Does humour belong in photography?

This question was born after listening do a live Zappa cd

titled 'does humour belong in music?'(if you have to ask you're too

old to know). Digging Zappa deep, for sure it does/can belong in

music without interfering much with the medium's own 'seriousness'.

Same goes for writing and filmmaking, one can write a book or make a

film fuelled with humour without really undermining the deeper

thoughts(if one wishes too express) underneath them. I can also see

and imagine paintings and sculptures with a touch of humour and again

without them losing on a more deeper level. But I can't see that

same great possibility of using (self)humour in those mediums ( with

music on top I think ) in photography also without directly going too

flat. Maybe I'm taking photography too serious or maybe it's just

something in photography's sur/real soul character that just makes

it harder or even impossible to use humour(Elliot Erwitt has made a

lot of great subtle photographs that makes you smile and he's just

one example but that's not the kinda humour I mean) without just

making a funny picture?

Yeah, you are taking yourself too seriously. If photography is yet another way of expressing human emotions or a state of being, why wouldn't humour belong? The image is going to work if the image itself is a good image, i.e. focus, lighting, composition, exposure etc. all come together to complement the subject matter. Even they all arent' perfect. Want a fine example? Robert ParkeHarrison. Yeah, there's an underlying serious message in his images, but when I flip through them, I never fail to find one that just cracks me up.<BR>

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http://www.parkeharrison.com/main.html

Get over it. I have no idea about the Zappa quote, but then Frank Zappa had his first album out 6 years before I was born. Hence changing it to "you are either too young or too old" would make more sense.

 

If you have issues with humor in photography failing you, then you are likely trying too hard and photographing things you do not find humorous. In the end, this sounds like an issue relating to your personal philosophy than an issue with a mere tool like photography. And looking at your own feelings on these issues may help you change your outlook. I personally consider a good heartfelt laugh to be about as deep and powerful an emotional experience during the moment as anything else. Life can be a full and wonderful thing or it can be half empty if you take momentary pleasures and belittle them as not being deep or serious. That slight drop in tension can greatly affect other aspects of your life and make another experience even deeper.

 

But if you want to make a funny photo, then watch and see what things on this Earth give you a smile and a warm feeling. Take that, notice it. Watch for years. One day, you may find what is missing for you.

 

All this is of course me projecting my own internal narrative onto your words. Take what you need, ignore what you do not need, and please do not take offense.

 

just one opinion, :o)

 

Sean

are you serious?

Check out Elliot Erwit:"Personal Exposures"

Say what.

The problem with most "humor" is once you've heard the joke, you really don't need to hear it again, at least right away. You certainly don't want to hear it every day, and no matter how many times you tell it, it's still the same joke. <p>You might enjoy telling it to others, but it's got to have more layers of significance than "funny" to have any staying power. Something like ironic and funny, or sad but funny, or so funny it hurts kind of funny, and those other attributes tend to move it from the joke/funny catagory into some other catagory, like satire or commentary which means to some people it won't be funny anymore... t

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LOL

I do not find anything remotely funny in anything ever. What kind of camera should I buy?

What is a LOL

Laugh Out Loud or "LOL".

Yes, humour does belong in photography. Why not?

 

Sean De Merchant: "...Frank Zappa had his first album out 6 years before I was born..."

- The human civilization contains a wealth of knowledge accummulated over many thousands of years. Isn't limiting your range to after your birthday counter productive?

 

Gary Woodard: "What is a LOL".

- I think this abbreviation should be outlawed as public nuisance.

Humor comes in many flavors, some more subtle than others.

 

Chekov considered most of his plays to be comedies. Yet too many directors and actors emphasize the tragic aspects at the expense of the humor that is often, admittedly, bleak.

 

Even in the potentially repugnant "Titus Andronicus" Shakespeare managed to leave room for humor. It's up to the director and cast to handle it deftly.

 

If the concept and definition of humor are traced backward from the simplistic knee-slapper through the wryly raised eyebrow, the classical origins of characteristics associated with bodily fluids (melancholy/black bile and other charming notions) leave a lot of room for interpretations of humor. In this regard the melancholic Hamlet is downright comedic at times.

 

Dürer and others represented their concepts of the humors in their art. Those were often literal and didn't leave much room for interpretation other than some of the icons and signs that only a semiotician might understand.

 

When we look at a photograph of a landscape we read our humor into it. In some it will recall either a memory of an experience in such a place or a desire to visit such a place. In others it is evocative of a sanguine mood.

 

It may not be funny but if it truly is void of any and all humor it probably is not an interesting photograph.

Comedy is no laughing matter when done properly. It's a deadly serious business.

 

Other than that, ... what Tom Meyer said.

Get a Holga. No one will take you seriously - not even yourself.

I hope so :)<div></div>

Arrgh ! Sorry...<div></div>

Is this the Flippancy of Photography Forum?

evidently... t

"Isn't limiting your range to after your birthday counter productive?"

 

From one who can't accept LOL as a form of expression. ;-) ROTFL

 

"The secret source of humour itself is not joy, but sorrow. There is no humour in heaven." - Mark Twain

I'd hate to think of a world without humor. Not allowing it in your photography seems extremely limiting.

I've got the feeling that by posting this question some may think that I'm a dead serious guy wich I ain't ( afterall I'm rockin on the beats and lyrics of Zappa and Ween, both of wich have some pretty bizar stuff going on that goes beyond simple humour, but still can be recognized as humour). Now translating this artistic feel of someone like Zappa or Ween( okay not everyone is familiar with these examples but hey, that's just the way) to photography I can't think of a major photographer who uses this same kind of language or aproach in his or her work, now what's up with that? that definitely must be a sign.

 

Of course it's possible to make photographs with humour in it, I could make hundreds of them, but what would they really mean besides of what they actually show?( a subject of humour that is). Music for example is more multilayered than a photograph, and that's where I think photography is missing when making a humourtinted photograph with has actually something other to say than that what's just depicted. I don't see photography as something so serious that it's not valid to use humour in it (it's actually very easy) but I think that the very soul of photography and expressing power lends itself more in making melancholic, tragical , surreal, heavy romantic pictures, not saying that it all has to be dark and stuff like that but even if not intended that way, in photography it's always leaning more in that direction I feel, there's always a strange subcontext going on. So my quastion about humour was more used to come to some opinions in what it is that makes photography that way.

Well, based on what you just said, you make it that way. The original question "Does humour belong in photography" was not stated as "Why I feel humour does not belong in Photography" so the responses were generic. Either way the thought is subjective and while you may argue your point there would be an equally valid argument to support the other opinion that other people feel humour does belong and is in photography. Photography is what it is, it has layers and depth, it has meaning in many ways and it has humour, but that's just my opinion.

and that frog picture proves my point. Has anyone called Gary to buy a 16x20 for the parlor? When the joke is that shallow, I'd say "no humor in my pictures, please" but some of Wegman's early stuff with Man Ray and Mr. Erwitts dog photos have real staying power and I'd love to have prints of that work... t<p> my favorite web acronym still is ROTFLMFAO... the mental image of someone reading something in one of these forums, staring at a monitor in silence and then... well it just gets me... t<div></div>