Bad Photography?

[Hertz van Rental]

But that is just my way of looking at photographs. I expect the photograph to say something to me, not in words, but in conveyance of the moment.

From your comments it is clear that you have a precise and definite idea of what you want a photograph to say, as well as the way it says it.
If an image does not fit in with your expectations then to you it is a 'bad' photograph. You also like to pigeonhole - you talk about the shots only in terms of your definition of stock photography and photojournalism.
A great many people look at photographs in this pre-conceived way. There is nothing wrong in this. But it is very limiting.
Try looking at photographs on their own terms and from the point of view of their original purpose.
You might just see something that you missed the first time.
When we go about our daily lives we do not look at the world in terms of exposure and composition. We do not edit what we see in the normal course of events, but take it all as fragments of a continuous flow.
I would be very surprised if, when watching TV in the evening you got a friend around to watch with you and positioned them precisely because 'the composition' required it.
Random photography like this works if you look at it as a whole. No one images is very good but taken all together you start to re-create the 'continuous flow' of the evening. Like taking random frames from a film, a pattern emerges and you build up a mental image.
I suspect a lot of the problem is in the showing of them, though, where they are presented as individual shots.
Like the viewing, the way they are shown has to respect their original intention too.

I used to collect junked images. The ones that people take when winding the film on until that first number one appears in the counter. You often get them.
Shots of your feet and the floor, corners of rooms, backs of heads.
On their own they are not much - which is why people throw them away.
But I found that if you collected enough and grouped them together....
About 100 shots all looking at shoes and the floor are amazingly similar and all put together you begin to notice the differences - the shoes, the floor...
The images stop being junk and begin to take on a life of their own: they have nothing to say individually but as a group and speaking with one voice you see them differently. People who saw them exhibited were quite amazed at the effect.

You just need to stop looking at pictures with a fixed, pre-conceived notion of what you expect them to be.

 

[JC1220]

my response is this: http://www.soulcatcherstudio.com/exhibitions/blossfeldt/index.htm

I think not, for one most of his prints are not soot and chaulk, second he was part of the pictorial movement late in his life, although some would debate this, pictorial photography lead to more bad art. Third, his intent was to document for educational purposes which he did for many years, but I would say he did not grow as a photographer, his recognition as a "photographer" was a relitively short period of time. To be considered among the greats they must expand ones world over a long and sustained period, more than just a decade, and that growth must be evident in thier work.

 

[Hertz van Rental]

my response is this: http://www.soulcatcherstudio.com/exhibitions/blossfeldt/index.htm

But if you care to actually read what it says you will see that the images are photogravure prints and not photographs.

 

[TheLostPhotographer]

Is this a good or, a bad photograph?

I suspect everyone will say it's a good photograph because we've all been told it's a good photograph, but why is it good/bad in your opinion?

Man Ray:

 

[Hertz van Rental]

By to-day's standards it's not very good.
But at the time it was taken it broke new ground - it went against the prevailing 'rules' for portraiture.
You have to see it in context. By doing stuff like this photographers like Man Ray have allowed us to do the stuff we do now.

 

[TheLostPhotographer]

What about this one:

Photography imitating the conventions of art at the time or, something more?

Difficult to imagine how people viewed photographs in Henry Peach-Robinson's day. On the face of this they were just hyper real copies of popular paintings of the day. However, there are many that will argue that photography influenced painters far more than painters influenced photographers during this time.

By today's standards it is a pretty shyte photograph no?

 

[Hertz van Rental]

It's not one of his best.
Peach-Robinson saw photography primarily as a method of conveying morality. A lot like religious groups having their own TV channels these days. Most of his pictures have a moral message and are heavily overlaid with sentiment.
(By the way, that's how country folk dressed in those days.)
Peach-Robinson is not really remembered so much for his pictures as for pioneering multiple image techniques. Often a print would be made up from a dozen or more seperate negatives.
It's actually quite impressive. Especially as they were on glass.
The Victorians had a completely different view on everything to what we have now. Trying to see things as they would have is pretty near impossible. But then, in 150 years from now people will find it difficult to imagine how we see the world - and they will probably laugh at our pictures too.

 

[TheLostPhotographer]

Here's interesting.

Henry Peach-Robinson. The Lady of Shalott, 1860-1861.

"The Lady of Shalott"
by J.W. Waterhouse (1888).

Straying way of thread topic now.

How much Alfred, Lord Tennyson and how much Henry Peach-Robinson do you see in this painting?

In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And round about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.

I think Henry Peach-Robinson was appreciated more for his pioneering work in special FX. However, he was also a recognised painter and I will argue that the photograph above influenced other romantic painters of the time as much as the poem itself.

 

[Hertz van Rental]

Peach-Robinson was regarded as the finest photographer of his day. He was certainly highly regarded and his images would have been known in artistic circles.
Peach-Robinson would certainly have been influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites who were painting this sort of thing before he photographed it.
See Millais' Ophelia - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Millais_-_Ophelia.jpg
Waterhouse was loosely connected with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (founded 1848) and was certainly influenced by them and their style.
They would have all been aware of each other, even if they did not know each other, so the connections between Waterhouse and Robinson are not as clear cut as you suppose. Those works have some similarity most likely because both would have drawn their inspiration from the Pre-Raphaelites.


I believe you will find that Robinson was not a painter - he started life as a book seller but turned to photography and did that for the rest of his life.

 

[TheLostPhotographer]

Ophelia (1852) ^ above image.

Peach-Robinson's photograph was a blatant rip-off. I'll now change my argument.

I believe you will find that Robinson was not a painter - he started life as a book seller but turned to photography and did that for the rest of his life.

He was also a painter (I've seen some). His paintings were almost copies of his own photographs. He did triptychs and stuff. Separate compositions exhibited together as a single composition. Early art special FX?

He seemed to rely on technological mastery above art.

Personally, I think he was a dumb rich kid supported by his family.

 

[WingedPower]

When we go about our daily lives we do not look at the world in terms of exposure and composition. We do not edit what we see in the normal course of events, but take it all as fragments of a continuous flow.
I would be very surprised if, when watching TV in the evening you got a friend around to watch with you and positioned them precisely because 'the composition' required it.

In addition to the description of my pre-concieved notions regarding photography, I would definitely agree. That is the filter/lens through which I look at the art/photography in front of me. I couldn't agree more. I miss things that my wife and my friends point out to me, then I go, "Oh! Hadn't thought of looking at it like that!".

Random photography like this works if you look at it as a whole. No one images is very good but taken all together you start to re-create the 'continuous flow' of the evening. Like taking random frames from a film, a pattern emerges and you build up a mental image....You just need to stop looking at pictures with a fixed, pre-conceived notion of what you expect them to be.

I understand the presentation you are describing. There was actually a series of photographic gallery presentation a few years back, that employed that concept, but only presenting slots of the images in conjunction with other images presented in the same way. All of the images presented represented the same scene, but from different angles, moments, subjects, etc.

It much more closely resembles and represents one's perception of reality and was a real eye opener for me. Though, ultimately, I still ended up with the filters I have now.

 

[Hertz van Rental]

I think he was a dumb rich kid supported by his family.

Far from it. He was a self-made man who earned his living purely from photography. He worked as a successful portrait photographer to begin with. He was considered one of the greatest photographers of his day. Prince Albert used to buy his prints.
He is credited with not only perfecting composite printing from several negatives (it started as an attempt to cope with the exposure limitations of the materials of the time), but of being the first person to purposely use vignetting.
His most famous composite was 'Fading Away' which portrayed someone dying. This outraged critics. It was OK for painters to portray death but it was not considered a suitable subject for a photograph.
Robinson spent a lot of his later years fighting for Photography to be recognised as having artistic potential - up to that point it was seen as a purely scientific exercise - and to this end he established the Linked Ring, a group of photographers who became extremely influential.
When he got married he told his bride "photography first, wife afterwards".
Robinson was extremely important in the History of Photography.

As for paintings - I can find no reference to any in any of the Histories that I have (and I have quite a few, some rather detailed). He had no artistic training of any kind and spent his whole life as a photographer so I am doubtful.
But if you can point me towards any paintings by him I would appreciate it.

 

[TheLostPhotographer]

...

As for paintings - I can find no reference to any in any of the Histories that I have (and I have quite a few, some rather detailed). He had no artistic training of any kind and spent his whole life as a photographer so I am doubtful.
But if you can point me towards any paintings by him I would appreciate it.

I'm playing ignorant for the sake of a good thread here. I actually studied the life of Peach-Robinson as part of my college photography training. Then, a few years later I found myself living within yards of his old studio in Ludlow, Shropshire (UK). Most of his working life was spent in Leamington Spa and London.

Exploring the town I stumbled across a triptych painting in the church that was credited to Henry Peach-Robinson. Further research revealed more paintings.

The stuff you can't learn from Google!

From Wikipedia:

'At the age of 19 he practised as an artist, and exhibited an oil painting at the Royal Academy of Art in 1852.'

 

[Hertz van Rental]

Apparently all the books I have only concern themselves with his Photography and that fact is considered unimportant.
Doesn't surprise me, though. Fox-Talbot was a failed artist and Daguerre studied as an architect. It's a common trait among photographers.
I used to teach the History of Photography as a College lecturer and I taught that it is important to look at everything that was going on in the Arts and not just see photographs in isolation. Art and Photography had a great deal of cross-fertilisation in second half of the 19thC.


I rarely, if ever, Google. 99% of what is on the Interweb is normally wrong or misinformed. I prefer books, but even then...

 

[killcrazy]

I rarely, if ever, Google. 99% of what is on the Interweb is normally wrong or misinformed. I prefer books, but even then...

even though you put "but even then... " at the end of that, that is probably still one of the most narrowminded things i've ever read.
and quite snobbish too.

Just because something is printed doesnt make it "right". nore does it make it good either.
Sure the internet is full of cr*p, but it is an easy (and in some cases) free way to get information out to the world.

Give someone the ability to do something, and they will abuse it. In general terms that statement is correct for the human race, and the internet is definatly not excluded from that.

But The internet is the biggest source of information in the world which is also factual, and correct. sometimes access to that information might not be legal. (for example, some torrent sites), but the information is THERE.

If google's information was wrong, then people wouldnt use it would they?
google it has, unfortunatly, become a recognised term in households accross the WORLD, beacuse it is the easiest way of finding out information which IS correct.


As for the "bad photography", my 2p would be, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Noone can truley say what is good and bad photography.I might think a photograph is brilliant but another person might hate it.
Im sure anyone who has ever sold photographs will agree, that when showing clients a set, they might absolutly LOVE a picture, but you hated it, because the exposure was wrong, or it was cropped slightly too much to the left or whatever.
Your the photography proffessional, but they are the client. the client with the money, the one whos going to BUY it..

whos right? who can truely say that that photo is good or bad, your the one with the expereince in taking photos, but they are the one who likes it.
Answer: to you: Bad photo
to them: good photo.

The only true way to take a bad photo, would be to show it to every single person on the planet, and have everyone hate it.
Even if ONE person likes it... to THEM, its still a good photo. even if the rest of the world hates it.

This debate, in my honest opinion is pointless. (for finding a winner), as noone is truely a winner or a looser in this argument/debate. It dfoes make an interesting read. But really noone can answer this question. As different things appeal to different people.