Tom, you're part right. Enjoying art means participating in it and it's interpretation. Abstract art especially so. What the viewer brings to the table is important and a photo never stands on its own.
If a photo gets someone to think, to consider it, to make associations, and to participate in art as a verb, it absolutely displays skill of the artist. Relying on some schtik - overdone HDR tone-mapping, Galen-Rowell-wannabe horridly oversaturated colors, and the like - that's lazy man's photography. It relies on crutches instead of expression. And that's garbage. Cheers, Paul Tom C wrote: > Really, truthfully, I think a lot of you are in love with the story you make > up in your heads, instead of the image itself. You're not really admiring > the image as much as what you think it means. > > Shel did this type of thing over and over. A crappy snapshot of a homeless > person on the street may well be a tear-jerker for some, but it doesn't mean > it's a good image or that it displays an artful skill. > > Because one makes up some 'profound' meaning for a still image one declares > it to be a good photograph, whilst one walks by thousands of similar equally > 'good' images every single day and dismisses them without even actually > seeing them. > > I do like abstract art. I have attempted and succeeded I think with a > number of abstract images. What I'm not a fan of us is putting lipstick on > a sow and then giving it a kiss. :-) > > I find the genre at large to be a bit of a sham, charlatan, a fraud. Very > little effort taking a picture of something very ordinary and rely on your > audience to do all the mental work, and then pronounce it as good because of > what went on in their head, not because of empirical qualities of the image. > Sort of a 'lazy man's photography'. > > Actually, that's a little harsh but it's what I perceive occurring often. > > As far as this image goes, it does nothing for me. I see two small fallen > leaves on a dirty sidewalk amongst bicycle tire tracks. Maybe if there were > more leaves or if they were brighter colors... > > To be fair, I have seen shots Godfrey has taken that I really enjoyed even > if not my favorite genre. > > Tom C. > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2007 3:08 PM >> To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> Subject: RE: PESO 2007 - 46b - GDG >> >>> I guess my distaste for the genre is, that for all appearances, it does >>> not >>> rely on the eye or skill of the photographer or the quality of the image >>> necessarily to be successful. And that bothers me because someone could >>> put >>> ten of these in mattes and frames and show them to acclaim, when a ten > year >>> old with a camera snapping at random could come up with something quite >>> similar. I certainly can, walking down any old street, in any city, USA, >>> zip >>> code goes here. >> I think you are missing something. In my opinion (as a person with an art >> degree), Godfrey's photo is an example of Photography as Fine Art. I can >> assume from your comments that you are not a fan of abstract art, which is > how >> I see Godfrey's work from this particular series. >> >> You see a photo and want it to tell you a story, but it does not have to. >> There are no rules in art. This means that, yes, a child could take > similar >> photos, hang them and call them art. >> >> However, if you take a closer look at Godfrey's series, I think you will > see a >> lot more skill involved than you think. Composition is a huge part of his >> photos, and it's almost always very good (I realize "good" is subjective, > but >> I'm writing from work and don't have enough time to be less so). A child > is >> not going to know how to take abstract photos of everyday objects and make > the >> composition visually appealing, or notice colors or forms that contrast or >> compliment each other and capture them in a similarly appealing way. > Skill is >> as much involved in photographing abstract shapes as it is in painting a >> portrait or taking a landscape photograph. >> >> The child could call their photos art and they would be, but it takes > skill to >> make that art look good to more than just their parents. >> >> >> John Celio >> (I would love to cite particular artists work, but don't remember enough > from >> my university naps, er, art history classes) >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> [email protected] >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and > follow the >> directions. > > > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
