I am obviously going to have to do some still-life images of daisies. But I think you're maybe overthinking it. I am not a professional photographer nor do my efforts reach the level where the term "art" is applicable. Owning cameras pleases me. Looking around me and photographing things I think deserve it pleases me. Editing photos pleases me. Pushing back boundaries such as low light, tricky focus, moving targets, and candid street photography pleases me. Seeing the edited photos nicely presented on a high-quality screen pleases me. When my pictures give pleasure to others, that pleases me a whole lot.
Looking at other peoples' photos here pleases me. The proportion that do so is much less than 100% but plenty high enough to keep me coming back. Photos which obviously partake of cliche probably please a lower proportion of people here than those which are in some sense more "serious". But a little eye candy never hurt anyone. -Tim On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 10:39 AM, Collin Brendemuehl <[email protected]> wrote: > Tim just gave us some pretty macro flower pics. A lot of people will like > them. I enjoy them as well and even really liked a couple. But as someone > said a couple of weeks ago, the more seriously he takes his photography the > less he shoots. The question is: How do we better our photography and get > past cliche images? Can we take it more seriously without falling into > either the trap of elitism or the trap of demanding a certain level of > commitment from others? (That's the motivation behind my recent technical > criticisms. We can do better without burning ourselves out.) > > I think about the retirement home with little old ladies taking oil paint > lessons so that they can do still life paintings of daisies. I wonder how > many of us have nothing better in our imagination than warm fuzzies. And I > think Tim senses some of this with the sarcasm in his title about beating us > to a bloody pulp with these cliche images. In 2D art one can hardly get more > cliche than pretty flowers. > > So the challenge is this: Make a picture say something. Make it say one > word That is, other than Ahhhhh or Ooooooo. A real word. High. Long. > Fast. Friend. Love. Charity. Cold. Hot. Soft. Hard. Tomorrow. > Yesterday. Win. Lose. Amateur. Professional. Try. Succeed. Fail. > Return. Leave. Strong. Weak. Majesty. Humility. Service. Nouns, > pronouns, adjectives, adverbs -- they all work. > > This can help you when you take pictures at kids baseball games or at a > wedding. Capture more than just the people. Get their faces, their hands, > their interactions with each other and the world around them, their full > expressions. > > That's what makes the Ali(Wasn't he still C. Clay at the time) v Liston > picture so special. > http://www.sportsmemorabilia.com/sports-products/muhammad-ali-framed-8x10-photo---ali-over-sonny-liston.html > > Sorry about the rant, but cliche images bother me deeply. > > Sincerely, > > Collin Brendemuehl > http://kerygmainstitute.org > > "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose" > -- Jim Elliott > > > > -- > 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.
