hatley

<i>"This is a brave photographer who should be applauded for making us think. The road he has taken is an extreme and brutal one and he should not be chased from this site...."</i>

<br><br>

I guess I must have missed the torches and pitchforks, but I did skim the comments on his image. I think its an alteration, and its one of those rare examples of art on photo.net in my view. This thread is the most obvious evidence. It should stand as inspiration to folks looking to do more than make snapshots, whatever your end view of the message.

<br><br>

Thanks for posting a link to the image - would be nice to see this as POW. Spread the energy.

Any photographers up close to the action I bet already had to have credentials, and completely police the crowds? Maybe. What I don't hear in any of the articles I found about this is a documented case that drove the original ruling. If there is a documented case at these events, my view might change - but in absence of that it sounds a bit like fearmongering to me. I mean, can you see some old lady scouting the crowd for "suspicious" types? So subjective, and it turns those sort of volunteers into paranoid morality police. That nice old lady talks to her rotary club, they nod knowingly and then on the street when a photog turns their camera to a child they think bad things automatically. *shrug

 

PR stunt is what it is imo, and it worked very well. I wouldn't go as far as Orwell, but I will say if there are parents that truly had concerns and there were no granular related cases then the onus of policing the crowd falls on them, not society as a whole. Just my take, but I'm extremly cautious about any social movement that takes us even a small step towards the sort of "cover your women head to foot" ideas of how we should behave in public towards our neighbor. Paranoia is the enemy, not just bad people.

I'm extremely interested in blur as art. I too got hooked on it after a lot of IR stuff and recently bought some opaque filters for tinkering without IR and adding motion midday but haven't been out to work with it yet.

 

Here on photo.net in the W/NW section of the Street Photography forum there are a lot of bright folks making beautiful images using motion and contrast combined with a break all the compositional rules that is sometimes very inspiring in this way. Some of the stuff really highlighted to me how important and neglected blur, total black, and total white can be.

 

In my view though blur for blur's sake is somewhat meh. It has to be a valid element, for a reason, and it more often than not detracts from the image than not. It has to be used just so to improve the image I guess is what I'm getting at, and I think there is room for new stuff with it that hasn't been thought of (or hammered to death) yet.

To me the reason why religion muddies the waters of these sort of conversations is what is in reality discussed is traditions, or its effects. Its very rarely metaphysics, both because doctrine often prescribes rigid ideas about it, and because party politics (its leaders) have drawn imaginary lines in the sand that it is hard not to have strong feelings about a block of issues. It doesn't mean I don't enjoy the lessons of Christ, the Buddha, or the Bhagavad Gita (etc) - its just that I come here for all of your views, I can read theirs more directly. But thats a tangent maybe for another thead =)

 

As for what came first, art or pornography, art did I believe. Per wikipedia (I know, not exactly a primary source), in the western world the idea and treatment of pornography came about in the Victorian era when the Roman art of Pompeii was excavated. I'm quite sure there were other spots in history many times over many hundreds of years before where leaders deemed this or that unacceptable, but surely the idea of art came first when using pornography applied to art. Someone had to see something inappropriate to deem it to be so would be my line of reasoning.

 

Cheers.

There will always be a group of people that believe what you call pornography is not, and within that group a subgroup that don't think anything else besides that example is art. Let alone what a fundamentalist in a third world country might deem pornography. Relativism everywhere you look ;) In order to make anything stick you'll wind up qualifying it.

 

Art is just too fluid a word to use as a lever for an attack on pornography. I think that trying to sublimate that line from aesthetic theory you'll wind up with an excercise in rhetoric that convinces few here. But I'd read what you write.

Mod, please remove my last comment - didn't mean to be so flippant, cocktails!

<i>He must have been a very insecure.</i><br><br>

His own apologist, round about. About the same category as Ayn Rand, from a very different direction - interesting for their wack, but follow em? Hehe.

The Cave of Lascaux was painted about 30,000 years ago and was nature based, as was much early art I thought? I guess you could contrive this stuff to be documentary, but art history studies it as art no? And much of asian art has been nature based for thousands of years, much coming from monks that lived on the very edge of civilization where their day to day substenance was in question.

 

I think it is not enough to read Thoreau or his contemporaries (or ours who were influenced by them), since Walden is in reality a place and not just an ideal to measure the civlized world against with distaste. We have to experience our own Waldens, and then with the refreshed view see civilization for its positive things and then build upon those with purpose. Missing that physical experience all you'll find is cynicism rather than the heart of the trancendentalist movement - which was very positive in nature. And its that movement that I think is really being bent around here myself.

Maybe I am missing the main point, or several points - but in my view, sex is only one part of human existance and I'm not overmuch interested in it as a focus of art. Its plastered all over our media, and so seems a bit cliche to me. This coming from a relatively young person who loves sex, and I'm a pretty dominant fella. I am much, much more interested in the intellectual, contemplative side of the coin - and I just don't accept that our primal drive to copulate overrides that of hunger or need of sleep, and I certainly reject that male sexuality is the core of art.

 

That doesn't mean I don't appreciate the work of others that see things in a different way, or express themselves much better than I ever could by connecting to that part of themselves. I just think that hunger, sleep, illness, triumph (sports, etc), and most of all wonder trumps the approach personally.

 

I also think that dissatisfaction with society is a bit of a tired subject, its been done by genius before - many, many times. That doesn't mean I *like* the state of society, from a whole lot of directions, its just that it doesn't feel terribly ground shaking.

If I made a commitment to shoot a certain game come hell or high water, then of course I would cover it. No offense, but remember that in most cases the folks on here are thinking adults and can reason their way through that.<br><br>

 

The bottom line is, by the prices thrown around, that the OP is likely getting fairly good compensation for his first pro gig. If dude gets a fever and a monsoon comes around, I'm sure that will be a bad day if his organization has noone else to send, thats the ropes. That pretty much applies to any job that is outside where you use your own gear.<br><br>

 

<i>I'm not trying to dim your enthusiasm for what you are doing. </i><br><br>

*chuckle* Of course not =) Honestly though its why I like not having to do this for a living, I might start seeing it as a poorly paid job rather than as you say, a subsidy for an expensive hobby. Especially since in two games I've seen two bigger time pros get nailed with footballs, on in the chest and one in the face. I'm not nearly that hardcore. *grin<br><br>

 

Anyway, sorry to spam the thread.

Your points are very good and well taken though, I'm sure I'd have that exact perspective if my main source of income was this. And may well anyway after a season, I definitely am a newbie at this stuff.

Not at all mate, I'm coming at this from the perspective of having a day job and so can pass on those crappy days and noone would lose a terrible ammount. I definitely wouldn't be in a position of being forced to take my gear into the rain. Hopefully the OP's position is similar. I just assumed that a first timer either would be, or if not need to build a portfolio badly enough that $17 an hour wasn't horrible.

 

How much do *you* get paid to cover a high school football game, is probably more to the point. If I turn $50-$100 per entire game (counting driving between games at half time as one entire game), I'm happy. Thats at $50 a photo sold to a tiny newsrag for HS games. Once a person has done a season or three (and has striking consitency, long fast glass etc) it seems reasonable to say $100 a photo, but is that realistic for HS football? I hope it is =)

The addage "you dislike in others what dislike most about yourself" I think applies very strongly here, as well as the idea that what you put into the world often seems to be the very thing you see everywhere. That has a lot to do I would like to think with the comments I made about Wegman, and perception in general in my view.

 

Anyway.

<i>"If it helps, I'm good with your hate. About a week ago, I came to realize (an epiphany) how full of hate the world is and no matter what door I open, there's going be somebody there hating me so I came to be at peace with this point as it seemed important to do so."</i><br><br>

 

Thats strange, since four or five days ago you said something similar to this to me. I think maybe you might mistake passionate arguments for hatred - since I'm not sure where you got that vibe from then or now. Either that or you might be buying into a current political spin on the american minority party (its standard stuff for the majority party to paint the minority party as obstructionists this way all through history), and using percieved elitism as the hook. Don't buy this stuff mate, sometimes people just have a different view. It doesn't mean they think they are better than you or hate you, but in a serious conversation they may believe what they say and argue the point. Thats what philosophy is all about really, good intellectual debate/conversation.

 

Cheers.

Just go for it. I am in an very similar situation, a buddy of mine started a newspaper and needed someone to do high school football on Friday and Saturday nights. Yves gives good advice - especially the monopod, get one. I've been to two events so far - a shot from the second event, made with random tips picked up in this forum:<br><br>

<center><img src="http://hatley.org/images/second.jpg"></center><br><br>

Still has a good ways to go, but I'm happy with the progress. At the end of the day, getting paid to be on the sidelines of a game is beating the system, just do it and have fun. Don't sweat the people you see with crazy glass, just do your thing and enjoy it. Cheers mate.

*widely

Robert, I know a bunch of people that do just that. And educated people...one lady on my homeowner's board is a retired elementary school principal and won't even give the other directors her email in a genuine fear that she will wind up being physically attacked. A well read, sweet lady she is too. I'm not saying that there aren't viable, serious concerns out there - but the middle of the road is very, very far from that example extreme =) And name/contact info is so widly available and widly pooled (hardware registrations, software purchases, you name it) that it seems pretty low risk if things like socials and the like aren't a part of the equation.

If you don't have homeowners/renters insurance but thousands in cameras you might want to look into it. Not because an internet stalker will come eat you, but for real things like fires, storms, floods, or the idiot neighbor kid who manages to break something. And some of that stuff needs supplementals, but seriously.

 

Don't really know what the big deal is about privacy in this case. It has been a while since I registered, but I don't remember being asked for social security numbers or the like - just plain contact information that google is already on top of (try searching for your name and city).

 

Some folks probably are a little concerned that someone might google their name and navigate down and read their postings. To that I say good, people should post as if they would converse in person. It will increase the signal and decrease the noise in my view. I mean, really - there are plenty (thousands and thousands) of places to chill online anonymously. Places where sock puppets reign and where half the threads would be embarassing to be read by the poster's children or coworkers.

 

But photo.net has never been that sorta place, so the only change is a step towards codifying it, which differentiates the service, etc. And at least in firefox, its ctrl-tab to switch between sites if anonymous chatter is something you like doing at the same time as learning photography. I don't mean that sarcastically, I'm just saying - photo.net is a serious site, let it be serious, it doesn't have to be all things.

I personally believe 90% or so of everything we are is learned. Wit, snap - some of it is natural, sure...but that can be cultivated as well especially early on. But having complex "intrinsic" traits seems illogical to me, we are all born helpless idiots. Only by nurturing and stimuli do we even mumble anything beyond a grunt or realize color means anything. And sure, I quite agree some people are more sensitive to their surroundings and can feel the rhythm of life better than others...but I personally think that is because of the books they have read, the surroundings they have been a part of (mistreated, nurtured - both?), lots of things mixed together to create that outlook on life. Caravaggio could have been just as splendid an architect or ruler as a painter, had he had different experiences. Just my take.

To me its more what lends itself to color, as I prefer black and white or duotone as a medium in general. Flowers, insects, sunrise/sunset lighting, firefighters, grass, cuddly mammals, that sort of thing in my view fit color. But my personal approach is that unless the photograph strongly benefits from color, I don't use it. I shoot velvia and scan or shoot digital nefs, then convert to black and white so I have channels to work with.

<i>I enjoy photographing the 1st, the amazing, & the most bizarre medical cases as well as working with docs on the <b>cutting edge</b> of medical science.</i><br><br>

 

Now I'm thinking scalpels and things. And it has me thinking a room full of macro grass might be comforting for folks that feel as uneasy around that sort of stuff as I do. It is definitely more original than more flowers or mountains. Assuming this is a place that has patients and not just researchers, or that even researchers need a place to breathe. Prolly the choice of grass more about creating a space of comfort/zen than of reflection and questioning. Just a thought.

<i>I think your only hope is to suggest they change the exhibition every year "to keep it fresh" and offer to help select next year's photos - you may find it more difficult than you think (and be assured someone will say your choice is rubbish).</i><br><br>

 

I agree with this approach. Also agree that agreeing on art in a committee is very, very painful. Its even (marginally) worse than choosing a company name and logo where people get a vote. I mean, just terrible. God help you if you have to work with the people after a month or so of that crap, its bloody revealing! Utterly impossible not to eventually have a good knock down drag out over religon and politics during it, at least I found.

Well, since Mark Plonsky commented on your photograph, I'll mention my reason even though you have recieved many responses. Back when I first joined photo.net I was (and am still) amazed by <a href="http://www.photo.net/photos/mplonsky">Mark's photos</a>. One day he dropped a positive comment on <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/1618655">this photo</a> and I walked around on cloud nine for days, weeks even. My photog friends shared a beer with me and we talked of being "Plonskied". It meant so much to me that I credit that comment for sticking with photography beyond the first few months.<br><br>

Moral of my story is, when someone you respect gives you some real advice that helps you (even if its hard), or gives you praise it makes all the other stuff meaningless. Its the beauty of this place, finding like minds and inspiration.

<i>Its not that its about me, but that my life is sort of caught up in the same transitional issues. I think one thing I like to try to do to break myself out of this rather bleak and depressive mindset is to try to look at things and forget their names. </i><br><br>

Something I think about is the fact that most folks interested in this sort of stuff already often have a rather cynical and bleak view of some of the stuff that gets to all of us, consumerism, fundamentalism, loss off culture, all of it. Really now, the demographic of folks taking and consuming SP are likely to be pretty aligned that way is my guess. So regurgitating that view to them will likely have resonance - but will it change anything, or shake the ground? Don't know. I see a lot of stuff when reading the history of photography that appears today, even some of the stuff on here I love the most. What will be the next movement? Something with "neo" in front of it at this rate. A new spin on something some old farts in the 20s did. Pah. Something from our own time is what we need, and I think we live in a time where most of us are angsted out. Gen X must yield to Gen Y at some point.<br><br>

 

<i>Its a process in which you might ask yourself, how would I describe this thing in front of me if I were seeing if for the first time, and have no knowledge of its function. Sometimes, this can transform the mundane into the magical, somtimes.</i><br><br>

I'd take this a step laterally mebbe - how would you feel about the stuff all around you if you were coming into an urban setting for the first time? Spending time in tiny towns makes you notice different stuff when in the middle of the sprawl, in my experience. I grew up in a small bordertown, and so I tend to be at least as interested in the buildings as the people for one example. I think it does a lot for allowing your soul to breathe here and there too to get away from the sprawl and do some SP in a place where a scooter is an upper middle class luxury.<br><br>

 

<i>Its an endless topic and I never get satisfying answers. But I sure waste time thinking about it.</i><br><br>Thinking == good =)

*grin

 

There is no doubt at all my view is simplistic and provincial, I formed it without reading any critics and used a sad foundation in art history. I will however quote Wilde in defense of taking a simple view: ﾓThe critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.ﾔ I think if we let the critic educate us too much, even frankly if they are right sometimes where we get it wrong, that it might make our views a touch homogeneous and as stagnant as the field of philosophy currently is (buried in epistemology).

 

Very interested in other interpretations, don't read this to say I think I'm right - I just ramble =)