clive_murray_white

<p>A beautiful story Landrum - though I can't help observing that a different person could have a completely different reaction and have been made quite sad by the experience.</p> <p>My general feeling is that philosophers are usually pretty poor at anything to do with art - the Nietzsche quote sounds warm, cuddly and likable but so airy-fairy that its hardly useful. What is "beautiful" "great" or "gratitude"? and given that any discussion about beauty in art is seen, these days, as being very old fashioned, and at least 50 years out of step, we are going to have to find something else to hang our views on.<br> <br> My favourite view about what makes great art comes from Bernard Berenson in his 1949 essay - <em>Seeing and Knowing,</em> generally lampooned as the ranting of a die-hard anti-modernist - but I've never been able to get this idea out of my head. Great art is, according to Berenson, made up of substantial amounts of what is seen (visual) and what is known (intellectual) and that you cannot have great art that either one or the other. How that for a neat lump of dogma?</p>

<p>Your comments have clarified a few things for me Fred re: how we actually see, and a chance look around my office had me stopping on an interior design magasine, what caught my eye was that although the picture was well composed, undramatically lit, and was a thing (a view of an interior) all the things within that room got looked by me in much the same way as I would have done in real life - I don't think it inspired to replace landscapes with interiors though.</p> <p>Charles - Monet's quote is but one of many very possible ways to create a picture and I for one can't see the point of imagining something and then going out and making it. I find the opposite way much more interesting, finding out what I'm trying to achieve by making it and discovering through the process of making.</p> <p>I would even dare to suggest that Monet wasn't quite honest about pre-visualising, I think he'd have a general concept about what he hoped to achieve and then let reality of making add in the magic. </p>

<p>My real art is sculpture - photography just came along because I was dissatisfied with the way/dogma that surrounds the photographing of artworks, so I set out the develop my own way of giving my viewers some sort of photographic potted version of what I see in my own sculpture. Its funny really because most people who think of me as a "good" sculptor have only ever seen my photos.</p> <p>Of course once you've got a camera and know a fair bit about art there is a temptation to see if you could put the two together.............if you really want to see dogma at work you should listen to my dealer and others who get terrified that I may give up sculpture for photography, you would hear every weighted comment possible.</p> <p>Enough of that, lurking in the back of my mind has been a particular kind of landscape photo that delves into a major perceptual problem, forgive the expression but the "normal" landscape photo is composed in a hierarchical way meaning that the photographer has fixed the way he/she wants you to see it (usually employing "good" composition). This is completely at odds with how we actually see, we choose things at random that for some reason interest us, we look at them for as long as we are interested and then move on to something else. So the idea is to give the viewer the right to choose what they look at in whatever order they like.</p> <p>I try this out in forests that are by anyone's standards very messy and where hundreds of little details will start to pop out at you if you care to look........so far they don't really work because everyone is so used to "normal" that all they see is a mess!!! no "subject" etc. For fun once, to test my theories, I posted one of these in a landscape section of a forum with the caption "Am I crazy?" and of course got the desired result getting an almost perfect cross section of every stereotypical landscape dogma that could be imagined.</p> <p>I wonder what would have happened if I accompanied my picture with "Look I've mastered democratic composition at last"</p>

<p>Oh well - any applause is better than none.</p>

<p>Lex - I think I'd characterise what you've you've just written as a very good example of a number of stereotypical dogmas or dogmatic stereotypes.</p> <p>The blunt truth about the Golden section was that it was perpetuated over many hundreds of years through successive generations teaching it to their students, apprentices and assistants, with or without the aid of the printing press.</p> <p>It is particularly interesting that in order to avoid using the golden section you have to know what it is to start with.</p> <p>Sure for our entertainment we can prove that all the angles in a room are greater or lesser than 90 degrees, walls are curved and the sun travels in an arc over my head. </p>

<p>Lex - I'm not sure that the Golden Section/mean etc is in itself a dogma as in effect all it is a mathematical system for creating harmonious proportions and divisions, the dogma comes in when people add it in to their the list of things in their manifesto/s.</p> <p>It also intrigues me that it translates what many people intuitively do, i.e. compose with horizon line off center, main subject similar etc and that its proportions are repeatedly found in nature.</p> <p>In the discussion about "street photography" forums, I get the feeling that a lot contributors (not here in this forum) would like to be able to treat their photography as if it were a sport, with a firm set of agreed to rules, and that assessment was conducted in thoroughly objective manner with 1-10 scoring in various categories. And modifications to the rules were nutted out annually by members voting.</p> <p>Can't think of anything worse myself..............</p>

<p>As I read through this discussion my mind kept wandering off towards thoughts provoked by it, mainly because dogmas in the arts are always changing - which, in essence, means that they can't quite really be dogmas. </p> <p>The process by which art dogmas change or are changed is particularly interesting, each new generation somehow manages to subvert the previous generation's values either by calling it dogma, exaggerating those values to the point that they become ludicrous or use a technique that converts a past "good" into a present "bad".</p> <p>Architects are fabulous practitioners in this area. Sometime back now, the agreed criteria for art gallery design concentrated on providing spaces that optimised the possibility that all or any art would be able to be shown without being subjected to undue pressure from architecture. But as cities decided to "upgrade" their art galleries the architects started to get the idea that "really wild" buildings would excite the clients more than functional ones! </p> <p>The way they got their message across was to bundle the old dogma up into the expression "white cube", which actually sounds quite reasonable and desirable, but the architects would add inflections to it to make it sound, boring, old fashioned, static, restricting and something you really wouldn't want - turning "good" in to "bad" seems a very effective technique!!!</p>

<p>I came across this a few moments ago - seems pertinent to our discussion.</p> <p><a href="http://www.nowness.com/day/2013/9/7/3316/the-8mm-films-of-vivian-maier">http://www.nowness.com/day/2013/9/7/3316/the-8mm-films-of-vivian-maier</a></p>

<p>I've been a lurker on this thread, not quite being able to put my finger on my real opinions about the topic and by chance a friend posted a Paul Himmel Grand Central Station picture on Facebook <a href="http://photoplay.livejournal.com/452951.html">http://photoplay.livejournal.com/452951.htm</a> that I hadn't seen before so it was new to me 67 years after it was actually made.</p> <p>The picture itself also encapsulates a broader view of my feeling about this topic in that era in which it was taken is secondary to the photographic intention which, in my opinion, is as new today as it was when it was taken. </p>

<p>An interesting topic but I'm surprised that the main reason for destroying your photographs or any artwork, for that matter, hasn't really had much of a run. A huge percentage of what we do simply fails our own "quality" standards and in a sense is an embarrassment to our concept of ourselves as an artist, so culling becomes an important tool for expression.</p> <p>I am very rigorous in making sure that what I think of as substandard examples of my work are effectively destroyed. A friend of mine, a potter used to dump all his second class work at the public garbage tip until one day when he was visiting someone's home he noticed a substantial collection of his work, he now smashes everything in tiny pieces. I'd go as far as suggesting that artists that don't take this kind of control over their work lack integrity.</p>

<p>Quite correct Steve and Fred, the majority view by a long way in Australia is that the picture isn't offensive, I don't think it is either, and in any situation other than in a charity fund raising event for the Sydney Children's Hospital (Government Funded) it would not even be provocative, the Bill Henson event is referred to here, again Sydney Morning Herald <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/henson-returns-to-the-most-provocative-landscape-of-all-20120912-25rrv.html">http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/henson-returns-to-the-most-provocative-landscape-of-all-20120912-25rrv.html </a></p> <p>But to me the important things here are the rights of the hospital to have a policy, which I think is quite reasonable, sure it can be questioned and everyone has such a right; at the time of the event that policy was the one that everyone knew was in place. All the artists involved knew about that policy and agreed to supply an appropriate work for the fund raiser. I question Del Kathryn Barton's intentions because she is primarily a painter and a painting by her would have provided the hospital with a great deal more cash that one of her photos. </p> <p>It is, on this occasion, not about questioning the policy, but providing the hospital with much needed funds.</p>

<p>It is hard not to include mention of things like the influence of universities on the PC debate but lets look at this example which annoyed me a great deal. Several well known contemporary artists were invited to make a work for a charity fund raising project for the Sydney Children's Hospital an organisation with a very well known policy about the depiction of children, which, of course, is perfectly reasonable.</p> <p>One of the invited artists, Del Kathryn Barton, submitted this photograph of her semi naked son covered in spots/eyes.</p> <p><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__IzEtMuM-Ho/TSVqfqju1TI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/k7YSBc9EpRg/s1600/Del%2BKathryn%2BBarton%2BSMH.jpg" alt="" width="420" height="493" /></p> <p>and of course the hospital rejected it, as one would expect...........the artist and her agent went straight to the press and the whole thing became a media frenzy - this is a fairly common technique used by artists and their agents to gain publicity and the useful title of "notorious" - so this is a case of a photographer exploiting reasonable PC to her own ends. </p>

<p>I think you've got it Brooks, the key was the reflected mid grey wall in the background or in truth a near white wall that had been darkened to look like mid grey by the either/both the black mirror and amount of available light.</p> <p>The over and under expose debate is an interesting one, the picture above looks just like the reflection I saw, maybe we could call it a naturally underexposed scene ie its a dark room.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Ah but Brooks - it's not under exposed, it was a black mirror and as I said at the beginning I thought that my camera would "assume" the black was 18% grey, Ellis said that meters have got a whole lot smarter these days. </p>

<p>Following up on this topic I thought I'd introduce something about a photographer that was "discovered" but I'd forgotten her name - all I could remember was that she had been a nanny, so typed in "nanny photographer" and of course up comes Vivian Maier and of course countless articles along the same kind of path as Julie's original one. </p> <p>http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jul/20/finding-vivian-maier-review-exposure-photographer-nanny</p> <p>Can we look at Maier's work without it being coloured by all the hype about her being extremely private and a NANNY?</p> <p>Can we look at Van Gogh being influenced by all the deluded crazy artist stuff?</p> <p>or Picasso now that he's fallen foul of PC?</p> <p>Words like Nanny, non-professional and spy make her seem "interesting"and good for an amateur single woman. Many photographers are single, have a day job and are not amateur because they don't get paid to take photographs. Maybe its easier to talk more about the personality of the artist than their art.</p>

<p>There is a way that you can very easily get to look at Teenie Harris' pictures without having them coloured by Crouch's comments. All you have to do is start calling him "Crouch the Grouch" or even just "grouch" - childish I know, but effective all the same, because you've in effect placed an equivalent layer of bias or bile on the writing to even things up.</p>

<p>Thanks Ellis - I often click "auto tone" in Lightroom just to see what its suggestion may be - in scenes like the one above it invariably lightens things a lot - pity it's not as smart as the camera!</p> <p>So if I want almost everything in focus in the mirror, I'll probably have to enter into the world of focus stacking.............</p>

<p>I used to be fond of saying that the West was just as controlling on its people as the Soviet Union but instead of sending the thought police around in the middle of the night and having you sent to a Gulag we do it much more insidiously, we viciously mock ideas, demote or retard a person's progress often to the point that they become imprisoned in perpetual poverty.</p> <p>The reason why Political Correctness is out of control is that many careers are completely dependent on it.</p>

<p>I took this selfie in a dark reflective surface the other day expecting it to confuse my camera into over exposing it but instead it got it right. I thought the camera's metering system would "think" it was looking at mid grey - So now I'm confused!</p> <p>It also made me think about focus, f4 with lens at 72mm, sure I understand that DoF would mean that something would be in focus and others wouldn't but I get the feeling that the mirrored surface accelerated shallow DoF - or is this just my imagination?</p> <p><img src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/t1.0-9/10536916_802453453120705_8157036460424000289_n.jpg" alt="" width="774" height="850" /></p>

<p>Charles- people and their ways! I think creativity frightens many, I don't really know why but suspect it has something to do with a kind of fear, many would say that being creative can provide you with some real highlights to your life and at the opposite end some absolute misery, which once experienced is enough for you to decide to drop both big highs and lows and lead a life that is in the much safer more even middle band. I think this is quite understandable, and respect that choice as long as they don't stridently try to devalue/demolish every view other than their own.</p> <p>The "Julie Quote" is probably the key contribution to this massive thread, it just nails it for me.</p> <p>I'm not sure if I care much if the result of a creative process is expanding, extending or both because once you've elected to nurture that side of your personality the journey becomes as interesting as the destination/s </p>

<p>I do like the way we wander around the subject of creativity, stubbing our toes on some rocks and picking others up to see what lies beneath.......all adding useful understanding. </p> <p>I really respond to the fact that we can quote Verdi, Cage and We Five almost in the same sentence - or suddenly be reminded of Scholar rocks just after talking about Cage, and put 2 & 2 together to remember how influential the Japanese Zen (rock) garden (and many other aspect of Japanese culture) was on 60's US art - you could even claim that Cage made the western sound version of the Japanese garden. Or that we stumble closer and closer to the realisation that the first thing any art looses is its newness, and after that it has to take its chances with everything else.</p> <p>And.........that somehow leads to me to one of key concepts in all this, the idea of taking things further.</p> <p>A Facebook friend posted this and it seems to fit nicely with what we're talking about.</p> <p> <p> </p>

<p>Good point - Cage's mention of "lagging (behind)", a very common topic back in the early 60s was the Avant Garde, or the concept of being - ahead of the game, and the race was well and truly on with people like Cage and Rauschenburg - a hugely influential little book back then was a Calvin Tomkins work that, if I remember correctly came out with 2 different titles <em>Ahead of the Game</em> and <em>The Bride and the Bachelors</em> - hardly an artist I knew didn't have a copy of either. The book has 4 chapters, one on each of these revolutionaries. Cage, Rauschenburg, Duchamp and Tinguely.</p> <p>Of course the concept of the avant garde has been soundly trashed over the decades - but the idea of there being a game/competition still persists and just about any mid-career artist will know the painful feeling of being chopped off at knees by the next generation's ideas.</p> <p>I've often found it amusing at just how excited we could all get at things like Cage's so called invention of silence when if we looked dispassionately at the whole question we'd soon realise that silences between musical notes had been with us since the beginning of music! and we'd have to acknowledge the huge influence that Ad Reinhardt's black paintings had on Rauschenburg's white ones.</p> <p>I also think that we may concentrate too much on these radical concept based, and dare I say it, low artistic skill, acts when talking about creativity because they tend to be unhelpful "so what" dead ends.</p>

<p>Charles - I reckon this may appeal to you - here's a British comedian, Peter Kay, who's act is based entirely on song lyrics - I find his accent a bit hard to follow but once you get it, it all works quite well. A perfect example of creativity............something that we all knew about taken by someone with a very imaginative mind to a place that we most likely would never think of.</p> <p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cylsLhQaPFw">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cylsLhQaPFw</a></p> <p>The thing in the We Five interview that intrigued me was the fact that they knew they had a winner but the issues like drunkenness could spoil its chances of success, so they set out solve these problems without cheating by substantially altering the writer's original lyrics. Quite often people's personal sense of integrity can drive creativity.</p> <p>Before I forget - I remembered something that may have a direct relationship to photography, one of things I noticed over the years while teaching life drawing was that many students tried to draw in a way that was the exact opposite to their natural inclination. There many approaches that work but the most common are "line" (a clean and careful approach) and "tone" (dramatic and often messy) you'd be surprised how many "tone" drawers wanted to be "line" drawers and visa versa.</p> <p>I suspect the same kind of thing goes on in photography. The creative breakthrough usually comes when people begin to comprehend what their natural inclinations actually are.</p>

<p>I must get on with whole lot of jobs today! but your mention of "dialogue" is very timely - it is a word that gets used a lot in art schools, not only in terms of a dialogue between artists or even disciplines but within the artist's own work.</p>

<p>We do have to ask how we could ever manage again without youtube and the like! it was very interesting to hear many of the words that were being used to drive their creativity, I too made that transition from student to artist in the 60s and can fully identify with what was said. It is pretty amasing that we can sit at our computers in different time zones around the world and share information about creativity and illustrate it with examples that can quickly give us some confirmation that our ideas are on track. Probably most interesting for me is that as soon as we've listened to those musicians we can transpose their actions into something useful for photography. </p> <p>Sort of driven by a "what if - why not" philosophy it took them to places they couldn't have imagined - but of course they had to be very receptive to even realise the full extent of their inventions. Art schools used to work on that principle back them, sadly its changed a great deal since then, now students are made to write proposals and success is seen as matching their work to what they said they were going to do. Thanks for those Charles - the puppy and the bird - will take me some time to "work out" but I'm sure you're right it is instructive re: creativity.</p>