The Golden Age of Photography

[photoguy99]

When a hobbyist starts talking about an artistic process, I get a bit confused, because an artistic process has very little if anything to do with a hobby

A process brings great pleasure to a hobbyist. For an artist it is an intellectual, emotional and creative torture he simply has to go through the get the result.

Sort of the difference between the guy who goes to the gym to be fit and the one who is he'll bent to win the gold. The only difference is an artist if fighting mostly with himself.

This is a ridiculous over-simplification, and tries to separate two categories which overlap tremendously.

 

[terri]

It seems that rather than talk about whether or not the digital age is the Golden Age of Photography, which is my opinion, those photogs with a heavy investment in traditional methods want to prove that I am somehow biased, incorrect or wrong. Instead of discussing the message, you end up discussing the messenger.

hee hee, are you denying a bias while at the same time stating your posts are just your opinion? Admitting a bias is no disgrace; we all have them. It cannot be a surprise to you that on this forum when you make the statements you've made, people will recognize it and call you on it. Seems a bit disingenuous to call foul on "discussing the messenger" when, in fact, you just did it with your words above, and are taking issue with those who have stated differing opinions.

 

[The_Traveler]

I have a preference based on thought and decision.
So I come to each image and look at the image as it is.
And I don't give any credit for effort put into it because that indeed would be a bias,
If you do give credit for process, that's your decision, based on personal preference - and is a bias.
Sort of like social promotions.
I believe in meritocracies in photography.

 

[The_Traveler]

I remember on another forum, someone I knew as a decent photographer, just gushing dramatically over a picture of some random dog.
We were PMing about some other issue and, in passing, I asked her why she was so complimentary about a truly ordinary snapshot.
She replied that she had a dog like that once and she just loved dogs.

That's bias.
If you like all alternative processed pictures because they are alternative processes, that's like liking all pictures of puppies.
Yes, it's human nature but, to quote Katherine Hepburn in the African Queen, 'Human nature is what we were put on Earth to rise above.'

 

[Buckster]

Why This Photograph is Worth $578,500

Do you think it's because it was shot with film? How much of a factor of the price is it that it was shot with film? Tell me why that's a factor in determining the worth of this photo. Suppose it was an overexposed image of just the sidewalk shot on the same roll? If it's not about the end image, but is instead about the process, why isn't every image on the roll worth just as much? Explain it to me.

some of the most unappealing art is floating the highest valuations.

Ahhh... Now we're getting somewhere. The value of "art" is in the hands of art "critics" and those who are willing to listen to them pontificate at length about the "value" and accept it as some sort of gospel truth. Note that the buyers listening to those "critics" are themselves usually investors trying to use this "art" to make a profit by reselling later at a higher price, not themselves art "experts".

Of course, how many times have we seen these "critics" who are such "experts" and value these works exposed with their noses in the air and their sheepish tails between their legs when what they pontificated at length about how extraordinarily fantastic something is turns out to be a random splash of paint that fell onto the canvas protecting your rugs from the guy painting the rooms in your house, or works by random kindergartners or animals who splatter watercolors on a canvas in between licking it off the brush?

Recently, food critics got a "taste" of that medicine when someone presented McDonalds foods served up in appealing arrangements at a food critic's convention, where they expected to be sampling the world's greatest delicacies, so that's the way they treated them. Oh! They were indeed culinary delights! But of course!

The value of real life photos, on the other hand, is determined by our clients, and by the end results alone. They buy the prints of little Johnny, or the photos for the menu, or the photos for the catalog, or the photos for (fill in the blank here) because they find them appealing, or they don't buy them because they're crap. They don't give a single whit about the process. It's not at all the determining factor.

I am asking a SIMPLE question. This final image philosophy, WHERE is the evidence to support this?

It's in the reality of the people who buy real-world photos for their walls and products, NOT in the artificial valuations of museum pieces, as explained above.

The evidence you seek is right in front of you on your very own camera memory cards. It's the reason you spend hour after hour after hour deleting the crap snaps you shoot. You don't save them just because you took them. You delete them because you recognize that the resulting images are crap, not worth printing, not worth saving, not worth trying to sell, not worth anything, not even to you, let alone to anyone else.

 

[sashbar]

When a hobbyist starts talking about an artistic process, I get a bit confused, because an artistic process has very little if anything to do with a hobby

A process brings great pleasure to a hobbyist. For an artist it is an intellectual, emotional and creative torture he simply has to go through the get the result.

Sort of the difference between the guy who goes to the gym to be fit and the one who is he'll bent to win the gold. The only difference is an artist if fighting mostly with himself.

This is a ridiculous over-simplification, and tries to separate two categories which overlap tremendously.

I use the word "artist" very selectively. There were not many true artists in the history of photography, as far as I am concerned, and not a single one treated it as a hobby.

 

[Fred Berg]

I remember on another forum, someone I knew as a decent photographer, just gushing dramatically over a picture of some random dog.
We were PMing about some other issue and, in passing, I asked her why she was so complimentary about a truly ordinary snapshot.
She replied that she had a dog like that once and she just loved dogs.

That's bias.
If you like all alternative processed pictures because they are alternative processes, that's like liking all pictures of puppies.
Yes, it's human nature but, to quote Katherine Hepburn in the African Queen, 'Human nature is what we were put on Earth to rise above.'

Speaking of Katherine Hepburn. As Anthony Hopkins playing Prince Richard in The Lion in Winter says to her Eleanor of Aquitaine, "You're incomplete. The human parts of you are missing."

I think this is true if a photo is viewed with no consideration of the process involved in its creation. The image didn't come out of the blue after all, and art is a human endeavour.

 

[bribrius]

Why This Photograph is Worth $578,500

Do you think it's because it was shot with film? How much of a factor of the price is it that it was shot with film? Tell me why that's a factor in determining the worth of this photo. Suppose it was an overexposed image of just the sidewalk shot on the same roll? If it's not about the end image, but is instead about the process, why isn't every image on the roll worth just as much? Explain it to me.

some of the most unappealing art is floating the highest valuations.

Ahhh... Now we're getting somewhere. The value of "art" is in the hands of art "critics" and those who are willing to listen to them pontificate at length about the "value" and accept it as some sort of gospel truth. Note that the buyers listening to those "critics" are themselves usually investors trying to use this "art" to make a profit by reselling later at a higher price, not themselves art "experts".

Of course, how many times have we seen these "critics" who are such "experts" and value these works exposed with their noses in the air and their sheepish tails between their legs when what they pontificated at length about how extraordinarily fantastic something is turns out to be a random splash of paint that fell onto the canvas protecting your rugs from the guy painting the rooms in your house, or works by random kindergartners or animals who splatter watercolors on a canvas in between licking it off the brush?

Recently, food critics got a "taste" of that medicine when someone presented McDonalds foods served up in appealing arrangements at a food critic's convention, where they expected to be sampling the world's greatest delicacies, so that's the way they treated them. Oh! They were indeed culinary delights! But of course!

The value of real life photos, on the other hand, is determined by our clients, and by the end results alone. They buy the prints of little Johnny, or the photos for the menu, or the photos for the catalog, or the photos for (fill in the blank here) because they find them appealing, or they don't buy them because they're crap. They don't give a single whit about the process. It's not at all the determining factor.

I am asking a SIMPLE question. This final image philosophy, WHERE is the evidence to support this?

It's in the reality of the people who buy real-world photos for their walls and products, NOT in the artificial valuations of museum pieces, as explained above.

The evidence you seek is right in front of you on your very own camera memory cards. It's the reason you spend hour after hour after hour deleting the crap snaps you shoot. You don't save them just because you took them. You delete them because you recognize that the resulting images are crap, not worth printing, not worth saving, not worth trying to sell, not worth anything, not even to you, let alone to anyone else.

clearly you didn't read the article accompanying the photo. But you did state your viewpoint which centers entirely on selling average consumers likable products. .

 

[Buckster]

clearly you didn't read the article accompanying the photo.

Actually, I read it when it was first published. And clearly, you avoided all my questions and comments to you about it, as well as the accompanying associated points.

But you did state your viewpoint which centers entirely on selling average consumers likable products.

News flash: That's what 99.999% of photography is about.

Ask any working "photographer" if s/he makes his/her living selling "average consumer products" that we commonly refer to as "photographs", or if it's made selling museum pieces of tricycles shot with film, or if being a "photographer" is about being independently wealthy so that you can devote yourself to making black and white images of average scenes with an 8x10 view camera in hopes that someday after your long dead they'll be recognized as "masterpieces" by some "critic", without having to worry about making a living with any of it while alive.

"Photographer" and "photographs" in that last paragraph are clues to what "photography" actually is in the real world, btw. Pointing a camera and snapping a shutter tens of thousands of times in order to make a bunch of files to spend hours deleting later isn't "photography", believe it or not.

 

[photoguy99]

Buckster is actually wrong on one point. Collectors of high end art are not naive, and they know that they are quite likely to lose money on anything they buy. Art is never an investment.

They may buy it because they like it. They may buy it because it gives them membership in the exclusive club of high end art collectors. They may buy it as part of a complex shelter for some money. In fact they probably buy it for all those reasons at once and more besides.

Buying it with the intention of selling it for more later is silly and the rich are rarely that silly about money.

High end art isn't just a bunch of idiots buying crap. It's artificial, but no more so than any luxury market.

 

[Rick58]

If you like all alternative processed pictures because they are alternative processes, that's like liking all pictures of puppies.

Well said Lew. A $8,000 view camera can take a poor photo as can an $8,000 digital. To like either solely for it's origin would be foolish. A boring, poorly processed image is just that, regardless. As I said, I feel there is room for both mediums
Everyone with a film camera wants to be Ansel Adams. So to them I offer this quote

"I eagerly await new concepts and processes. I believe that the electronic image will be the next major advance. Such systems will have their own inherent and inescapable structural characteristics, and the artist and functional practitioner will again strive to comprehend and control them." Ansel Adams

I personally enjoy working with film and enjoy the look of film, but just as much, I also enjoy viewing a fine photo, regardless how it was produced.

 

[Buckster]

Buckster is actually wrong on one point. Collectors of high end art are not naive, and they know that they are quite likely to lose money on anything they buy. Art is never an investment.

They may buy it because they like it. They may buy it because it gives them membership in the exclusive club of high end art collectors. They may buy it as part of a complex shelter for some money. In fact they probably buy it for all those reasons at once and more besides.

Buying it with the intention of selling it for more later is silly and the rich are rarely that silly about money.

High end art isn't just a bunch of idiots buying crap. It's artificial, but no more so than any luxury market.

Now who's wielding the 600 lb hair splitter (and ignoring the meat of the post)?

 

[photoguy99]

Fair point, fair point! You may assume that since I only called out one minor side remark as wrong that I agree entirely with the rest of your remarks

 

[The_Traveler]

Speaking of Katherine Hepburn. As Anthony Hopkins playing Prince Richard in The Lion in Winter says to her Eleanor of Aquitaine, "You're incomplete. The human parts of you are missing."

I think this is true if a photo is viewed with no consideration of the process involved in its creation. The image didn't come out of the blue after all, and art is a human endeavour.

That's true.
The thought behind it is important but the physical process isn't.

If we give credit for the difficulty involved, why should we limit that just to the photographic process?
How about if I stand on one foot while taking the picture, or stand on my hands and press the shutter button with my nose?
How about if I vow to take one image only and that is the sum and total of my entire creative output?
How about if I wear a hair shirt while walking around making photographs?
How about if I use a mule to drag my wagon with a wet plate darkroom inside?
How about I use film and punch a tiny hole in the side of an oatmeal container and use a piece of tape for a shutter?

All those are interesting side notes but neither add nor subtract from the worth of an image.

 

[bribrius]

If you like all alternative processed pictures because they are alternative processes, that's like liking all pictures of puppies.

Well said Lew. A $8,000 view camera can take a poor photo as can an $8,000 digital. To like either solely for it's origin would be foolish. A boring, poorly processed image is just that, regardless. As I said, I feel there is room for both mediums
Everyone with a film camera wants to be Ansel Adams. So to them I offer this quote

"I eagerly await new concepts and processes. I believe that the electronic image will be the next major advance. Such systems will have their own inherent and inescapable structural characteristics, and the artist and functional practitioner will again strive to comprehend and control them." Ansel Adams

I personally enjoy working with film and enjoy the look of film, but just as much, I also enjoy viewing a fine photo, regardless how it was produced.

I am not even looking at this as film vs. digital, but rather how someone can discount the medium and process in any art and only look at the final result. I actually never even heard of such a concept before until I joined this forum where it seems oddly prevalent.