jonathancharlesphoto

<p>I think you raise an interesting issue: is photography an expressive act of creativity or a sport with winners and losers? I'm afraid it's in some people's nature to feel competitive about any activity so they will apply that to art and photography as well (and even to comments in philosophy forums!).</p>

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<p>IMHO the major advantage of amateur photography is that you do <strong>not</strong> have to compete with anyone for the next commission. Obviously there is an effective competition for exhibition showing where there is selection by someone else - the answer is an artist-selected or one-man show.</p>

 

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<p>dozens of new photography contests have arisen</p>

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<p>I think many of these are mainly money-raising events - enough entrants paying $15 per photo will pay the prize costs and leave a healthy profit. They pander to people wanting their "15 minutes of fame".</p>

<p>I would suggest you carry on with your own chosen style and try to get it to a wide audience if you value feedback - but bear in mind that most non-photographers are more interested in the subject of the photo than the picture itself.</p>

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<p>I think it is helpful, when replacing a photo, to add a comment explaining the change and including the old version, as I did <a href="../photo/479460">here</a> and <a href="../photo/385444">here</a>. This avoids the potential confusion that David and Bob pointed out concerning previous comments and it may be interesting to see the development of the image.</p>

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<p>You raise a very important issue. We can learn (at least) 3 things from looking at other people's work:<br>

- Artistic ideas or directions<br>

- New or refined techniques, and techniques that have been "done to death" (<em>eg</em> selectve de-saturation)<br>

- Other people's responses to different subjects and treatments (<em>ie</em> what <strong>works</strong> in terms of popularity)<br>

The danger is that we may be subconsciously constrained by what we see and lose our originality and freshness of vision.<br>

The solution that works for me is to do it in "splurges", eg spending an evening or two looking at stuff (and commenting) and then leaving several days or even weeks to free my imagination and take or print some more pics. Sometimes something I have seen gives me an answer to a problem I have got stuck with on one of my photos so I redo that straight away but even then, if I come back to it a few days later I can often think of a slightly better (or at least, more original) way to do it.<br>

I guess it's a balance you have to choose for yourself but I would suggest keeping the spectator role reasonably limited.</p>

<p>Bill P said:</p>

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<p>You're making that distinction, not me.</p>

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<p>If you don't think there's any distinction between art and craft there doesn't seem much point in your using the word "art" at all - which solves your problem of finding a meaning for it.</p>

<p>Well I'm afraid your description of art is what most people mean by craft. Of course you can use a word as you like but it seems a pity to waste two words on the same thing and then have no word to describe what most people consider as art, which I understand to be along the lines of what I suggested earlier.</p>

<p>I'm not clear if you want to understand other people's ideas or just want to sell Warhol's/your job-done-well definition. You have repeated what you think but you have not said what <strong>you</strong> consider to be unique to the meaning of the word "art" that is not described by <em>eg</em> "craft".</p>

<p>Like I said, that's just how I see it. And I think the "man (or woman) in the street" would understand the word to mean more than just a job done well. </p>

<p>The "pleasing photograph" could just be a competent record of a pleasing scene (eg sunset / baby / flower / pretty model) or it could bring something creative of the photographer to the viewer which generally makes it more interesting - in this case the photo would be art (IMHO).</p>

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<p>Obviously you <em>can</em> say art is everything you do well, or everything you like doing, or is a totally meaningless concept - but that is not very useful. So c'mon folks, if you do have any <em>real</em> meaning for the word why not say what you actually understand by it. There's no point saying it's just the same as something else: so it can't mean just activity, it can't mean craft, it can't mean cooking and it can't mean making money.</p>

<p>It has to be something along the lines of: <strong>creating something, a physical object or experience, that attempts to represent an abstract or emotional idea of the artist and potentially communicate it to someone else</strong> .</p>

<p>Well, that's the best I can do. How about some other (meaningful) attempts.</p>

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<p>I doubt if the concept of empathy for an object is meaningful - the object itself doesn't have any mind to understand. So empathy has to be between two people. But it doesn't have to be mutual.</p>

<p>A viewer can (attempt to) achieve empathy with an artist via the art-work. The artist, however, usually does not know who the viewer will be and so there can be no specific empathy the other way. The best the artist can achieve is a kind of generic empathy with a chosen category of people - generally like-minded folk but sometimes targeted to a particular different group (especially with propaganda & advertising).</p>

<p>This seemingly difficult task is made a lot easier by Jung's "collective subconscious" which ensures there are multi-layered links between the way people think and feel even without much effort on the part of the artist.</p>

<p>For fashion / portrait work you should consider a Fuji S5 Pro or a secondhand S3 Pro (which I currently use). They take Nikon lenses and would leave enough of you budget to get a couple of these (eg the 12-24 & 24-120mm zooms). They (uniquely) have a high dynamic range sensor and so handle high contrast lighting extremely well. Check out the reviews.</p>

<p>I understand empathy to be the alignment of your own mind with another's - at least in some aspect, usually emotional but sometimes relating to abstract designs or ideas (BTW "affective response" in statement 3 means specifically an emotional response, not just "<strong>affecting</strong> the viewer" in some way, which would be "effective").</p>

<p>For me, photography and art in general absolutely depends on empathy: as a viewer we can only find an image engaging if it relates to something already inside our own mind, conscious or subconscious - this is much more likely if it relates to something in the artist's mind. So, for the art to work, there has to be some connection between the image and the minds of both the artist and viewer - even though we may have radically different points of view. </p>

<p>Appreciating a work of art is an active process of seeking empathy with the artist. In creating the work the artist doesn't necessarily have to have empathy with the individual viewer (who is usually unknown) but it probably helps if the artist has a sense of empathy with humanity in general. </p>

<p>As Stephen says it is quite a different matter whether there is empathy between the artist and the subject of a portrait though I think it usually helps here as well.</p>

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Using a chain saw in a way that I am sure is contrary to instructions!<div></div>

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