MY photographic hyerarchy

[deudeu]

I know we're talking about the photographic skills here. Different people find different skills easier to grasp and master than others, everyone can learn the knowledge & theories. Even with that knowledge and experience it doesn't mean that great photographs will be taken.. good photographs maybe, great? award winning? timeless?

A kid with a degree in music and years of experience learning music theory might find it difficult to write his own stuff.

You talk about art, can you really have an "Art Chart"?

What's more difficult, playing an instrument? painting? drawing? dancing? writing a novel?..

Surely it's just a personal thing.

Just my thoughts

I am not coparing different arts here, but to go back to your music analogy:
For a piano player, it is objectively harder to play some Rachmaninov than to play some Helton John. It doesn't mean that Rachmaninov's music is better than Helton's, that is a matter of taste, but it does mean that it takes more skill to play one piece than the other.
For painting, water colors are easier to use than oil paint, it is easier to dance a waltz than salsa...
So why wouldn't it be possible to do the same in Photography?

But you are surely right about it being a personal thing though, which is mostly the answer I was looking for.

 

[deudeu]

Then you should define more what you are considering a skill.

Good point: To me, In photography, skills are what enables you to produce the image you want.
Then, the idea, and "wanting" the right image (by right i mean the beautiful, powerful, timeless image) is where the artistic touch comes in place.

 

[ksmattfish]

"Photography appears to be an easy activity; in fact it is a varied and ambiguous process in which the only common denominator among its practitioners is in the instrument." -Henri Cartier-Bresson

 

[Bifurcator]

I see where your coming from Deudeu... and somewhat agree with your analogy....

The hierarchal categorization of photographic genres based on the complexities of camera operation and observational application?

Yeah, me too. Why not. It's just for training himself. He of course knows best how he learns. I guess schools do the same thing. Start with easy still-life to teach the basics and then move on to more complicated and involved tasks.

It's good, it's all good. why not?

 

[Village Idiot]

True, but photojournalism is the only type of photography where you don't get a second chance. You don't get to play around, come back to that spot, rearange your lightboxes, ask the people to move around so that your composition is adequate... I also think that, at least for the great photographs, thinking the lights is something more complex than it seams. In my mind, I don't see someone like Cartier Bresson just walking around with a leica thinking "this looks cool, lets take a pic". I think he was more seeing a spot and light, and then waiting for the people to walk in the frame.



This is pseudo macro work, and I was talking about great photographs... when was the last time you saw a picture of a quiche in an art gallery?


This is portraiture, and street is photojournalism...

Ask a wedding photographer when the last time they had to stop a ceremony so the couple could say I do one more time...

 

[henkelphoto]

You know, I was going through so old negs I shot in the early 80's while working for the Springfield (MO) News-Leader. One of my days consisted of the following:

2 studio portraits (portraiture)
1 basketball game (fast action sports)
1 wild art (could be anything, however in this case it was a shot of a paving truck laying down asphalt with heat waves rising in the air--landscape? nature?)
1 new business photo (in this case a jewelry shop--macro and architecture)
1 house fire (trying to make the scene evocative of grief of the owners--portraiture/architecture?)

While I wouldn't put photojournalism at the peak of the food group, neither would I say that "all you have to do is wail away with the motor drive and you get what you want".

Jerry

 

[Village Idiot]

You know, I was going through so old negs I shot in the early 80's while working for the Springfield (MO) News-Leader. One of my days consisted of the following:

2 studio portraits (portraiture)
1 basketball game (fast action sports)
1 wild art (could be anything, however in this case it was a shot of a paving truck laying down asphalt with heat waves rising in the air--landscape? nature?)
1 new business photo (in this case a jewelry shop--macro and architecture)
1 house fire (trying to make the scene evocative of grief of the owners--portraiture/architecture?)

While I wouldn't put photojournalism at the peak of the food group, neither would I say that "all you have to do is wail away with the motor drive and you get what you want".

Jerry

What is PJ work anyways? I know several photographers that work for newspapers that do food photography, portraiture, etc... We coud just say that there is no such thing a PJ work and it's just what you would call a normal job.

In fact, this weekend I was assiting a newpaper photographer with lighting as theirs blew up and I got a call from a friend. He was doing artistic portraiture of football players.

 

[henkelphoto]

What is PJ work anyways? I know several photographers that work for newspapers that do food photography, portraiture, etc... We coud just say that there is no such thing a PJ work and it's just what you would call a normal job.

In fact, this weekend I was assiting a newpaper photographer with lighting as theirs blew up and I got a call from a friend. He was doing artistic portraiture of football players.

Agreed, I look at pj and say it's a jack of all photo trades (hopefully the people who do it are more than "masters of none" )

But as for it being a "normal" job, heck, I see it as more than that, I would have done this for free, I can't say that I would have ever done a "normal" job for free.

Jerry

 

[K_Pugh]

Some of the photos i see in my local newspaper are absolutely shockingly bad! - that's sort of a rant actually..

 

[Village Idiot]

Some of the photos i see in my local newspaper are absolutely shockingly bad! - that's sort of a rant actually..

Newspaper photos are crap quality anyways. Not like photographer being crap, but the print medium is not high quality.

 

[Steph]

First of all, this does not reffer to me, or any of us "normal photographers" but to the great photographs and the skills I feel like the photographer needed in order to take them. Also, this is not a judgement on the quality of the photos or on their artistic value, but on the skills of the photographers that take them.

Now, Why did I put them in this order:
Landscape and cityscape (most of what I do) is "easy" simply because the subject is still, unchanging, and offers lots of lines that can help for composition. Other than seeing the shot and proper use of the equipment(which are common to any picture), the photographer should get credit for waiting for the right light (Ansel Adams type stuff).

I think this statement is quite ill-informed. You seem to believe that Ansel Adams did not need any skills other that waiting for the light. Without judging the quality of Adams' photos or their artititic value, Ansel Adams is probably one of the great masters of technical skills when it comes to photography: developing and using the zone system with a large format camera requires skills (and he was also very skillful in the darkroom). Even today, many landscape photographers use large format cameras with slide films which requires a lot of skills (undertsanding the movements on the camera and use them properly to achieve the desired effect, manage the limited dynamic range of slide films...). If you were more aware of what is involved to take a landscape picture with a large format camera, maybe your hierarchy would be different.

 

[Joves]

True, but photojournalism is the only type of photography where you don't get a second chance. You don't get to play around, come back to that spot, rearange your lightboxes, ask the people to move around so that your composition is adequate... I also think that, at least for the great photographs, thinking the lights is something more complex than it seams. In my mind, I don't see someone like Cartier Bresson just walking around with a leica thinking "this looks cool, lets take a pic". I think he was more seeing a spot and light, and then waiting for the people to walk in the frame.

You are forgetting wildlife photography. You get no free luck or second chance there. Hell it is hard enough getting a first chance most times. Most of photojournalism is like shooting stock photos and, getting lucky if an event happens while you are shooting. Or you run across something while you are on the way to something else.
Every shot no matter what you are shooting can be equally difficult. Especially when you are going for a certain look or mood to portray. I dont see there being any one shooting discipline that is any harder than the other.

 

[fabric]

candid shark photography. up close and personal. from the hip. act casual.