Some Thoughts and Warnings for Beginners...

[The_Traveler]

What does bother me is when people try to use technical faults as artistic decisions, after the fact and only once negative reviews come in. When a photograph breaks convention in an intelligent and intentional way, it's obvious and it works - it's not so clearly an oversight. However very often I do hear "Oh, I meant it to be that way" or "that's what I had in mind" and I have to leave scratching my head wondering "why?".

Another thing that people often mistake is that simply because something is intentional, it has weight. I've done plenty of things intentionally - but this doesn't necessarily mean that those decisions worked out. Just because something is intentional doesn't automatically mean that it is successful.

THIS ^ :bounce:

 

[unpopular]

OH, I know EXACTLY where this is heading. And let me start the "what is genuine art" debate with this:

Watch the whole thing. The ending is the best part.

 

[charlie76]

I like how you have incorporated the fingers in the foreground. It really presents a sense of immersion. I feel like im really there taking the photo! It also helps tell a story. The photographer is part of this little slice of time and it makes the details in the background seem less important. Which in this situation i think really goes to improve on the photo as a whole. Great exposure. Spot on

Um....?

 

[kundalini]

Yet again? Truely, so sad.

 

[unpopular]

I like how you have incorporated the fingers in the foreground. It really presents a sense of immersion. I feel like im really there taking the photo! It also helps tell a story. The photographer is part of this little slice of time and it makes the details in the background seem less important. Which in this situation i think really goes to improve on the photo as a whole. Great exposure. Spot on

Um....?

LOL. You know that this is a joke, right???

 

[unpopular]

Yet again? Truely, so sad.
loggins & messina - same old wine - Sittin' In - YouTube

That's some groovy **** right there, brother!

 

[Derrel]

>SNIP>If you want to study posing, look at ancient Greek sculpture. Even the stuff missing limbs, noses, whatever. It conveys a sense of life, emotion. These things still work today, that's why conventions exist. They've always worked, still work, and will work long after our sorry asses have drifted off of this mortal coil. Before you can successfully bend, break, bypass or ignore the rules, you have to know why
the rules work.

>>SNIP>> ...right out of school, and wannabees who've never devoted a single minute to learning the science of baking, turning out the most ridiculous products. "It's different", "It's edgey", "I'm pushing the envelope". No. You're pushing bull****. Sorry, you may be in love with your Passion Fruit and Thyme cup cake with sweet smoked Salmon mousse buttercream frosting, but nobody else is. We all fall in love with our labors until we learn to discriminate between good and garbage.>>SNIP

>>SNIP>>Those with the education, experience and ability to bend rules in a way that works, realize not every seat should have an ass in it. Those who think​ they're breaking rules, being artsy, or being original without the requisite knowledge, willingly and eagerly sit in those seats and then defend an indefensible position because pride and ego together with the love of their (poor) labor won't allow them to see what really is. And I must agree also with Lew. When the ****storm starts, it's almost always the person who posted for c&c who dips his/her hand in the commode to hurl the first turd.

I agree with all of your points which I quoted back, above. Well-said. Very blunt, direct, and based on my experience, very true-to-life. Of course, you were , "Awfully hard on the Beav last night, Ward..."

I'm sure somebody will consider taking you to task for being such a plain-spoken,heartless internet meanie...lol...

 

[pgriz]

Thanks, Kundalini. Been a while since I've listened to those two.

 

[JAC526]

There are no oil painting prodigies. It's just too difficult a form to master. There are no prodigies of sculpture. There ARE prodigies of the piano. They're not the world's greatest pianist at age 10, but they're awfully good.

This has to do with the mechanics of the art, leaning to press a piano key expressively is, ultimately, not very hard. All that is required after that is the ability to press a lot of them in a more or less predetermined sequence, with suitable expression at each turn. This can be taught, and to a surprising degree can be simply intuited. The prodigies, in general, have had a shocking amount of formal training by age 10, but nonetheless, the 10 year old can play.

The lowest-level mechanic of oil painting, the smudging of a single blob of paint onto a piece of canvas in an expressive way, appears to simply be harder, or to require a higher degree of cognitive or motor development. Carving marble, of course, requires motor skills that no 10 year old possesses. There are surely ten year olds with the higher level innate talent to visualize, to imagine what they WOULD paint, but for whatever reason they cannot manage the physical act.

What about photography? The lowest level mechanic is 'press this button'. The ability to press a button, plus the ability to "see" for a very particular meaning of that verb, is really all that is necessary for photography as art. Commercial is another kettle of fish entirely, of course.

Photography resembles baking pastries in no interesting way whatsoever. Cooking at a high level requires a wide range of skills, large and small, from knowing how to crack eggs, to stir, all the way to knowing what is going to happen when you add these three ingredients together. Cooking requires you to be able to "visualize" flavors and how they will interact, and you still need to experiment.

Photography requires the ability to "see" (which, if teachable at all, is certainly much more innate to some people than others) and the ability to push a button.

Francesca Woodman comes to mind. I don't much care for her work, but you can't really ignore it.

I am sorry but you are wrong about music entirely. There are people who are technically perfect and then there are people who are technically perfect who also have an undefinable quality that makes them just better. These people may be "prodigies" as you define it. And they may have received a **** ton of formal training before age 10 but somehow they just have this extra something that I cant' define that makes them more amazing than someone who is just technically perfect.

The mandolin player Chris Thile is the best example I have. There are other mandolin players who are technically as good but somehow he just manages to totally outclass them.

 

[unpopular]

I think that this goes for everything. There are dime-a-dozon artists, then there are those who really "get it".

Music is just the most obvious.

There's Justin Bieber, and their's Edward Sharpe. There's nothing 'wrong' with Bieber. He's got enough talent to sell records, something more than what most of us can say. But he'll always just be a 'performer', not an 'artist'.

 

[manaheim]

I am sorry but you are wrong about music entirely. There are people who are technically perfect and then there are people who are technically perfect who also have an undefinable quality that makes them just better. These people may be "prodigies" as you define it. And they may have received a **** ton of formal training before age 10 but somehow they just have this extra something that I cant' define that makes them more amazing than someone who is just technically perfect.

The mandolin player Chris Thile is the best example I have. There are other mandolin players who are technically as good but somehow he just manages to totally outclass them.

I'm glad someone said that. I'm not a pianist, but I am a musician, and amolitors remarks rang with a thud to my ears. Just wasn't sure if there was something I was missing.

 

[manaheim]

If people who play the piano extremely poorly are pianists, then I am a pianist. If not, no.

Them I don't think you are qualified to make such a comparison.

 

[manaheim]

And my point, just to simplify it down to a comprehensible nugget is this:

Some art can be produced by relatively untrained geniuses. Some art cannot. Photography is of the first sort, baking is not.

You are mashing up a whole bunch of random crap to support a weird argument but it doesn't really work.

First, there are people who are naturally talented at all kinds of random things. Said a better way... For everything you can do, there ate people who naturally do it well.

Second there are accidents that come out well, and there is planned and purposeful execution. My father knows nothing of photography but has gotten a couple lucky shots that I'm literally jealous of, but I can get the shot I know will work almost every time and there's no way he can.

Last there are areas that are easier to produce something that comes close to resembling a finished product than others. With no (and i mean utterly zero) training it's easier to click a shutter than it is to bake a cake.

However ALL things..., photography, baking, driving, music... Require training (or a gift) to do well, and a long time to master.