Blend in, be anonymous...

[don_essedi]

@ Brad

 

Excellent photo

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Brad - "</strong>Not that it's important, but there's a bit of irony since I shoot with an iPhone"</p>

<p> You very recently were claiming to shoot a Canon body with a 35/1.4 L. Let' go look...here's the first search result:</p>

<p><strong>Brad</strong> - , Aug 03, 2011; 10:20 p.m.. </p>

<p>"I only use a 35mm f/1.4"</p>

<p>That was barely three months ago. So....amuse me, which time were you telling the truth? Or...wait...was that an attempt at humor? Yeah, the irony of it all.</p>

<p> I was not referring to Brad's photos earlier, but to his definitions. </p>

<p><br /><br>

_____________________________________________________</p>

<p>Don E., I am not getting the gist of what you mean by 'accuracy'. If I go by dictionaries/common usage, it is defined as the number of true positives in measurements, correctness, or precision (positive predictive values).</p>

<p>Leaving aside all broader implications, and assuming this is endemic to you, if we throw out objectivity and truth, what is left of accuracy, using the normal definition of the word? So I am left thinking that you must have your own definition of it. Can you elaborate?</p>

 

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[Brad_]

<center>

<img src= "http://citysnaps.net/2011%20photos/Brakes.jpg">

</center><P>

 

>>> That was barely three months ago. So....amuse me, which time were you telling the truth?

Or...wait...was that an attempt at humor? Yeah, the irony of it all.<P>

 

Jeez, Luis. Still grabbing at straws? And now you are questioning my honesty? I've been shooting with an iPhone

since August - I'd be glad to point you to three different iPhone photoessays I've done since then, if needed. Try harder. Post a street photo for discussion, even...<P>

 

And thank you Don!

[alan_zinn]

<p>I suppose a case could be made for restrictive photographic criteria and equipment to impose discipline. Try a Lomo variant. The Diana Dominatrix will keep you centered. <br>

Regarding the veracity of Wiki: It does exactly as it is intended. It isn't supposed to be The Big Brain. Encyclopedia sets "With FREE bookcase!" were comprised of thin essential facts and no error correcting.<br>

Pictures tell how someone saw the world at the time not how the world was. Virtually any photo (and photographer for that matter) is open to critical revision. Documentaries and edited photo books are the same.</p>

[don_essedi]

Luis: "Don E., I am not getting the gist of what you mean by 'accuracy'....Leaving aside all broader implications, and assuming this is endemic to you, if we throw out objectivity and truth, what is left of accuracy, using the normal definition of the word? So I am left thinking that you must have your own definition of it. Can you elaborate?"

 

You left out "purity".

 

In the context of street, "staging", and documentary...you wrote: "This is a basically anti-creative view as far as I can tell, though I am very interested in your take here, and know that you come from a heavy documentary angle, if I remember. I am sure you are aware that many of the original documentaries included set-up shots. Purity wasn't as big an issue at the beginning."

 

In the documentary genre of photojournalism, you recall Condeleeza Rice's devil eyes, or the person cloned out of the WH situation room photo? Those demonstrate inaccuracy; they have no documentary or historical value (except, of course, they document themselves and make their own history). But they are not "anti-creative".

 

By the same token, the faux street photographer, noting everyone wears brown hats, chats up a bystander or hires a model to walk past the forest green fence in a red hat because it makes a better composition. The striking contrast of deep green and ruby red is esthetically satisfying, unlike the muddy green and brown. That is art. But as documentary, it is inaccurate. Others can argue whether such things are also "street".

 

I'm aware of the "staging" that occurs in documentary, as demonstrated in documentary movies. I'll give points to Flaherty or Vertov for attempting accuracy in their staging. But a lot of so called documentary is propaganda (or, as preferred these days, "advocacy"). They aren't all old, either.

[Brad_]

<center>

<img src= "http://citysnaps.net/2011%20photos/Sean2.jpg">

</center><P>

 

>>> I suppose a case could be made for restrictive photographic criteria and equipment to impose

discipline. Try a Lomo variant. The Diana Dominatrix will keep you centered. <P>

 

I suppose, but that's not why I use one. It's because the images produced are good enough, and it's

always in my pocket.<P>

 

 

>>> Regarding the veracity of Wiki: It does exactly as it is intended. It isn't supposed to be The Big

Brain.<P>

 

Exactly! If my neighbor asks me what street photography is, I'll refer him to wiki. Rather than loaning

out all of my photo books that might be relevant on that subject. It gets close enough.

[Norma Desmond]

<p>But we're photographers here, trying to have serious discussions. To me, in this case, Wiki doesn't cut it. Someone mentioned Wiki's democratic value. Fine, PN ratings are also democratic. Don't have much use for them either.</p>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Don E.-</strong>, so 'accuracy' = literal interpretation of reality as mediated by a camera and selected and delineated by a photographer's decision-making (that meets your criteria)?</p>

<p>You're right about propaganda. It's been at the heart of documentary since day one.</p>

<p> Ok. Now what would the difference be between a photographer like yourself taking a straight picture, and Google's Street View's pictures? Which is more accurate? The latter has far less photographer influence/presence. Which do you think will be the more useful document to historians in the future and why?</p>

<p>You're right, old is a relative term. To a geologist or cosmologist, all of humanity's or the earth's existence is an eyeblink. To be accurate by your standards, I should have used a number. How about nearly ninety years? Is four generations old in human terms? Does a ninety year old person look anything but old? Geez.</p>

<p>How is culture documented? Does the demon-eyed picture of Condi not accurately serve as a document of the very real way she was perceived by many in the US and elsewhere at the time (and now)?I'm not asking whether it meets your personal criteria for documentary, but if it isn't possible it could serve a purpose?</p>

<p>_____________________________________________________</p>

<p>Alan, rigor vivis (combined with obsession) can and has resulted in some remarkable work, but most of the time the end result is all-too-familiar always-in-your face, boring, sententious, self-righteous & rigid pictures. Cameras are a lot more than pseudo-Sartan tools. They're signifiers, fashion, class identifiers, and more. The <em>name</em> of the Hipstamatic app is an overt example.<br>

______________________________________________________</p>

<p>Brad, I haven't looked at many of your pictures, and none since well before August.<br>

______________________________________________________</p>

<p> </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>The way I see what Don and Luis and Alan are talking about is a matter of degree. I don't think any photo is an accurate representation of what was the case. That's because I don't think there's a "what was the case" without the intervention of a perceiving body and a perspective. But there are clearly more and less accurate photos and accounts. What Don says is true. You clone a hat off someone in a scene, you are less accurate than you could have been. At the same time, though you may not clone anything, you can frame the shot so the entire person is not in the scene (intentionally or not) and that will affect the photo of "how the world was." There are more and less objective photographs, I think. But I also maintain a healthy skepticism about accuracy. I think accuracy can be better accessed by a variety of sources, from a variety of different perspectives, which build up a better case for "what was," though sometimes, as the movie <em>Rashoman</em> showed, the more sources the more confused the access to "reality."</p>

<p>I think the kind of truth I get from at least some kinds of staging is the kind that doesn't claim or pretend accuracy so it is not bound to fall short of the truth of exactly what was the case. It is the kind of photo that claims only to be what it is, not what the reality of something else was. On the other hand, staging that claims, in a documentary context, to have not been staged can be very problematic. When looking at any documentary photo, we do well to keep in mind that the photographer had a perspective and <em>used</em> the camera. That will always figure into the "accuracy" quotient (and remainder).</p>

[don_essedi]

Brad, I was about to post and was looking for a photo to illustrate a point when yours appeared, which does exactly that. The point concerns the difference between 'creation' and 'recognition'.

 

For example, one can create a composition. This is not normally doable in the organic flow of the "street". However, one can recognize transient compositions in the flow. This is why being quick is so important -- not to be 'sneaky' but to capture one's 'recognition'. I think your photo shows a complex composition. My guess is that if the app hadn't cropped to square, you would have in post.

 

I'm not often satisfied with my crowd shots in which five or more faces need to be well characterized or individualized, and in a good composition, for the photo to work. That's what I see in your iphone photo.<div></div>

[don_essedi]

This is a reply to both Fred and Luis.

 

Your questions and points, whatever their value or importance to you, are only of 'academic' interest to me. I mean they are made out of language. In my day to day of doing the work of documentary photography, they are irrelevant. They are not the serious issues confronted.

 

Regarding Google's Street View: This is worth highlighting -- GSV, as an entity making photographs, has no experience, intelligence, or capacity to recognize. It doesn't know what was there the last time it passed by juxtaposed to this time, nor any capacity to see what will be there the next time it passes.

 

You two have no place to go but to language-massaging the objectivity, purity, and truth tropes.

 

Think of something else.

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>You two have no place to go but to language-massaging the objectivity, purity, and truth tropes. Think of something else.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>A wee bit testy, are we?</p>

<p>Don, I thought we were having a good discussion. Some interesting points have been brought up, which the kind of forum I would prefer would address rather than belittle. I'm surprised you turned where you turned. I should have remembered. It seems you're quite comfortable giving your own opinions and talking about the kind of photography you like but not so open to others. Over and out.</p>

[don_essedi]

I'm not feeling a bit testy, Fred, but I am not going to re-invent the wheel about objectivity and documentary. What I wrote about GSV are the relevant issues that I deal with in documentary work: experience (with regard to the subject), intelligence (background of the subject, but also the previous documentary work done by others), the capacity to recognize (including recognizing one's own responses to the subject or the presenting scene), and a sense of time and place. They are all-determining down to the final crop.

 

So, it is "academic" to opine about objectivity, whether or not and to what degree a documentary photographer "stages" a shot, and whether the subjects are already and always "staging" themselves. It just doesn't matter.

 

From documentary and "street" photographers, expect to find a hesitation about "staging". We will eventually draw back from the direction you seem to take it. It appears a slippery slope to stagecraft, art direction, and ultimately movie-making -- whatever. But away from photography. It's just the way it is.

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>I'm not feeling a bit testy, Fred</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Well, then, perhaps some objectivity is in order. When you say . . .</p>

<blockquote>

<p>. . . You two have no place to go but to language-massaging the objectivity, purity, and truth tropes. Think of something else.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>. . . it comes off as testy, regardless of how you're feeling.</p>

<p>And a further foray into objectivity might tell you that your own oft-repeated tropes are no less tropes than anyone else's.</p>

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p> It appears a slippery slope to stagecraft, art direction, and ultimately movie-making...But away from photography. It's just the way it is.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I don't understand this, you seem to have re-defined the word "photography." It doesn't matter how the scene got there, if it started with some sort of exposure with some sort of camera-like device, it's a photograph. There is no definition anywhere that would accept your premise, that whether or not something is a "photograph" depends on how the scene in front of the device happened.</p>

<p>On to other things here. I don't believe that a street photographer has to be invisible or a non-participant. When I shoot on the street, I am as much a part of what is happening as anyone else on the street. I don't hit the streets just when I have a camera in my hand, I go out and behave exactly the same (Brad can confirm this) without a camera as I do with a camera. I interact with what is happening, sometimes as a spectator, sometimes as a participant. If I am a participant, that doesn't invalidate the concept of "street photography," it just happens to mean that what happened on the street involved one person who happened to be a photographer.<br>

<br />Here is an example. I apologize for the slightly muddy look due to my lack of scanning skills at the time. This is a photograph of a confrontation on the street in Fes. It is a confrontation between a group of young men barbecuing sheep heads and feet on a bedspring in the street and a photographer and his guide. This just unfolded on the street. If there had been no confrontation, this could have been a rather mundane documentary photo, complete with backs of heads, of one of the aspects of Eid al-Adha. Instead, it's a photo of a confrontation that I find much more interesting.<p><center>

<img src="http://spirer.com/images/fete.jpg" alt="" width="580" height="478" /><br>

<em>La Fete, Copyright 1999 Jeff Spirer</em></center></p>

<p>On to staging...There is a history of staged street and documentary photos. Sometimes, they are more accurate than the photo the photographer would have achieved at the time due to the shooting circumstances. A photo of a truck passing by a scene as it unfolds is not going to be a very "accurate" photo of the scene. I staged a street photo, it was something I had seen from a bus in Mexico. I had seen a photograph of something similar in a book by a famous Sicilian photographer, once head of Magnum. I re-created it in the United States, with props I bought at a Mexican shop, found a model who happened to be Burmese but could be taken for Mexican in a photo, helped her select the appropriate clothing, and used a location I had found that would work. Nobody questions it, it's been in several shows and my portfolio forever (most believe it was taken in Mexico) - I believe because it has something to say. It doesn't matter how it got there, it documents a specific activity that is real. I</p>

 

 

 

 

<h3></h3>

[KenPapai]

<p>>> ....the native aspect ratio is rectangular, though I don't remember what the ratio is. The app that I shoot from produces square images.</p>

<p>All squares are rectangles. Just a special type. </p>

[Sanford]

<p>Perhaps in general Ken, but I think that where photography is concerned square is always meant to mean the same dimension on all sides while rectangular refers to anything other than square - in photography anyway.</p>

[don_essedi]

Jeff: "I don't understand this, you seem to have re-defined the word "photography." It doesn't matter how the scene got there, if it started with some sort of exposure with some sort of camera-like device, it's a photograph. There is no definition anywhere that would accept your premise, that whether or not something is a "photograph" depends on how the scene in front of the device happened."

 

If you consider stagecraft, art direction, and movie-making to be photography, then I don't understand you. They might be useful skills to have for one's photography, but they aren't themselves photography.

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p>If you consider stagecraft, art direction, and movie-making to be photography, then I don't understand you.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>They can be just as integral as setting up lighting. That apparently isn't part of photography in your definition either, but I often have to do it, in the same way I have to direct people into situations.</p>

[alan_zinn]

<p><em>Faces in the crowd</em> is a fine piece of work alright! It has what I call photographic integrity plus it engages the viewer. I'd hang it on my wall.</p>

[don_essedi]

"That apparently isn't part of photography in your definition either..."

 

 

What definition? If you need an opportunity for your usual rant against "definitions", You are off target with me, here, as I haven't offered any definition. I never referred to anything as not being a photograph just because a makeup artist was integral to the shot or whatever. Discussing makeup, though, is not discussing photography. Discussing makeup for a photographic purpose would be discussing photography. Discussing "staging" is not. Discussing "staging" for a photographic purpose would be discussing photography. Discussing "objectivity", "purity", "documentary", "street" in an academic way is barely discussing photography -- after awhile, I'd like to see some photos illustrating these "definitions", rather than constant wordplay.

[don_essedi]

Jeff, the issue here hasn't been photography, but street photography. The issue of "staging" was raised. I don't have a dog in that race because I don't consider myself a street photographer. But here on photo.net, street and documentary are lumped together, and I assume street photographers here are okay with that. It's the issue of documentary I'm referring to. You may find acts of definition going on, but I read exploration of meanings. 'Documentary' means something. From what I gather most here who consider it important have issues with "staging". So, the issue isn't whether something is photography or not, but whether it is documentary photography.

[joshroot]

<p>Hi Folks,</p>

<p>Play nice or find another sandbox please. Attacking a person is not a suitable substitute for debating an idea.</p>

<p>-The Evil Overlord of Photonetkistan</p>

[Julie H]

<p>My impression of what Don is trying to get at (and I may well be wrong) is that he tries to get photographs with a clean "why? because ... " -- by which I mean that he would like to, as much as possible, let everything that is in his pictures be there <em>for its own reasons</em>.</p>

<p>If everything in a painting is there because the painter put it there to fill up the originally blank canvas, and a viewer would naturally always be aware of that "why? because ... " ingredient originating in the painter ... if you take that to the opposite extreme, you might, if you liked (I am in no way shape or form saying this is desirable or better or good or necessary) strive to have all of the "why? because ... " in a photograph be, as nearly as possible (thus the striving) from (explainable purely by means of) the content (animate or inanimate). Not because of the photographer.</p>

<p>So a viewer could look at the picture, ponder the picture, relate to the picture only in terms of its content -- without any "contamination" by/from Don.</p>

[luis_g]

<p>It seems to me that everything in the frame is there because the photographer chose to include it. All of the choices involved remain present, whether the viewer realizes it or not. Don claims to want to minimize the photographer, but what it looks like from here is that the minimization is to a level he deems acceptable for the genre, i.e., what <em>he </em>does.</p>

<p>These decisions affect what we can see in a photograph and certainly the way it looks (POV, framing, lighting, materials, post-processing, style, etc.). Pictures are inevitably 'contaminated' by their creators. A viewer can disregard that, but it's there. Content, among many other things is determined by the photographer.<br /> This is why I think (providing it is archived and made available in the future) GSV is going to be a far richer database to mine for future academicians and history buffs (the people of the future that documentary work is made for). If the minimization of the photographer matters, then GSV has no equal. It can show us right now far more than all the documentary photographers that ever lived have shown us to date. It does so without personal vision/bias, design, timing, composition, ego, personal agendas, philosophies, and all the other things a photographer brings in. Through it we will know far more than the usual rigid style of so many documentarians, and their (often bizarre) ideas of what will be "important" to academicians in the future.</p>

<p>Having said all that, the real value of documentary photography, in my opinion, will precisely be the contamination by the photographer. And the fact that future academicians, hell, undergrads, will certainly Google Don E and read this thread and find out who he was, what he thought, thus where the 'contamination' comes from while analyzing his prints. We can't do that with so many earlier documentarians. </p>

<p> </p>