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Photography: Presentation or Creation


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Presentation/Creation.

 

Do your own photographs fall more into one camp than another. As a viewer, do you prefer one type of

photo over another?

 

There is overlap. For most, it's not strictly either/or.

 

Which qualities fall under presentation and which under creation?

 

NOT "PURITY" VS. POST-PROCESSING . . . PLEASE!

 

(Photography, of course, is not limited to these two descriptions.)

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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I enjoy both flavors. To the extent that "representation" falls more into your "presentation" bucket, that's probably me. People who tend towards documenting things or hoping to capture a narrative that they <i>see</i> are more in that camp. Folks who wish to <i>synthesize</i> a narrative are more in the "creative" camp. It would be a sorry pursuit indeed though, if I felt stuck in one mode or the other. Each approach informs and improves the other. Now, if I can just get things in focus.
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But, wouldn't you in fact 'create' a 'presentation' of the subject always?

 

If you are talking about REPRESENTATION of something for what it is I think whatever we 'think' or 'believe' it is has already been filtered by our own creative (or not) mind. Therefore, even as we take the picture without adding to it any props, lights, etc... we are however, adding unavoidably our own vision by the angle, format choice, lens choice, processing choices, etc... thus 'creating' a 'representation' of what we believe that subject looks like.

 

It would be impossible to totally no be involved in that. Even if you are taking pictures during a violent event (be it a war, civil unrest, etc...) you'd be creating a vision of that event again by the choice of cameras, lenses, point of view, etc... which will all contribute to create YOUR vision of that event as it unfolded before your very eyes.

 

I would have to say that since not two photographers would record an even the same exact way it is impossible to do one without the other.

 

I would fall in the presentation group however, because I am not into creating shots. With the preface above in mind, of course.

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Matt--

 

Thanks for supplying the idea of "synthesis." There was a recent thread about composition

and relationship and I think "synthesis" would have helped that discussion along.

"Composition," even though it entails elements coming together in a whole, seemed more

structural/formal. "Relationship" applies to an association or connection of formal as well

as narrative elements yet doesn't include the notion of a unified whole. "Synthesis" seems

to speak both to the variety of elements (emotional/structural/formal/technical) in a work

and to their unified cohesion.

 

Giampi--

 

An important point to remember. I often couch it in terms of perspective. No matter how

representational we try to be, we are always somewhat limited by our perspective. I agree

with you that representation or presentation will always have an element, to a greater or

lesser degree, of creation. Likewise creations will be presented. It's more a matter of where

on the continuum we each fall, which you of course recognize in your analysis of your own

photographs. Thanks.

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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Giampi, how come your website doesn't have audio files? What kind of Telecaster knockoff is that? That's a remarkable lens...what is it? How does all this relate to those flashy models? I like your perspective.
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I make photos as often as I find them. Sometimes I'm looking for something and having a hard time finding it. That can take years. Other times I know where I'm going to find it, go to it (or expect it and try to pounce on it), other times I intentionally make the image I want to make, like a commercial photographer.

 

In general I dislike the "street photography" categorization because so often that means predatory and poorly executed, student work. But I'm also bored by "nature photography" because so much of that is repetitive and reliant on romantic falsehoods. I have more affinity for portraiture, journalism, and commercial/illustrative photography than for those other "categories." Yet I engage in them all.

 

Seems sensible to include audio tracks with photo websites, and I've linked music to this forum for that reason. The music moves things toward "narrative."

 

One phrase to describe what I most like in photos is "story telling." Virtually all of the images I share are accompanied by extensive rambling commentary. Can't help myself.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL-uL2M3xvM

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnRqYMTpXHc&mode=related&search=

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGkE5g7_jAg&mode=related&search=

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Fred, when I looked at my pictures (I have created and done) I fall under both camps. I love doing my creations and manipulations but I love just doing my photography. I think it is very evident when I do do my manipulations and then evident when I do my art.

 

But, there are also things that I like to do the old post processing techniques (dodge and burn). But I found in my portfolio that I am half way down the middle and didn't realize it till you said something.

 

Funny thing to, till you mentioned it. I am drawn to street photography the most. Things that move me eotionally. I am, however not drawn to something that is manipulated unless I find it well done. If it is cheesy I don't like it very much.

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Micki-- How 'bout forgetting about post manipulation and just thinking about creative vs.

(rep)resentation in the picture-taking part itself. Does that come into play for you? It does for

me.

 

John-- But there can be narrative without music, right?

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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Fred, narrative can be done in Morse code if one wants, but whether narrative (or valid philosophizing) can effectively be done in a linear verbal way is a question (I include music because it, or the fact of it, can readily convey more than can a sentence...just as can a photograph or series of photos).

 

The best common narrative, other than live presentation, may be in NY Times articles...which make heavy use of graphic design (headlines, subheads, extracted quotations, photos).

 

As to "the picture taking part," I don't find it significant. I think the picture MAKING is what's significant. Picture "taking" is for tourists, picture "making" is for photographers. Apples, oranges. Picture making includes putting oneself in a situation to make a photo, being technically prepared (reasonable equipment and skills), executing, and making the image manafest in some way...print, online...

 

I think "taking" Vs "making" often distinguishes "street photography" from photography.

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I think music and photos convey some of the same things and some different things than

sentences, sometimes more, sometimes less. I also think music can add a lot to both the

experience of picture making and picture viewing. I never thought of it as adding

narrative, though. Worth considering.

 

Can you flesh out what you mean by "a linear verbal way?" Not sure what that means.

(What

is a nonlinear verbal way?)

 

I mostly read the NY Times for the bagel and cream cheese.

 

I may have misspoken. I didn't mean to make too distinct the "taking" and the "making."

There's a lot of overlap. More and more, even if I am going to do a whole lot of post-

processing, I am putting more "making" into the "taking" and getting better photographs.

That's what I meant to ask Micki. It was actually some of your suggestions weeks ago that

led me in the direction of just how important the "taking" stage is if you make it part of

the "making." None of which precludes, of course, that some people will simply and often

quite unremarkably and uninterestingly "take" a photo.

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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As to "taking" Vs "making," the two concepts are properly labeled, self-explanitory, profoundly different.

 

For example, if one thinks in ethical terms, taking something has a different implication than making something: stumbling across something that's occurring indepently of one Vs being responsible.

 

If one thinks in a hiker's terms, a reponsible hiker covers ground, observes, "takes" nothing but health benefits and memories, either "takes" or "makes" photographs, leaves little more than well-buried excrement.

 

However, if one thinks about photography from the perspective of an un-engaged person, one "takes" pictures, one "captures" rather than "taking" responsibility, being the author of the image.

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"Linear narrative" is like linear logic. It's OK as far as it goes, but it's not as evocative of events as it would be if it transcended primitive X+Y=Z logic, which is within the capability of crows.

 

Linear narratives become more communicative, more evocative of understanding, when they start becoming poetic or are accompanied by visuals or music... By contrast, pure X+Y=Z is frequently a tool of oppressors : its utility is that, "sticking" to basic pre-selected factors or terms, shades of grey and crucial tangential truths can be ignored. Example: Middle Easterners + 9/11= war with Shia, therefore sabre rattling (or more) with Iran.

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Regardless, I know this is hard for you to believe, but great logical arguments whether from

Kant, Plato, or Russell evoke a whole lot for me. I doubt I can convey to you how moved I am

by a good philosophical argument. But, then again, I shouldn't have to.

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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Fred, I'm not sure your definition of "philosophical argument" is today widely accepted in non-Jesuitical circles, but I'm glad for you. And of course, you don't "have" to convey anything.

 

On the other hand, this forum's Philosophy is supposed to center on Photography, a medium of communication.

 

It seems a solopsistic side trip (OT) when one distances oneself from photography by evoking thinkers who were not in any way involved in "the arts," much less photography.

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It is precisely because it is important to a discussion of what art can and cannot

accomplish that a discussion of various types of narrative should take place.

 

The questions I would answer affirmatively are: Can photography and other arts

accomplish a linear narrative comparable in many ways to those of great thinkers

(nonartists) and/or logicians? And the reverse, can the linear narrative accomplish

instilling the kinds of feelings and emotions, the gut reactions and visceral responses, that

art does?

 

Art and photography as well as linear narratives use languages. There are both similarities

and differences in the way they operate and have an affect. Only perspective, personality,

some bias and predisposition will decide whether the glass is half full or half empty. No

doubt, there's a difference between Milton and Kant, Joyce and Descartes. But how they

use their tools to evoke what they evoke seems a more studied, learned, considered, and

practiced matter than many are ready to accept. And that they can both reach deep down

is also too often missed.

 

"Philosophical argument" takes many shapes and seems accepted in a wide array of circles.

Jesuitical has little to do with it.

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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"The questions I would answer affirmatively are: Can photography and other arts accomplish a linear narrative comparable in many ways to those of great thinkers (nonartists) and/or logicians? And the reverse, can the linear narrative accomplish instilling the kinds of feelings and emotions, the gut reactions and visceral responses, that art does?"

 

Good. You hold that linear narrative can speak in some way to photography. It's important always to make that connection to Photo here, as this is after all a Photo forum.

 

I've attached musical links without explaining how the relate, just as inconsiderately as if I had mentioned Plato or Aristotle without explaining specifically how they relate.

 

I hope you, Fred, will prove here that they do have some relevance directly to Photography. I'd think it easy for you, as you've asserted repeatedly that there is some relevance.

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Can photography and other arts accomplish a linear narrative comparable in many ways to those of great thinkers (nonartists) and/or logicians?

 

Let's drop the linear sht.The answer is ,yes. Religion created the concept of zero, the root of mathematics. One could not consider,and i maybe wrong, religion is not based on logic....more a question of faith.

 

And the reverse, can the linear narrative accomplish instilling the kinds of feelings and emotions, the gut reactions and visceral responses, that art does?"

 

Of course,in most ways steps in science are based on imagination,and new ideas. Just the same as Art.

 

Nothing is pure BW, just different shades of grey.

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John--

 

Listen to The Grateful Dead's cover of Morning Dew on their Europe '72 album. Jerry's lead

guitar thread is as progressive and convincing as any logical argument I've ever heard.

Most

anything of Beethoven's builds to its crescendos step by step, in a completely methodic

and

rather argumentative manner. Avedon's storytelling, aside from the visceral aspects, is a

well

considered use of the tools of his means of communication. His use of piercing eyes, of

erect

stanses, of stark backgrounds are as intentional and symbolic as X + Y = Z.

 

Philosophers are not just talking and arguing for the sake of doing it. They are doing so,

often

much in accordance with the art and history of their times. They are not acting in

vacuums. They know that the exhiliration of reaching a well argued and valid conclusion,

each important step blooming along the way, is the result of using thought and language

in as transcendent a manner as using visible symbols and chemistry and paper is to the

photographer.

 

You, John, have written in these forums disparagingly about the deification of art. I will

accuse you of doing the same. You are deifying it as if it is something magical, special

beyond this world. Of course it is special, but only if its tools are used well, if its symbols

are understood and furthered, if it is well studied and well executed. In many ways, it is as

down to earth and as grammatical as the sentences we are writing.

 

The journey of Kant's Critique is every bit as emotional, as provocative, as productive, as

sensual, as thoughtful, as progressive, as the journey I take when I look at Leibowitz's

portrait of Willliam Burroughs. With Kant, it's through words, descriptions, definitions

evolving into greater definitions, the invocation of history, the homages to previous

philosophers, ties that bind from his era to previous eras, words whose nuance of meaning

changes with each sentence he composes, all this evolving into theories and conclusions

(wrong or right though they be). With Leibowitz, it's shading, it's the way the light

gracefully moves from forehead down to mouth, the burning of lines in the face, the

history told so convincingly with the light in Burroughs's eyes.

 

Gotta run.

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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Allen, I don't comprehend your meaning. Please write again.

 

Religion is certainly not "a question of faith" when it's founded on accident of birth and obedience to rites, as with the largest religion on the planet. As it happens the scholar that invented the zero subscribed to that religion. The religion didn't do it, the mathematician did it.

 

Science is not "based on imagination," it's "based on" disciplined methodology that tests hypotheses. Think: proper Photo exposure and processing technique. Scientific (and Photo) hypotheses may be imaginative, but they are more commonly mere tentative ideas, rarely "creative." When a hypothesis has been tested over and over, in all sorts of different ways by many careful investigators, the hypothesis becomes a validated theory...as in evolutionary theory or new ways to process film (eg. Ilford's recommendation for film washing with minimal water).

 

In science and Photo there are very few "facts," there are mostly partially tested hypotheses, theories, and methodologies. Perhaps that

echos your "shades of grey" idea.

 

Linear in "art," as with everything else, contrasts with non-linear. Jazz classically starts linear (a recognized "tune") then becomes non-linear (improv) then returns to linear. The genius in jazz manifestes in the middle, non-linear section. It's no surprise that people with African ancestry, as opposed to Northern European, excel in the middle.

 

The same concept applies to photography. Anyone can set up a view camera with proper optics and movements and exposure in the appropriate season (lighting, clouds) and render a building correctly Skidmore Owins and Merrill, the architects, maintain an accurate calendar of lighting (Sun position) on each of their buildings for photographic purposes, as well as for today's municipal codes wtr setbacks from street etc. It takes a human variable, something SOM can't chart in a linear way, for their photographer to make an architectural image of the same building that sings.

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Fred: "You, John, have written in these forums disparagingly about the deification of art. I will accuse you of doing the same. You are deifying it as if it is something magical, special beyond this world. "

 

I've evidently not made myself clear.

 

I actually DO deify art. If you think I believe it's a god, that resonates, I won't object. It is is in fact magical, "special beyond this world," not explainable. Neither you nor I can explain Picasso, for example. "Art" does not consist of pretty pictures and it is not "whatever the artist says it is." It is "fey." Look that up.

 

I prefer not to even use the term, just as some ultra-conservative Jews prefer to say g-d.

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The religion didn't do it, the mathematician did it.

 

The religion did it,without the religion there would not have been the mathematician. Simple thought.

 

 

Religion is certainly not "a question of faith" when it's founded on accident of birth and obedience to rites.

 

So,you are saying they are automated robots. Many who are involved in religion do not come from an accident of birth. Again, a question of faith.

 

Science is not "based on imagination," it's "based on" disciplined methodology that tests hypotheses

 

Simplistic thoughts. Leaps in imagination, mark mankind as different from other species on the planet,not just simple logical choice,or another step on the building block. Can you beat a computer at chess?

 

Think....

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Fred, I know Leibowitz's earliest photo origin and career and can't get past knowing that she's paid prepaid dues. Most Jimi Hendrix photographers have made fine images. I like some of her work, the recent stuff especially, but I mostly envy the career that was dropped in her lap. That's not to my credit, of course.

 

Garcia didn't make the Dead, the cosmic hitch was Phil Lesh.

 

I Kant speak to Kant. I don't have the patience for verbal houses of cards, though I do enjoy verbal jousting.

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