Photographer As Genius

[john_h.1]

<p><em>unlike a painting the photograph is more like a mirror than an original creation</em></p>

<p>Have the mastercieces created by genious painters always been of things that don't exist?</p>

<p><em>photographers seem to be more or less documenting what has already been created.</em><br /><em></em><br />Does creating imagery of things that exist disqualify a painter from being a genius?</p>

<p><em>In the so-called pure art forms, the artist had created the substance of their art, not so with photographers.</em></p>

<p>Have photographers never created scenes that they display?</p>

<p><em>I'm sure that no one could recreate Half Dome, but that could apply to all the bad photographs in the world as well.</em><br /><em></em><br />Can painters recreate Half Dome? Genius painters perhaps?</p>

<p><em>anyone can take a photograph, on their very first try, and if someone was lucky enough, even take a great photograph unlike other arts ...</em></p>

<p>Is it impossible for someone apply paint to a canvas, maybe get lucky, and then have a great modern art peice?</p>

<p>If you answered no to any of these questions, then the rationale behind your critique of photography as an art form is flawed.</p>

<p><em>it makes me suspicious that an absolute beginner could even create a great photograph </em><br /><em></em><br />What great photographs have been created by a absolute beginner? Can you identify anyone who created great photographs as an absolute beginner? Where can one find one of these neophyte gems to look at? Surely you must have seen some somewhere if you harbor suspicion about them. You wouldn't base your observations on this issue on something that's just a product of your imagination, would you?</p>

<p>(Sarcasm compliant)</p>

<p> </p>

[bobcossar]

<p>Amazing remarks here.....so, in order for us to never have to discuss this anymore, I have a suggestion:</p>

<p>Create a <strong>"Genius"</strong> Forum.</p>

<p>Photos only....no words....and here's the catch:</p>

<p>You must be <strong>"Qualified" </strong> in order to post. To <strong>qualify</strong> .....just a suggestion....one would submit, say, 5 images for adjudication. The adjudicators would be chosen from amongst the Moderators, <strong>BY</strong> the Moderators.</p>

<p>If you <strong>qualify</strong> ....however the mods choose to do that.....then you get a gold G after your name and can contribute images at will......so....whatcha think...?</p>

[albert_richardson1]

<p>I believe that the term "genius" applied to human works is misunderstood. This credit is a sign of praise and respect given by others who have come to appreciate and value someone's work. Mensa has little to do with it. A genius is known by his unique contribution to a field that has a future impact on the work of others. It's little wonder that it takes so long for the genius to be recognized. The genius himself may or may not see himself as being as important as his creditors do. He certainly understands that he has produced results seen only for the first time in his field by his own hand.</p>

<p>I don't know what Jeffrey thinks geniuses are, but it is certain that there are many greats in photography who have consistently lit the way for others. Whether one feels inspired, awed or simply challenged to create works having the characteristics of another, it is simply the honest thing to do to give great men and women their proper reward and respect by speaking of them using the term "genius." One cannot help but to observe that there have been and are now geniuses in photography as in most other fields. Consensus of opinion singles out a cluster of names of individuals such as the one Ellis listed and there are others as well.</p>

<p>To be a genius yourself you must know that you are making worthwhile products never quite seen before that will truly prove to be a benefit to others. How many can truthfully claim that this describes what they do in any field?</p>

<p>For the rest of us, remember that the broad spread of sand on the floor supports and makes possible the pinnacle at the top. Jeffrey, I hope you now have an improved notion of "genius" that will be useful to you for identifying and showing respect to the individuals in photography you find to be worthy of your attention. The ones who guide your understanding and show you the way to do things you hadn't thought possible before.</p>

[joshroot]

<blockquote>

<p>You must be <strong>"Qualified" </strong> in order to post. To <strong>qualify</strong> .....just a suggestion....one would submit, say, 5 images for adjudication. The adjudicators would be chosen from amongst the Moderators, <strong>BY</strong> the Moderators.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I don't get paid enough to try and deal with the nightmare that concept would create for me. There isn't enough scotch in the world to dull the pain in my head that the hundreds of "Why wasn't I approved you dumb piece of s--t? I'm going to drive over there and shove this camera up your a--" emails would create.</p>

[jeffrey_prokopowicz]

<p>I received some great replies here; I appreciate it.</p>

<p>My query was never about whether or not photography is an art form, or whether or not there exist works of photographic genius, but instead how do I recognize photographic genius, and why do I have such difficulty doing so. When I finished reading John Updike's "Rabbit" series, I knew that I was in the hands of a towering modern day genius of a writer, I had no doubt; when I listen to Bob Dylan's "Blood On The Tracks" I have no doubt that this is a work of musical genius, or at the very least lyrical genius. I have no doubt. With photography this is a problem for me. Not a single photographer's work has ever impressed me in the same way, hence my query.</p>

[luis_g]

<p>Ok, John. I want to know how did _you_ recognize "Rabbit" and "Blood on the Tracks" were the works of geniuses and not "one-shot wonders"? I congratulate you for recognizing that the problem is your own, not, like the many others who think it's endemic to the medium itself.</p>

<p> </p>

[ellis_vener_photography]

<p>Jeffrey,<br>

What a late United States Supreme Court Justice said about pornography" I don't know what it is , but I know it when I see it." applies to the issue of genius in photography.</p>

<p>You look for photographs that you react to instinctively on the emotional, aesthetic and intellectual levels of consciousness. Then you look for consistancy in the body of work of that photographer.</p>

<p>I have to admit that I think the whole idea of genius in any area of artistic endeavor is rife with hype. There are very few artists of genius. Usually there is something like a nova of ideas and new ways of comprehending the world and showing it and those visions co-inciding with related typesideas percolating through societies as a whole. and what follows is a long period of artists and scientists and thinkers working through the various implications and permutations and possibilities made possible by that intial critical mass explosion.</p>

[jeffrey_prokopowicz]

<p>Luis, it's exactly what Ellis said: "I don't know what it is, but I know it when I see it."</p>

<p>Also, I don't believe that genius requires a lifetime of sustained work but it can strike like a bolt of lightening never to be seen again. Even if John Updike or Bob Dylan never created additional books or albums it would not diminish their genius in my eyes. There was an English singer/ songwriter named Nick Drake, who died very young, and produced three scant albums in his lifetime, but one of his albums, "Pink Moon," is the greatest work of musical genius in his genre that I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing, and he is every bit the equal of Bob Dylan and his never-ending musical catalog.</p>

<p>To go one step further, I'm suspicious of an artist who's reputation stands on a sustained comprehensive lifetime body-of-work with not one instance of his work standing by itself as an obvious work of genius. It reminds me of the student being exalted for never missing a day of school rather than accomplishing anything great academically.</p>

[john_h.1]

<p><em>My query was never about whether or not photography is an art form, or whether or not there exist works of photographic genius, but instead how do I recognize photographic genius, and why do I have such difficulty doing so.</em></p>

<p>The reason you have difficulty recognizing "photographic genious" is not because you don't acknowledge photography as an art form or because of a claim that there are no works of that description.</p>

<p>The reason is because you have been applying different standards to photography than other art forms. Go back and read each quote of your comments that I posted. Each one assigns factual attributes to photography that are not accurate. If you incorporate inaccurate facts to form an opinion then your opinion will be affected accordingly. If you had incorporated accurate notions as to photographic endeavors and creativity and still had the same opinion, then your viewpoint would be purely subjective and we would be unable to explain why you felt that way. At the moment, it seems we can.</p>

<p> </p>

[luis_g]

<p>Jeffrey, thanks for the answer. If you don't see it, well, you don't. It doesn't mean it's not there, right?</p>

[john_h.1]

<p><em>I'm suspicious of an artist who's reputation stands on a sustained comprehensive lifetime body-of-work with not one instance of his work standing by itself as an obvious work of genius. It reminds me of the student being exalted for never missing a day of school rather than accomplishing anything great academically.</em><br /><em></em><br />This analogy is another example of using inaccurate critera to arrive at a conclusion. The anaolgy to the artist whose reputation for a lifetime of work without a special instance of "genius" SHOULD have been a student who got steadily got good grades but had no spectacular instance of academic brightness.</p>

<p>Instead, your artist was characterized as being judged on the end product of his work while your student was not. He was described with criteria that did not involve the end product of his work. The analogy does not fit. It is comparing an apple to an orange.</p>

<p>If you are going to attempt make objective value judgments, you need to use objective and accurate criteria for doing so. You probably see my remarks as a challenge and they are in a sense. I am urging you to think objectively. If the criteria for your opinions on matters of fact are objective, then your subjective conlusions about them are sound.</p>

[jeffrey_prokopowicz]

<p>John, I wanted to go back and respond to all the sentences you took out of context but I'm simply too lazy to do so. I do realize that if a photographer arranges a scene it is an act of creation, but the photographer didn't create the actual elements in the scene like a painter would. In fact if a photographer records an image, for example, of a very expressive model in a scene that the photographer arranged, the image would be nothing without the model's expressiveness which the photographer is not actually creating even if that's what he wanted created, some of the credit has to go to the model. The painter has to create everything from within, as do artists in other art fields. This makes photography different from the other fields of art, and whether it diminishes the artist's individual achievement or not I don't know.</p>

[jeffrey_prokopowicz]

<p>John, the student with perfect attendance WAS being judged on his academic performance, but his overall assessment as a student was elevated because of his perfect attendance. The analogy seems to work for me even though I respect that it doesn't work for you.</p>

[john_h.1]

<p><em>The painter has to create everything from within, as do artists in other art fields.</em></p>

<p>I'm looking around me and I see a painting of a seascape that the artist visited in Nova Scotia and a drawing of a living person who was showing a certain expression. If your remark was accurate, I would be hallucinating.</p>

<p>You ask why you are having trouble recognizing a photographic work as being the product of genius but you don't want to hear the answer. The answer is because you will never find genius in this artform because you are predisposd to view it inaccurately.</p>

<p>The answer is that simple.</p>

<p> </p>

[john_h.1]

<p><em> if a photographer records an image, for example, of a very expressive model in a scene that the photographer arranged, the image would be nothing without the model's expressiveness which the photographer is not actually creating even if that's what he wanted created, some of the credit has to go to the model. The painter has to create everything from within</em><br>

<em></em><br>

Here you go again, applying different standards in an inaccurate way. In your world, a photographer taking a picture of an expressive model is "not actually creating" and needs to give the model credit but if a painter makes an image of the expressive model than, oh boy, its "creating EVERYTHING within" as though the model were invisible or never there.</p>

<p>If we adopt your ctiteria, Next time we pass an artist out in the field painting a nice scene in front of them, we can think that they could just do that at home since there is nothing there that they could possibly need. Afterall, They have "to create EVERYTHING from within".</p>

[ellis_vener_photography]

<p>Photographing people who are posing is a collaboration. That doesn't make a photographer any less the principal artist of the finished piece. It is likely the photographer choose the model based on something he saw i nthe model, created the lighting, chose the clothes he or she wore or didn't wear, chose the mechanics of how to make the initial exposure, framing, croppign and determining when to make the exposure, as wel las the follow up processes of editing, devekloping and perhaps printing the end result.</p>

[tholte]

<p>Jeffrey, I was tempted to be sarcastic until I read that you thought Updike and Dylan were geiniuses in their respective fields. I agree and if you want to see genius in the photographic realm, check out the work of Sebastiao Salgado and Gregory Crewdson. Don't just go online or read books about them, go to an art museum or gallery that has their work on the walls so you can get up close and drink it in. Let me know what you think if you ever get the opportunity. </p>

[derek_kennedy]

<p>I do NOT equate photographers with genius.</p>

<p>True some are both but if you knew the people around my town that call themselves photographers, you would agree with me that they are NOT in any sense of of the word, a 'genius'.</p>

[ellis_vener_photography]

 

<p>I do NOT equate the name Derek with genius.<br>

No doubt some people named Derek are but if you knew the people around my town that call themselves Derek, you would agree with me that they are NOT in any sense of of the word, a 'genius'.</p>

 

<h2></h2>

[jeffrey_prokopowicz]

<p>John, it seems to me that you are missing my point and not the other way around. The photographer does not have to create the actual model, just employ it; the painter has to create the model from scratch with his own hands onto a blank canvas. Maybe you feel that tripping a shutter and recording a model onto blank film or a memory card is the same as a painter using his hands and his talent to do something somewhat similar, I don't.</p>

<p>Ellis, I know in my heart what you say is the truth. Thanks.</p>

<p>Tim, I think that you hit a very key point. I've seen very few photo exhibitions; in fact I can only recall three only two of which I remember who the artists were: Mapplethorpe in Boston, and Capra in my hometown of Worcester, MA. I am going to make a serious effort to attend some more exhibitions before I continue to spout off, it's only fair. And thanks for the suggestions.</p>

<p>Derek, that's what I call fanning the flames :). Good luck! </p>

[jeffrey_prokopowicz]

<p>LOL Ellis, see what I mean Derek.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Jeffrey: Photography is communication. Just like writing. People you cite - like Updike - use a set of existing tools (character sets, language, and shared cultural symbols) to arrange words into forms that communicate something. Updike didn't synthesize the Roman characters in which he wrote, and while he contributed to the glacially evolving English language, he inherited its constructs and put it to work to convey his meaning.<br /><br />Photographers use visual symbols and languages. The model you cite is a tool - a part of the vocabulary used in expressing the communication built into the photograph <em>by</em> the photographer. Just as Updike would choose an elegant word to perfect a sentence, a paragraph, or an entire work.<br /><br />Just as someone who doesn't speak English might stare blankly at a page of Updike's untranslated writing, someone who doesn't share the photographer's visual culture might never notice brilliant work, or subtle nuance.</p>

[leo_papandreou1]

<blockquote>

<p>Maybe you feel that tripping a shutter and recording a model onto blank film or a memory card is the same as a painter using his hands and his talent to do something somewhat similar, I don't.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>What distinguishes your snapshot of the model from all the others? Chuck Close addresses this in The Genius of Photography. Paraphrasing: it is very easy to take a generic, technically correct photo. Nowadays, because cameras are so good, there's nothing more mundane than technically correct photos. Photographers don't like to hear this but photography is the easiest medium in which to be competent. However it's the hardest medium in which to have personal vision, one that is readily identifiable. Painting is always the work of some artist's hand; a photograph is just some light, there's no physicality to it. So how do you make a photograph that everyone knows is the work of a particular artist, say, Chuck Close? What does Chuck Close have that you don't, standing before the model with your finger on the shutter? Hint: it rhymes with schmenious.</p>

[jeffrey_prokopowicz]

<p>Great points Matt! Thanks for the new perspective. I need to assimilate your observations because I think they are important as well as enlightening. Thanks again!</p>

<p>Just want to mention to Tim that I saw some of Salgado's and Crewdson's photographs online and they are truly amazing as well as so different from one another. Crewdson's "man in the garage" is stunning, reminding me of LaChapelle but more substantive, and Salgado didn't seem to have the luxury of arrangement and yet his pictures couldn't be more powerfully arranged if he had arranged them himself. Thanks for turning me on to these amazing artists! I'd love to see their work in person. I've instantly become a fan. Thankyou kindly!</p>

[jeffrey_prokopowicz]

<p>Leo, that's an amazing point that it's even more difficult to distinguish oneself as a photographer than it is to distinguish oneself as a painter, for example. This a point worth pondering and truly sparks one's imagination. I'm so very grateful for your post. Just what the doctor ordered. Thankyou truly.</p>