Poll: Should I give up photography?

[unpopular]

What's the actual purpose of this poll? Seems like an attention grab.. haha

if it smells like bacon, and looks like bacon ........

 

[Overread]

What's the actual purpose of this poll? Seems like an attention grab.. haha

if it smells like bacon, and looks like bacon ........

it's ham?

 

[Derrel]

I found, quite by accident, that if one overcooks the DAYLIGHTS outta' thinly-sliced ham, one can tell a 9 year-old boy that ," It's bacon!" and he will believe it...and he will enjoy it...as will his middle-aged dad...

 

[mishele]

 

[unpopular]

 

[jake337]

But why would you care what we think. If it makes you happy, that is all that matters. If it seems people don't like what you create, and post, here then possibly finding another medium to present your work is in order.

 

[unpopular]

I've known for a long time my photographic work is not exactly "popular", and it seems as time goes on the more off into the weeds I get. I am happy with what I produce, but it's hard without a lot of encouragement.

I mean, I'm not looking for praise, exactly. Sometimes I just wonder if I'm just spinning wheels.

In any case, I doubt i'll stop. This was more out of frustration - from photography, but mostly from some health issues I'm dealing with.

 

[MLeeK]

If you are happy with what you produce, then, NO! You shouldn't quit. If you are doing it to impress everyone else and not to make you happy-then maybe.
I don't happen to like a LOT of impressionist art in the last 50 years. That doesn't make it any less ART than a beautifully painted landscape or portrait or...
I don't' happen to understand what people see in many different things. I also tend to find things beautiful for reasons other than other people find the same things to be beautiful.

How do I know that you see green the same way I see green? We've been taught it's green all of our lives. Could be you see something totally different than I do.
I cannot stand the taste of Airheads. I think they taste like chemicals and I cannot fathom how that can possibly taste good to anyone. There's another popular candy that tastes like soap to me. I am pretty sure that those who do like those things do NOT taste the same things I am tasting-otherwise they would NOT eat it.
There's one perfume on the market that is INCREDIBLY popular. It's very strong and it STINKS like B.O. However, it's WELL loved and sells for a HIGH dollar. Obviously it does not smell like B.O. to an awful lot of people.

The point is-it's all subjective. I am not going to quit eating brussel sprouts because my whole family hates it. I LOVE them. I am not going to wear the BO perfume because everyone else likes it...

If you are happy and enjoying what you do-DO IT! Create for YOU and what YOU like!

 

[amolitor]

So, what do you want out of photography?

I poked around for threads you started to get a sense of what you're working on these days. If what you're posting for C&C is representative of the kind of work you want to do, I have to say -- this stuff is INSANELY HARD. This semi-abstract found-piles-of-crap work almost always comes out as a pile of crap. It feels like it ought to work better, it's *interesting* but it's never comes out right when you throw a rectangular frame around it.

Is this a form you want to master? My advice is to put the camera down and spend some time looking at two things. The first thing is some tutorials on graphic design, because this stuff is ALL about the placement of objects in the frame -- the subject matter is anti-interesting, you have no leg up from the subject matter, you're actually starting in a hole. You have to generate the interest entirely graphically. The second thing is to look at the world more closely. There's a HUGE problem people have, and I include myself in there, with "that's a cool thing!" and converting that to a good photograph. Not every cool thing is a good photograph. Not every cool thing can be represented by a moment in time enclosed in a rectangular frame.

Your "labels" photo is a good example of that. What you're seeing is a pile of tangled material in some context, there's a texture there that's interesting. It truly is a cool thing, but maybe the cool thing is inherently not representable in two dimensions, maybe you really need to literally feel the depth. Maybe it's the context that makes it cool. If there's anything to be made of this, it's going to be something unexpected that captures the feeling you get looking at the labels, NOT a literal representation of some of the labels.

I think you figure these things out by looking at the pile of labels, thinking about how you feel, how the textures relate to the environment, what you want a viewer of your photograph to feel, and then start putting imaginary rectangles around things.

Walker Evans did a certain amount of this sort of thing, just to pull a name out of the air (I just got a book of his work, so he's on my mind. Go check out what he did. His are usually simpler then yours.

Also, go take some pictures of girls and or flowers.

 

[fjrabon]

I've never had a problem with you photography. I think it's a ncie change of pace, and I've liked a couple of things you did.

However, I always have found it a bit irksome when you give C&C using your aesthetic principles that you admit are highly unusual. Like you will occasionally trash photos that don't look like the work you are striving to make, when I think you at least somewhat get that the work you're trying to produce isn't for everybody, to put it mildly. For instance any photo without really flat muddy lighting, you tend to disparage. anything with any saturation or contrast at all, you talk down about.

This has led to quite a few pointless arguments and highly confused newbies.

 

[sovietdoc]

mmm....bacon..

What was the question?

 

[unpopular]

Is this a form you want to master? My advice is to put the camera down and spend some time looking at two things. The first thing is some tutorials on graphic design, because this stuff is ALL about the placement of objects in the frame -- the subject matter is anti-interesting, you have no leg up from the subject matter, you're actually starting in a hole. You have to generate the interest entirely graphically. The second thing is to look at the world more closely. There's a HUGE problem people have, and I include myself in there, with "that's a cool thing!" and converting that to a good photograph. Not every cool thing is a good photograph. Not every cool thing can be represented by a moment in time enclosed in a rectangular frame.

I've spent a lot of time working as a graphic artist, actually, and one of the things I do experiment with is composition. I'm very interested in this kind of equal importance of form. I'm trying to make things dynamic, not allowing the eye to find any one subject. I hope to make the whole of the composition the subject, not any particular dominant element.

I have always been interested in spacial ambiguity, also. I like the sense of flatness, I think this comes from my earlier interest in abstract expressionism. Its very easy to just start taking pictures of walls and stuff, because they're flat, though this gets pretty boring.

anything with any saturation or contrast at all, you talk down about.

It's not so much that I am trying to make a big stink out of things; honestly, I don't understand this vocabulary. If I see an overly contrasty, punchy image I react negatively to it.

 

[SamSpade1941]

I've known for a long time my photographic work is not exactly "popular", and it seems as time goes on the more off into the weeds I get. I am happy with what I produce, but it's hard without a lot of encouragement.

I mean, I'm not looking for praise, exactly. Sometimes I just wonder if I'm just spinning wheels.

In any case, I doubt i'll stop. This was more out of frustration - from photography, but mostly from some health issues I'm dealing with.

Listen guy unless you are doing it for cash and fame you should not give one hoot what someone else thinks and I am dead serious. The only reason I put something up in the C&C occasionally is because I seriously want some critical feedback to help me improve my self.

I dont care if someone likes what I photograph and to be honest I don't care what someone else thinks art is. NOR SHOULD YOU ! Take photos because you enjoy it, because you like photography as a hobby and because there is some serious science involved if you really want to get involved to that level in photography.

The only reason you need to worry about whether someone likes what you are doing is because you trying to get them to give you their money.


JMTC and YMMV

 

[Majeed Badizadegan]

Unpopular, I think this thread was highly unnecessary.

"Stick to your guns" and move on. If everybody did everything the same, the world would be boring.

 

[amolitor]

I've spent a lot of time working as a graphic artist, actually, and one of the things I do experiment with is composition. I'm very interested in this kind of equal importance of form. I'm trying to make things dynamic, not allowing the eye to find any one subject. I hope to make the whole of the composition the subject, not any particular dominant element.

I have always been interested in spacial ambiguity, also. I like the sense of flatness, I think this comes from my earlier interest in abstract expressionism. Its very easy to just start taking pictures of walls and stuff, because they're flat, though this gets pretty boring.

Dude, you seem to have selected an absurdly hard row to hoe, more or less on purpose. This SOUNDS like a completely crazy quest to create an idea of composition that is defined almost as the opposite of composition. This feels like the birth of atonal music. They had to invent whole new ways to think about music, even to listen to it, more or less. You must know that your selected target may actually be unattainable, right?

With music, we were pretty sure that the idea of tonality was a learned thing. With composition we pretty much know or at any rate believe that SOME of it is neurological wiring (and, of course, some of it is learned). In principle, that which is learned can be unlearned, or at a new thing can be learned on top of it. With neurologically wired stuff, you're pretty much screwed.

You're trying to launch a space mission to a planet that may not even exist, and you're frustrated? Duh! If you can't do it any more, don't pack in photography, look for a planet that you actually know exists, and plan another space shot. Or take some pictures of flowers and girls.

All that said, have you experimented with scale? Pollack is pointless on the printed page, on the computer screen, but merely very very difficult in real life. There may be something about size that makes this kind of thing easier to apprehend -- make it too large for the eye to encompass at once, and you change the way we perceive it, Possibly in good ways?

You could project rather than print, since printing at scale is obviously going to be.. expensive.