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Jan 11, 2019 17:19:39   #
srt101fan
 
artBob wrote:
Art is quirky, and contemporary art especially so, BECAUSE it must make a significant statement about the culture/times it is created in, as well as being the first in some significant way.

Up to the time of Duchamps' urinal, part of the requirements were also that composition and technique had to be good. Doing something new with technique and composition had to be filtered in with the other requirements, and eventually recognized as good, even though often at the time it was thought poor technique. Think Impressionism, which was rejected from the prestigious Salon, or, in music, Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring," which had rotten fruit thrown at its debut.

Duchamps. Ah, while I understand why it's Art, my personal response is "Ya took the easy way out, Bud, and screwed up peoples' attraction to Art at the same time."

The urinal ("Fountain") was an expression of the rebellion felt all over Europe by the avant garde, that the vaunted Enlightenment and European Culture had totally failed among the decomposing bodies and gas of WWI. Truth, Beauty, and The Good were rejected.

As for today, entertainment and status dominate the culture, and that is what you will see in much of the artwork. A good book to read is Fischl's "Bad Boy," where this artist describes the path of his work form the same time selling for $5000.00, then being discovered by all the right people, going to $50,000, then to $5M---then back down to a "mere" $50,000.00

It will not be known for 50 or so years what is really good Art. Meanwhile, I suggest: hang in there, enjoy, and ask "Why?" from time to time.
Art is quirky, and contemporary art especially so,... (show quote)


Good comments Bob. I think sometimes people get too defensive about their concept of art when faced with a work that they "don't understand". You don't have to understand art to enjoy it. Just open your mind and let it talk to you. No need to over-analyze. Does it make you think? Feel? Maybe that's enough. And if it doesn't do anything for you, well that's OK too.....

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Jan 11, 2019 17:24:30   #
tdekany Loc: Oregon
 
srt101fan wrote:
Good comments Bob. I think sometimes people get too defensive about their concept of art when faced with a work that they "don't understand". You don't have to understand art to enjoy it. Just open your mind and let it talk to you. No need to over-analyze. Does it make you think? Feel? Maybe that's enough. And if it doesn't do anything for you, well that's OK too.....


Those people may not understand the word SUBJECTIVE

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Jan 11, 2019 17:31:26   #
dione961
 
[quote=tdekany]This is what you wrote: NO NEW VISION

With that statement, you insulted the entire photography community in every single country on this planet.

Hey Bipod, thanks for posting this - I was going to say, but lost my nerve, that many photographers have a personal vision that informs and drives what they do - the "why" behind their work - and some of those visions have to be "new" - at least to some.

I've travelled a good part of the world - almost all of it "off the beaten track" and I began travelling for a reason: to learn about the lives and views of people outside my own narrow world. I take photos to capture what I find out there (here) and what I do find is this: there is pure, simple love, and arresting beauty, literally everywhere - even right at home. You don't have to look to find it: you just see it. The camera is my tool for trying to capture it. I haven't worked out how to show other people what I'm finding, but that's my vision: to show the love and beauty that is absolutely everywhere around us, that we are part of. Every image I make is an effort to show this.

I don't think of my efforts as art, but as a story. I am trying hard to learn how to get most things "right" (fraught as that term is) before I press the shutter, because I have no PP skills or software. Yet - more learning to come.

Is there a way we can all just live and let live?

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Jan 11, 2019 17:45:37   #
SusanFromVermont Loc: Southwest corner of Vermont
 
Bipod wrote:
You've got it backwards: the problem is that post-processing puts art into photography.

I completely agree that it's possible to paint with photography--but I never met a photographer
who had the knowledge and skill to do it well.

On another thread, we just heard from a poster who's solution to a blown sky was to go into
Photoshop and fill that area with blue. Well, that's one way!

There you are, sitting in front of your computer monitor, glazing and tinting an image file.
The scene you photographed is long gone, just a faded memory. And so is your visualization
of that scene. "Hmmm....what do I know about how the sky looks?" you think to yourself.
Aha! It's blue! Problem solved.

Painters have a rather different understanding of the sky--or even of how common, everyday
objects appear in different light. Painters understand the laws of reflection, color mixing,
atmospheric perspective, etc.

Could anyone here have painted the attached painting (by California artist Boyd Gavin)?
Really look at it. We've seen similar objects a million times: salt shaker, ketchup bottle, table top, etc.
But have we ever really looked at them--at how light plays on them?

If not, then we should be extremely cautious about messing around with how objects appear in
image files. The interplay of light is extremely complex, and changes can easily make the
image look unnatural and "wrong". It takes many years to learn how to make a painting look
right.

If you take the image file scanned from this panting and start manipulating it in Photoshop,
the way we so cavalierly do with our photographic images, running "sharpen", altering
highlights and shadows, chances are you will quickly ruin it, making it look odd and unnatural.
A photographer is not a painter, and shouldn't try to be.

In the golden age of "straight photography", processing was limited to dodging shadows and
burning highlights during printing. (Plus occasional bleaching or intensification of a negative.)
This was a conscious choice.

Pictorialist photographers beginning in the 1880s had drawn on their negatives and cut them up
with scissors-- but the straight photography movement on the West Coast in the 1930s shunned
that kind of manipulation. Photography was supposed to be honest, not contrived, and not
an imitation of painting.

The same, humble approach--aware of one's artistic limitations---can be adopted in digital processing.
Unfortunately, software packages like Photoshop offer hundreds of ways to draw on your image file,
paint on your image file, and cut and paste on it. Digital filters like "sharpen" do drastic things
to tone and gradation.

Photography is as much about looking as it is about snapping. But photographers are at their
best when they are doing photography -- not painting, drawing or collaging.. That was the fundamental
insight of the straight photography -- Adams, E. Weston, Strand, Lange, the later Stieglitz, etc--and it's still
true today.

Photographers are at their best with a camera in their hands, not a paint brush or its digital equivalent.
And as the saying goes: "true art is to conceal art."

Boyd Gavin, "Cafe Table". http://boydgavin.com/ https://natsoulas.com/artists/boyd-gavin
You've got it backwards: the problem is that post... (show quote)

I was not going to respond until I saw that you had posted accusing others of insults! The thing is, just about everything you post contains insults. Did you even attempt to read the original post in this thread with an open mind?

You state that post-processing puts art into photography, as though that were a problem! I suspect you are referring to your opinions about photographers as compared to painters. Apparently you "believe in" painters and not in photographers. If that is so, then why are you here?

You seem to forget that there have been throughout history all different "levels" of painters, just as there are different levels of photographers! As for how long it can take to learn the craft, the art, there are photographers who have gone through the same kind of learning as the painters of whom you are so fond.

As for the "golden age of 'straight photography'" when was that? In my mind that was when people did not develop or print their own negatives, and just snapped a bunch of pictures hoping some would turn out! At the time when the desire to be an artist becomes a part of the mix, then there is no such thing as "straight photography" or "straight painting"! Artists working in any medium will make adjustments to adapt the materials to their inner vision. Artistic License is what that is called.

Photographers cannot be lumped all into one box and all painters into another. Unfortunately you have closed your eyes to the possibility that regardless whether you approve or not, there are a lot of the types of methods you talk about that actually work! They actually will look great when done well.

Art is about experimentation, trying to create something that expresses the vision of the artist, and speaks to the one who is experiencing the work. On the way to accomplishing something great, there are going to be many failures, filling up many garbage cans. But that is no reason to criticize the attempt as though it were an insult. You apparently think that art is made up of only the types that fit your own definition.

In reality, Painting and Photography have a lot in common. Neither one will necessarily portray the world without changing it. And don't forget that both are about capturing the light!

Reply
Jan 11, 2019 17:56:49   #
burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC
 
Tom Daniels wrote:
Their has been a lot of forums about this lately.
I had the pleasure of working with Pete Turner Photographer who
did work that was breakthrough at the time. Looking at it today
it is not a revelation like it was in years ago. Art should be judged
by each viewer. If you are in the pro world today like marketing
you have to make critical decisions about was is good or great.
Mr. Turner passed away a few months ago.


Pete Turner was one of my early heroes. I had posters of some of his work on my bedroom walls as an 8th grader. Later, I bought a Bowens Illumitran 3C slide duplicator, because HE used one. I wish I still had it!

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Jan 11, 2019 18:03:43   #
burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC
 
Gene51 wrote:
Linda, this is called cognitive dissonance -

"In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort (psychological stress) experienced by a person who simultaneously holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values. This discomfort is triggered by a situation in which a person’s belief clashes with new evidence perceived by that person. When confronted with facts that contradict personal beliefs, ideals, and values, people will find a way to resolve the contradiction in order to reduce their discomfort." - Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. California: Stanford University Press.

Three cognitive biases in particular are components of dissonance theory. The bias that one does not have any biases, the bias that one is "better, kinder, smarter, more moral, and nicer than average," and confirmation bias. - Tavris, Carol; Aronson, Elliot (2017). "Why We Believe -- Long After We Shouldn't". Skeptical Inquirer. 41 (2): 51–53. Retrieved 5 November 2018.

This helps to explain why people hold on to their incorrect beliefs in the face of logic, facts, and alternate explanations.

Or as a good friend of mine used to say, "denial is not just a river in Egypt."
Linda, this is called cognitive dissonance - br ... (show quote)


ROTFLMAO!

Yes, Gene, all that applies here. Great points of view.

Reply
Jan 11, 2019 18:05:52   #
Bipod
 
In art, each medium is valid -- it does not matter which is the most recent or "high tech".

For example: oil paints and watercolors--
Oils: thick or thin, pigment-based, textured (impasto), slow drying, can rework
Watercolors: thin, dye-based, no tecxture, fast drying, cannot rework

New media are introduced, but old ones do not become "obsolete". Nor does the fact
that a work of art is old make it less good or less valuable. Movements and schools
come and go, but art is eternal: Phidias, Michelangelo, Leonardo...

Some new media never amount to much. For exmaple, 3D printers do not seem to have
caught on with sculptors....perhaps that because nobody wants an 8" tall sculpture in
orange plastic.

Film and digital are different media.

For over 150 years, all photographers worked in film. This includes almost all of the
great names in photography--world renowned masters.

Yet we are told by posters here on UHH that anyone who uses film is backward, a Luddite,
stupid, irrational, not rich, and probably a communist.

Anyone how doesn't use the latest digital camera from <Japanese consumer camera company>
is a moron, they say. We must rally round the logo of the manufacturer of our choice!

Funny though, nobody here sells their prints for as much as Bruce Barnbaum, Beth Moon,
Nadav Kandar or Don McCullin--who all work in film.

Nor are they as well known as film phtographers Amanda Friedman, Simon Watson, Jeff Lipsky,
wet-plate photographer Joni Sternbach, or night photographer Todd Hido.

Nor are they publishing highly regarded books on photography such as Barnbaum's
The Art of Photography.

There are almost no posts on UHH about well-known photgraphers, and very few
about photography exhibits, or gallery shows, or photography auctions. Instead,
there are endless discussions of consumer gear and how to operate a digital camera.

One gets the impression that nobody here looks at photography or collects it, or
cares much about it. It's the hobby of running around snapping pictures that
they love. And buying the latest gear.

UHH seems almost entirely made up of people who know and care nothing about art
(apparently victims of the American educational system). Their mission is to vandalize
the art of photography -- smashing everything old so they will not have to feel inferior.

UHH is not a photography forum. It is a gear sales forum.

Reply
 
 
Jan 11, 2019 18:09:38   #
artBob Loc: Near Chicago
 
burkphoto wrote:
Pete Turner was one of my early heroes. I had posters of some of his work on my bedroom walls as an 8th grader. Later, I bought a Bowens Illumitran 3C slide duplicator, because HE used one. I wish I still had it!

I just looked at Pete Turner's work. Incredible adventures in color and composition. His work is just about those things, I think, somewhat like Minimal Art. For me, the question is, "Why are some Minimal creations very appealing? Is it that, in spite of their creators' attempts, they are somewhat metaphorical, e.g., conflict, happiness, etc.? Or is it that some are just so damn good the they move us, somewhat like pure music?"

Reply
Jan 11, 2019 18:11:12   #
srt101fan
 
SusanFromVermont wrote:
I was not going to respond until I saw that you had posted accusing others of insults! The thing is, just about everything you post contains insults. Did you even attempt to read the original post in this thread with an open mind?

You state that post-processing puts art into photography, as though that were a problem! I suspect you are referring to your opinions about photographers as compared to painters. Apparently you "believe in" painters and not in photographers. If that is so, then why are you here?

You seem to forget that there have been throughout history all different "levels" of painters, just as there are different levels of photographers! As for how long it can take to learn the craft, the art, there are photographers who have gone through the same kind of learning as the painters of whom you are so fond.

As for the "golden age of 'straight photography'" when was that? In my mind that was when people did not develop or print their own negatives, and just snapped a bunch of pictures hoping some would turn out! At the time when the desire to be an artist becomes a part of the mix, then there is no such thing as "straight photography" or "straight painting"! Artists working in any medium will make adjustments to adapt the materials to their inner vision. Artistic License is what that is called.

Photographers cannot be lumped all into one box and all painters into another. Unfortunately you have closed your eyes to the possibility that regardless whether you approve or not, there are a lot of the types of methods you talk about that actually work! They actually will look great when done well.

Art is about experimentation, trying to create something that expresses the vision of the artist, and speaks to the one who is experiencing the work. On the way to accomplishing something great, there are going to be many failures, filling up many garbage cans. But that is no reason to criticize the attempt as though it were an insult. You apparently think that art is made up of only the types that fit your own definition.

In reality, Painting and Photography have a lot in common. Neither one will necessarily portray the world without changing it. And don't forget that both are about capturing the light!
I was not going to respond until I saw that you ha... (show quote)


Don't worry about it Susan. Every once in a while Bipod shows up dragging his little wagon loaded with cynicism and his dark view of the photographic world.... On the other hand, he does seem to know a lot and sometimes even contributes constructively! Go figure....

Reply
Jan 11, 2019 18:16:12   #
tdekany Loc: Oregon
 
Bipod wrote:
In art, each medium is valid -- it does not matter which is the most recent or "high tech".

For example: oil paints and watercolors--
Oils: thick or thin, pigment-based, textured (impasto), slow drying, can rework
Watercolors: thin, dye-based, no tecxture, fast drying, cannot rework

New media are introduced, but old ones do not become "obsolete". Nor does the fact
that a work of art is old make it less good or less valuable. Movements and schools
come and go, but art is eternal: Phidias, Michelangelo, Leonardo...

Some new media never amount to much. For exmaple, 3D printers do not seem to have
caught on with sculptors....perhaps that because nobody wants an 8" tall sculpture in
orange plastic.

Film and digital are different media.

For over 150 years, all photographers worked in film. This includes almost all of the
great names in photography--world renowned masters.

Yet we are told by posters here on UHH that anyone who uses film is backward, a Luddite,
stupid, irrational, not rich, and probably a communist.

Anyone how doesn't use the latest digital camera from <Japanese consumer camera company>
is a moron, they say. We must rally round the logo of the manufacturer of our choice!

Funny though, nobody here sells their prints for as much as Bruce Barnbaum, Beth Moon,
Nadav Kandar or Don McCullin--who all work in film.

Nor are they as well known as film phtographers Amanda Friedman, Simon Watson, Jeff Lipsky,
wet-plate photographer Joni Sternbach, or night photographer Todd Hido.

Nor are they publishing highly regarded books on photography such as Barnbaum's
The Art of Photography.

There are almost no posts on UHH about well-known photgraphers, and very few
about photography exhibits, or gallery shows, or photography auctions. Instead,
there are endless discussions of consumer gear and how to operate a digital camera.

One gets the impression that nobody here looks at photography or collects it, or
cares much about it. It's the hobby of running around snapping pictures that
they love. And buying the latest gear.

UHH seems almost entirely made up of people who know and care nothing about art
(apparently victims of the American educational system). Their mission is to vandalize
the art of photography -- smashing everything old so they will not have to feel inferior.

UHH is not a photography forum. It is a gear sales forum.
In art, each medium is valid -- it does not matte... (show quote)



Lol! Do you know the steps to log out of UHH? Let me know if you need help.

Reply
Jan 11, 2019 19:58:08   #
Latsok Loc: Recently moved to Washington State.
 
Photojournalism vs art. A photograph does not have to be an exact rendition of real-life replication unless used in a photojournalistic context. In any other situation, photography is an art and should represent the artists' (photographers) interpretation of what they want to showcase.
But, somebody will probably find an argument with this as well. C'est la vie!

Reply
 
 
Jan 11, 2019 20:05:46   #
rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona
 
I'll stick with Ansel Adams in this topic. "The negative is the score. The print is the performance". Anything less, SOOC, is a snapshot.
--Bob
ngrea wrote:
Reading a Hog conversation that gọt a little warm about whether post processing removes the pure “art” from photography. It seems some think photography must be SOOC to be “real”.
It seems to me the post processing could be interpreted as being similar to what a painter or sculptor does. Is a blob of paint SOOT (straight out of the tube) more “authentic” than the final painting the artist does? Is the sculpture of less merit than the block of granite?
The color and the granite are both genuine, and can covey a message without manipulation, but the artist that changes them also brings us something from his/her mind and heart that conveys or evokes emotion.
A photograph never captures the view exactly the same as experiencing it in person. It conveys something of the photographers interaction with the scene (think Impressionism). And I enjoy abstract and highly manipulated photos that are completely unidentifiable as to the subject, just as I do an abstract painting.
So, I say let each person do and enjoy and share photography however they want. All approaches are equally valid.
Reading a Hog conversation that gọt a little warm ... (show quote)

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Jan 11, 2019 20:07:43   #
JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco
 
rmalarz wrote:
I'll stick with Ansel Adams in this topic. "The negative is the score. The print is the performance". Anything less, SOOC, is a snapshot.
--Bob


So then would it follow that everything shot on slide film is a snapshot?

Reply
Jan 11, 2019 20:10:38   #
SusanFromVermont Loc: Southwest corner of Vermont
 
srt101fan wrote:
Don't worry about it Susan. Every once in a while Bipod shows up dragging his little wagon loaded with cynicism and his dark view of the photographic world.... On the other hand, he does seem to know a lot and sometimes even contributes constructively! Go figure....

Thank you for your comments. This is the second time I tried to inspire Bipod to look beyond his seriously limited view of photographers and photography. You are right, he does seem to know a lot and has had some useful information to impart. Then he ruins the good impression with his negativity.

While his comments may apply to some, they certainly are not correct about most of the people and motives on UHH. The world is not perfect, but neither is it in complete ruin and disarray!

Reply
Jan 11, 2019 20:25:04   #
tdekany Loc: Oregon
 
SusanFromVermont wrote:
Thank you for your comments. This is the second time I tried to inspire Bipod to look beyond his seriously limited view of photographers and photography. You are right, he does seem to know a lot and has had some useful information to impart. Then he ruins the good impression with his negativity.

While his comments may apply to some, they certainly are not correct about most of the people and motives on UHH. The world is not perfect, but neither is it in complete ruin and disarray!


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