I guess I don't understand Photography :-(

[ellis_vener_photography]

<I> Guess I am getting a bit frustrated feeling I do not have enough creative talent. </I>

<P>If doing 'fine art' photography of any genre is your goal there is a simple formula:

Keep working and pushing yourself. Be

your most severe critic. <P>

High quality photography is like all high quality work in this

world: it takes an immense amount of work. And you don't have to blindly like everything

that someone tells you is fine art. but developing your own critical eye is important. And

yes this will cause you to "hurt your brain". Being a producer

or even an educated consumer as opposed to just a casual consumer will do that.Also

don't forget is that what you are seeing on your computer monitor is a small and low rez

second, or maybe even third or fourth generation copy of the real thing.

[twmeyer]

try making photographs that make you uncomfortable, then think about why they have that effect on you (you need not show them to anyone).<p> Art is not just about beauty, it's also about all the other conditions of life and the human experience... t

[h._p.]

"Then ignore the stuff you don't. It's easy."

 

Remarkably wise words.

[yeffe]

I love Sturges' work. C'mon people. Europeans integrate sexuality and wine into their

children's lives, rather than holding up a big hypocritical stop sign till they're 18 or 21.

That's not to say there aren't rules and adult/child boundaries that are respected in French

society.

 

That said, I can't imagine who'd be comfortable displaying a beautiful large format print of

an anonymous pre-pubescent girl, her skin tingling from the breeze...etc. on their living

room wall. The women in Sturges' photos who appear to be under the age of majority...I

just think of as someone's daughter.

[troutnut]

Don't fret about "fine art" photographers too much.

 

Good photography is something just about anyone can look at and be moved. It's about showing things from a perspective that's not just original, but also striking.

 

Sometimes fine art photographers hit that mark, but I see really impressive photos more often in the galleries here at photo.net or on pbase than I see in links to famous fine art photographers. They seem to get caught up in trying to impress other photographers or art historians with some avant garde composition, while forgetting about the emotional effect a good photo should have.

[bill sullivan]

You wrote: "Guess I am getting a bit frustrated feeling I do not have enough creative talent. My feelings are that many of the photos here on photo.net are better than what I see on the artphotogallery website. I guess I like and can appreciate abstract and landscape photos but fine art hurts my brain."

 

I wouldn't feel bad. There are a lot of us who like and can appreciate abstract and landscape photos but whose brains are hurt by what is passes for fine art.

 

I also wouldn't feel bad because you think you lack creative talent. Maybe it's just enough to take pictures that do things like show stuff to people, that explain or describe things, that provide something to remember, that give warm feelings to yourself or people you know. Look for the good and useful things you can do with your camera. Let the "creative" part take care of itself and come naturally, as it likely will.

 

Find your center. Find what you can do. Climb the tree from the bottom, not the top.

[marcofrancardi]

Yes, exactly. They would put you in jail. And that's right. Laws are made to protect people from immature behaviour that might spark from those pictures. It doesn't matter if the photographer is a well educated, morally inspired artist. I personally find serene tenderness and quiteness in those pictures. But that is only me. Those pics could still have a very nasty impact on mentally ill people.

What I mean is: If you are a "mature" human being and psycologically balanced enough, you can shoot whoever you want and in whatever condition, but don't expect EVERYone else to follow you. The law is there to prevent you to get somebody in trouble without you even knowing it.

For the same reason, why shoud EVERYbody just like or find any inspiration in them?

[jason d]

You can walk forever and look around forever, not everything will stop you and make you feel a way, but those that do are more than just what you see. The feeling that results from this is the moment you begin the process to interpretate a sensation that carries further than yourself. Or if you prefer, keep within yourself. Either with a posistive or negative result, your deisire in as much is your desire, nobody elses, and what that results in will greatly differ from everyone else. Photography for more myself is the process of achieving such, a reflection of the feeling that is felt at that moment. It is a reflection of yourself not the person standing next to you, only an influence of the process learnt further in time.

[Allen Herbert]

other shots discusting, flat and unappealing.

 

Try looking around corners....staring at the road ahead can be pretty boring.

[Allen Herbert]

There, have a thought for them while you are slurping on you gravy...might help you understand something other than yourself.......<div></div>

[Allen Herbert]

Arse watchers counting their hairs.

[yeffe]

You want talent? How about torment, the feeling that you are somehow outside the flow of

humanity, the compulsion to show the world that your perceptions MATTER yet retain

enough humility to realize how little they REALLY matter.

 

My niece happens to be a musical and literary wunderkind...a miserable ans socially

stunted wunderkind. I know many others too for whom talent is a fact, how it affects their

lives can be a shame.

[john_aceti]

Thanks for the responses to my post!

When I was a kid my parents took me to Europe many times. Always dragged me into the museums. Even though I was young I did appreciate and was very moved over many of the paintings and statues. I was amazed over the work they did with mosaics.

 

Also, going to school in Boston I spent some considerable time at the museum of fine art. I think because of this I associate the term ?Fine Art? with paintings of biblical scenes and is probably why that is what inspires me the most. Hummn, It would be interesting to try and reproduce similar scenes with photography. Does anyone know of any photographers that have tried this?

 

I think I am going to give it a try, thanks for motivating me guys!

[Allen Herbert]

with paintings of biblical scenes

 

There, from the good book itself(i should get paid for all this)...<div></div>

[Allen Herbert]

Not much has changed...

[Allen Herbert]

Who cares a monkey about the sad old coot,anyway.

 

Should have got a job.

[ericwarnke]

Marco,

 

"Those pics could still have a very nasty impact on mentally ill people."

 

A society cannot live if it basis it's laws on the lowest common denominator. Laws cannot and should not assume that the mentally ill are affected by every action. Under those hightened limitations we would have nothing since EVERYTHING could trigger mentally ill people. In fact some would argue that the censoring act itself it part of the reason that we drive people to these extremes. Limitations on child pronography grow from the assumption that some child somewhere must be harmed to get the pictures. Just like some of the twisted logic in the drug war they look to curb the supply rather than the demand. People who are truly addicted will pay any price and only make the trade more profitible for those doing it. Don't take that as condonint the actions of a few, just that we should take a hard look at how our own laws play directly into the circle of harm.

 

There is beauty in many things and we should recognise it, not shun it because of the possibility of problems.

[Uncle Goose]

Sometimes I wonder why certain people ever deserved a change to do an exhobition or make a book (without having a certain name in my head). Some photographs I see hanging in museums are so boring and overdone that I almost fall asleep while watching them. Face it, there must be some new angles to make a photo special and worth looking at. I admit that it can be hard after more than 100 years but I believe it still can be done. Sometimes you have to cross the legal line (like I do) to get some new angles. But hey, don't we live for the cool pic??

 

Btw, I read somewhere in the thread that there was something written like "he makes great photo's and he's only 30years old". What the fuck?? do you have to be a fossil to take great pictures?? I don't think so. Tomas of www.forgotten-places.com is only 19 and takes pretty good pics. Age has nothing to do with it, is has to be in you and that's not something that can be taught.

[Allen Herbert]

ou want talent? How about torment, the feeling that you are somehow outside the flow of humanity,

 

Sometimes i feel i'm loosing.......<div></div>

[lara1]

Someone asked if there was a photographer who "coppied" painting into photography. Well there are a few... I think there has to be a complete book of pistures by Cindy Sherman (she dressed up as Bachus, the Virgin Mary,... and made self portraits with paintings as examples), at the turn of the 19th century you had the pisturalists who wanted to copy painting into photography and a last example that comes into my mind is Jeff Wall with his "After Hokusai", a photograph that "copies" a drawing. Oh and then you also have Bettina Rheims who made a contemporary life of christ. And I think there have to be a lot more photographers who used ancient themes in their work.

[upe_vantonni1]

"censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak because a child can't chew it" - mark twain.

 

i liked that quote especially since its on posters on the walls of my university library, a library that tears out the nude photos out of the photography books. imagine a helmut newton book like that!

 

--------

 

1. John, thanks for the link its great.

 

2. i agree with the poster above, society can't work much less progress if we all must relate to each other like six year olds. i have seen sturges, sally mann, larry clark photos and have yet to do anything that hurts someone else because of it. why should i be penalized?

 

3. in terms of photographic talent, i think you just need to keep shooting and find things you like photographing. my biggest problem is finding subject matter I find interesting. i think if you find something that turns you on you'll feel better.

 

4. part of art is making something very hard look easy. now I don't have a digest of how many of the photos were made but I'm sure its far more complicated than what i do with my basic setup.

 

5. in relation to adolescence: there was a very interesting show on npr about home movies. this guy writing a book on home movies found that people have tonnes of HM when the kids are little but they end, nearly all and quite abruptly when the children turn 11 or 12 (ie puberty) and do not start up again until the children become adults (ie get married). He gives the reason as one of family harmony and discord. HM show "happy times" and the teen years are less happy times for families.

 

but I'll tell you all what, i've had a bunch of old girlfriends whose houses have lots of photos on the mantel and walls and they are all of my girlfriend when she was 4 or 6 and the only photo anywhere of her as an adolescent is the senior year book photo on the wall and some prom photos in a book. its fascinating, really. american culture seems to have, even if unknowingly, a problem with the production of adolescent images while at the same time the media is saturated with the likes of hillary duff, mandy moore, britney spears and the others who came to fame in their late teens.

 

we are a complicated culture.

[ben_holland]

John, to the point of your original statement, "I guess I don't understand

Photography", I submit that you should instead be worried if you thought that

you did. Your honesty to realize where you are, and moreover, your courage

to openly admit it, are commendable.

 

It can be quite a challenge to accept someone else's word that a particular

artist's work is great, but that is often how we grow our perception. Which is

not to imply that such a process is without internal struggle and frustration.

But I strongly urge you to be very cautious in attempting to use your frustration

as a way to derogate your own creative talent. While you say that "fine art

hurts my brain", you must recognize that you're fortunate that it does, in fact,

effect you, that it reaches into you, because only from there does one have the

option to go deeper into it.

 

Of course, it's imperative to recognize that no great artist produces nothing but

great work. Also, history has shown some generations to extol a particular

artist, who is only to be demoted by later generations, and vice versa. Some

great work will intuitively and immediately grab you while other work

stubbornly remains inaccessible. For example, Arbus's work grabbed me

immediately while I continue struggling to appreciate Witkin's.

 

I don't believe there's any correlation whatsoever between being deceased

and being a great artist - otherwise, all dead people would therefore be great

artists. I'll guess that equating death with "great artist" was a notion hatched

by some clever art dealer long ago, based on a finite body of work, in order to

increase demand and prices.

 

To me, "fine art" is something by which we benefit by remaining open to it, and

wisdom is the ongoing refinement of our process of knowing what to remain

open to. Two books which may be helpful:

1) "Philosophies of Art & Beauty, Selected Readings in Aesthetics from Plato

to Heidegger", edited by Albert Hofstadter and Richard Kuhns.

2) "Artists on Art", edited by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves.

[price]

This is an interesting discussion. I appreciate the website information. There are links to

great photos there. As for the Sturges portfolio, there is an aspect of the collection that

does bother me; ie. that the pre-pubescent nudes are predominantly girls ( I can't

remember if there was a boy, if so, I think only one). If this type of exhibit were common

then the photographer focusing on girls would be ok. But it is not common or generally

accepted, for that reason I think he should have included photos of boys photographed

with the same explicit openness. I was a child in the 50's and was very relieved when I saw

greek sculpture that equally enjoyed male and boy figures as well as female figures. Even

as a child I felt that the almost exclusive photography of female nudes was distorted.

 

Personally, even though the Sturges' photos are beautiful, they don't interest me. None the

less, I can see that they would be very beautiful and of merit to others.

 

As for creating "artful" photographs, I have a long way to go personally. However, I try to

focus on elements of my own photos where I sense that I am starting to "get it", ie, get to

whatever I saw and felt in the subject I was photographing. I think if I keep this up, I will

eventually, build a set of photographs that I am proud of.

 

Similarly, looking at the photographs of others and trying to be aware of how I respond to

them is also informative toward improving my own photos.

 

Good luck with your photography. Linda

[daniel_ob]

"I guess I just dont understand the term "Fine Art".

 

See for yourself http://www.artphotogallery.org/02/artphotogallery/home.html "

 

I guess you are right.