Is my title going to be offensive to museum curators?

[Braineack]

No one has offered their own title to the pix. Any suggestions?

Title it: Horribly Composed, Boring, Over-processed Snapshot

 

[runnah]

People don't like you, ilovemycam, and they are using your use of the word "anorexic" to justify some bile.

I like him just fine. I dislike his choices, thats all.

 

[Ilovemycam]

Neither am I a curator, but I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night..... and I wouldn't hang it in a gallery. But then I walk past a lot of the crap I see there too.

I think offensiveness would particularly be the case for those that have actually suffered the disease. I think getting it into a gallery as the basis for evaluation is somewhat offensive. Shoot/process well and respect your subjects and the gallery will come.

I thought you may be from Canada. They call museums, galleries in Canada.

We all take our own directions with our pix. I like street and I like hyper real....bight and bold. If people hate HDR hyper real, the wont like it. You just got to please yourself with the work. But I still try and take into account if things may go too far for others.

I'm a Tumblr photog. On Tumblr, we have no limits except that which is illegal. As such we never think a thing about offensive, if it is legal, we just do. But the world at large is not like Tumblr.

 

[Ilovemycam]

Neither am I a curator, but I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night..... and I wouldn't hang it in a gallery. But then I walk past a lot of the crap I see there too.

I think offensiveness would particularly be the case for those that have actually suffered the disease. I think getting it into a gallery as the basis for evaluation is somewhat offensive. Shoot/process well and respect your subjects and the gallery will come.

I'm having problem with the whole "send my photos to museums" concept the OP keeps bringing up.
A gallery will hang what it thinks it can sell (or what an artist pays to have hung in some cases).
I would think a museum curator would be operating under a different set of criteria than mail-in exhibit entries.
I imagine these all end up in the "circular file exhibit".

Galleries are not interested in anything except what they can sell. And to sell, you have to have a big name pretty much.

Yes, you are right about the trash. But that is how it is with any of ther arts. Writing, music, art proper...lots gets trashed. But we still do what we love and still try to promote.

 

[nycphotography]

We all take our own directions with our pix. I like street and I like hyper real....bight and bold. If people hate HDR hyper real, the wont like it. You just got to please yourself with the work. But I still try and take into account if things may go too far for others.

HDR is hyper real? More like Hyper UNREAL. But at least delusional statements like that help shed light on your original choice of title.

If you have the ability and inclination to shoot decent stuff, why post this in this way? Just to spin people up?

 

[Ilovemycam]

In the front she looked very skinny. She may be thin for some other health reason? I don't know? When street shooting you don't have time to think much, you think later. In this case the anorexic looking body look made me want to shoot her as well as her bright dress. So that was the founding father of the photo as well as my description.

Sounds like a very exploitative style of shooting.

Judging from the short hair I would have to say that there is a very good chance she had cancer and had chemo treatment.

That is possible. I thought cancer as well. But I don't know.

What name would you give it? Names are important when you promote your work. You can't just list endless pix's entitled 'Untitled #1,2,45,134' etc.

No, I never make a dime from my pix. I exploit no one. I just record what I see that interests me. I am asking feedback on the title for this very reason of trying to see how the ttile would fly.

 

[amolitor]

Galleries, not museums, are where new artists get exposure. That's how the system works. New artists sending stuff to museums is pointless. In fact, established artists doing it is pretty much pointless. Museums collect what their curatorial staff feels is important, fits into their collection, and which is available. Random blokes off the street fit none of these categories.

Galleries, on the other hand, are always on the lookout for new artists. It's what they do. It's their function. It's how they make their money.

To get a gallery's attention you have to:

- demonstrate that you can build a portfolio, that you can produce a coherent body of work and will be able to continue to do so.
- demonstrate that your body of work is artistically coherent, that it says something, that's it's new but not too new.
- be quite lucky.

Where's your artist's statement? What are you trying to accomplish with this stuff? What's interesting about it, what's new? You spend a lot of time saying stuff like I'm a street photog we don't think we just shoot but very little time trying to pull together an interesting central idea. In fact, you seem quite dismissive of a central idea or theme. A gallery that takes you on is going to make a substantial investment in you, in order that you may sell works to a pretty idiosyncratic group of people. If you're not willing and able to work with them, if you're not fully aware of what the problems the gallery faces in selling to these people and fully on board with helping the gallery solve those problems, why on earth would they spend 5 seconds talking to you? Would you walk into a car dealership and start demanding that they sell you a wheelbarrow? Would you walk into a farmer's market and offer to supply them with all the secondhand ceiling tiles they can sell?

You're not even getting to first base, and you're not going to get to first base unless you start thinking like an artist. Protip: It's ALL ABOUT the central idea. It's ALL ABOUT a coherent body of work that says something.

I'm pretty sure you're not interested in getting to first base, I'm pretty sure you're a lot more interested in talking about how tough it is for a top-level street photog such as yourself to get noticed by the conspiracy of old women who hate people like you. That's certainly a lot easier than actually being a working artist.

 

[Ilovemycam]

I think in this case, I would be much more concerned with the accuracy of the statement. Why do you think she is anorexic? If you don't know for a fact that she is, then I'd be worried about labeling her something that she isn't. Being labelled an anorexic could have serious effects for the woman in the photograph, and if she is not actually anorexic, I'd be concerned about being held accountable for the damage I caused.

In the front she looked very skinny. She may be thin for some other health reason? I don't know? When street shooting you don't have time to think much, you think later. In this case the anorexic looking body look made me want to shoot her as well as her bright dress. So that was the founding father of the photo as well as my description.

So you assume she is anorexic just because she is not part of the obesity problem? Or maybe you aren't aware of what advanced aging does to the human body, especially when there are not massive amounts of lipid tissue to hide the muscular atrophy and skin stretching that occurs?

"Founding father of the photo"? .. jeez.. what a goofy metaphor.... lol.

You can look at it as a goofy metaphor, but your not a street photog. Your a set up, studio photog. So of course you have a different thought process in mind. You start doing museum quality street photos and then you can call me a goof.

 

[pixmedic]

No one has offered their own title to the pix. Any suggestions?

I offered a few.

 

[Ilovemycam]

Galleries, not museums, are where new artists get exposure. That's how the system works. New artists sending stuff to museums is pointless. In fact, established artists doing it is pretty much pointless. Museums collect what their curatorial staff feels is important, fits into their collection, and which is available. Random blokes off the street fit none of these categories.

Galleries, on the other hand, are always on the lookout for new artists. It's what they do. It's their function. It's how they make their money.

To get a gallery's attention you have to:

- demonstrate that you can build a portfolio, that you can produce a coherent body of work and will be able to continue to do so.
- demonstrate that your body of work is artistically coherent, that it says something, that's it's new but not too new.
- be quite lucky.

Where's your artist's statement? What are you trying to accomplish with this stuff? What's interesting about it, what's new? You spend a lot of time saying stuff like I'm a street photog we don't think we just shoot but very little time trying to pull together an interesting central idea. In fact, you seem quite dismissive of a central idea or theme.

You're not even getting to first base, and you're not going to get to first base unless you start thinking like an artist. Protip: It's ALL ABOUT the central idea. It's ALL ABOUT a coherent body of work that says something.

I'm pretty sure you're not interested in getting to first base, I'm pretty sure you're a lot more interested in talking about how tough it is for a top-level street photog such as yourself to get noticed by the conspiracy of old women who hate people like you. That's certainly a lot easier than actually being a working artist.

I am not interested in galleries. Before I started soliciting museums I tried with some galleries. No success, but I only wrote 30 or so. I've had much more success with museums or rare book libraries. My interest is not with $, it is with preservation.

Here is a list if any of you would like to give it a try...

US Photography Galleries / Photography Gallery Guide

 

[Ilovemycam]

We all take our own directions with our pix. I like street and I like hyper real....bight and bold. If people hate HDR hyper real, the wont like it. You just got to please yourself with the work. But I still try and take into account if things may go too far for others.

HDR is hyper real? More like Hyper UNREAL. But at least delusional statements like that help shed light on your original choice of title.

If you have the ability and inclination to shoot decent stuff, why post this in this way? Just to spin people up?

Don't understand your question. Re work it and I can reply.

 

[runnah]

That is possible. I thought cancer as well. But I don't know.

What name would you give it? Names are important when you promote your work. You can't just list endless pix's entitled 'Untitled #1,2,45,134' etc.

No, I never make a dime from my pix. I exploit no one. I just record what I see that interests me. I am asking feedback on the title for this very reason of trying to see how the ttile would fly.

Well just title it based on what you do know about the subject rather than what you are assuming. To me she seems like she is still a vibrant person in an old body. Hence the colorful dress.

 

[amolitor]

Of course you got nowhere with galleries. I have explained to you several times, this time in quite a lot of detail, why you got nowhere with galleries. You're going to have even less success with museums, for reasons also outlined. Your probability of placing work in any credible museum with your current approach is exactly zero. It is Not. Going. To. Happen.

Which begs several questions, but let's just set that aside.

If preservation is your goal, I suggest that you start a business with that as the stated goal. Persuade suckers to pony up $X to have their work preserved, and use the money to endow a small museum devoted to rotating the random collection of rubbish contributed by the suckers. Include your work in that rotation. With a good pitch you could probably raise a few million bucks pretty fast, there's tons of people out there who would love to place their work in a "real museum" but are just as clueless as you are about how to actually accomplish that.

The point being that museums are not in the business of "preserving" random rubbish. The only businesses that I can think of that would be in that business are ones started specifically to do it. So, start one.

 

[Ilovemycam]

People don't like you, ilovemycam, and they are using your use of the word "anorexic" to justify some bile.

I like him just fine. I dislike his choices, thats all.

None of this matters. What matter is this..do I like or love my work.

Over the years I have heard all sorts of criticism about my photography...

"I don't like color."
"I don't like BW."
"I don't like HDR."
"I don't selective color."
"I don't like diffusion."
"I don't like Hyper-Real, it is too cartoonish."
"Your photos are too contrasty."
"Your photos are too grainy."
"Your trying to make something out of nothing."
"Your photos are too sensational."
"Don't photograph the homeless."
"Don't photograph kids without their parents permission."
"I find photos of people boring."
"Your not a good photographer."
'Your exploiting the homeless."
'Your photograph does not work."
"I don't like flower photographs they are boring."
"I don't understand what were you trying to say?"
"Digital photography is not real photography."
"You work is not museum worthy."
"Your work is overprocessed."
"Don't take pictures of people in public without their permission."
"Don't photograph anorexics."
"Cover up the breasts."
"Your photos are staged."
"I don't like your photo because it leaves nothing for the imagination."
"Your photography is vernacular."
"You should trash it."
"I don't like fisheye photos."
"I don't like wide-angle distortion."
"Don't send unsolicited photos to museums."
"She is a drunk, she is fat, she is an attention whore, she is trailer trash.'


Where would I be if I listened to these critics?

After you learn the basics, you have to learn to trust your own instincts.

If you can't trust your own instincts, then you must follow the critics and shoot for them and not for yourself. I just wanted to get some feedback on the title. So that was why I brought it up.

 

[Ilovemycam]

TPF is so wonderfully inconsistent. When someone unpopular uses some potentially offensive term, TPF becomes a veritable bastion of righteousness. When one of the in crowd uses a potentially offensive term, it's SUPER FUNNY!

I guess some of the members may actually still be in high school. Does that explain it?

I don't know. I just like to bounce stuff of people to broaden my views...once in a while.