Googorama -- a critique of street photography?

[eugene_scherba]

Marc, thanks for a solid reasonable response

<br /><br />

At least someone doesn't take up the discussion of what is art

without first graduating from an elementary.

<br /><br />

Yes, I know about the stabbing story you mentioned and had it in the

back of my had for a while recently.

<br /><br />

As a kid (10 years old), I remember myself and peers going to a

scene of a terrible accident where an elderly woman was run over by

a freight train (almost nothing remained of her), and to this day

I've been wondering whether that was a guilty thing to do or not. We

could not have helped her anymore. Was it moral to go watch the

gruesome scene? It probably wasn't, but as a kid I did not know

that.

<br /><br />

So there are moral issues involved when we have an "overarching" eye

that allows us to see everything. That is one of the conclusions.

<br /><br />

Can we make art out of it?

<br /><br />

The line is much more blurry than it seems at first. Above I

described a hypothetical example of a "hacker-photographer" taking

over a security camera and controlling it remotely to take street

photography or art photos or whatever you want to call it.

<br /><br />

However, let's say that this "hacker-photographer" has a dayjob and

he/she knows something important or interesting is going to happen

over

at Times Square during the day. So he/she

decides to let the camera take pictures unattended at regular time

intervals.

<br /><br />

Next day the "hacker-photographer" comes back, sorts through the

pictures and discovers

(however unlikely) that the camera has taken, among a whole bunch of

trash, a few incredible,

smashing, artistic pictures. The "hacker-photographer" is not

surprised, because,

as everyone knows, if you take enough pictures, you are bound to

take one or two decent ones even if you're a bad photographer.

<br /><br />

So the "hacker-photographer" goes and publishes the photos. Is the

he/she an artist? That depends on the pictures and the intention. Is

he/she a photographer? But of course!

<br /><br />

Yet another day the "hacker-photographer" discovers that he/she

forgot to

turn off the camera, and the camera has been continuing to take

pictures. In other words, we have an equivalent of Google Street

View Camera taken pictures without the photographer's knowledge or

authorization, and then we have the photographer sorting through the

images.

<br /><br />

Is he/she still a photographer? But of course!

[eugene_scherba]

One day we will be able to walk up to a robot and say: "Go take

pictures of this, that so they look such and such." <br />Will we be

still

photographers? Yes.

<br /><br />

Now what if we tell the robot to take pictures *at random* and then

sort through them and choose the best ones. <br />Are we still

photographers? Yes.

[Spearhead]

I always thought the Patty Hearst bank robbery photos were terrific. They should have been handed over to a good darkroom person and turned into gallery pieces. Better than what many photographers shoot.

[fate_faith_change_chains]

Is there life on mars ? Will we photograph it ? Will we be sending robots up there telling

them to go photograph something ? Are spaceengineers photographers ? If the universe is

everything and everything is in the world and the world is being photographed then the

universe is a photographer ? If we tell a robot to go eat something at random will we still

be hungry ? But of course !

[jacob_brown]

"I was saying that -- I suspect -- street photography is becoming banal because it became incredibly more pervasive than it once was"

 

Then you might as well say the same for photography in general. This generation is being overwhelmed with visual input to an extent humans never were previously.

 

We see more photos, which by definition means were see more crap photos, more banal photos ... but also more exciting photos, more new photos, more photographers than ever possible before as well.

 

The Google "portfolio" does have some interesting images. But that's not unexpected -- after all, 1) editing shapes vision, 2) editing makes or breaks one's work, as Jeff notes, and 3) 'found objects' can be just as much art pieces as thoughtfully constructed art.

 

"Now what if we tell the robot to take pictures *at random* and then sort through them and choose the best ones. Are we still photographers? Yes."

 

Yes, the conscious editing is an artistic process. Editing found objects and elevating them to highlight the process of the aesthetic editding focus of the artist. Might not be great art (maybe it could be) but it's art.

[eugene_scherba]

Hey Phylo, watch out, there is a big space Hoobastank coming to get

you.

[roger_smith4]

"Curator of Google found views?

 

Nope. Curator sorts through artists, not through images per se."

 

I don't think that's right. What curator has no say about which works go into an exhibition? Curators choose themes to illustrate, do they not?

 

Surveillance cams or google vans could each be considered sources of artwork waiting for someone to organize and distill meaning from the images.

[vivek iyer]

"Will we be sending robots up there telling them to go photograph something ? "

 

Phylo, It has been done already and they remain some of the most viewed images of all time. Check out NASA's site.

 

So, nothing is new with Googlecam.

[photobiscuits]

Hi =) 24 hours later I still don't buy it and I'm just shaking my head.<br>

If I find a photo, lying on the ground, I am suddenly a photographer? If I find a painting floating down the river, I am suddenly a painter? If I find a handcrafted cuckoo clock in the garbage, I am suddenly a carpenter?<br>

My goodness, I think I'm going to have to update my resume!<br>

Not to mention that google street view images are copyright (http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/help/terms_maps.html - look under "Photographic Imagery"). Therefore "Mr. Photographer" sifting through the database, cropping and presenting an image he likes is stealing, right? As I said before this process doesn't make him a photographer and now it makes him a thief.<br>

But I don't think I'm going to sway anyones opinions here =)<br>

Answer me this off topic question, would you like to see "found art" like this google database stuff posted on Photonet? "hey everyone, look at what I did, I am a great photographer, huh?"<br>

Think film (movies). A filmstrip has thousands and thousands of individual photos. There are many famous photos that were produced by presenting a single frame from a motion picture. Who is the photographer here, the man in control of the camera (whether it is a remote control camera on mars or a handheld inches from the subject), seeing and capturing the picture, or the man who does the grunt work of editing that one picture out.<br>

Harrumph!

[photobiscuits]

pho?tog?ra?pher

a person who takes photographs, esp. one who practices photography professionally.

 

done.

[jacob_brown]

If you find a piece of driftwood in an interesting formation and call it art, are you an artist? <p>

 

Anyone who knows the name <u><A href =

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp)

>Duchamp</a></u> knows the anser to that question.

[spanky]

HAHA! I was just going to mention Duchamp and his infamous entry (what was it named again...Edgar Mutt?) into an art exhibit whose name escapes my. Talk about irony huh?

 

Anyone see the 1986 film from Argentina "Man Facing Southwest"? In it a man (actually an alien) listens to an organ being played. He asks "Where lies the magic? Is it in the organ player? In the organ? In the person who wrote the music? In the people who listen to it?"

 

I say all of the above. Just today as I was driving home from work I listened to a cd of some piano concertos by Mozart. These past few weeks have been pretty bad for me especially the past few days. Just hearing this extraordinary music lifted my spirits like nothing else.

It was like nothing else in the world mattered then this music. This is why Mozart is held in such high esteem. In any art the cream will always rise to the top. This may happen after such an artist is dead of course but still...think what would have happened if Mozart or any other artist decided to follow the straight and narrow and become a so called "productive" member of society. It has always seemed to me that artists create because they have to not because they want to.

[eugene_scherba]

<p><i>What curator has no say about which works go into an

exhibition? Curators choose themes to illustrate, do they

not?</i></p>

 

<p>Yes, but they do not sort through raw imagery.</p>

[rj__]

Maybe there is more to StreetView than is immediately obvious. People might find this talk interesting:

[petemillis]

Surely a photographer is someone who thinks about a shot before physically taking it, and then presents the shots. This Google street view - well, none of the images is thought about by a person prior to being captured and so there is no photographer involved. But the images are then presented. So the person who has presented them is just a presenter who has selected ones of interest.

[Spearhead]

<i>Surely a photographer is someone who thinks about a shot before physically taking it</i><p>Where is that required?

[petemillis]

Jeff, I don't know where that's required - but in my mind (addled though it may be!) a photographer is someone who takes a photograph with camera in hand and looking through the viewfinder (or whatever). Somehow, I don't think that if I just set up a video camera somewhere, left it, then went through the tape doing the occasional screen capture of interesting images that it would be quite the same as photography - I'd just be sorting through millions of randomly captured images for a few that looked good, rather than being there at the time they took place, deciding they were interesting and then photographing them. It seems to devalue the whole process of taking the photograph.

 

But then again, I can see you point. I guess it's no different from someone using a camera, going snap snap snap snap snap pretty much without thought, and finding a few good images out of hundreds. Someone who works like this would, I suppose, still be a photographer in the sense the the end result is a collection of photographs.

[j.w.]

I'm interested in exploring this idea that there's an assumed link between a photographer (defined as a person directly involved with creating a photograph) and the creation of imagery 'en masse'.

 

The traditional idea of a photographer has been a person who composes images into a photographic recording device of a particular perspective from the objective environment, with the intention of purposefully creating some sort of photographic image. So there's the idea of 'intent'.

 

But perhaps we've moved into a realm where a photographer now is a person who composes images, not from the objective environment, but from the virtual environment of mass preassembled imagery. In theory, if every possible angle and perspective were available for selection within the virtual universal image bank, then the job of a photographer is really that of editing.

 

Sort of like Photoshop, where you first create an image bank of 'raw' files, then edit and adjust to create the finished image.

 

Also like what photography has always been about: the question of where do you put the four edges of the border that define the frame.

[Allen Herbert]

Boring.

 

Great stuff for boring people,who live boring lives,who take boring photos. And then kiss each other when they have taken a crap photo of a broomstick. And then they have a lovin.

 

Actually, i actually looked ar one. Some folk crossing a street...too exciting for me to look anymore.

[petemillis]

There's something I read abou the other day called Wayfinder or something lie that. It's a software app for mobiles phones with GPS capability that makes the phone automatically take pictures and logs the point where the picture was taken. You strap the phone onto your arm or whatever as you're walking around. I wish I could remember more of the details.