I want to be a photographer – or maybe an artist. - small rant

[The_Traveler]

Lew, looks like it was a very good idea to start this thread. At the end it will help us to define ourselves better. Especially that we are such a mixed bag of people.

Well, it was a little disappointing to me.

I was being honest about something that was important to me and deeply felt and many of the responses were of the category "you think you're better than me, well you ain't' or 'you have a different idea than I do and you're wrong' or 'I have nothing really to say so I'll try to say something funny and attract attention.'

I care about photography a lot and the only reason I hang around here is for the company of the few people I like and/or admire and to be able to help newer people in some way. And this kind of discussion certainly damps my enthusiasm about putting time in.

 

[timor]

Sorry you feel that way, Lew. You know, what they say: where two people there are three opinions.
No wonder you are thinking about that a lot. Me to and looks like many others also give a thought to why we are doing this. Photography.
It's an open forum, anyone can say, what he/she feels, but don't despair, many heard your and others voice. It needs a time to sink and be digested and revised. It will do good over the time. Also remember, if there would be no emotions in us, this forum would be dead. It is the passion, what drive us and passion could be quite militant. Think about those, who came to photography, but they have no opinion yet, how they feel about it. Let's hope, they were watching this thread to.

 

[71M]

I have a show later this year and I'm at the point where I am going to investigate the other photographer and decide whether or not to withdraw.

Yes, be more selective of which exhibitions you decide to participate in, and the people that curate them.

 

[rexbobcat]

Lew, looks like it was a very good idea to start this thread. At the end it will help us to define ourselves better. Especially that we are such a mixed bag of people.

Well, it was a little disappointing to me.

I was being honest about something that was important to me and deeply felt and many of the responses were of the category "you think you're better than me, well you ain't' or 'you have a different idea than I do and you're wrong' or 'I have nothing really to say so I'll try to say something funny and attract attention.'

I care about photography a lot and the only reason I hang around here is for the company of the few people I like and/or admire and to be able to help newer people in some way. And this kind of discussion certainly damps my enthusiasm about putting time in.

Welcome to internet forums, where negative, yet thought out, opinions make you a meanie with a superiority complex, but I am totally justified when I offer a similar opinion in a different context.
/
People love to seem like they're the good guys in contrast to the overtly negative opinion. It's hard to explain. It's like someone who says "Who are you to judge art? Arrogant much?" But then in a photo thread they say "Yeah, this is a snapshot." People don't want to associate with the negativity because they're afraid it will hurt their social capital, but then in certain situations they feel justified giving similar negative feedback because "It's different in this instance."

I don't know if that makes sense. I can't explain it. It's just an observation I've noticed. People like to push back against what they perceive as strong or pretentious negativity even if they display the same negativity on their own in less obvious ways in other places...Or something.

 

[71M]

I don't know if that makes sense. I can't explain it. It's just an observation I've noticed.

- Pablo Picasso

 

[rexbobcat]

I don't know if that makes sense. I can't explain it. It's just an observation I've noticed.

- Pablo Picasso

Wait what?

 

[71M]

I don't know if that makes sense. I can't explain it. It's just an observation I've noticed.

- Pablo Picasso

Wait what?

oh sorry, I thought you were quoting Picasso...

"I don't know if that makes sense. I can't explain it. It's just an observation I've noticed."

 

[rexbobcat]

oh sorry, I thought you were quoting Picasso... "I don't know if that makes sense. I can't explain it. It's just an observation I've noticed."

Ah gotcha. I don't recall that quote. I think I might've found it though and it does seem relevant to the thread.

"Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the song of a bird? Why does one love the night, flowers, everything around one, without trying to understand them? But in the case of a painting people have to understand. If only they would realize above all that an artist works of necessity, that he himself is only a trifling bit of the world, and that no more importance should be attached to him than to plenty of other things which please us in the world, though we can't explain them. People who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree." -Pablo Picasso

 

[71M]

oh sorry, I thought you were quoting Picasso... "I don't know if that makes sense. I can't explain it. It's just an observation I've noticed."

Ah gotcha. I don't recall that quote. I think I might've found it though and it does seem relevant to the thread.

"Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the song of a bird? Why does one love the night, flowers, everything around one, without trying to understand them? But in the case of a painting people have to understand. If only they would realize above all that an artist works of necessity, that he himself is only a trifling bit of the world, and that no more importance should be attached to him than to plenty of other things which please us in the world, though we can't explain them. People who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree." -Pablo Picasso

I was just kidding, it amused me that, amongst what you wrote, in your own words, was a good "quote" (about art), that you used in a different context, to express yourself...so good that I attributed it to a great artist.

The genuine Picasso quote you give is a good one.

 

[jenko]

It's like someone who says "Who are you to judge art? Arrogant much?" But then in a photo thread they say "Yeah, this is a snapshot." People don't want to associate with the negativity because they're afraid it will hurt their social capital, but then in certain situations they feel justified giving similar negative feedback because "It's different in this instance."

I understand what you are saying, but I don't feel it is hypocritical to offer feedback while at the same time believing the future value of a piece is largely unknowable. That has been the condition of pretty much every mentor in the history of art, including the greats, like Da Vinci. His mentor sent him to the royal court as a musician, not a painter. But music probably had an interesting influence on his work, so who knows.

Pretty much throughout the history of art, there has been "mentorship." A less experienced artist under the guidance of a more experienced one. I see this forum as acting in that role to some extent, although it can also be a bit of the blind leading the blind. But there are different levels of experience here, and we can make some judgements based on what has worked and not worked in the past. A "snapshot" for example, can absolutely work as "art". There are plenty of examples where it has worked, and some photographers have intentionally used the snapshot as a stylistic choice.

I think critique starts to fail when one judges every image by a very narrow set of standards intended for a specific genre. It would be like judging the Eastern Canon by the Western Canon's standards. For hundreds of years, that is exactly what happened. Non western art was thought of as primitive and without value because it didn't conform to the standards of the Western canon. In the 60's, that all started to break down and any art critic worth listening to will adjust and adapt their criteria based on what they are looking at and its context.

So, I think the biggest problem in critique is judging an image on a set of standards that are irrelevant. To judge every portrait based on the standards of commercial portraiture is a mistake, or every landscape on the standards of Ansel Adams, or every travel photograph on the standard of National Geographic, or even judgements based on personal likes and dislikes--hyperrealism, extent of processing, too dark, limited tonal ranges, unhappy subjects, unconventional color palettes, etc.

Fortunately, I think we have a lot of very knowledgeable and experienced participants on this forum. Not to put anyone on the spot, but Derrel is really good at using standards appropriate to the image. He will comment on a commercial portrait and make great suggestions and turn around and comment on something less conventional and adapt his commentary to that vision There are many, many others who have this ability. He just came to mind first. For myself, I have learned quite a bit on this forum, from posting my own images and from reading the critiques of others. Mainly it has been technical in nature, but that is fine with me because it helps me to make what I want to make, or gives me ideas of how to make something in a different way than the ways I have gotten used to.

 

[rexbobcat]

It's like someone who says "Who are you to judge art? Arrogant much?" But then in a photo thread they say "Yeah, this is a snapshot." People don't want to associate with the negativity because they're afraid it will hurt their social capital, but then in certain situations they feel justified giving similar negative feedback because "It's different in this instance."

I understand what you are saying, but I don't feel it is hypocritical to offer feedback while at the same time believing the future value of a piece is largely unknowable. That has been the condition of pretty much every mentor in the history of art, including the greats, like Da Vinci. His mentor sent him to the royal court as a musician, not a painter. But music probably had an interesting influence on his work, so who knows.

Pretty much throughout the history of art, there has been "mentorship." A less experienced artist under the guidance of a more experienced one. I see this forum as acting in that role to some extent, although it can also be a bit of the blind leading the blind. But there are different levels of experience here, and we can make some judgements based on what has worked and not worked in the past. A "snapshot" for example, can absolutely work as "art". There are plenty of examples where it has worked, and some photographers have intentionally used the snapshot as a stylistic choice.

I think critique starts to fail when one judges every image by a very narrow set of standards intended for a specific genre. It would be like judging the Eastern Canon by the Western Canon's standards. For hundreds of years, that is exactly what happened. Non western art was thought of as primitive and without value because it didn't conform to the standards of the Western canon. In the 60's, that all started to break down and any art critic worth listening to will adjust and adapt their criteria based on what they are looking at and its context.

So, I think the biggest problem in critique is judging an image on a set of standards that are irrelevant. To judge every portrait based on the standards of commercial portraiture is a mistake, or every landscape on the standards of Ansel Adams, or every travel photograph on the standard of National Geographic, or even judgements based on personal likes and dislikes--hyperrealism, extent of processing, too dark, limited tonal ranges, unhappy subjects, unconventional color palettes, etc.

Fortunately, I think we have a lot of very knowledgeable and experienced participants on this forum. Not to put anyone on the spot, but Derrel is really good at using standards appropriate to the image. He will comment on a commercial portrait and make great suggestions and turn around and comment on something less conventional and adapt his commentary to that vision There are many, many others who have this ability. He just came to mind first. For myself, I have learned quite a bit on this forum, from posting my own images and from reading the critiques of others. Mainly it has been technical in nature, but that is fine with me because it helps me to make what I want to make, or gives me ideas of how to make something in a different way than the ways I have gotten used to.

Oh I'm not saying people shouldn't critique or judge photos at all. I'm referring to a specific type of judging though, where the critic is sarcastic or somewhat snobby to the other person, but then they go into threads like this and they tell the OP to stop being such a snob.

Critique can be can and should be done without sounding arrogant.

 

[minicoop1985]

Lew, looks like it was a very good idea to start this thread. At the end it will help us to define ourselves better. Especially that we are such a mixed bag of people.

Well, it was a little disappointing to me.

I was being honest about something that was important to me and deeply felt and many of the responses were of the category "you think you're better than me, well you ain't' or 'you have a different idea than I do and you're wrong' or 'I have nothing really to say so I'll try to say something funny and attract attention.'

I care about photography a lot and the only reason I hang around here is for the company of the few people I like and/or admire and to be able to help newer people in some way. And this kind of discussion certainly damps my enthusiasm about putting time in.

I admire that, actually. I think there's two reasons, mainly. Photographic equipment, when new, tends to be rather expensive. I'm part of a Hasselblad group elsewhere, and it's quite amusing to see all these people basically claim that because they took it with their mighty expensive Hasselblad, it must be great or must be art or why don't I have 40 likes on this etc. I can only imagine it's WAY worse on a Leica site... The second is that there's the artistic potential in photography. Photographs can be art, though the vast, vast majority of them are not-like my product photos. They're not art, and nobody should ever pretend that a shot of a Sigma 28-80 on a white background IS art. It's not, and that's it. The artistic potential in photography attracts a similar mindset to the first: it's a photo THEY too, it must be art. Because they're an artist. I've been here long enough to see quite a few newer individuals get quite angry because their "art" wasn't perceived as such. So in summation, what I'm saying is, because of the price and the POTENTIAL (rarely realized) artistic value, photography attracts a LOT of arrogant pricks with too much god damned money.



*disclaimer: not calling any individuals out, so please don't taze me. No, not even a little. I have sensitive skin. Yes. Put it down.

 

[The_Traveler]

rewritten for re-reading

 

[manaheim]

Let's see...

A thread with the word "rant" in the title. [check]
A giant wall of text lamenting the things that other people do. [check]
Six pages of comments and counting. [check]

Yup. This thread has win written all over it.

 

[bribrius]

lol. cool I will add to it.

im probably going to heat for this. But perhaps you all are making photography as a art into more than it actually is. Not to slight it at all, or the potential complexity. just sayn.
im also questioning the reasoning here, of what is art. Like there is some bar it has to reach to be art, some people to appease. Im not sure most historical highly recognized photos were intended by the photographer to be art or appease anyone at the time of shooting. The person (did he/she even consider themselves a artist or photographer?) was probably just taking the photo for their own pleasure, or for their own personal meaning. Next thing you know fourty years goes by and it is the national gallery of art acclaimed by critics.
I bring this up because to create a imaginary bar (and oh yes, this bar that is being invented here is totally imaginary) is to say that a photo has to appease. To reach a standard of acclaim. A standard of proficiency. while I was under the impression most highly recognized, famous photos were not shot with the intention of hitting any imaginary bar or appeasing. I don't think most painters, sculptors or any other artists or even beetoven on the piano for all the reason had any goal of having others invent a bar for their work and then further following through on appeasing the others imaginary standards. I actually think the entire idea of this is idiotic.
Couple hundred years from now, they accidently turn up two photos. one done by a acclaimed professional and one done by a five year old with a insta-cam. Flip a quarter on which one they decide to throw out and which one they think might have some value. Or what if they just decide this. That this was the century of NO ARTISTS. what if they blackmark the entire century as the "lost art " or "bad photograph" century. Then they pretty much say everyone sucks. kind of like certain other periods in history when it was decided nothing worth a damn thing came out of it. so much for the high art bar then.

oh, and I think half the crap in studios and gallery's does suck. The times i've been in them seem hit or miss to me. But I guess if they are acclaimed by someone , or meet some rule or standard, hey , it must be good art eh?