pleasure from sculpting, but so would a brick layer from laying bricks - where is the art and who is the artist?<br>

On the other hand, I think you're onto something when you mention musical instruments - we can call the instrument maker an artist, with the instrument being the art. The player will enjoy it on both a tactile and auditory level, but listeners won't have any tactile feeling.<br>

We are now coming to the argument that people that make items that are to be handled, perform tactile art. I would agree with that. It's the case for cameras and lenses too and I believe that art lost quite a lot when autofocus was introduced.</p>

 

<p>Laurentieu, it's interesting that you fixed on autofocus. I use an autofocus DSLR and often (increasingly) use manual focus lenses with it. Why? Because they're fast (eg 1.4). That gives me more confidence in focus, though for the most part Pentax autofocus can be counted on. I don't do many grab shots, but when I did that with manual focus 35mm (Nikon F, Canon F1, Leica) I was usually prefocused to some distance that I anticipated. Rangefinder lenses are better designed for that purpose than manual focus SLR lenses. <br>

I don't like to use "art" in a generic way, so I'll just say that what matters to me is the print, and the print that matters is the one I make personally...two images currently in my P.N gallery were not printed by me shortly after making the exposure, a group of friends and a bird skeleton (both shot around 30 years a go and first printed recently...they disappointed me earlier, one because I hated the zoom lens, the last one I ever used). Except for the bird skeleton, I saw them all as prints when I made the exposure.</p>