Photography: Presentation or Creation

[Allen Herbert]

Very good,CJ.You are a wonder.

 

Now why don't you go and take some photos and be happy.

[Norma Desmond]

Thanks, Allen. Appreciate your looking.

[cj_bas]

-------- email from photo.net -------------

 

This is to alert you that photo.net has provided this email address to another photo.net member, Allen Herbert, whose email address is xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

 

----------------------

 

Thanks for the heads up, photo.net. I'm sure any use to which this information is put will be both playful and humorous..

[kristina_kraft]

Presentation and creation, it's all relative to me. Both notions merge itself at the time of taking a photography. The process alone is creative and then an image represents some narration of the decisive moment. The presentation can refers to marketing and media. I'm speaking in more technical, methodological terms.

[Allen Herbert]

CJ Bas,there are a lot of wicked folk in the world, you can't be too careful. Best hide under your bed at night, especially if you are a college boy. Word on the street, is that your email address is being used to cast a spell of premature balding, on certain students of a well known college.

 

Presentation and creation, it's all relative to me.

 

There's only creation, the presention is just, presentation.

[Allen Herbert]

Presentation or Creation

 

Let's look at the actual question, which is penetrating.

 

Going back to the zero, the basis of modern mathematics. The zero was a leap in mankind's imagination, to try to understand the concept of a supreme being, and how that concept could be understood, in an understandable way.

 

So, we created we have the zero, the perfect balance. The start of all understanding.

[Allen Herbert]

So, we created we have the zero, the perfect balance. The start of all understanding.

 

So,we created the zero.

[cj_bas]

Allen Herbert, if you're going to be embarrassed by having your actions made public - and obviously your are - then perhaps you should think before acting in the future.

[Norma Desmond]

Allen: "the presentation is just, presentation."

 

I don't think I agree. I think it's more.

 

In order to present, one must recognize. Recognizing what's worth presenting may be an

overlooked talent.

 

"Presentation" would also seem to involve clarity or a lack thereof. How something is

presented will affect how it is received.

 

It also involves perspective. One doesn't present something in a vacuum, especially when

we are talking photographically. One presents from a perspective. How and why a

particular perspective is chosen is not an unimportant matter.

[Allen Herbert]

I don't think I agree. I think it's more.

 

You make some good points, Fred. However, you can't help feeling that a lot of photos are just about presentation, at the expense of content. The concerns being the presentation, rather than the vision.

 

Althought good presentation/craft is important to supplement the vision,it often seen as the be and end all in itself.

 

Bottom line,for me it's about the content,no matter how badly it's presented.

[kristina_kraft]

The process of creation as I have read above, well, I must ask, has anyone is familiar with Escher and his graphics. In short, he was concerned with the problematics of space. He was also familiar with Zen philosophy. So, his lithographs and graphics are very much narrative. They are highly mathematical and logical with music background too. Now one author, Douglas Hofstadter, said that his art is somehow connected to Bach's music. Probably because of mathematical background.

Escher's vision and creation is deeply profound.

[Norma Desmond]

Allen--

 

You, too, make good points.

 

I now realize we are also talking about two different aspects of presentation.

 

In my original post and in my last post, I was referring not to "presentation" as in how the

photo is presented or in the presentation aspect as opposed to the vision, a distinction

which you rightly drew when interpreting "presentation" in one way.

 

I meant photos that try to "present" the world as opposed to photos that try to "create" a

world.

 

Photos that "create" something, true, can be "presented" in a variety of different ways and,

as you say, that presentation can sometimes get in the way of or enhance the subject.

 

But what I was getting at was the type of photo that, by design, does not try to create

something, but just wants to present something, for instance, an "accurate" rendition of a

nature scene. The type of photo where the photographer tries, to the extent possible, to

leave himself out of it versus the type of photo where the photographer has obviously

invested himself and imparted some of himself into the photo.

[Allen Herbert]

does not try to create something, but just wants to present something, for instance, an "accurate" rendition of a nature scene.

 

Even just presenting something it would be hard not to have any creative input. Choice of time of day you take the photo,the camera angle, the selection of lenses , filters etc. I think that more creative input,the more interesting the photo. What photographer really wants to be an office photo copier.

[Norma Desmond]

Allen--

 

I'm with you. But a lot of people, in these forums in particular, have expressed a desire to

stay out of their pictures and simply present what they see. I have often come back at

them with just the considerations (choice of time, angle, lenses) you articulate. That's why

I put "accurate" in quotes. There is really no "accurate" rendition, only perspective.

Nevertheless, I do understand when people make the point that they are more trying to be

"accurate" in representing something than they are trying to create something. I think it's

all kind of on a continuum. Nothing is 100% creative (we all draw to an extent on what's

given to us and what has come before us) and nothing is 100% representational. But things

do tend to lean toward one end of the spectrum or the other. My question was meant to

elicit just the kinds of things you and I are speaking about and to figure out where people

lean. It wasn't meant to suggest a black and white distinction.

[Allen Herbert]

There is really no "accurate" rendition, only perspective

 

Absolutely

 

Nothing is 100% creative (we all draw to an extent on what's given to us and what has come before us) and nothing is 100% representational. But things do tend to lean toward one end of the spectrum or the other.

 

Agreed

 

There are no black and whites, Fred. Just shades of grey.

 

I must ask, has anyone is familiar with Escher and his graphics

 

I was not, Kristina. Thanks for bringing him to my attention. I think his work is very creative, combining together Art and Mathematical form....which have always been together.

[Allen Herbert]

There is really no "accurate" rendition, only perspective

 

Absolutely

 

Nothing is 100% creative (we all draw to an extent on what's given to us and what has come before us) and nothing is 100% representational. But things do tend to lean toward one end of the spectrum or the other.

 

Agreed

 

There are no black and whites, Fred. Just shades of grey.

 

I must ask, has anyone is familiar with Escher and his graphics

 

I was not, Kristina. Thanks for bringing him to my attention. I think his work is very creative, combining together Art and Mathematical form?..which have always been together.

[Norma Desmond]

Escher is an amazing artist. Thanks, Kristina, for bringing him up. I have loved him for

many

years.

 

The book referred to is by Douglas Hofstadter and is called Godel, Escher, Bach.

 

It's a difficult but rewarding read. It's main subject is loops, endlessly rising matters like

Bach's canons and Escher's graphics. It's about the play between finite and infinite and it's

very much about paradoxes and self-cancelling statements.

 

Godel's inspiration in mathematics are some of the early Greek philosophical paradoxes,

especially those of Epimenides. Statements like "I am lying" are the key. We tend to think

of statements as true or false. But if the statement "I am lying" is true it immediately

backfires on you and makes you think it is false. Once you think it is false, it backfires

again and makes you think it is true.

 

So Godel supplies the logical equivalent of what the visual works of Escher tend to do and

the musical works of Bach tend to do. They seem to defy logic or create a new logic. One

direction quickly becomes another and just when you think you've gotten somewhere you

are actually back where you started.

[kristina_kraft]

Thanks Fred for reminding me about the book GEB. Well, I'm reading it for the second time. And now I understand it and enjoying myself. I like the metaphorical fugues, the dialogues. I am very much happy in discovering the true meaning of Escher's graphics and the life, the spaces that surround us. I heard that many people, readers, didn't understand an author nor his book.

 

The book is telling everything about the life and art. Everything that one should know. It's like bible.

[kirk d]

Interesting conversation Fred and Allen, I think its tough to categorize Presentation/Creation as that obviously means different things to different people based on the above comments.

 

However, if I take the author's definition "I meant photos that try to "present" the world as opposed to photos that try to "create" a world.", then almost everything taken is a Presentation. Street photos, a portrait, still life, almost everything except abstracts would be a presentation of the world. Now, some presentations of the world are changed greatly by the addition of a title by the photographer, which, if it were not titled, would be a presentation of the world (Jeff Long's photos come to mind here).

 

Now, I've got to say, I don't agree that is the case, I think that definition is to stringent, but based on that definition, that is how I see it.

 

Personally, I see it as more overlapping than being in one camp or another. For instance, in using Fred's definition, almost all the images in Allen's, Fred's, Jeff's and my portfolio are presentations - presenting the world. When, I know for fact that they were all thoughtfully created to "present" the world as our minds created it for us at the time of capturing or making the image.

 

Also, what appears as a Presentation could have been a highly thought out creation, such as a landscape or wildlife shot, whereas something that appears as a Creation (not speaking post processing manipulation) could have been a presentation that, to others, looks like a creation or that started as a presentation.

 

For instance, one of my latest images "Guilty Until Proven Innocent". I stopped to take pictures to present to others what happened the day the traffic was jammed up, granted, I did it with some compositional thought in mind. However, when I looked at my presentational pictures, I realized that one composition in particular held a smaller image that creates an image and impression of something that isn't even there - a black man standing below a gallows about to be hung with the state trooper car below identifying one of the states which that act is thought to have occured in (Is that Presentation or Creation?).

 

Kirk

[Norma Desmond]

Kirk--

 

I don't think I've conveyed to you what I mean by "create." By "presenting," I meant trying

to "accurately" render a scene, trying to keep yourself out of it. "Creation" involves putting

your own perspective on something in order to show it in a new and personal light. I try

always to do that with my folder. Many others say they like to keep themselves out of it

and simply "present" what they see. Yes, there is overlap. A portrait does NOT have to be a

straight presentation. The photographer can add his own feelings about the subject into

the photo if he wants. That would be a creation. By choosing a certain background and

lighting, the photographer can either more or less effect how the portrait will feel and

what emotional suggestions will be made. That would be creating. One can do that with

nature and street shooting as well. Or one can simply try to document, keeping things very

straightforward. The latter would be more of a presentation. But even, to me, some

documentary stuff is extremely creative, done in a new way or with a different style, yet

still being true to documenting what is seen.

[don_e]

"Or one can simply try to document, keeping things very straightforward."

 

I'm a 'presenter', but what I am presenting isn't a straightforward document like a forensic photograph or photojournalism, but an attempt to re-present how or why it caught my eye. What the camera records is unlikely to match the impression made on my mind's eye by what was in the viewfinder without thought and work to tease it out. I judge the photograph successful or not depending on how well it makes me recall the moment...a fresh recognition.

 

A casual analogy to painting: My kind of "presenting" is impressionist (i.e., I want to capture the light of the moment, plein aire), and "creation", as you've offered it, is post-impressionist. I wouldn't stress the analogy by taking it too far, but is offered as a way to characterize the distinction.

[Norma Desmond]

I like your analogy and agree. Thanks.

[don_e]

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

 

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

 

I agree with these statements, and if the analogy to post-/impressionism holds, I'd say there is no major distinction to be drawn between presentation and creation. The first post-impressionists were some of the impressionists who tired of the self-imposed limitations of impressionist theory and practice -- plus, I think, impressionist painting is a futile endevor in the final analysis, but it is the metier of photography. Impressionists like Monet and Degas owned cameras, took photographs, and studied them.

 

Post-/impressionists were in rebellion against the academy and the studio system in the 19th century and its highly intellectualized subjects, its mannered lighting, the smooth clear surfaces, and the sharpness and accutance of delineation (is this sounding familiar photography-wise?).

 

A post-/impressionist photographer would be one for whom that laundry-list is of little importance in their photography. They are not attempting pixel-perfection, but rather expressing something else that is likely to be erased from the frame by a commitment to technical perfection.

[Norma Desmond]

I'm not sure how major the distinction is, but I think there's a distinction.

<p><p>

Perhaps I'm beginning to think of presentation as a subset of creation rather than being in

competition with it.

<p><p>

As I look around particularly at PN portfolios, I tend to notice a difference between those

who want to create something at least somewhat anew (perhaps wanting to have more

influence over their viewer or express something within themselves that the image does

not represent but conveys, and those who want to, shall we

say, create a presentation.

<p><p>

In my own work, I might put <a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?

photo_id=6381585">THIS</a> in the former and <a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/

photo?photo_id=6400674">THIS</a> in the latter category, to the extent they each fall

on a continuum more toward one or the other end.

[don_e]

Here's a 'grab shot', which is to say, the sort of photography I enjoy most. It caught my eye and I caught it. What caught my eye besides composition and the interesting light, was the woman's posture -- rather dainty for the ordinary and grubby act of filling the windshield washing fluid resevoir. It is certainly "presentation", and I did nothing to create it, except to see it, set the camera, and release the shutter. Could it be a better photograph? You bet, but the moment has passed; I'd have to recreate it with a model.

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/6627772

 

I think I'm saying I understand the 'Presentation' part, but not the 'Creation' part -- unless it refers to studio or location work, or other types of careful planning-out-the-photo-before-the-exposure. It can't be that, though, unless forensic photography, for example, is categorized as creation.

 

So, I'm left with the thought that presentation and creation are as intertwined as spaghetti on fork.