vince_smith2

<p>I don't want to hijack this thread, but I'll add one more thing about the Tolstoy art essay involving an interesting personal reaction. <br /> To illustrate how the artist communicates, Tolstoy included a sentence about a boy who experienced fear upon seeing a wolf in the forest. He described the feelings transmitted by the boy when the boy recounted the experience to other people from his village. Tolstoy used it as a very basic example of how artists communicate. Here's the part I found interesting. As I was reading the sentence Tolstoy wrote about the boy's encounter with the wolf and the fear the boy felt upon seeing the wolf move near him, my heartbeat quickened slightly and my breathing changed. I'm not an author. If I wrote a full story about a boy encountering a wolf in the forest, I doubt that anyone reading it would feel anything. Tolstoy wrote a single sentence that was meant to communicate an intellectual point and I needed to increase my blood pressure meds. <br /> The wolf story leaves very little for the audience to interpret, so it's easy to understand the shared experience of that story (as told by an accomplished author like Tolstoy) and how the experience "destroys the separation" between artist and audience. We all feel anxious at times. How do I know that I'm not alone in my response to a dangerous situation? Other people are able to share their experiences, whether they are actual experiences or imagined experiences, in a way that causes me to re-live the feelings I've felt before. I have no doubt that what I'm feeling is not identical to what they're feeling, but I understand them and they understand me. When art is open to wide interpretation and there is little or nothing of a shared experience, my reaction is different as is my connection to the artist. I don't mean to imply that it's an empty experience, just different.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I read a great quote by Leo Tolstoy on this topic:<br>

"The receiver of a true artistic impression is so united to the artist that he feels as if the work were his own and not someone else's - as if what it expresses were just what he had long been wishing to express. A real work of art destroys, in the consciousness of the receiver, the separation between himself and the artist - not that alone, but also between himself and all whose minds receive this work of art. In this freeing of our personality from its separation and isolation, in this uniting of it with others, lies the chief characteristic and the great attractive force of art."<br>

I really like the idea Tolstoy puts forth that there is a connection not just between the artist and an individual viewer, but between everyone who experiences the work. Also, there's an important distinction between what you learn about the artist through knowledge of facts about their life and what you learn by experiencing their art.</p>

<p ><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=199804">Rizwan Abbasi</a> , Jun 15, 2010; 12:31 a.m.<br>

<em>I think now its time to create two groups. 1) Photography: No manipulation is permitted - as Richard Snow mentioned - other than basic color correction, cropping, sharpening, and softening. The message and the essence of the photography must be there. 2) Artography: Sky is the limit. Do whatever you want. Make it as per your fantasy.</em></p>

<p>Forgive me if someone has mentioned this. I didn't read every post. Regarding the two terms listed in Rizwan's suggestion, one of them, "photography", is already taken. It is used in a lot of ways as evidenced by this thread and every photography discussion on the internet and elsewhere. Creating two terms would be more appropriate and fair, say "artography" and "pure-ography". That way people can use "photography" the same way they've always used it, which is to say, a lot of different ways.</p>

<p> <em><br /></em></p>

<p>Alfred, let me explain a little better. Certainly physical attractiveness is subjective. I simply meant that you can have two photographs that are the same composition, lighting, focus, etc. but with different subjects. One photo may illicit no reaction at all from a specific viewer and the other photo may create a very strong reaction from the same viewer. He/she may be flooded with thoughts and emotions almost exclusively due to the subject. I used the term "good" in a loose way to describe that impact. I was only trying to say that the impact can be drastically increased based on the subject alone.<br>

In your model/Ferrari example, I agree with you that the model doesn't affect the photograph's quality if you are talking about an assessment of the technical quality. However, I'm talking about emotional impact. My language wasn't clear in my first post so I understand how you misinterpreted what I was trying to say. At least I think that's the issue here.<br>

Also to be clear, when I said an attractive model can make a good photo bad, I meant that if you create a photo that tells a story about death and destruction and I am totally taken with a beautiful woman in the photo, that might distract me from your message. Having a beautiful woman in the photo might also intensify the message. It depends on the photo, the woman, and me (the viewer). Of course this whole topic could apply to any photographic subject matter, but the one presented by the OP illustrates the issue well.</p>

 

<p>In my opinion, physically attractive subjects do make bad photos good. They don't affect the photographic work, but Mother Nature is a better artist than any photographer, and her work can shine through regardless of the photographer.<br>

Physically attractive subjects can also make good photos worse. Their beauty can distract from the photographer's message.</p>

 

<p>Thanks to Fred for giving the interview and John for posting the link. I really enjoyed the discussion.</p>

<p>"<em>If you can support the presence of great and continuous artistic creation in photography by examples, or, unlike me, name a photographer who has become a great artist (one who has communicated the essence of life, its beauty and its ugly aspects, and in an unexpected and ground-breaking manner), perhaps also (and necessarily) having suffered in their pursuits like Van Gogjh and Munch, then I may be convinced (and perhaps others who read this forum) that photography can create great and highly sensitive artists.</em> "</p>

<p>I think of Diane Arbus in those terms to some degree.</p>

<p>Thomas,<br>

Great points. In the writing from which I took that Tolstoy quote he talks about "similar states of mind" between the artist and the person viewing the art and discusses common occasions where feelings are shared like when one person laughs and another joins in or one person weeps and another feels sorrow. I agree that the quote taken out of context doesn't convey the fact that art may evoke similar feelings, but each person brings their own point of view into the equation. Also, that was very clever using the cartoon to illustrate your point as well.</p>

<p>There have been many great answers so far- a lot of talk about how nobody has the answers, that things change constantly, that you need to go with your instincts and have a sense of humor. I was watching a cartoon the other night that summed up all of those things perfectly. I think most of my philosophy is based on cartoons. </p>

<p>The sounds of military helicopters could be heard approaching a town. The people in the town ran out into the streets pannicked at their impending doom. The scene panned in closer to a street with a church next to a bar. The people in the church ran out of it yelling and screaming and headed directly into the bar. At the same time, the people from the bar ran screaming past those people directly into the church.</p>

<p>That sums up my philosophy brilliantly, at least for today. Tomorrow, however, you might catch me running into a church. I'm in a bar right now. :)</p>

<p>Vince</p>

<p>"The activity of art is based on the fact that a man, receiving through his sense of hearing or sight another man's expression of feeling, is capable of experiencing the emotion which moved the man who expressed it." - Tolstoy</p>

<p> </p>

<p><em>"what should my topic be if I I need to solve my mysteries of life"</em><br>

Your family.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"<em>what we will capture is NOT a single moment, it is actually a kind of a short movie or the sequence of infinite moments that our eyes and thoughts cannot reach!</em> "</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>What we capture is NOT a short movie either. The short movie analogy is still infinitely inaccurate because each frame of a movie is a static image containing infinite moments. Actually, that's true for all sight due to the limits of the human visual processing system. I guess that just further supports the second part of your statement, that our eyes and thoughts cannot reach the reality.</p>

<p>Others have tackled the philosophical part of the discussion very well. I just wanted to point out this one issue I noticed with the premise.</p>

<p>For me, a photograph is always an answer, and all my photographs are answers to the same question: "What does X feel like to you?", where X can be love, hatred, sorrow, fear, etc. or combinations of complex emotions. Even if the image raises a lot of questions, my purpose for taking the photo is to share an<em> </em> answer. For example, an image of people fighting might raise important questions like:<br>

"Why do people do this type of thing to each other?"<br>

"Will it ever stop?"<br>

"What does this behavior say about our future given our ever increasing ability to harm each other?" <br>

Fundamentally however, a photo of people fighting is my answer to the question, "What do hatred and violence feel like to you?"</p>

<p>When new technology is released, I can't wait to read about it. When I have a new camera in my hands, I can't wait to take it for a test drive. I enjoy the science behind lenses, sensors, and even storage cards. It's also useful and fun to think about what the latest technology is capable of creating artistically. When it comes to pressing the shutter, it's about the subject, not the camera. The camera can affect my mood slightly and thus inadvertantly affect the image, but at that point in time, it's primarily a means to an end.<br>

It's an interesting question and I look forward to reading what the more experienced photographers have to say.</p>

<p><em>"it is difficult to live in the moment in the presence of constant fussing, diaper changing, etc."</em> <br /> I don't understand that statement. If you are annoyed, frustrated, or whatever emotion you are feeling, why can't you be "in the moment" when it's not a pleasant moment? Let those emotions inform your photography. If you are too busy with the baby to pick up the camera, that's an issue with only having two hands and is not about a failure to be in the moment.<br /> <em>"does photography necessarily cause the photographer to live in the moment"</em> <br /> The act of taking a photograph does not inherently require you to be "in the moment" in any significant way, not any more than you're "in the moment" when you're just killing time. You could be taking a picture of a dent in your car for the insurance company. However, to communicate to others through your art, you need to feel it sincerly.</p>

Jen,

 

"Subject: Has technology changed the way we think about, and take photographs, particularly the family

photograph? "

 

I'm kind of surprised at the responses you've gotten so far. Many of the people who post on this forum are pretty

serious about photography, but doesn't everyone know people who start firing off snapshots of their family when the

tiniest occassion arises only to have all of those pixels disappear into a black hole? The topic of "family

photographs" was mentioned in the subject line as the main focus of the discussion. In my experience, that premise

is correct.

 

"I feel that with the advancements in technology we have lost appreciation for the photograph..."

 

In addition to what others have said, one obvious point is that photographs are now free (yes, that is due to advances

in technology). Anyone with a finger can crank them out by the thousands. It's kind of like saying we've lost

appreciation for the penny. Okay, maybe that's a bad analogy given the current state of the economy. ;-) However,

the greats today are still greatly appreciated.

 

"Do we spend more time taking photographs to prove we were at a certain place than actually experiencing it?"

 

Now that just about everyone has access to a camera, it's worth noting that a certain percentage of casual

photographers use the camera as an excuse to avoid experiencing events, particularly family functions. I know I do

that sometimes. Other times it's a tradeoff, instances where you don't want to spend cycles thinking about exposure

and focus, but you want to preserve the moment too. Like any other difficult decision, sometimes you decide

incorrectly and regret it later.

 

"The ones that do get printed out are normally ones of special occasions, posed family moments and not the candid

moments in between."

 

That depends on the photographer. It's definitely not true for me. I like the candid moments much better than posed

photographs. Your statement may have some truth to it due to the fact that posed photographs are probably higher

quality on average. I wouldn't assume that more people prefer posed photographs to candids though. You may be

equating candids with snapshots which would affect your opinion.

 

Vince

Vince: Real art is the stuff people don't point at.

Anders: No hope for photographers after such a statement.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Well, there is some hope. There's this special kind of vision. It allows certain people in certain situations to see things, important things, that no one else can see.

 

Vince

 

(I'm joking around, but I'm also attemtping to illustrate a real point about pointing. For a photograph to make an impact, sincerity and originality must be involved in the process. A person can label blind pointing as "art", but that doesn't carry much meaning.)

Real art is the stuff people don't point at.

Random thought:

 

Instead of giving away a portrait session, how about giving away a sporting event photography session. There would be a lot of children and parents at the event which would provide both you and the salon owner a chance to market your businesses by putting up signs and handing out cards or flyers.

"If you buy one ticket a day for every day of your 100 year life, that is 36,500 tickets (and $36,500) ... you will only need 49,963,500 tickets to be "likely" to get a winner. If you put that $36,500 in an interest bearing account for your 100 years at 5% ... you would earn a guaranteed $1,050,478."

 

If you stop going to movies, playing sports, going on vacations, etc. you'll save more money too. You wouldn't have any fun, but you'd have money in the bank. I guess you could argue that gambling is just throwing away money if you get no entertainment out of it, but most people enjoy it. Also, some forms of gambling, like poker, can teach you how to read people's personalities, manage money, calculate odds, and other useful skills. Of course, you have to know when to stop. Nobody would argue that gambling can become a problem for some people.

 

By the way, your probabilities are off. If you have a red, green, and blue ball in a hat and pull one out, the odds of getting red on the first pull is 1/3. The odds of getting at least one red on two pulls is 1 - (2/3 * 2/3). The odds of getting at least one red on three pulls is 1 - (2/3 * 2/3 * 2/3). You don't just add the odds of each independent event together. To apply the formula to the lottery, make the red ball a winning ticket and make the numbers much, much bigger.

 

Admittedly, the math is totally irrelevant to the argument. I probably shouldn't have brought it up.

Julie,

 

Thanks for the link. Apparently there are cooridinated campaigns to flood internet sites with positive comments about the movie. It happened on the NY Times website as well. It stunned me when I saw it, but I guess that's their goal.

I saw something on the internet tonight that has me totally baffled and is directly related to this subject. I literally stumbled across a video trailer on youtube of a pseudo documentary on the subject of evolution vs. intelligent design. It stars Ben Stein and is called "Expelled". Ben attempts to shoot down evolution in the movie. You'll find references to the movie if you search online news sources or a site like wikipedia. If you search youtube for "Ben Stein Expelled trailer" you'll find the video trailer I'm referring to. It's 7:36 minutes long. It says it was added 3 months ago. As of a few minutes prior to my writing this post, there were 254 text comments about the video. Every one of them praised the movie. They all gave glowing support to Ben Stein and gushed about intelligent design while putting down evolution. In fact, having scrolled through all the comments, there were zero comments critizing the movie that I saw. FYI, the movie was largely panned.

 

If you're not familiar with the average youtube user, I saw a video about a month ago involving a girl with tourettes syndrome. There were several hundred comments on the video, the vast majority of which totally trashed the girl. Reading the comments kids made about the girl was difficult. It was definitely a "what's this world coming to" moment for me. I can't imagine any of those posts were made by people who put any value in religion.

 

So please explain the "Expelled" video comments to me. I'm guessing that the person who posted the video got a bunch of friends to post positive feedback (many of the posts followed a similar script), but I don't understand how the video could be up on youtube for 3 months with no negative comments. There were over 175,000 views of the video. I'm sure high school kids are more interested in making fun of someone afflicted with a serious disability than with any video involving philosophical discussions, but 254 to 0 is just too strange.

 

Is there a way to delete comments from a video posted on youtube? I wouldn't think so given the majority of the comments that I've seen on that site. I'm curious what other people think is going on with that video.

 

Thanks.

"Anything that is a theory (a working model of reality) is subject to being grossly wrong, or simply an incomplete explanation."

 

That is fundamental to science and is applied in practice to scientific theories. I seem to recall a guy named Einstein who questioned a few well-founded theories. It's actually pretty amazing how scientific theory is constantly being refined and changing our views of the universe. Your comment is not applied in practice to most non-scientific theories.

 

"... because physics has been so well done (understanding forces, gravity, resistence, thermodynamics, etc...) people give all science a "pass"."

 

I don't know anyone who gives all science a pass. I can't even imagine anyone who knows anything about science making an inconsistant statement like that. The statement is by definition "unscientific". I see statements like that put into other people's mouths by people trying to make a point all the time (a.k.a Straw man fallacy).

 

"Well, this is a great leap with substantially weaker data and an agenda to boot ... but it has been lumped in with the strength of micro-evolutionary theory."

 

The evidence is extremely strong, and you probably don't want to bring agendas into the discussion.

 

"So today, your kids learn that man comes from ape (and ultimately from an accidental merging of elements) ... no argument allowed, there is no doubt expressed"

 

That is a false statement.

 

"has launched a horrific assault of bad science"

 

The assault is "on" science, which is fine as long as people are reasonable when they examine the data.

"It is an exagerated declaration of worth that any scientific theory is a discovery of any truth (the asertion of the article)."

 

Does this apply to religous theories as well?

Dan,

 

When I ask someone to give me their definition of art, I've never been satisfied with the standard answers like "it's subjective" or "art is the work of an artist". Those answers don't help me. I know it's a difficult question, but the goal is to learn something useful about art. A couple years ago, I found an article about art written by Leo Tolstoy. I posted it in this forum a long time ago. Here it is again: http://www.csulb.edu/~jvancamp/361r14.html

 

I've read it numerous times. Each time I read it I enjoy it more. It is beautifully written as you would expect from Tolstoy. It may come across as a little arrogant the first time you read it because he is arguing against the popular opinion of the time - that art is equivalent to beauty.

 

I really like simple yet enlightening examples when I'm trying to learn something new. In paragraph #7 of the article, Tolstoy gives a concise, seemingly trivial example, but it has stuck in my mind since the first time I read it. The example discusses a storyteller and how he draws the listener into his experience. Anyone who has heard a mesmerizing speaker, seen a gifted musician, or read a great novel can relate to it. What Tolstoy is saying seems pretty obvious when you read the paragraph. I recommend keeping the example in mind when looking at photos or other art. It helps to cut through the BS to what is essential about the work.

 

After reading the article a few times, it's become easier for me to understand why one photograph works for me and another does not, and with regards to the photographers that I consider masters of the art, I'm able to understand to a greater degree what sets them apart. I don't want to imply that the article gives an objective definition of art. It doesn't... yet another reason I like it.

Julie,

 

Great question. I think photography is all about reveal. Remind is one aspect of reveal. It's like the old saying, "If you want to become aware of how much you've changed, visit a place that hasn't changed that you haven't seen in a long time." The "remind" aspect of a photograph has the same revealing effect.