cyanatic

<blockquote>

<p>Fred G: Are photographers and "artists" allowed to think?<br>

Is this a kind of anti-intellectualism? I think so<br>

I'd say more often than not a lack of thought in general shows in one's photos, often to the detriment of those photos, though for some reason people assume it sounds pretty cool not to think.<br>

Your opinions and tirades at me are welcome.</p>

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<p>Are artists allowed to think? Absolutely not! </p>

<p>Being serious -- I think there is always some level of thought before, during, and after taking a photograph. How much, how little, and what form it takes is dependent upon the individual photographer, the photographic genre, and the stage at which the thinking occurs. Mario Testino and Gregory Crewdson probably put a lot of time into thinking about a shot beforehand (even if some of that thinking is conducted by assistants). On a different point of the thinking spectrum, a combat or street photographer most likely puts a lot less time into previsualization. And I don’t think that thinking precludes the ability of being “in the zone”. If I recall correctly, Fred, I think you have said in the past that even though you might set up a portrait in a particular way beforehand, there is still a lot of room for inspiration and improvisation during the shoot. When I am taking photographs in the street, things may happen very quickly but I may still be thinking in that moment that I want to try an isolate one person, or group of people -- or place them in a certain place in the frame, or perhaps even put them at an extreme edge or corner, or even cut part of them off. Even when I shoot from the hip I sometimes try to accomplish this. So thought, even in a rapidly developing moment, is neither out of the question nor harmful to improvisation or being in the zone. </p>

<p>I would even go so far as to say that “being in the zone” sometimes means being able to think about what one is doing during a rapidly developing situation.</p>

<p>And, regardless of what genre one is working in, I think it is always important to put a lot of thought into the editing and post-processing.</p>

<p>"Not thinking" does not make one an artist, although I can conceive of someone who is a good photographer and spends a lot less time thinking about things than other photographers who are not as talented. So I don't believe that thought -- a lack of it or a preponderance of it -- has anything to do with whether one is an artist or not. </p>

<p>Does a lack of thought show in someone's work? I don't know the answer to that, but I think it is another one of those things that is relative and contingent upon what is meant by "thought". I can look at someone's PN portfolio and know how it strikes me, but I don't always know how much thought they give to their work. </p>

<p>Anti-intellectualism? I think sometimes it is intentional, and as Wouter indicated, sometimes it is not. I am prone to being a bit anti-intellectual myself at times. At other times I can write on and on about something that no one apparently cares enough about to even comment on! It depends on the topic and my frame of mind at any given point in time. I suspect that most people are the same way. It’s the multiplicity and inconsistency of human nature. But the notion (which I, too, have sometimes seen expressed on PN) that “you should be out taking photographs, not analyzing and talking about it!” is too dogmatic, too “black and white” for me to buy into. To everything there is a season, right?</p>

<p> </p>

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<p ><a name="00cx9W"></a><a href="/photodb/user?user_id=153336">Brad -</a> <a href="/member-status-icons"><img title="Subscriber" src="/v3graphics/member-status-icons/sub10plus.gif" alt="" /></a>, Nov 14, 2014; 11:55 a.m.</p>

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<p>Why is "artist" in quotation marks?</p>

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<p>a.) Because a straight use of the word, without quotation marks, invariably invites attacks, smarmy comments, and derision from some people on PN. The implication being that anyone who dares to use that term is pretentious, full of themselves, and assuming a position far above their actual station and actual level of talent.</p>

<p>b.) Because the quotation marks imply that the term is being qualified. (As in "whatever this term means to you", or "in a relative way if you can accept this term being used in regard to photography".) </p>

<p>But these are my reasons for putting artist in quotation marks, so I don't know if they apply to Fred or not.</p>

 

<p>Much better. ;-) "Immature Curmudgeons" -- That will be the title of a book, written some years hence, by some 20-something hipster whippersnapper about a loose collective of senior netizens who hung out at various internet locations together, bloviating, snarking, and sharing photographs. A sort of Cyber Photo League of the early 21st Century. Nurse? Nurse? What do you mean what am I writing about? I'm passing wisdom...or was that just gas? </p>

 

<blockquote>Lex Jenkins -- "<em>mature community</em>"</blockquote>

<p>I want to lodge a formal complaint that I resent the implication of this term. </p>

<p>Amazing. Enhanced or not....to be looking at the surface of a comet is, beyond words. </p>

<p>This story made my day. Thanks.</p>

<p>Wonderful! Thanks, JDM. Wish this would travel to Chicago...I'd love to see it. (Ironic, Fred -- Didn't Frank's The Americans come up in a discussion we were having in the POP forum? I am glad you're going to be able to see this, but sad that I may not.)</p>

<p>EDIT : Double post</p>

<blockquote>this issue has more to be chewed over than has been done already.</blockquote>

<p>It is not uncommon here to have a discussion generate a number of side discussions -- some of which may go on for many more pages than the original topic.</p>

<p>I did look at your website (most of us here will do that), I just didn't mention it yet. As a general summation, I'd say it's good work overall and I think you definitely have an eye and a feel for street photography. It can take a lot of time to really digest any one photographer's body of work in order to do it justice so a general summation is all I can offer right now. (Not that you asked for, or need, my opinion.) </p>

<p>Do you "walk the talk"? Well, I'm the guy who said that I don't give a rat's ass (in general, not your talk in particular), and that I just look at the work. And I'm not even sure that I know what the "talk" is anymore. That PP should only be used if it serves the work? What I think that means may be totally different from what you think it means. The majority of your work fits that statement, a few minor exceptions do not (the selectively colored tent pitched in the off-ramp barrier comes to mind -- too great an effort to call attention to it in my opinion, my preference would be to leave it alone and let the viewer discover it for themselves -- a risk, because that requires a viewer who has the patience and desire to discern such subtleties). So now look what I've done -- I've only called attention to one of many images in a critical way. Balance it with this: <a href="http://lewlortonphoto.com/p242688167/h253afc52#h5045b9a0">http://lewlortonphoto.com/p242688167/h253afc52#h5045b9a0</a> which I find a very good use of color, ambiguity (I prefer the nuance of that word to "mystery"), light and shadow, in a street photograph. And, as I said, more good stuff than stuff I could be picky about. </p>

<p>I'll continue one of the "side discussions" in a separate post.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I'll tell you another thing I'm dogmatic about. My intense dislike for the one stupid photo of mine that pops up in the threads in which I post. ;-)</p>

<p>This thread is going in multiple directions now...Lewis' comments, Jeff, me, and others talking about Lewis' comments, and Fred and I talking about work.</p>

<p>Getting back to Lewis talking about an LR preset giving a street look to so-so photographs (or any photograph). I am not an LR expert, but I have been using it since close to its introduction and am particularly familiar with the Develop module. I think anyone who has similar experience, and who has created and used LR presets, knows that no preset (unless it's extremely simple, as in a slight boost of clarity or exposure) will work the same on all photos. I have many presets that I really fine tuned for certain photos and certain situations and on some photos they may look good and on others they look like total crap. The point being that, like almost everything, there is no "one size fits all" solution. (Just as there is no such thing -- and here I <em>am </em>being dogmatic -- as only one way to approach street photography.) So for anyone to bill a preset as giving any photograph a "street look" is just plain silly.</p>

<p>Jeff -- I think I missed the last post you're talking about. Yes, it's probably a little stronger than a preference but I'd rather Lewis came back and wrote for himself. Like Brad, I would have liked to have heard more from him.</p>

<p>Fred -- I see what you mean. I was thinking more in terms of established photographers talking about their work than photographers in a learning situation we might find on PN or elsewhere. I understand how someone who thinks their post processing is light and natural-looking could learn from others who see that it does not truly appear that way. But I was thinking in terms of less easily discerned aesthetic or philosophical nuances: certain critics decrying Frank's "The Americans" for being an intentionally "ugly" and bleak portrayal of American culture, with Frank maintaining that he just documented that which he found, with no preconceived agenda playing a role in the editing process. While I am interested in what a given photographer says about their own work (and it might even initially influence me), I will eventually come to my own conclusions based upon how I interpret the work and how it affects me. I care about helping another photographer in a learning situation if I can, and I appreciate constructive criticism of my own work, but I see that as being distinctly different from, say, an artistic statement made by an artist for their gallery opening. In the latter situation I will rely on the work -- cubed or otherwise ;-) -- to make a determination. <br>

</p>

 

<blockquote>JDM Von Weinberg: <em>Fort Fisher (now can I say I've been to all the important Civil War sites?)</em></blockquote>

<p>I will immediately race to your portfolio looking for an image of <strong>one</strong> of these:<br /> a.) JDM at The Angle<br /> b.) JDM next to a 20th Maine flank marker (Left or Right will suffice)<br /> c.) JDM in front of the Virginia Monument<br /> d.) JDM next to Spangler's Spring or on top of the Culp's Hill tower.<br /> e.) or, for a change of venue, JDM standing in the Sunken Road or next to Dunker's Church.</p>

<p>;-)</p>

<p>[EDIT: Dunker Church, the Sunken Road, and LRT are well represented. My apologies, sir. (To say nothing of Chicakamauga, as site I long to visit as it is so damned complicated to try and envision the battlefield from books and maps alone.)]</p>

<p>As to Sara's original question -- Maybe it's as simple as people taking those photos (selfies or of others) just to show, and remember, that they were there? I remember my parents going through some old photos of theirs years ago and many were of scenery, sometimes of scenery at a location long forgotten. Their remark was that they should have at least photographed one of themselves in front of that scenery.</p>

<blockquote> However, if someone wants to show me ("show"=pictures) why they prefer something some way, that's a useful and valid exercise, I could learn something new. Being told what is good, regardless of the source, is not useful.</blockquote>

<p>Jeff, absolutely. I don't want to speak for Lewis, but I suspect he was expressing a <em>preference </em>(albeit a strong one)rather than proposing an absolute. But generalist statements about what any type of photograph should or should not include, or be like, is subject to a potentially heated discussion. It's hard to reduce the irreducible without providing examples -- which again gets back to what you said about "show me". </p>

<p>I have sometimes thought about starting a thread on this Philosophy board about prejudices in photography. What we like, what we don't like. But a bit more deeper and thoughtful than just creating a list of pet peeves or creating an "Academy of the Overrated". How our prejudices affect the way we view the work of others and how it impacts our own work. Are we embarrassed by certain of our prejudices and do we struggle to overcome them? If I had more time and energy I'd post it right now. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>It can be about substance.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>True. But doesn't the substance exist, or not exist, in the work? Regardless of what statements are made by the photographer? If they say, "I believe in X and my work is about X!", yet it clearly appears that is about Y, or G...what then? That's what I mean about that poor rat's hind parts...it doesn't matter to me what they say, or whether or not they are consistent. I mean, yes, it can have an impact on what I think of them, but ultimately the work is the work is the work.</p>

 

<p>Figures. I get ready to join the party and everyone is leaving. I hope you come back, Lewis.</p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>I hold very strongly to the belief that good street photography actually shows something or some moment that the photographer sees and wants to capture. I believe in the 3 Ms - Meaning, Mood and Mystery. I can't help being almost repelled by images that rely only beating up mundane nothing-is-happening images with processing to make them 'street'. </em></p>

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<p>I don't see anything that restrictive or dogmatic in the 3 M's that Lewis Lorton mentions above. But it always comes down to a subjective call, doesn't it? One person's significant M's are another person's "there's nothing there!". I've looked through monographs, galleries, and exhibition catalogues of a number of the so-called greats and near-greats of street photography and I always come across some photographs that have me scratching my head and saying, "Why?", or "What am I missing?", or "How did they get away with <em>this</em>?".</p>

<p>I'm not sure whether Lewis meant that "good" street photography must have all 3 of those M's, or if only 1 or 2 will suffice. It would be interesting to know for the sake of discussion, but beyond that I don't know that it matters. We all have our own ways of digesting photographs. My personal aesthetics for street photography allows that mood and mystery <em>can</em> be the meaning. Again, it all becomes terribly subjective and can lead to endless and convoluted digressions and qualifications as we each try to clearly define what we mean. (As an example, I would say that extreme banality and/or not knowing what's going on does not normally qualify as "mystery". On the other hand, mystery does not always equate to darkness and menace either.)</p>

<p>Personally, I don't get repelled by heavily processed street photographs. I will either look at them, or I won't. I am very fond of Igor Posner's work and, like Moriyama but in a different way, he does a lot of post processing in terms of dodging and burning. Subjectivity raises its head once more.</p>

<p>And no offense to either Fred or Lewis, but I don't really care whether a photographer has very strong opinions, or whether they are very dogmatic in their statements or approach. Their artistic opinions will show in their work. Opinions and dogmatism expressed outside of that work might make for an interesting bull session, but it's not what matters to me. Nor do I care whether or not someone's spoken opinions are in accordance with their work. There isn't a cosmic scoreboard somewhere that awards points on the basis of consistency. Who gives a rat's derriere?</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Arthur -- Ahhh! Now I see what you mean. (And, actually, you did explain it in your first post: <em>"...my questioning of the culture, the mores and the rules of my own community, often in areas of personal concern (heritage, traditions, identity, quality of life, environment...") </em> And thinking of iconoclasts of that kind in terms of Picasso, Braque, and Naomi Klein -- makes your meaning even clearer to me. The challenging of traditions, of what we accept as value systems and the way things are is the way they are supposed to be -- I do not approach that in my photography, but it does live in my heart and gut. It would take an army (not in the militaristic, armed sense) of many millions of like-minded individuals to bring about the kind of iconoclastic change I would like to see in this world, or in the United States alone. I don't think...no, I <em>know</em>...that a camera alone could not topple the institutions and value systems that I have in mind. And there I will have to leave it because the topic would wander far afield from photography.</p>

<p>Arthur -- I think there's iconoclasm, and then there's iconoclasm. In comparison to what we might call a populist aesthetic (the "pretty", the colorful, the easily accessible) my work might appear iconoclastic. Within the larger scope of photographic history and the "art world', my work -- with the possibility of a few limited exceptions -- is probably not iconoclastic at all. In the past I have made a few attempts at creating work that might be iconoclastic, but with dubious if not dismal results.</p>

<p>It is hard to even envision photographic work which is truly iconoclastic. What beliefs or rules can we possibly reject that have not already been rejected? Iconoclasm cannot exist in a vacuum, it exists only in comparison to some set of established or cherished beliefs and values. In that sense, one could say that "straight" photography, "the thing itself", was iconoclastic in relation to pictorialism. Or that extreme ironic banality is iconoclastic in relation to the significant and the "meaningful". The gritty snapshot aesthetics of Frank, Klein and Winogrand were iconoclastic in their day. But what can truly be considered iconoclastic today? Blur, noise, grittiness, anti-golden mean, anti-decisive moment, banality, abstraction, etc. are all valid and accepted approaches in the art world if not the popular world.</p>

<p>I'm not really arguing with you, or saying that I reject the possibility of contemporary iconoclasm -- I am struggling with it myself to try and picture what form it might take. I'm not even sure I could say what the established beliefs and values of contemporary photography are. It's so broad and all-inclusive that I can only think of iconoclasm if it stands in contrast to a specific and limited set of values: a specific genre, say, like wildlife photography in which someone intentionally takes photos which are neither tack sharp nor close to the subject. Successful digital photographers could be seen as iconoclasts in relation to individuals who cherish the notion that only real artists use film, or successful film photographers are iconoclasts to those who insist that film is a dead and outdated medium. But in the broad sense, contemporary photography as a whole, I struggle to conceive of something which might truly be iconoclastic.</p>

<p>So, in personal practice, all of this takes me back to a position similar to Fred's -- I work how I work, create what feels real and honest to me, and don't give much thought to where my photographs exist on a spectrum of iconoclasm.</p>

<p>[EDIT: I posted after Fred's first post, so I did not reference any of the exchanges that came after that.]</p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>It shows up on a lot of Lithuanian Facebook pages.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Leave it to you to be familiar with Lithuanian Facebook pages. The breadth and depth of your knowledge never ceases to amaze me, Lex!</p>

<p>Thanks, Tim. The trailer for the film has appeared on tv, but I guess I wasn't paying close attention to it and wasn't aware of what it was about. This sounds like a movie I'd really enjoy watching.</p>

<p>Gy, I'm not sure what you mean by low contrast. Here are the elements that stand out for me in the photos you have linked to:</p>

<p>1.) Shallow DOF or selective focus -- To my eye, this is the dominant feature of this "look". I could be wrong, but I suspect that it was achieved as much, or more, by using post-processing software as by using a wide open lens. (If you look at the tires in some of the shots, they appear sharply defined, while the asphalt -- which should theoretically be roughly on the same plane of focus -- appears OOF. And far more than it should be if it was a drop off actually achieved through lens alone. I see similar evidence of software-created selective focus in some of the interior shots.)</p>

<p>2.) Vignetting -- As Gup already noted, vignetting is a large part of these photos.</p>

<p>3.) Slight desaturation -- There seems to be a very slight desaturation of color in these photos, possibly different levels of desaturation for different colors.</p>

<p>4.) Warm colors and a bleak sunset -- For these particular images, I think the warm colors and the natural light and time of day lends a lot to the atmosphere and "feel" of these photos.</p>

<p>Just my opinion, but it is primarily the elements listed above, working together, that give the photos the "trendy" look you describe. Selective focus and faux tilt-shift has been very trendy in advertising (still photos and video) for a number of years now.</p>

<p>I'm not familiar with Perfect Picture Pro, but there are various types of selective focus and faux tilt shift effects available in the Nik Software suite of post-processing programs (plug-ins that work in conjunction with both Photoshop and Lightroom) - In particular, Color Efex Pro, and Analog Pro. Vignetting, desaturation, and warming can be achieved with most photo editing software.</p>

<p> </p>

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<p ><a name="00cuJH"></a><a href="/photodb/user?user_id=523880">Ray .</a> <a href="/member-status-icons"><img title="Current POW Recipient" src="/v3graphics/member-status-icons/trophy.gif" alt="" /></a>, Oct 23, 2014; 11:48 a.m.</p>

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<blockquote>

<p>Hey Steve.<br>

Well, I'm kind of surprised at the lack of response here.</p>

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<p>I'm not sure why. Maybe there hasn't been a lot of traffic in here, outside of those who want to post and view street photographs. I enjoy that part of it, but I also love being exposed to films or the work of photographers I wasn't familiar with. I'm very eager to see "Little Fugitive". My wife shares my enthusiasm for older and/or arty type indie films. I read up on this film (the camera and the way they hid it is interesting) and we're both eager to see it. I am particularly intrigued by the thought of seeing people from that era going about their daily lives. Non-actors, unaware that they were being filmed, so that the interactions are natural. Not in the sense of spying on people, but in the sense of what they were like, and what it was like to be among them. </p>

<p>A PN member who hasn't shown up here for some time is Luis G. I recall that he seemed quite knowledgeable and conversant regarding the group of photographers who were associated with the Photo League. </p>

<p>People might respond more here if they have seen the film. You can be that I will be back to talk about after I see it!</p>

 

<p>Personally, I love snow storm photos! </p><div></div>

<p>Thanks, Anders. David/Arthur -- The Sao Paulo image is also one of my favorites but forgot that it was by Burri! </p>

<p>Thanks, Ray. I love Orkin's work and knew she was involved with the film but have never seen it. </p>

<p>?</p>