Originality vs Conservatism

Hello Guys,<br>

 

Photo.net has became very conservative, no reward for originality at

the opposite. Try something different be rewarded with at most 3 for

originality.<p>

 

Well that's my feeling after some weeks far from photo.net.<br>

Have a great day<p>

 

Mondiani<br>

<a href="http://www.mondiani.com/">http://www.mondiani.com/</a>

Oh well, that's the price of being an 'artiste', isn't it? You know if something you create that's original is good or not. It's a pity that 'views' are so dependent on the numbers a photo receives and its placement on the top rated display engine. But you have a loyal following and are marked 'interesting' by the people who have a taste for your work or are interested in you, and sooner or later good things rise to the top.

 

Imagine how Picasso would have fared being rated by those interested in 'art' in about 1925 and for the rest of his productive life -- almost all of it.

 

Imagine Henri Cartier-Bresson even caring about a critique from a PN member; he knew what was good and 'went with it', and despised what he thought was _rap, both from himself and from others.

 

It's a price to be paid I guess, but then I just trudge along and nearly every time try to post something that's different from anything I've ever seen, even if just a different facial expression in a portrait.

 

I would imagine that those who eschew matrix metering, like Tiffany Araluce, are especially frustrated, although I haven't checked this with her portfolio this morning.

 

Just imagine you're as original as Picasso when you post something 'original' and try to disregard the response. Andy Warhol and his 'girlfriend' used to try to start disagreements with his 'art' just for the notoriety it caused and consequent publicity.

They sat around trying to think up ways to create controversy by being 'original and provocative'. Photo.net does not reward that, but elsewhere in this world there are fora that do recognize that.

 

It's kind of 'ordinary' and not too original to want to create highly original works, and be dissatisfied that it isn't immediately accepted, don't you think?

 

A reflection, from

 

John (Crosley)

<i>It's kind of 'ordinary' and not too original to want to create highly original works, and be dissatisfied that it isn't immediately accepted, don't you think?</i><p>

 

 

I just feel that the Originality rating is meaningless.<p>

 

Mondiani<br>

<a href="http://www.mondiani.com">htpp://www.mondiani.com</a>

I understand. I score consistently higher on originality than aesthetics, and feel a little recognized for that. (Or does it just mean I'm not much of an aesthetician? maybe it's just point of view. The ratings are to be taken with a 'grain of salt' anyway, after all most are done by rank and not well educated amateurs and newcomers, I think. I look at those with names I respect, and often am greatly heartened (or chastened, as the case may be).

 

John (Crosley)

The site is big enough to reflect something like "mass market" tastes. Originality is hard to rate anyway.

I think the "mass market" comment makes a valid point. It is very difficult to do something very original, and be appreciated by the masses. And even if it's original, it doesn't make it good - there are a lot of bad originals. But here, when something appears as original (I'm thinking perhaps of the macro photos of flower reflections in water drops) and you rate it high for originality, within a week there are 84 other photographers posting the same photo. That's not a bad thing. It means we are learning (or copying) from one another. But the late comers won't get the marks for originality. So a reward for originality has to be sort of a self-sustaining thing. I like what John said, but I can't say it as well. I'm better at drivel. Cheers.

The mistake, I suspect, you're making is the assumption that "originality", in the context of photo.net, means something. It doesn't. If it did, the next technically superb, over-saturated, noiseless, soulless, sterile image of a slot canyon or a blurred waterfall posted to the gallery might get ratings of 0 or 1 for originality and 5/6/7/watever for aesthetics. Never. Happens.

 

Originality either has no meaning to photo.net raters, or it has a miriad of different meanings, according to each individual rater. Whichever, it results in numbers in the aggregate that tell us nothing.

this is not exactly on topic.

 

i just want to highlight this folder :

 

http://www.photo.net/shared/community-member?user_id=582864

 

i'm sure that at least John will find it interesting. Regards,

Sorry to go deep for a second.

 

A couple of weeks back something on the Radio refered to "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas S. Kuhn. I haven't read it, but did pick a summary ... One of things he said is that a scientifc community is based on is a set of beliefs, methods terminology etc (Paradigms) and he quoted Max Planck "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."

 

I was talking about how someone was seen at work, and this would only change if the people that held a view of them died - or at least moved on. There were a set of entrenched paradigms about this person who had committed repeated heresy - questioning the Paradigms on which their management worked. If you don't share the paradigms you're not part of the community and in that case ...

 

Why should this be unqiue to scientific communities - if it applies to work places, why not communities of photographers ?

<i>quoted Max Planck "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."</i><p>

 

That is complete B.S. In fact, just the opposite is true. Unlike philosophy or religion, the science makes rapid progress exactly because new truths are accepted when the reliable evidence is obtained.<p>

 

The point you are making about paradigm shifts within a community may be valid, but the scientific community is a poor analogy. -- Joe

I didn't said I do good or bad original stuff. It's just originality perception of photo.net that had changed. Is it good or bad? I dont know. Anyway I don't rely anymore on photo.net to judge my own work it was very usefull some monthes ago but nomore for that purpose.<p>

 

You can compare my portfolio here and my portfolio on my website to see how differently I judge my own work. There are 3 pages, one for live performances, one for parties and one for studio portraits.

 

<p> <p>

___________________________________<br>

<a href="http://www.mondiani.com">Mondiani party event photographer</a>

There's several problems, and no good answer.

First off, if you don't look at that many photos, you'll tend to rate higher on originality. So you see a funky-looking holga shot and think "Hey, that's original!". But after you see about 5,000 other funky-looking holga shots, it's kind of ho-hum. The thing is, those 5,000 other shots might have been out there to begin with- you just haven't seen them. So your perception changed, but the originality of the shot didn't. Same thing with the slot-canyon comment up there- if you hadn't see a bunch of them, you'd rate it a lot higher.

 

Second thing is that we have the originality rating, but also have specific styles of photos. Take "portraits" for example. Almost by definition, every portrait is exceedingly unoriginal. Ditto with landscapes. And so we shift our way of thinking, and instead of saying "How original is this shot, which happens to be a portrait?", we ask "How original is this shot, compared to other portraits?" And all of the sudden that mug shot or that landscape rates highly on originality, instead of lowly.

 

Third thing on originality is that it is really very very hard to be truly original. I made a "Spin Cam" a while back, that spins the camera during the exposure. "Cool", I thought. "No one EVER thought to do this before!" But here a while back in Texas Highways, there was a shot of Christmas tree lights taken with a spinning camera. And, unbeknownst to me, I'll bet lots of people through the years have done exactly what I did. And ditto with your work, Mondiana. I haven't looked at it. But I'll bet, whatever it is, that somebody, somewhere, has done something awfully close to most of your shots. You won't ever know it because there are just too many photos out there to ever see them all.

 

And lastly, consider that originality is an odd thing. It's like Warhol's soup can painting. That was so unoriginal that it was original, if that makes sense. If 10,000,000 photographers are all out taking photos trying to get absolutely unique looks, it means you'll have a lot of repeats, because there's only so much you can do. So you think "What is the most bizarre work I could do, that no one in his right mind would ever do?". And you go photograph corpses and turds and elephant poo on crucifixes and on and on...only to find that it's all been done by other people that asked that very same question, and so there's no end of these types of pictures.

 

Reminds me of a T-shirt I saw. It said "You laugh at me becaue I'm different. I laugh at you because you're all the same." It was on a young pierced tattooed person. Except, the funny part, it was in a mall store frequented by young pierced tattooed persons! So the person wearing it was really "all the same", and I, the middle-aged unpierced guy, was actually the different one in that store. Strange....

Actually I already found one photographer doing nearly the same thing as me except his models are mostly unclothed. So you cannot really say we do the same... But that's not the question ;)<p>

 

As for my work, it's my elders felow photographers who told me in all you do your party, nightclub photos are the most unique.<p>

 

Very funny TShirt story :D<p>

 

Mondiani<br>

<a href="http://www.mondiani.com">http://www.mondiani.com</a>

There are really several questions here.

 

1) How much time have you spent looking at a variety of photographs in a variety of venues during the last year / decade / lifetime?

 

2) If you come across something that is different in some subtle way to what you have seen before, will you recognize that difference and appreciate it?

 

3) Are you receptive to new things in general, or are you looking for experiences that reinforce your comfort level?

 

4) If you recognize something as being relatively unique on this site, will you rate it high for "originality" even though you don't feel it deserves a high "aesthetics" rating.

 

The design of the ratings system assumed the ability to consider all these questions when judging a photograph. The statistics reveal an entirely different scenario overall, the most obvious proof being that the vast majority of rates are a matched pair.

"That is complete B.S. In fact, just the opposite is true. Unlike philosophy or religion, the science makes rapid progress exactly because new truths are accepted when the reliable evidence is obtained."

 

That's not entirely true. 'Science' these days encompasses a lot of things that are, quite simply articles of faith. From the 'Big Bang' theory to the theory of relativity, the current ruler of any particular roost is the theory which has the most proponents, rather than any experimental evidence. This is for the good and sufficient reason that none of these grand theories are susceptible to experimentation at our current level of abilities. When experimental evidence is offered, it is too often a case of picking out the results that suit the argument and ignoring those that don't.

 

The huge advances have all been made by engineers who are far more concerned with the art of the possible than the theory of the improbable.

<p><i>"'Science' these days encompasses a lot of things that are, quite simply articles of faith. From the 'Big Bang' theory to the theory of relativity, the current ruler of any particular roost is the theory which has the most proponents, rather than any experimental evidence. This is for the good and sufficient reason that none of these grand theories are susceptible to experimentation at our current level of abilities. When experimental evidence is offered, it is too often a case of picking out the results that suit the argument and ignoring those that don't."</i></p>

 

<p>You don't know what you're talking about, Mr. Platter. Nothing could be further from the truth.</p>

It is off-topic, but Harvey you are showing your ignorance about these scientific theories. The Big Bang theory and relativity are both strongly supported by evidence, observation, and experiment. They are far beyond idle speculation by "theorists".

 

There are some theories in physics, such as super-strings, etc, which do not (yet) have a great deal of experimental support, and which owe their support to their elegance and explanatory power. However, the Big Bang and relativity are not among these theories. This is why there are many critics within scientific ranks of superstring theory and almost no critics of the Big Bang theory or relativity.

 

You are a psychiatrist, I believe, meaning that you have been trained as an M.D., and presumably have some kind of scientific background. You should know this, and if you don't, you should refrain from making silly pronouncements.

It's interesting that Plank's words were chosen to summarize Kuhn's work on the subject. Plank is very often quoted. We have to remember that revolutions in science are about rethinking the fundamentals which is like finding entirely new language to describe what is out there (i'd say like discovering new medium in art or pioneering new movement or school in painting) , while originality in PN context, i suppose most would agree is more like saying something fresh in a familiar language . Further, as Carl suggested there is a gradation in the letter kind of originality. Anyway, I have to agree that most viewers react mainly to the aesthetics when rating that's why works like in the portfolio I have linked above are largely ignored here.

"you should refrain from making silly pronouncements."

 

I'm not a psychiatrist, Brian, and I'm not making silly pronouncements. I'm merely pointing out that these are theories and that the evidence in support of them is open to question. They are current at the moment only because they're popular but, if you read the literature, there are plenty of competing theories with varying degrees of support.

 

In fact, your response proves my point precisely. These theories are treated as dogma which is in direct opposition to the scientific method. The point of science is to question everything all the time. By definition, anything and everything is open to question, even such hallowed theories as Boyle's Law. If the assault fails, the theory stands but the moment you deny the right to question orthodoxy then you are dealing not with science but with the sort of pseudo-science the Soviet Union was so fond of.

 

I'm not arguing against either Relativity or the Big Bang per se but pointing out that they are theories supported by evidence that can be interpreted in favour of alternative theories.

The "Big Bang Theory" is just that, Harvey, a theory. It is always treated as such in the scientific and academic literature. As Brian noted, there is overwhelming evidence supporting this THEORY, which best explains the origin of the universe as it exists today. Likewise, there is overwhelming evidence supporting the Theories of Special and General Relativity, which deal with physical laws of motion and gravity, respectively. At the risk of opening a can of worms here, I'm curious, Harvey, as to what scientific theories or hypotheses are you aware of that offer viable challenges to the Big Bang Theory and Theories of Relativity?

No critics of the Big Bang theory? hmmmm, not sure about that one.

 

http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=234302&source=r_space

 

It's nice we can have photographers, scientists, psychiatrists, PhD's, and MD's all in one place. The marvels of the internet.

 

Cheers

You missed the point, Barry, and I made no such claim. I thought it would be obvious, but I want to know more about the foundation(s) for Harvey's outspoken opinion of science.

"At the risk of opening a can of worms here, I'm curious, Harvey, as to what scientific theories or hypotheses are you aware of that offer viable challenges to the Big Bang Theory and Theories of Relativity?"

 

I believe that at least a few cosmologists are playing around with the concept of two "branes" colliding with each other as a mechanism for kick starting the universe. I won't even pretend to understand that concept much less say that its a viable challenge to the big bang theory and inflation. But some very serious people are looking in that direction.

<p><a href="http://wwwphy.princeton.edu/~steinh/npr">http://wwwphy.princeton.edu/~steinh/npr</a></p>

I'm not sure why anyone would consider my opinion on science 'outspoken'. It's simply what I was taught at school further informed by general reading on the subject, all of which is accessible to anyone within reach of a decent public library. My original comment was merely voiced to counterbalance Joe's 'complete B.S.' statement.