So how good are you really at critiquing? ;)

[terri]

Wow. Interesting bio, with some heady company.

Sometimes I think maybe a "lesser" image gains status based only on the significance of the photographer. While I actually like the above image, I think the pole is a serious compositional flaw and would get most of us bounced out of Photography I class during critique time.

That said, rules are made to be broken. But in turn, doesn't that beg the question: broken - by whom? And to what end? None of us would have expected a good critique if we'd posted this image, again if for no other reason than the pole through the dog. Art is always subjective, of course, and if an image has enough points of interest it will be a success in the eyes of the viewer. But would we command a price tag like that? I think not.

Friedlander is written about here "as a significant photographer of the contemporary American environment", a assessment I agreed with when I commented on the "photojournalistic" approach of this shot. And yet - I am betting this is not this photographer's strongest image.

Interesting post, Mark, thanks.

 

[Goofup]

Oh well, some people think Piccaso is good too...

 

[BrettG]

If THAT is a good photograph, then my photographs are equally as genius, and I wish they weren't.

That photo bores the hell out of me. Nothing interesting to look at. Why someone would pay $6000 for it escapes me.

 

[John E.]

Hell I'm going to stop throwing away the pictures I don't like

 

[Walt]

I guess what it comes down to is beauty is in the eye of the beholder. :shock:

 

[molested_cow]

Ok, I am not reading others' critics because that will influence mine.

Personally I think this photo is a success. The overexposure seems delibrate, and it still conveys the form pretty well. There is a good range of value, which shows that it wasn't done by mistake.

Composition wise, there are a lot of things going on, but balances each other. The photo is boring? I don't think so. The car shows only the front portion, but is enough to show what it is. Not only that, it leads you to imagine what the rest of the car would look like. The dog is interesting too. Normally you don't see a dog sitting on the street alone like that, and the fact that the dog looks at the left makes you want to see more of what's going on outside the picture.

Although not much of the road is visually exposed, there is a clear sense of interection and direction, and really makes the photo look like the center of a network where things come to interact.

 

[Geronimo]

The only thing I would think to big the stated value to it, is that it might represent an ear of Americana. I didnt bother to read the supplied link, but assume it was late 50s earlier 60s? Almost has a struggle of suburba vs urban battlelines in it. Still find it boring and such.

 

[canonrebel]

This snapshot is totally annoying and maybe that's it's appeal. A macro of a 2-inch area of sandy beach would have more character. I'm thinking it's appeal is it's ability to envoke a sense of total chaos.

It substantiates my suspicion that merely the artist's name can (and often does) sell his work--regardless of how artless it is.

 

[Osmer_Toby]

i see a pretty awesome study in line composition. the dog is spliced on purpose.

 

[Osmer_Toby]

it would be cool, tho, if you could somehow place, say, a wolf on the sidewalk. that would definitely make it more interesting.

 

[ToddM]

Wow, that gives me hope for some of my crappy pics. I feel alot better.

 

[vonnagy]

interesting to get your comments on this

Friedlander is written about here "as a significant photographer of the contemporary American environment", a assessment I agreed with when I commented on the "photojournalistic" approach of this shot. And yet - I am betting this is not this photographer's strongest image.

I think the author of the book thought this was one of his stronger images (or it wouldn't have made it in!) Of all the pictures in the book, this one really challenged me. It would have been all to easy for me to just dismiss it as a crap photograph as well to dismiss it.

here are a few quotes from the book (no copy & paste here so forgive typo as i am typing quickly as i can):

Although a somewhat banal image, this is decptively complex and gluts the eye with images of implied communication. All the elements of the image remain on the edge of meaning. The atmosphere is of emptiness. The photograph is a distintive statement about contemporary America

One of a number of images of America, this could be anywhere and nowhere. At first glance it appears as a bland and nondescript image, but then beins to resonate with a rich and profuse meaning. In characteristic manner Friedlander has broken up the surface of the photograph so that an ordered, three-dimensianal space is simultaneously questioned and altered. We look not at Albuquerque but at a photograph. It resisits any single focal point, so that our eye moves over and over the image without any point of rest, any settled or final sense of unity (and unitary space and meaning). It photographs the most obvious of urban things: a block of flats, a dog, a fire-hyrdant, a car, a road, and yet fuses them into an enigmatic series of connections. Friendlander makes the familiar unfamiliar, and the bovious strange. In this image, for example, there is no sense of depth, so that everything exists in a two-dimensional rather than three-dimensional perceptual space. Any 'depth' exists in relation to the conceptual density of the image. In a connotative context, we not how the image is saturated with singns of communication. A sterile sence is glutted with the process of possible connections: the car, the road, the telegraph wires, and traffic -lights. And of course the act of communication, the lines of meaning, are part of the photographs subject. Friedland thus creates a photographic spance which make critical analysis and cultural meaning the world of its imaging. Just as his discontinuous and decptive imges make central the lanugage and syntax of the photograph, so they often exhaust the subject in order to reduce it to little more than a marginal and banal presence. The most obvious and marginal subject often resonates as part of an on-going ambiguity and difficulty. In short, they offer us exemplary images for how we read a photograph and how the photograph constructs meaning.

pgs 38,39 The Photograph, Graham Clarke, Oxford History of Art 1997

Anyways, though that will do little to change anyones mind whether they like the image or not- it has given me appreciation for it. Nope it does not have the same masturbatory gratification as a beautiful sunset, rockstar or nude model photograph- but because its a challenging photo to like, and pre-constructed to be 'bad' (breaks some basic 'rules' of good composition )- i've actually become quite fond of this lil' piccie. 'Course thats just me, cause I happen to like Picasso as well

 

[doxx]

I think it's a very interesting photograph, it seems to be random
at first sight. There is more stuff going on, the longer I look longer at it.
the perspective , the vanishing point from the car, the sidewalk towards
the dog, guiding the eye towards the 2nd car in the background make it
a very dynamic image in a static urban setting. Also it seems rather
strange that there are no people around. Where does the dog belong to?
in my mind, other questions arise quickly.

Besides that, the tonal range reflects a sunny day perfectly, maybe not
technically - but emotionally.

First I thought it could be Eggleston, but I've never seen b/w from this guy.
Lee Friedlander did not cross my mind

Take a look at Winogrands work, it is kind of similar in a different
context. The photographs look random at first - but I find something
interesting in every frame. He shot a lot with a 35mm lens in the streets
of NYC and his subjects are shown in a very subtle way, yet powerful.
Often you'll find his subjects on the edge of the frame, which reflects the
style of shooting in the street very well. Sometimes you 'radar'
something, take the camera to eyelevel and take the shot
(I find myself doing this a lot - if I need to be very quick, I take
the pic from the hip)

 

[canonrebel]

interesting to get your comments on this

Friedlander is written about here "as a significant photographer of the contemporary American environment", a assessment I agreed with when I commented on the "photojournalistic" approach of this shot. And yet - I am betting this is not this photographer's strongest image.

Although a somewhat banal image, this is decptively complex and gluts the eye with images of implied communication. All the elements of the image remain on the edge of meaning. The atmosphere is of emptiness. The photograph is a distintive statement about contemporary America

One of a number of images of America, this could be anywhere and nowhere. At first glance it appears as a bland and nondescript image, but then beins to resonate with a rich and profuse meaning. In characteristic manner Friedlander has broken up the surface of the photograph so that an ordered, three-dimensianal space is simultaneously questioned and altered. We look not at Albuquerque but at a photograph. It resisits any single focal point, so that our eye moves over and over the image without any point of rest, any settled or final sense of unity (and unitary space and meaning). It photographs the most obvious of urban things: a block of flats, a dog, a fire-hyrdant, a car, a road, and yet fuses them into an enigmatic series of connections. Friendlander makes the familiar unfamiliar, and the bovious strange. In this image, for example, there is no sense of depth, so that everything exists in a two-dimensional rather than three-dimensional perceptual space. Any 'depth' exists in relation to the conceptual density of the image. In a connotative context, we not how the image is saturated with singns of communication. A sterile sence is glutted with the process of possible connections: the car, the road, the telegraph wires, and traffic -lights. And of course the act of communication, the lines of meaning, are part of the photographs subject. Friedland thus creates a photographic spance which make critical analysis and cultural meaning the world of its imaging. Just as his discontinuous and decptive imges make central the lanugage and syntax of the photograph, so they often exhaust the subject in order to reduce it to little more than a marginal and banal presence. The most obvious and marginal subject often resonates as part of an on-going ambiguity and difficulty. In short, they offer us exemplary images for how we read a photograph and how the photograph constructs meaning.

It's puzzling to me How I can appreciate the above interpretations and understand how the authors arrived at their interpretations but the picture itself has absolutely no appeal for me.

 

[tsien]

This is an awesome picture to me. An apt footnote to the assertion that "art happens never because we make it happen".