Friday
Nov182011
ku # 1134 ~ wherein Einstein rumimates on the limits of clichéd picture making
Friday, November 18, 2011 at 10:45AM 
Milkweed ~ near Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand. ~ Albert Einstein
IMO, it takes little or no imagination to make pictures of stuff everyone has already made pictures of and already knows about. Conversely, it takes a fair amount of imagination to see the wonder/beauty in stuff that everyone sees but to which very few are paying attention.
Reader Comments (3)
I completely agree with you on this. Anyone looking at sites like 500px will find a mind-numbing number of well-executed photos of the usual suspects (clouds, waterfalls, fields, mountains, and other similar stuff). Beautiful yes, innovative not so much). I believe is was Einstein who postulated to basic formula for this condition:
Cliche + (inverse of innovation) = boring
Between photographers, I see another distinction in complexity vs simplicity. Many photographers prefer to have one referent in the frame (which usually devolves to a pretty girl, a car, a mountain, a dog etc) whereas others prefer complexity. The former pictures are easy to read and the latter may require a couple seconds (or more) to interpret.
Of course neither approach is good or bad.
Some photographers want to produce a pleasing image that when displayed, isn't too taxing on the brain. They don't have to explain (or defend) its purpose to other people - it's self-evident.
Other photographers want to see some aspect of Life revealed or even resolved by a photo. They might see their photos as an opportunity for discussion or perhaps only appreciated by a smaller crowd.
Just different ends of the photography spectrum (or more precisely, one axis of the many).
Well, you're nothing if not amusing, Mark. So Einstein was talking about "cliched picture making", huh?
Hopefully, this is all tongue - in - cheek. Otherwise, I'll have to put you up on the wall next to pictures of Gingrich, Bachmann, Cain, and Palin, all of whom also indulge in magnificent episodes of "imagination".