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Photography: Artist vs technician



 
 
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  #21  
Old June 8th 05, 08:48 PM
Mike Henley
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Tony wrote:
Some of us got into photography because we didn't have the drawing skills we
wanted.
What I have noticed over the years though is that relatively few
photographers are interested in it as art. They have never studied art,
don't look at art and talk only of the technical aspects.


For once I am agreeing with Tony, perhaps I should be concerned!

But I think it's entirely true that most texts on photography, and
discussions by photographers, are very, very poor on "art", and by
"art" I do *not* mean "artzy", far from it; too many people, especially
amongst photographers, seem to have the naive misconception that "art"
is something you do whimsically, with a twist of the waist and a mess
in the mind, but that *******ization is far from the truth. In fact,
"art" has been formalised since antiquity and refined over the
millenia, and it could easily take a lifetime to get familiar with; it
is literally a discipline, in that it requires immense discipline.

I think in photography it would be useful to distinguis between the
"craft", and the "art". The "craft" is all issues of equipment and
"technique", particular to photography, but photography really has *no*
"art" that should set it apart from drawing, painting, sculpture,
architecture, cinematography or any visual medium; "art" is just "art",
and to be illiterate in it, and too many are, won't be changed by a
practice of the "craft" of photography, however long or frequent,
regardless of how many cameras you own or years you've used them for.

Those who come from a background of "fine arts" though, the formally
trained ones at least, and their texts, seem rich on the "education" of
art. The best photographers I have seen are those who come from a
background of painting, drawing, sculpture, architechture or so on, not
.. Their "art" may not be obvious to all. And here it is useful to
distinguish between "art" and "taste"; like I said before, "art" is a
language that has its conventions and formalities, and though you may
"break the rules", it's usually evident when an "artist" "breaks the
rules" that they are quite familiar with them, rather than when someone
who is clueless about them does it, which, unfortunately in common
misconception, they usually have no rules to start with yet they want
to "break the rules"! "Taste" on the other hand, is whether you like a
thing or not, and too often people mistake it for "art". A piece of
"art", if you've trained yourself or had been formally trained, can be
admired regardless of taste, and in fact, that should be the case. The
more you learn about "art", the more your tastes develop, and become
aligned to what "art" actually is, hence an "artistic taste"; a little
akin to wine, but not to confuse here, the more you learn about it, the
more you appreciate a "fine wine" and its subtleties.

I could've perhaps written more about this but I've just become
distracted and my train of thought interrupted, and I have to go.

Regards.







In many ways they
sound like the guys who put a supercharged bored and stroked mill into a 36
Ford -- right after they destroy the lines of it by chopping it and painting
flames on the cutaway fenders.

--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
home of The Camera-ist's Manifesto
The Improved Links Pages are at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/links/mlinks00.html
A sample chapter from "Haight-Ashbury" is at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/writ/hait/hatitl.html

"Siddhartha Jain" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi,

I had a small discussion with some members of my photography club on
post-processing. Some thoroughly enjoy PP and come out with superb
results. Then there are the likes of me who hate to sit on a computer
and work on Photoshop. Everytime I open a photo editor, there is a deep
rooted disinterest in doing all the complicated PP. I am also not too
much into portraits and *artistic* photography. Prefer lanscapes and
architecture more.

So here's what I am wondering. Does photography have different sides
that attracts people with different leanings? I, for example, work in
IT Security. I enjoy machines (all sorts), coding, and hacking. I can
at the most identify 5-6 colours. I am attracted to photography because
I enjoy producing nice looking photographs and less often some candid
portriats.

- Siddhartha


  #22  
Old June 8th 05, 09:06 PM
John McWilliams
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Alan Browne wrote:
Siddhartha Jain wrote:


rooted disinterest in doing all the complicated PP. I am also not too
much into portraits and *artistic* photography. Prefer lanscapes and
architecture more.



The photo editor can be applied to prepare a mostly unchanged photo for
printing (cropping, levels, resize, USM) or to transform the image
completely and merge with other images. It's the end result that
counts, not the steps in the middle. Do it as rich or lean as you like.


So here's what I am wondering. Does photography have different sides
that attracts people with different leanings? I, for example, work in



Of course. People are drawn to photography for thousands of varying
reasons.


There are 3,893 reasons so far documented.

One of the recent shootin shots:
http://www.pbase.com/shootin/image/43718075
is an example where colour takes on a major role in making this a very
pleasing image.

This points to a Tom Hudson image in the "Breaking the Rules" mandate of
the Shoot In, where half the image is very out of focus, and the colors
pastel. Did you mean to point to your image in the same gallery, where
the colors are way more pleasing??

--
John McWilliams
  #23  
Old June 8th 05, 09:09 PM
William Graham
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"Siddhartha Jain" wrote in message
oups.com...
Paul Furman wrote:

Something I found interesting is a guy on one of these groups talking
about how his does simply documentary street scenes, with the intent
that they be valuable historical documents of life in our time. He was
insistent that there was no art to it, he simply picked a
'representative scene' and strove for perfect technical capture. They
were quite nicely composed. The boring technical approach can produce
good art in fact. The art was in the honesty and care.


Yes, this is what I think I do. When I am behind the camera I am
striving for technical accuracy in focus and exposure. So much so that
my whole thought process is occupied with the technicality of taking a
photograph. Ofcourse, I do fuss around composition but there is a
certain something that seems to come some other photographers very
naturally but doesn't seem to come to my brain.

For example, me and my friend were taking some photographs of an old
lady feeding stray dogs. My friend got several nice shots of the lady
and some more shots around of people. And all I got was some odd shots
with not so great expressions. Most of the time I was either late to
shoot or my exposure was wrong. On the other hand, I was sitting on the
beach with the sun setting and I got some good shots. Or, I was on the
beach and my friends were in water playing and I got some really good
shots of them. Just wondering if there is really a difference in the
way our brains work or its just a mental block of some sort.

- Siddhartha

My brother-in-law used to live in a Bay Area town that had a lot of old
Victorian homes. He proposed to the city council that they finance him to
photograph all the homes in town, documentary style, and make up a book that
could be kept in the city hall for its historical interest. He presented
them with a few samples to give them an idea of what they would get. They
turned him down, citing a lack of funds, but I thought that it was a good
idea for any town that had a lot of architecture of historical significance.
It would also amount to a lifetime's work for a photographer if the town
were large enough.......


  #24  
Old June 8th 05, 09:27 PM
Alan Browne
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John McWilliams wrote:

Alan Browne wrote:


Of course. People are drawn to photography for thousands of varying
reasons.



There are 3,893 reasons so far documented.


Two more were added last week. Please do keep up! ;-)


One of the recent shootin shots:
http://www.pbase.com/shootin/image/43718075
is an example where colour takes on a major role in making this a very
pleasing image.

This points to a Tom Hudson image in the "Breaking the Rules" mandate of
the Shoot In, where half the image is very out of focus, and the colors
pastel. Did you mean to point to your image in the same gallery, where
the colors are way more pleasing??


No. While there's nothing wrong with the color palette in my shot, in
replying to Sid' post, I chose that photo as it has a pretty wide range
of blue in it for him to study. That part of it is oof is of no
consequence in that regard ... or any other regard for that matter.
There are probably many other examples in and out of the SI, but in
recent memory, that one sticks out.

My shot is more 'blotchy' in the color sense, less graduated than Tom's
shot.

Cheers,
Alan



--
-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
-- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
-- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch.
  #25  
Old June 8th 05, 09:32 PM
McLeod
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On 8 Jun 2005 04:03:24 -0700, "Chadwick"
wrote:

Photography arguably straddles the boundary between art and science.
Undeniably it is an art, in that you need the artistic "ability" to
recognise and compose a good shot. But there is a technical side to it
that can determine whether you are able to capture that vision.


And don't forget it also attracts collectors and gearheads who love to
have the latest and greatest neck jewellry.
  #26  
Old June 8th 05, 09:38 PM
William Graham
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"Alan Browne" wrote in message
...
John McWilliams wrote:

Alan Browne wrote:


Of course. People are drawn to photography for thousands of varying
reasons.



There are 3,893 reasons so far documented.


Two more were added last week. Please do keep up! ;-)


I just went into it to meet girls......


  #27  
Old June 8th 05, 09:40 PM
Charlie Self
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William Graham wrote:
"Alan Browne" wrote in message
...
John McWilliams wrote:

Alan Browne wrote:


Of course. People are drawn to photography for thousands of varying
reasons.


There are 3,893 reasons so far documented.


Two more were added last week. Please do keep up! ;-)


I just went into it to meet girls......


Me, too. It really ****ed my wife off.

  #28  
Old June 8th 05, 09:50 PM
Paul Bielec
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Charlie Self wrote:

William Graham wrote:

"Alan Browne" wrote in message
...

John McWilliams wrote:


Alan Browne wrote:

Of course. People are drawn to photography for thousands of varying
reasons.


There are 3,893 reasons so far documented.

Two more were added last week. Please do keep up! ;-)


I just went into it to meet girls......



Me, too. It really ****ed my wife off.


I noticed that someone posted ".
Who was it?
  #29  
Old June 8th 05, 10:02 PM
Tony
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Art is art. Everyone has thier own definition. What I am talking about is
an almost anti-art attitude by many photographers. They see a picture by
Cartier-Bresson and immediatly start talking about the subject not being in
the sharpest focus possible. I've heard people discuss the unrealistic
colours of an Eggleston and the lack of enough greys in brassai or too many
greys and not enough blacks and/or whites in Doisneau - who spent years
photographing in the grey streets of winter Paris.
This strikes me as mostly the need to say "something" but not even having
the language to discuss art - any art. Including photography.
BTW - I know I'm in the minority on hot rods, but I find them an
abomination from a design and aesthetic point of view. This does not mean I
wouldn't like to pilot one in a midnight drag race on Mulholland drive,
although I suspect that is mostly the lingering inner teen who wants the
chicks to see him as a truly cool dude.

--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
home of The Camera-ist's Manifesto
The Improved Links Pages are at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/links/mlinks00.html
A sample chapter from "Haight-Ashbury" is at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/writ/hait/hatitl.html

"Dick R." wrote in message
...
Tony wrote:
Some of us got into photography because we didn't have the drawing

skills we
wanted.
What I have noticed over the years though is that relatively few
photographers are interested in it as art. They have never studied art,
don't look at art and talk only of the technical aspects. In many ways

they
sound like the guys who put a supercharged bored and stroked mill into a

36
Ford -- right after they destroy the lines of it by chopping it and

painting
flames on the cutaway fenders.

Hey Tony,
I certainly won't disagree with your observations, but what is art?
Jackson Pollak and Leonardo Da Vinci produced "art", but it's
strictly in the eye of the beholder. Currently, I look at photos
by people like Jim Brandenburg, who have an artistic "eye" and
the technical expertise to make a great photo.
Hate to say it, but I would love to have that supercharged, chopped,
flame painted 36 Ford in my garage. :-)

Take care,
Dick R.



  #30  
Old June 8th 05, 10:04 PM
Alan Browne
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Paul Bielec wrote:

I noticed that someone posted ".
Who was it?


eh? Me. Why?

By the way Paul, do you want to be a mandator?

Cheers,
Alan

--
-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
-- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
-- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch.
 




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