glabarca

My experience with presentations has been a very good one, I have uploaded two and I have got extremely interesting answers. A very rewarding experience. Those presentations are <a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/presentation?presentation_id=243672">The sofa</a> and <a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/presentation?presentation_id=249712">Buenos Aires</a> wich is part two from The sofa. I addressed them to some people that are in my favorites list. (By the way, I put people in the list because I like them as photographers, but some of them are there because I like them as critics, even if I don't like much their photos). I don't know why they have been so responsive. My presentations are an invitation to participate; I have tried to create an interactive space; my idea was to build up a story by means of photos and text with a little help of my friends... I got a lot of help of my friends. The story became much more interesting and the comments helped me to improve the story and the photos. With this material I am planning now to edit photos and text. A gallery in my place is interested in an exhibition.

I am uncomunicated in PN. I have changed my e-mail address but PN keeps addressing mail to my old address, that does not exist any more, then when I ask for your address it is sent to the old one, that is why I have been unable to contact you or any body in PN. I have tryed something different and perhaps you will recieve mail from me. I have other e-mail adresses, will do if I write to Blago for instance?

Seven, I have to answer you here because there is a confusion with my e-mail address in PN. I have changed my e-mail address but PN does not take the new one and keep sending me messages to my old, now inexistent address. Will you please try this one guillermolabarca2004@yahoo.com It is a provisory address, as soon as I have a new address I write to you. Thanks

If this is a group I would like to be included. Great proposal. Is it already working?

I forgot a couple of things. 1) Taking a lot of photograph is necessary, no doubt about, but take it easy, because taking photos indiscriminately don�t lead you to good results, you will only have a lot of frustrations. 2) Getting involved with your subject is as important, if not more. 3) Did you know that all good painters read a lot? I don�t know about photographers, but my guess is that it is so too.

Most of the advise you get here is not new to you, you have done some of it : �I have done a lot of reading on photography, and have taken (and keep taking) a good share of pictures. I understand and apply fairly well the important photographic techniques, and most of the time I get them right. I also spend a good time looking at photographs and asking myself what it is that made the shot,�� some other in my opinion will help you, like getting comments and critical appraisal on your photos. As somebody said most comments here are crap, but you get very good ones as well. Perhaps a good talk with an experienced photographer will be of help as well. But I think a good idea would be to give yourself some assignment, or to participate in a photoclub, so that you have to focus on a subject. I think that to go out to find something worth photographing may be very frustrating if you don�t know why do you want to photograph. I mean, to make photographs is not the goal, but just a mean to express something. You will develop an eye for photographs when you learn to see, and you will learn to see when you know what are you seeing, what are you looking for. An example to make myself clear: you can take photo from landscapes, but a landscape is not just stones, trees and maybe some water nicely arranged, a true landscape is a vision, is an idea. The same is with people, good candids entail an idea of what people is. I think a way to start could be to photograph some specific more abstract subject, like for instance, bizarre people, or working people, or desolate landscapes or whatever you like. That will make you think in the subject, perhaps to read over it, or to study it, lo learn where to find it, to have an opinion on it, to connect you to the subject emotionally and intellectually. Photographing is not only shooting, it is a complex process.

No Matt, it is quite the contrary, everytime you try to define art you put more things in it, you open what you already know to new layers of meaning. A definition is not a static formula, a definition changes with new experiences. A definition is precisely a challenge. You test your definitions against your experiences. I understand your point because very often people have learned definitions as being something immutable, definitive, but in fact they are not so. Artistic work can be enriched by intellectual work, by trying to understand, by defining. Something that always impressed me is that great artists (painters, photographers, musicians etc) read a lot, and some of ther write as well. Attempting to define is an effort in the way to produce better artwork.

 

 

 

This discussion is interesting, although much and clever things has been said, I would like to add a couple of remarks as well. Emre ask us to answer his questions instead or before digressing. I assume that this discussion for him has practical implicancies such as : Does it make sense to devote your time and energy on an artwork if the only outcome is that you may have fun creating it? What if that artwork takes a significant share of your lifetime? If one were immortal, it would not matter, but since this is not the case... or Can one become a great artist--hope to create art of lasting interesting--without direction?. I think that a lot as been answered already, It seems clear that for a contemporary artist there is always an intention, whatever it is (fame, beauty, money, having fun). But it seems to Emre, and many others, that some intentions are better than others, not all of them are at the same level, some might be permanent. This is connected with a concern on making works of �lasting interest�. It is assumed that some intentions produce more permanent works than others. To put in another way, there is the doubt (hope perhaps?) that it would be possible to make an important artwork, of everlasting interest by hazard, or with bastard intentions, or by mechanical means or without a valid intention. This can be frightening indeed, what if we devote our lives to make such a work that finally is not perceived as a work of art whereas our neighbor who is a carpenter hobbyist, with no notion of what art is, end up with a piece of furniture exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, highly priced by critics and curators? �Not nice perhaps, we may find us cheated. This is not metaphysics, it is a darn practical question. If we examine the history of art we find any kind of intentions, �good� and �bad�, �legitimate� and �bastard� behind everlasting work of art. Think at Velazques, no doubt of his artistic accomplishments, whatever he did was great art, but his intentions were mixed, very much so: from one side he wanted to do good work of art, to explore in a new pictorial language, to render reality in a new expressive way etc. but at the same time he was socially arrivist, he wanted money and �respect� from nobility, painted to please the court, etc. His genius was above his intentions, positive or negatives and produced art in its highest form.

 

On the other side you have artist that are dominated by artistic intentions, that means that their interest is mostly to produce new, in a way better art. Jackson Pollok and most of the New York expressionist were doing that, in fact they were running big risks going against the establishment, but they had an idea of what art should be in USA at that time. And on the contrary there have been artists that have less holly intentions producing great works of art (think of Toulousse Lautrec or Utrillo). Or you have artists like Caravaggio who painted religious work, meaning transmitting a religious message by means of painting being himself as atheist as could be possible in his time. Which was his intention then? He certainly had one, which was not visible in his time, besides having an innovative technique apparently he was communicating religious feelings, (being his paintings so emotional they are about feelings). Marc wrote about invisible ink, he is right and here applies to well. The point is that you don�t see it easily, even if you are the artist.

 

What I am pointing to is that intentions are not a guarantee of producing good art, or durable art. You can produce outstanding art with lousy intentions. The question in my humble opinion is indeed a metaphysical one, it is �what is art�, and our concern is to produce art, if you wish so. I am not going into this subject, perhaps another time, besides I have written about enough here.

One thing I would like to comment, Matt Kime said that If someone finds a piece of trash and they call it art, it is they who transform it from trash to art. � No object becomes recognised as art unless someone presents it as art"Art doesn't need to be made for a specific purpose to be considered art. Art is quite often divorced from the intentions and efforts of its creator. Someone creates something along a certain line of thought and presents it to an audience who has no connection to this line of though." - "A random creation can be considered art but it is the person who selects the item as art that converts the item from a typical object into art." I agree with this but I think that no anybody can transform a piece of trash in work of art. It is obvious that if Leo Castelli had shown in his gallery some rags and a dead bird would have been an artwork if I put them in the living room of my would have not, not even a third rate gallery can operate such a transformation. Duchamp could make an urinal an everlasting piece of art, I can not and I guess you neither. Marc add to this comment one observation that I fin unconvincing. He said: I agree with all these posts,(Matt�s posts) but what I personally find interesting to understand is WHY any public identifying an object as "art" *automatically* makes it art... I think it's precisely because this public would then have somehow LEND an intention to the artwork. I think that the explanation goes in another direction, it is not the public lending intention to the artwork, but it is that there are people able to discover the artistic value of some man made objects and showing it to less perceptive people, teaching us to see thet value. This is the difference (among others) between Leo Castelli and me, or Duchamp and me, they have an intuition that I don�t have, that only a few people have, and they have proved their intuition consistently.

 

My question is more conceptual than factual. It is about the

differences/ vantages of Hasselblad H1 over Nikon D1 or vice versa.

I know that not many people have seen a digital Haselblad, less used

one, then I don�t expect many facts, but yet opinions from the

digital people. I am well acquainted with both Nikon and Hasselblad,

that means that I know well when and why I use MF or 35mm. I have

never used a digital camera; perhaps asking about medium format

digital makes no sense at all, if so why anybody would like to have

the new digital Hasselblad?

I could be a focalizer in a couple of months, (April or May) at the moment I dont have much time. My handicap is my awful English... if you can cope with it it is OK with me

Yes...I am very interested,..... ratings or not