civilized ku # 723 ~ Autumn color # 42
Monday, October 11, 2010 at 11:38AM 
Rain water and detritus ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenI have often been asked about why it is that I have such a hard-on, re: pretty pictures and the "masters" who make and promote them. Well, as an example, take this statement as another fine display of why I get all incensed:
Photography is used only for its most obvious ability: to record things as they look.
This moronic statement - photography used only for its most obvious ability - is being doled out as advice and expertise on how to recognize a "snapshot" as opposed to a "fine art" photograph.
GIVE ME A F**KING BREAK!!!- demeaning and disparaging the one unique characteristic of the medium of photography that distinguishes it from all of the other visual arts, i.e. it's ability to records things as they look. HOLY S**T!!! If you're interested in making visual art that does not record / represent / illustrate how things look, why not take up painting, drawing, or sculpture?
Oh, wait ... I know why - it's because virtually all of the art-making-challenged individuals who dispense such nonsense about the medium of photography are talentless hacks. Their idea of creativity and making "fine art" photographs revolve around / are dependent upon such trite picture making approaches such as "giving consideration to flipping an image left to right", or, "tilting the camera to the side to try both horizontal and vertical compositions", or, "cropping to a format different from the format provided by the camera", or, "attempting to create a specific color palette" (that is, of course, a color palette that is not true to the thing pictured), or, slavishly adhering to the dictum that "clean edges and controlled image borders are trademarks of carefully composed photographs", or, consider this vision-killing idea - "considering the audience and the audience's needs" when making your pictures.
GOOD F**KING GRIEF!!! Each and every one of those notions is little more than a crutch for those who don't know how to see and, if one remains dependent upon them, one will never learn to to see .... and that, in a nutshell, is what pisses me off the most - these "masters" and "experts" are dispensing simple-minded crap dictums that are the primary obstacles in the road of learning how to see.
To be certain, if all one is interested in is making pictures that look like what you have been told are good pictures, then much of the preceding is worth considering. Truth be told, for those lacking in vision, creativity, and imagination, there is little else for them to go by. And, here's a clue to determining whether or not you have even a modicum of vision, creativity, or imagination - if you have any photography books that contain the word "mastering" in their title, you're most likely "mastering" nothing of importance relative to the most important picture making notion of all - seeing.
Reader Comments (7)
Mark, are you sure you haven't taken some of these "crap dictums" out of context? I googled around and found the relevant text online: it's your friend and mine Mr Alain Briot (NaturePhotographers,net).
Sure, if I take some of his comments as stand-alone then they are either lame, misguided or a recipe for prettiness.
But what he's trying to do in the article is explain his approach to landscape composition (which he modestly refers to as "Fine Art"). The technique he uses is to draw comparison to a snapshot (again, his notion of what a snapshot is).
My interpretation of what he is saying is simply this:
1. In a snapshot the photographer points the camera and without a moment's thought presses the shutter. The image is what it is.
2. In a well composed image (of which "Fine Art" is an example) a considerable amount of experience, technique, feeling and thought is applied.
Mark, your article leads with the implied dictum: Photography is used only for its most obvious ability: to record things as they look. But this sentence is one of the last in Alain's article ... in this context he's suggesting that without proper consideration / thought / etc that photography is ** reduced ** to this level.
So, the question is how do we elevate photography from creating half-baked snapshots to images that "prick the unknown thought"?
Alain Briot provides a clunky recipe based largely on compositional tips / rules. You advocate "learning to see". Perhaps you can expand on this approach?
Easy Mark, don't pop a stich.
What Don said.
Yup, Sven W asks for the relevant guidance. I don't know if I will ever master anything relevant, yet I am seeking to learn - and so I am in search of positive instruction, too.
I went and looked at what I assume is the article Sven referenced, and yikes.
Besides the author telling me I should buy his stuff so I can fully appreciate his message, I didn't take much away from the article. The thing that really caught my attention was the picture that accompanied the article. I am not sure why that particular picture was chosen to show the expected results of following the author's advice checklist, but I guess that is what happens when the list is checked off.
The author attempted to tell me why I should like that picture, which provides an example of why I sometimes take issue with people telling me that words are sometimes needed to really understand a picture. That particular picture does not work for me, and never will, no matter how much explanation is provided.
Personally, when it comes to 'learning to see,' I like Freeman Patterson.
"If you meet the Buddha...", said one or another old Zen master (and now pretty much reduced to a cliche). Truer words were never spoken (assuming that, in fact, they were).
Here's the article I found. It contains the same quotes used by Mark:
http://www.naturephotographers.net/articles1010/ab1010-1.html
@Scott: The "May Snowstorm #2" image doesn't do anything for me either.