Popular=Good?

<p>After reading a lot of the posts in this forum, it seems to me that many converge to one central question. That is,</p>

<p>Is popular the same thing as good?</p>

<p>So many times we see the argument:</p>

<p>I like it, it moves me, I say wow when I see it,...,etc., THEREFORE it's a good image.</p>

<p>This seems to me to be a variant of the argument:</p>

<p>The majority like it, it moves the majority, the majority say wow when they see it,...,etc., THEREFORE it's a good image.</p>

<p>So what do people think? Should we say yes to the question and allow any image no matter how poor the technique, over-saturated, cliche, etc., to be a good image as long as people like it? Or should we say no and disallow for ever more anyone from saying that an image is good just because they like it?</p>

<p><em>Twilight</em> is popular, but is it good literature? Hardly. The list of such things could go on indefinitely, but why belabor the point when we already know the answer. JR</p>

<p><em>I like it, it moves me, I say wow when I see it,...,etc., THEREFORE it's a good image.</em><br /><br />Of course. "Good" implies approval, based on your own standards.<br /><br /><em>This seems to me to be a variant of the argument: The majority like it</em><br /><br />That's a complete non sequitor. The rest of your comment, to the extent that it is derived from that notion, is just silly.<br /><br />Try this: ignore the stuff <em>you</em> don't like.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.thomaskinkade.com/">click</a>

<p><a href="http://www.robertbateman.ca/">click</a>

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Lloyd_Webber">click</a>

 

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<p>Nice start, we have two people saying exactly the opposite thing.</p>

<p>Matt, I was thinking that the majority is a variant of the individual view because they are both based upon personal, idiosyncratic opinion rather than public criteria that are external to the individual viewer. </p>

<p>So JR, maybe we don't know the answer. Matt certainly seems to disagree with you. </p>

<p>Cheers, JJ</p>

<p>1. Who said it? "Photography is art for the masses." <br>

2. Picasso said, as accurately as I can remember: "Photography has been invented. Now I can kill myself."<br>

I remember the first time I was in a photo club exhibit as a starry-eyed twenty-something "serious photographer". Someone looked at my offering and commented on the shame of an out-of-focus armrest in the foreground. It was a good lesson.</p>

<p>Don't stop, I'm enjoying this.</p>

<p>What if the majority of 14 year-olds think it's great but the majority of 44 year-olds think it's trite? If my tastes evolve, do they become better? Can they ever become too good? Can they ever become perfect? Is morally better to please the many with a popular picture or to serve the refined tastes of a few with a good picture? Can a person's opinion on this also change? Puzzling.</p>

<p>forget the majority or anyone else... If I say it's good, it's good</p>

<p>if you hate it, then it's bad.</p>

<p>anyone can post anything (that's legal) what if the worlds most famous home video was never allowed to be posted because of it's horrible quality.. see Zapruder and look back to 1962.</p>

<p>Ken, how about this.....What if the world's most celebrated photographic artists ALL think an image is wonderful but every single person with no training in photography thinks that it is terrible?</p>

<p>The conundrum here is that, because there are more non-photographers than photographers, the majority opinion would be that the image is terrible. According to the "popular=good" view then, photographers would have to accept the verdict of non-photographers and agree that the image is terrible. Can that make sense?</p>

<p>Cheers, JJ</p>

<p> </p>

<p>There is no connection (or, for that matter, necessary dichotomy) whatsoever between "I like it" and "the majority like it".<br>

Nor between popular and good.<br>

Nor between good/bad and execution of tchnique.<br>

I would say that "it moves me" is probably <em>one of</em> the best reasons for saying that a piece of art is good.</p>

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<p ><a href="/photodb/user?user_id=5796488"><em>Jeremy Jackson</em></a><em> </em><a href="/member-status-icons"><em><img title="Subscriber" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/sub1.gif" alt="" /></em></a><em>, Dec 14, 2009; 08:51 p.m.</em><br>

<em>Is popular the same thing as good?</em></p>

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<p>Jeremy, define "popular", define "good".<br>

Until the parameters are set, the question is unanswerable.</p>

<p>Bill P.</p>

<p> Defining popular is easier. To me, that means a significant subset of an audience likes it. Defining the audience, and what that approval really means is something else entirely. Let's not forget, it could be the model's big boobs, too. :-)</p>

<p> Since most people are visual illiterates, even photographers, getting a lot of positive votes means your picture is populist. It also means your pictures are <em>marketable </em> to the public at large. Dave Sims made the point above with brevity and wit.</p>

<p> Defining "Good" is a little harder. I speak only for myself here. There are many indicators, innumerable ones that we could go into, but the sum of most for me is <em>the test of <strong>memory</strong> . </em> Is the photograph easily forgotten or dismissed? Does it linger in memory? Do I want to see it again? Do I want to live with it? Would I rescue it if the house was on fire?</p>

<p> There are people who are experts on images. Some because they have MFAs, others are in the business, many are artists or others who are visually fluent, critics, etc. For whatever reason, they're people whose opinions you and others value and trust. What do they think?</p>

<p> Significant, desirable objects are often coveted, and always in short supply. Often, <em>but not always</em> , the market recognizes them when they're shown around. Is the picture in a collection? Museum? Shown in a reputable gallery? Are people willing to pay decent money for it? Publishers willing to show it?</p>

<p> How does it fit within the larger context of images of its kind? Does it stand out, or fade into the woodwork?</p>

<p> Second most important in my book is, does it inform the work of others? Does it spur them to do their own work, not imitations?</p>

<p> That's partially how I know a picture is good.</p>

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<p ><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=977570"><em>Luis G</em></a><em> </em><a href="../member-status-icons"><em><img title="Frequent poster" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/3rolls.gif" alt="" /></em></a><em>, Dec 15, 2009; 08:45 a.m.</em></p>

 

<p><em>Defining popular is easier. To me, that means a significant subset of an audience likes it. </em></p>

 

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<p><em>Defining "Good" is a little harder. Would I rescue it if the house was on fire?</em></p>

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<p>Luis, those are two of the most economical and concise definitions I've heard in a long time.<br>

Great post.</p>

<p>Bill P. </p>

<p>Hey Bill,</p>

<p>Let's say we take Luis G's def'n of popular.</p>

<p>If popular=good then it follows that the def'n of good=a significant subset of an audience likes it.</p>

<p>But, if popular is not equal to good, the original question is answered. All that would remain then would be a specification of the criteria for good.</p>

<p>Lets say we strike a committee of photographic experts and historians to come up with the criteria and we write them down in an authoritative source. It would then not be appropriate to rate a photograph as good if it did not conform to these criteria. </p>

<p>I'm just interested in where people want to be. Do we want to be bound by external criteria for good or do we want to be free to make it up as we go along or do we want to use some combination of the two?</p>

<p>Cheers, JJ</p>

<p>I guess this is a little sarcastic and pedestrian; but, I find that if 80% of people don't like it, then that might be a sign that it's a good idea. Only 20% approve? I'm on board.</p>

<p> We all live in the world, true, yet at the moment of the photographic act, what binds you are your own fetters. You can only be you at any given moment, and your photographs will show it. Trying to please a crowd for ratings leads to generic imagery.</p>

<p> Jeremy, please read my post. I <strong>never</strong> said good = popular. I gave a definition, off the top of my head, as to what popular <strong>is</strong> , nothing more. It is you who is injecting the value judgment into it. Not me. I did say how I define what is good, and it has nothing to do with your reply. I know you want to press on regardless to push your point, but please refrain from misquoting me, thank you.</p>

<p>Good or not good is a personal judgement, so <em>popular</em> and <em>good</em> have got nothing to do with each other.</p>

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<p >Hi Luis, I think I was not clear enough in my last post.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >I was trying to make a logical point. That is, IF good=popular AND we use your definition of popular THEN good=your definition of popular. This logical point does not rest in any way on which particular definition of popular we choose. Your definition of popular was a mere placeholder in the argument.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >So, I am not saying that you said good=a significant subset..... We could use any definition of popular. I was just using yours because it allowed me to make the logical point more efficiently than using some other definition of popular that had not yet been posted.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Actually, if I was being fussy, I would have rejected your definition of popular in favor of an authoritative source such as The Concise Oxford Dictionary. I just didn’t think it was necessary to go to those lengths. </p>

<p > </p>

<p >I also did not say that you said good=popular. I said, IF good=popular. I then went on to consider what we might do if we said that good is not equal to popular. I was not choosing sides or implying that you had chosen one.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >I apologize Luis. I'll try to be clearer if I post again.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Cheers, JJ</p>

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<p>I could hang a "good" picture on the wall in my darkroom. It will never be "popular" because noone will see it. The poster with the cat hanging from a stick and the phrase "Hang in there baby . . ." sold thousands and thousands of copies. Was it "good"? </p>

 

<p>I consider the work that I did and do is "good" when it is "popular" with my customer. Beyond that I don't worry about it. If I like it for myself I print it; therefore, I must think it is "good". That's my little world I don't bother myself worrying about whether it is art or not. Most often it is not IMO> </p>

<p>Thanks for clarifying that, Jeremy. We're good.</p>

<p>American Bandstand approach to music: It's got a good beat, it's easy to dance to, I'll give it a 92. The day this is how the quality of a photograph is to be judged is the day I donate my camera to the nearest dumpster.</p>

<p>I think we need a thread on critically acclaimed "good" work that we'd throw <em>into </em>Luis's theoretical house on fire.</p>

<p>I just might start with the "Marlboro" appropriations of Richard Prince. </p>

<p>That doesn't sound too "philosophical" does it? </p>

<p> </p>

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<p>

<p>Lets say we strike a committee of photographic experts and historians to come up with the criteria and we write them down in an authoritative source. It would then not be appropriate to rate a photograph as good if it did not conform to these criteria.<br>

I'm just interested in where people want to be. Do we want to be bound by external criteria for good or do we want to be free to make it up as we go along or do we want to use some combination of the two?</p>

</p>

 

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<p>Good luck getting people to agree on selections for that committee. Even if you did, there will always be those who are not going to be bound by that "authoritative source". </p>

<p>I think that perhaps you start with certain quantifiable criteria (composition, tone, bla bla bla) then move on to less quantifiable criteria (artist intent, symbolism, intentional violation of rule of thirds, lack of focus, etc.). I doubt that "good" in any art form will ever be quantifiable. It's a moving target and subject to changing tastes, cultural conventions, and attitudes.</p>

<p>Photography is communication. How successful it is depends on who is saying what to whom for what reason, in what context, with what urgency/half-life, to what end, and with what priorities. It's no different than writing. You can't compare a brilliant haiku to a brilliant novel using the same criteria, though both are written communication. A notional gesture drawing that captures a moment can't be compared - in form, technique, audience, or in much any other way - with, say, a Chuck Close piece. So why bother? Context is everything, and it makes this larger topic essentially absurd on the face of it.</p>

<p>Historically, in writing at least, popular is orthogonal to good, can be synched with it and can be not. No correlation, either way.. Elites are no less likely to be influenced by fashion than anyone else. Thomas Wentworth Higginson was one of the leading literary men on his day and he tried to get Walt Whitman fired from his day job and told Emily Dickinson she wasn't ready to publish and told his wife that Dickinson was half-crazy. Ginsberg was rather viciously attacked for writing things that were orders of magnitude more popular than any poet in his century, and we haven't had any poets that popular since unless you're counting song writers. Ginsberg may have had his flaws but he was quite a bit better than James Dickey.</p>

<p>Not everything popular is good. Not everything appreciated by people who've studied the field and absorbed the academic fashions of their day is good either, especially in an institution where having the right taste or presentation can be critical for job success.</p>

<p>I would suspect that many of the people shooting advertising photography are better than the average of people teaching art at third tier schools.</p>

<p>When the popular and the elite arts diverge too drastically, both suffer. If you have to be trained to appreciate something, there's a chance that you've been indoctrinated into that appreciation or that it's fashion of the day as there is that your eye was better trained than average. There's an piece by John McPhee about Hoving that in a Princeton graduate seminar, the professor showed the graduate art history majors a medical speculum and asked them to discuss it. Hoving was the only student in the room (and I believe the only undergraduate) who knew the thing wasn't art, had a sense that the shape was purposeful in a way that art wasn't.</p>

<p>The popular has ways of being good; the elite art has ways of being bad. When we're caught in an art fashion, we may have all sorts of rationalizations for why what we love is good. Those rationalizations will be more complex and more convincing if we're more fluent writers.</p>

<p>I suspect that the truly great writers and painters found ways to be both esoteric and approachable in enough of a range of ways that they didn't throw away the less sophisticated for the sophisticated or vice versa. They were generous to a wide range of people without being ironic about it. Some television does this today.</p>

<p>The short answer is Mu.</p>

<p>I'm feeling myself get closer and closer to reading <em>Distinctions</em>, which appears to say that all arts are status markers.</p>

<p> </p>