Photography is of no Art and of no Rules

[steve_swinehart]

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<p>I shoot Elitechrome 100 and 200 if I need the speed. I am going to drop off some at the lab today. They will develop it and make a high quality CD for me that will print out to 8x12. I then can scan the positive for a larger print if I am motivated.</p>

 

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<p>I think the problem with it is everyone has photoshop and knows it's all just a few clicks of the mouse type thing. </p>

 

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<p>And you're not using PS or that mouse thing to get a print if you're "motivated"? I'll think I'll stick with lazy or lack of imagination rather than the type of technology used...</p>

[Spearhead]

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<p>The tool does not dictate the result - the person using the tool does. The process cannot lack credibility - only the person using it can.</p>

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<p>Just worth repeating. The idea that one process somehow lacks "art" or anything else is just ridiculous and detached from any concept of "art" or "artist."</p>

[rossb]

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<p>Do you believe these statements to be true with scanned film as well?</p>

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<p>Pretty much. Capture with a large format is certainly different then using a DSLR point and shoot. But photoshop is just a few clicks away still applies. Not much difference except the lack of RAW files. Still I think the DSLR is very valid for many applications. I enjoy mine.</p>

[rashed]

<p>I do not have the habbit to argue with my friends althuogh I beleive photography is an Art , first the gift which the Artist should have and then the knowledge and understanding, both they compelete the good photo taken.</p>

<p>May be to some people the easy way of producing an image is an exicuse for their limited understanding and or lazy ness to learn the hard way.</p>

<p>How could I beleive that some one with the gift of art and a degree educational wise in this same field knows just as some one using a DSLR point and shoot, this is not possible.</p>

<p>We make it possible for our selves as we do not like to admit it and we might not except to see some one else better than us, but this is reialty which we have to live with .</p>

<p>We might at some time make a Friday out of Thrusday but that what we twist things to serve our need and not the rule of this universe.</p>

<p>Photographers with knowladge, when they process their films at a conversioanl lab is not like a click of a mouse with photoshop.</p>

<p>All I want to reach is that there is too much in the Art of photography, too much than just point and shoot.</p>

<p>Photography is an Art geting tought in Uv. and collages and different Art institutes, so it must have theory , formulas and rules, other wise it will just be a DSLR.</p>

<p> </p>

[gertle]

<p>Not being educated or trained as an artist I can accept that I may not be able to create what others consider to be 'art'. But I find it hard to believe that the creation of art is somehow limited, or defined, by the tools one would use to create it.</p>

[rashed]

<p>Yes my friend Gary, education is a civilized way of doing things and doing it right, when I look at my images against some of the great photographers here on photo.net or on some other site, I know that I do luck that educational need, may be I have the gift but when that gift joined with the proper education,</p>

<p>I am sure I can utilize my gift in much wider approch, like the images of our friend <a href="../photodb/user?user_id=1663629">Charles Webster</a>.</p>

<p>I can be a good technission in a field of power generation but I will not be as good as and Engineer with a degree form UV. and possibly with a senior Authorization class A from the X CEGB in UK, for sure the difference will be muc too much.</p>

<p>Please my friend , do not let people given you the high rating and the sweet comments on your images fool you or fool me , let we understand and educate our self's to be good in the craft we like and enjoy doing, there is no shame out of that.</p>

<p>We say the best man is the man who knows his shortage and work hard to correct them.</p>

<p>All of the best regards for you my friend.</p>

[rossb]

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<p>And you're not using PS or that mouse thing to get a print if you're "motivated"? I'll think I'll stick with lazy or lack of imagination rather than the type of technology used...</p>

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<p>Yes I use photoshop for my DSLR and 35mm camera's. I am not making claims to be an artist or do I aspire to be an artist. I am just a guy that goes places and takes photos of stuff, my family and what have you. Interesting that you would search other threads to quote me. It sounds a bit over board to me. So I guess you are fired up that I do not yell "yuppers" at a computer picture. Sorry about that. However Art appreciation is a viewers choice type thing. I vote "thumbs down". However like I said I enjoy my DSLR and love to go shoot. I am very pleased with some of the pictures. If the storming weather backed off a bit I would like to get out today.</p>

[rossb]

<p>Just to make a point. I am not saying computer based photography is not art. I am just saying It's my least favorite form of photography art. I would not buy a ticket to view framed digital art. Everybody and their brother is a photoshop master and the bulk of it makes it boring to me. My pictures are no different. They are mostly boring but they mean a lot to mean because they are places that I have gone to or of my large family. </p>

[steve_swinehart]

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<p>Just to make a point. I am not saying computer based photography is not art. I am just saying It's my least favorite form of photography art. I would not buy a ticket to view framed digital art. Everybody and their brother is a photoshop master and the bulk of it makes it boring to me. My pictures are no different. They are mostly boring but they mean a lot to mean because they are places that I have gone to or of my large family.</p>

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<p>I've been working in photography professionally since 1971. I have numerous film cameras in formats from 110 through 4x5, and have on occassion rented 8x10 cameras for certain work. In one room I have a full black and white and color darkroom - complete with a roller transport paper processor. In another room I have a digital lightroom setup with profiling equipment and a 44-inch wide printer.</p>

<p>In my experience, no technology by itself makes more interesting or better art than another. That is the exclusive purvue of the artist. You use the technology to its best effect.</p>

<p>If you master the technology, that is - understand how to make it work to its ultimate aesthetic presentation - each technology has specific and inherent aesthetics that, if understood by the artist, can be used to enhance the viewing experience. Therefore, I cannot accept the idea that digitally created works are "mostly boring" simply because they are made through a digital workflow.</p>

<p>What you are merely pointing out, is that rudimentary digital prints are relatively easy to make - as is any photograph made with a film / darkroom workflow. There is no magic to dipping a piece of paper through three chemicals and washing it, or running color paper through a roller transport machine. Darkroom processes do not inherently make more interesting images - unless, and I will repeat this again, you feel appreciating the process is more important than appreciating the image.</p>

<p>There is as much work to get to a fine digital print as there is a fine darkroom print - it's what you, as the artist, are willing accept and the amount of work you are willing to put into the processes. When your personal acceptance level will not allow anything less than perfect, in both image quality and printing quality - and you consistently prove that by tearing up any size print because does not meet your requirements as being perfect (aesthetically and technically complete) - then you will start on the road to making prints that are not boring no matter what the technology workflow may be.</p>

[rossb]

<p>Steve I see your point but that is not what I was saying. I will go and view a gallery of B/W large format chemical based photography. I am thinking of going to the exhibit at the DeYoung Museum SF soon as they have a great exhibit currently. I would not drive anywhere to view an exhibit of computer generated pictures. It would be a waste of my time. There are exceptions and that would be if your famous or I actually know you.</p>

[manuel barrera houston,]

<p>It is not the image that you capture on film or digitally it is the image that is left in one mind's, if the image brings back those memories then it is some thing, I am not sure what art is or how to appreciate it, other then to look at it for it's own beauty. my two cents</p>

[charleswood]

<p>I went to the Los Angeles Photographic Art Exposition and saw a Henri Cartier-Bresson photograph for sale. Of that photograph, I asked myself, is it art or is it a commodity? To me the photograph was more obviously a commodity than art. What is or isn't art is not as easy for me to say. It is more than what I like or don't like. Without the Henri Cartier-Bresson name I doubt I would have recognized it as art. There was also a photograph of African elephants on the march, large and in color. I felt I was going to weep on the spot, feeling an extraordinary sense of loss. The photographer, I tried to memorize his name, and have forgotten it, but the image I will never forget, for reasons the photographer may not have imagined. "photograpny is a dead easy hobby of point and shoot". Does anyone really believe that? True of "taking pictures", true of photography depending on how broadly the term is defined. Is it pretensiousness you don't like? The art of photography humiliated by people taking pictures? Or humiliated by people taking bad pictures and being mistaken as artists by themselves or others? Hasn't that always been so regardless of the art form? As a child I would paint by numbers, where the numbers on the canvas where coded to the paints. Was the art of painting humiliated by childishness? Or was it furthered by artlessness? Shouldn't point and shoot cameras increase public appreciation for the art of photography? It has for me. There were a lot of photographs for sale at the Los Angeles Photographic Art Exposition. Surely some of them didn't belong in an Art Exposition, at least I couldn't understand why some of them were there with price tags no less. Part of the amusement of going I suppose, to marvel and to marvel at what some people would actually buy. Something in me is repelled by the idea of the elephant picture being 'sold'. Surely it was too valuable to merely be sold.</p>

[Spearhead]

<p>Some people obviously like looking at materials rather than anything in the image. Others like looking at art to get some feelings that resonate, or make one look at things differently. Two different philosophies. If one wants to look at materials, there's no reason to go to the museum, one can go to the camera store and buy boxes of paper to hang on the wall.</p>

[GerrySiegel]

<p>Rashed, let me pick up on a figure of speech you used:</p>

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<p>I always thought carpentry is having rules and measurements, otherwise when the carpenter built a door without rules his door will a sort of twisted all over and will not fit the place it is designed for.</p>

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<p>I look at photography as a craft. That does no diminish my admiration for a great craftsman. I hired a carpenter and he hammered in a "pre-hung door" in my room. It fit and it does its door thing, open and close on hinges and is not half bad looking...( Call it rough carpentry/ a point and shoot / formulaic snapshot approach to the job). On the upper craftsman rungs, to stay with this analogy, are the finished work wood -craftsmen who have carefully restored the koa wood paneling and rails of old Hawaii Hall in our grand Bishop Museum of Pacific History. <br>

I guess that is about all I can throw in of any imaginable value to your comment. I think I support much of your thinking. Call it art, craft,or just art of understanding how the "wood" wants to be shaped...not a common thing to get. Not easily cultivated..for some it (wood and photo) is job as well as as craft and follows all the ladder rungs from A to Z.<br>

Shalom- aloha, gs</p>

[rossb]

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<p>Some people obviously like looking at materials rather than anything in the image. Others like looking at art to get some feelings that resonate, or make one look at things differently. Two different philosophies. If one wants to look at materials, there's no reason to go to the museum, one can go to the camera store and buy boxes of paper to hang on the wall.</p>

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<p> I have seen some amazing things on walls before but I have not seen that one. When I was in high school I knew a guy that put egg carton's on his walls but he thought it would make his guitar quieter from the outside. It did not work. </p>

[Mary Doo]

<p><< Photography is of no Art and of no Rules. >> </p>

<p>Hmmm...where did you hear that? Art may have no rules but some photographic images I came across are certainly art and poetry to me.</p>

[alan_ginman]

<p>"I would not buy a ticket to view framed digital art".</p>

<p>But how would you know how a certain set of prints were created? Before going to an exhibition would you check to see what camera the photographer used? If you looked at a picture and really liked it, then discovered that it was taken with a digital camera, would that change your opinion of the picture?</p>

<p>Sorry for all the questions! I'll stop now. Consider them hypothetical if you wish.</p>

<p>Cheers</p>

<p>Alan</p>

[LindaM]

<p>Art is by nature subjective. What is art to me, may be trash to another and vice versa. As far as having rules for photography, who benefits by following the rules? Who is hurt by not following the rules? I establish my own rules for my own work to establish my style. Otherwise, there are too many possibilities. </p>

[rossb]

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<p>But how would you know how a certain set of prints were created? Before going to an exhibition would you check to see what camera the photographer used? If you looked at a picture and really liked it, then discovered that it was taken with a digital camera, would that change your opinion of the picture?Sorry for all the questions! I'll stop now. Consider them hypothetical if you wish.</p>

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<p>Linda I do not mind the questions. I am not sure why it bothers people that I enjoy B/W framed art. I do not see why people would call you names like fundamentalist or make crazy comments about card board boxes. Behavior of that sort is very strange to me. However to answer your question.<br>

I rarely go to view photography but when I do it is usually at a museum like the DeYoung Museum in SF or the Museum of Modern Arts, SF. The images they show there are advertised and you know who the artist is and you can look them up and see what era they worked in. They also provide information on site. If I did go someplace to view pictures and their was something different about the process then I would just view it and see what they have to show. I would then leave and probably take my wife out to a nice lunch someplace since we would be out of town. I am going to the DeYoung this weekend to view Amish quilts. I will also view photography that is there (if any) and is also covered under the general admission. They are having a special exhibit of 19th century posed prints but I am not going to pay for the additional admission charge as it gets expensive for a large family. I would like to see them however.<br>

I have nothing against digital at all. I just do not want to buy a ticket to see it and have little interest in viewing it on the internet. Once you have seen a duck picture or an old man with a lot of wrinkles then it's just worn out for me. I shoot E-6 and a D200. I prefer the E-6 myself. As an avid hiker and cyclist I prefer the lighter 35mm camera and the replacement cost is low in case of accident. The D200 is very good in some situations especially when white balance is an issue such as stage photos when flash is not allowed or large family functions where people want to see the images right away on the LCD. I hope I answered your questions and good luck with your photography. I am going to bow out of this thread. Nothing else to say and I am tired of it.<br>

ross</p>

[Spearhead]

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<p>I am not sure why it bothers people that I enjoy B/W framed art.</p>

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<p>Who was bothered by it? It was your "head in the sand" approach to art that I see as problematic. I enjoy everything if it speaks to me. It's just impossible for me to say that materials science determines what speaks to me.<br>

<br /> I can give a simple analogy in music. I don't like country music. I don't choose to go out and pay to see country music. But sometimes when I'm channel surfing, I'll hear something on the country music station that really sings to me (pun partly intended.) Like it resonates. And then I'll listen for a while and get bored, but I'll never willingly choose NOT to listen to it when it's there. I even stopped for a bluegrass thing in Golden Gate Park last year and stayed over an hour. </p>

<p>I guess there are people with curious minds who are fascinated by things that speak to them and people who are interested only in material science. I'm not one of the latter, but I guess it's OK if others are.</p>

[KenPapai]

<p>Nice answer Jeff!<br>

(and dumb question once again from ............................................ false friend of all.... "rashed")</p>