Why do I recall paintings much more readily than photographs?

[steve_swinehart]

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<blockquote>

<p>So you're saying that if you're willing to expend more work, the degree of difficulty increases all by itself.</p>

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<p>The degree of difficulty is not in the process of making a piece of art, but in the thought process about what to make and how to make the piece of art. You're conflating process with idea - I'm not surprised.</p>

<p>To directly adress your statements about photography being easier than painting - why is it that many watercolorists can easily do a watercolor in 30 minutes? I had a friend who regularly finished 4-5 paintings a week as he had to keep his galleries supplied. Then there was the "art factory" in Detroit that several of my friends worked at in the early '70's that cranked out 200 - 300 "original paintings" a week using a production system of specialists - a person did skies, another trees, another buildings, another people, etc. Then of course there's Bob Ross, I regulary saw Bob finish an entire painting in 30 minutes every week on PBS.</p>

<p>Your statements never seem to hold up when examined carefully. I've spent weeks on a single photograph to get it "just right." For one piece I spent nearly three months. In fact, I've spent years on single photograph going back to the same location to photograph it to get everything correct in expressing a certain idea and feeling. Ansel Adams spent nearly an entire lifetime perfecting "Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico."</p>

<p>Photography is what you make of it. Give it a try...</p>

[sobeystudio]

<p>

 

 

<p>Bruce- ' let's face it, Van Gogh is a big world of content and quality away from Penn, not to denigrate the Noble Irving. Yes painting is the higher art form, though no doubt there are thousands of photographers ready to hang me now! I approach the question without prejudice, having been a painter since 1954, and a photographer since '66.'</p>

<p>That's a joke. </p>

 

 

 

</p>

[william l. palminteri]

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<p ><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=1154645"><em>John Kelly</em></a><em> </em><a href="../member-status-icons"><em><img title="Subscriber" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/sub6.gif" alt="" /><img title="Frequent poster" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/3rolls.gif" alt="" /></em></a><em>, Feb 03, 2010; 07:29 p.m.</em></p>

 

<p><em>Steve S consistently addresses questions in interesting ways, not necessarily in a way that I always like but always in ways that are always instructive or stimulating. He isn't a braggart.</em></p>

 

<p><em>He's said a few things that confirm for me that he's intensely well-educated in some of the matters that are of interest here, such as print making. And he's man enough to speak from his own experience...he doesn't rely on the purported fame of his great aunt, parents, former neighbors, or very strange barber.</em><br>

<em></em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>You're off-topic.<br>

Bring in on, John.<br>

Man up.</p>

<p>Bill P.<em></em></p>

[sobeystudio]

<p>Alan-<br>

You can remember 3 paintings and 0 photographs. I think you should be more concerned about your fleeting memory:) Either way, memory is the true thing we're talking about. If you choose to remember photographs, you will remember them, if you choose to remember paintings, you will remember them and so it goes with math, language, cooking, names, cars, traveling.........</p>

[william l. palminteri]

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<p ><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=86165"><em>Steve Swinehart</em></a><em> </em><a href="../member-status-icons"></a><em>, Feb 04, 2010; 09:08 a.m.</em></p>

 

<p><em></em></p>

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<blockquote>

<p><em>So you're saying that if you're willing to expend more work, the degree of difficulty increases all by itself.</em></p>

</blockquote>

</blockquote>

<p><em></em></p>

 

</blockquote>

<blockquote>

<p><em>To directly adress your statements about photography being easier than painting - why is it that many watercolorists can easily do a watercolor in 30 minutes?</em><br>

<em></em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Because they know their craft.</p>

<p>I can easily do a photograph in 30 seconds. You have to know where to look and what to shoot.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p><em>I've spent weeks on a single photograph to get it "just right."</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>You spend weeks on one photograph?<br>

You're kidding, right?</p>

<p>WEEKS?<br>

How bad could it have been to start with?<br>

Here's a suggestion.<br>

Go out and re-shoot the photograph correctly in the first place.<br>

NO photo should take weeks in the edit room.</p>

<p>Bill P.<em></em></p>

[william l. palminteri]

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<p ><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=86165"><em>Steve Swinehart</em></a><em> </em><a href="../member-status-icons"></a><em>, Feb 04, 2010; 08:45 a.m.</em></p>

 

<p><em></em></p>

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<p><em></em></p>

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<p><em>William, why is it that you consistently subsitute your purported education for original thinking?</em></p>

 

<p><em>My reaction? You went to art school? BFD.</em></p>

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<p>Yeah, that's the reation I usually get from you REAL thinkers.<br>

Off topic with nowhere to go.</p>

<p>Bill P.</p>

[felixg]

<p>I'm going to make a suggestion, then (as an effort to practice what I preach) cut off this thread and walk away.<br>

Several of us (and I do mean "us" − myself included) have, here and in another place which preceded this one, said things which are not particularly useful. My suggestion is that everypne take a deep breath, ignore what has been said, and draw a line under it − either by returning to the original question and starting afresh or it.<br>

See you in another place, I hope.</p>

[chris_letts]

<p>My feeling is that Julie has the answer - even in the most 'photographic' painting, the amount of detail is incredibly small compared to a photograph of the same thing (no painter is going to paint every individual leaf on a tree, whereas a decent photgraph may well capture to that level of detail)<br>

I suspect the brain cannot hold the level of detail of a photograph on a single image, therefore the whole image becomes 'blurred' in the memory, and thus easily forgotten...</p>

[mizore]

<p>I think the memorability of painting over photography is a trick of perspective. There are a lot more paintings in the usual places we go to venerate art because painting has a longer history. Julie's comments about the detail in photographs over painting --yes. Paintings are the creation of a memory and the finished product is a second order visualization. Photography is somewhat different in that it's a selection of time.</p>

<p>Taking week for a photograph seems rather plausible -- sometimes, you know what you want to get, but the light on any given day isn't quite right, or you take a picture and see future possibilities in it, and so while there are snapshots of the future picture done in seconds, the final photograph isn't there yet.</p>

<p>I remember both painting and photographs. I couldn't count the hairs on "Mrs. Duckworth" though.</p>

<p>The thing with educations is they can be probing into what's real, learning the structure of things we normally are intuitive about (almost all humans are good at intuitive calculus, fewer can work it out on paper). Or they can be indoctrinations into cultural and class beliefs. Most are something of a mix between the two. </p>

[william l. palminteri]

 

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<p ><a href="/photodb/user?user_id=1706103"><em>Felix Grant</em></a><em> </em><a href="/member-status-icons"><em><img title="Subscriber" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/sub5.gif" alt="" /></em></a><em>, Feb 04, 2010; 10:25 a.m.</em><br>

<br /><em>See you in another place, I hope.</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Felix, I'm with you.<br>

The O/P was....."Why do I recall paintings much more readily than photographs", not.... "Let's challenge Bill P.'s education", which most of these "forums" degenerate into pretty quickly.<br>

To quote you, "See you in another place, I hope."</p>

<p>Bill P.</p>

 

[sd_woods]

<p>Well, painting has been around for longer, stands to reason that it should have made more of a contribution.</p>

[scott_murphy_photography]

<p>Most art critics will tell you that paintings often evoke more emotion than photographs. Photos, for the most part, unless heavily Photoshopped, are literal. Paintings are interpretations by the artist and are considered by most to be a higher art form.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p><br>

"Photos, for the most part, unless heavily Photoshopped, are literal." (Scott)</p>

<p>Photoshop is only one way to modify what you refer to as "literal" in an image. More often than not, I think, in the hands of new users it is badly utilised, and not often equal to the skills of good artists in transferring to a canvas the "non-literal" images that their mind creates (personal perceptions of a scene or event). As time goes on, the use of Photoshop will no doubt improve and will be used in a deterrministic and creative way, but more subtely than at present. But that is a different discussion.</p>

<p>There is much photography that equals the best painting in terms of communicating emotion or some aesthetic ideal, which are often thought of as the particuar "forte" of painting. Good black and white photography has shown how expressive and abstract the medium can be. The non literalness of many examples are equal to the best of painting. Certain photographers have mastered such expressiveness in color as well, although like a Van Gogh image of humans or a Goya image of the shooting of prisoners, or those of the martyrdom of Jean de Brébeuf at the hands of the Iroquois (or Hurons?), the number of such paintings, like excellent photos, are in the minority.</p>

<p>Much painting is not literal, but can be decorative and quite boring. Sometimes I wish my painter friends would have the eyes of good photographers in isolating meaningful compositions or events. Too often, like many everyday photographs, the results are merely pretty or representational, without attempting to say more.</p>

<p>But that is not to question the potential of painting or photography, only its practitioners.</p>

<p> </p>

 

 

[tomwatt]

<p>Without responding to the sidetracks, and the discussion about what a photograph does or does not do, I think I could submit that the process of making a painting - a kind of drawn out visual discovery - is part of the reason why paintings are often (not always) evocative of our memories more than photographs. Since the painter has to discover and record each detail and shape, color, texture individually and then intentionally record them, the viewer is invited to share that experience.<br>

Oddly enough, I believe photography can operate much the same way.</p>

[s._d.1]

<p>Interesting discussion! Perhaps ‘recall’ is not the right word. There are paintings as well as photographs that I remember equally well. However, my <em>respond </em>upon seeing Starry Night vs. Moonrise is quite different. Perhaps I am responding not only to the contents of the image, but more to the artist’s emotion conveyed by the image, which to my eyes is quite different between these two works.<br>

In Starry Night, I sense a great deal of the fore-thought and emotional involvement. In Moonrise, I find myself visualizing Adams quickly setting up his tripods to capture the scene, granted that he spent enormous amount of time in the darkroom afterward to print the image. By that token, a snap shooter who shoots first and picks the best shots later would have the least emotional investment with the subject, and the least impact on the viewer.</p>

[lightwait]

<p>It's not that we remember them differently, some stuff just won't let us forget it.</p>

<p>Maybe size matters too.</p>

<p> </p>

[linelight]

<p>I think it's time for a doctoral study on this subject... it would be fascinating research and could lead to interesting understanding of memory and 'art'... and then some quiet speaking historian could do the TV special.</p>

[jpo3136b]

<p>For the OP, I would have said that all three of the paintings listed were unified by having a simplified tonal range. Each of the three has five main sets of tones, and a contrasty pattern to their distribution. The tones make for depth. </p>

<p>Maybe you like the use of the tones. The average black and white photo will be more grayscale; it'll have a more subtle graduation in the distribution of tones. Perhaps you are a tonalist. </p>

<p>If you think that way, maybe you are taking to those kinds of illustrations. </p>

<p>The Irving Penn, photos, too, have at most five main tones. The very famous photo, with the woman in the hat with the veil over her face, is largely comprised of two tones, but also holds an identifiable five. </p>

<p>The OP likes illustrations with five main groups of tones. </p>

[lech1]

<p>Painting is a pure creation no matter what the outcome is. Photography in the best case is dokumentation of the observaton process. Some people see more than others. Some people do not understand what they see. Some people are down to the earth and see the earth surface. Photography is important.</p>

[pisq]

<p>Painters have tremendous freedom over the composition, and color and hence, the psychology of the painted image.</p>

<p>Photographers are bound to photograph what exists. Photographers are limited in expressing the same psychology.</p>

[mizore]

<p>Carey Moulton, this is only true of the last 150 years. Painting in the West attempted to do things as realistically as possible and artists invented photography as a way of drawing more accurately.</p>

<p>Non-European traditions had various other aims, apparently.</p>

<p>I suspect it's easier for most people to remember a good photograph than to remember an abstract painting, however moved we may be before such a painting. I like Jackson Pollock, but my memory of Pollock is not as detailed as my memory of the photograph of the children running into Lake Tanganyika that made Henri Cartier Bresson realize photography could be an art. The Dubuffet I remember best is a cow in the Museum of Modern Art, not the sculpture in Philadelphia, which I've seen more recently.</p>

[william l. palminteri]

<blockquote>

<p ><a href="/photodb/user?user_id=4458927"><em>Tom Watt</em></a><em> </em><a href="/member-status-icons"><em><img title="Subscriber" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/sub2.gif" alt="" /><img title="Frequent poster" src="http://static.photo.net/v3graphics/member-status-icons/2rolls.gif" alt="" /></em></a><em>, Feb 04, 2010; 07:28 p.m.</em><br>

<em>....the painter has to discover and record each detail and shape, color, texture individually and then intentionally record them, the viewer is invited to share that experience.<br />Oddly enough, I believe photography can operate much the same way.</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Tom, nothing odd about it. Fine art photography works that way, and without retouching. That's what it's all about.</p>

<p>Bill P.</p>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Bill - "</strong> Fine art photography works that way, and without retouching. That's what it's all about."</p>

<p> Bill, my friend, I don't want to get into an argument or cross swords with you on here, but I would like to say the following: If you know Art History, then you know that retouching in art goes back at least to the cave paintings. It's normal, commonplace and accepted (with a few notable exceptions).</p>

<p> You sound like you're an early 20th century photographer reacting to Pictorialism. It is true that more than a few people, myself included, have referred to heavily manipulated digital work as Neo-Pictorialism, and maybe you're reacting to that. There's nothing wrong with your statement, as long as you're speaking about yourself. Art is about much more than that.</p>

<p>By the very act of shooting JPEGs, specially if using the default settings on your trusty D70, you're allowing Nikon programs to retouch your work generically with no input from you.</p>

<p> </p>

[greg_peterson3]

<p>If you're over 60 the words "Flag Raising on Iwo Jima" will bring an image to mind that's every bit as memorable as any painting.</p>

<p>If it doesn't, see: <a href="http://www.montney.com/marine/iwo.htm">http://www.montney.com/marine/iwo.htm</a></p>

 

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<blockquote>

<p>Photographers are bound to photograph what exists. Photographers are limited in expressing the same psychology.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That's like saying that painters are bound to paint what doesn't exist and are therefore limited in showing and expressing something significant. Neither of those statements are true.</p>

<p>If I put my mind to it I have absolutely no problem to remember and visualise lots and lots of photographs, including all the ones here on photo.net that I found interesting enough to look <em>into</em>, and not only at. </p>

<p>As for the original question, here's another one : Why do I recall that annoying radio commercial more readily than Mozart ? Maybe I forgot to remember to forget. </p>

<p> </p>