Photographers who are hell bent on perfectionism?

[MTGseattle]

I haven't seen that in a while.

 

[snusmumriken]

Is it too much to suggest that Irving Penn was a perfectionist? I don’t really know enough about him.

 

[CMoore]

Subtitles.?
I thought it was a joke.
I remember it being a big title, but i never saw it.
Now i see............ Good Heavens

 

[Pieter12]

If perfectionism implies not taking chances, then it's not worthwhile.

 

[_T_]

Perfection is a very easy thing to achieve in art. It only requires that all of goals of the endeavor are achievable, and that all of those goals are achieved. The artist has complete control over the goals and so has complete control over the cost, in whatever terms apply, necessary to achieve perfection.

There is a kind of perfection, however, that goes beyond this. Where the way in which the goals are achieved affects the outcome of the final product in such a way that the result goes beyond the imagined perfection of the original plan, transcending the perfection of the mind to the greater perfection of the project's ultimate reality. This is not necessarily any more difficult to achieve, but the path to do so is not always so clear. Sometimes people have to guess at paths towards this kind of perfection, while others they may have an intuitive sense of a direction, and sometimes they can see clearly from the outset the exact steps necessary to achieve it.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Welcome to Photrio!!

 

[snusmumriken]

If perfectionism implies not taking chances, then it's not worthwhile.

I don't think it does. In my understanding, it implies being true to some self-imposed standard, irrespective of anyone else.

 

[Pieter12]

I don't think it does. In my understanding, it implies being true to some self-imposed standard, irrespective of anyone else.

A perfect circle is nice, but uninspired. My self-imposed standard is different, I guess.

 

[snusmumriken]

A perfect circle is nice, but uninspired. My self-imposed standard is different, I guess.

I'm afraid you've lost me there.

I remember a story about a Japenese artist who was employed by an Emperor The artist spent a lot of time walking alone along the seashore, but not apparently doing any art. After a year of this, the Emperor summoned him and demanded to know what he had achieved. The artist took a stick of chalk, and drew on the floor, with exquisite precision and without lifting his chalk, the outline of a crab. He kept his job (and his head).

 

[photogear]

A perfect circle is nice, but uninspired. My self-imposed standard is different, I guess.

The perfect circle (clinical so to speak) doesn't inspire me either.

 

[Pieter12]

I aim for imperfect. It is human.

 

[oneeyedpainter]

If I may, I believe the original question is somehow ill-posed. I bet nobody would be able to define perfection in any artistic endeavour, or at least not in any meaningful/useful/universal way.

If by "perfectionism" we mean the quest for perfect adherence to a specific set of technical standards, often self-imposed and almost impossible to achieve in full by definition, then we can easily find hordes of such photography practitioners. They have tried a sizeable fraction of the combinatorially infinite number of possible juxtapositions of camera, lens, filter, film, film developer, fixer, washing technique, enlarger (and enlarger lenses), paper and paper developer, washing and drying schedule. Yet, they seldom produce any image with a "wow" factor, at all. And even if they did, they would probably not even notice, as their mind is already pondering about the next combination of camera, lens, filter, film, developer to be tried.

There are other photographers who are obsessed with the precise way their pictures represent the message they want to convey through them. They often produce many images that are widely considered "memorable", albeit the same pictures would raise many a eyebrows among the technical-perfectionists above, and they are often so busy with the next thing they want to say with an image to become unable to enjoy their achievements for a brief moment.

Then there are photographers to whom the sheer pleasure of taking a tangible record of a single, infinitesimal moment in time is enough satisfaction to keep going and expose the next roll, many more rolls, in an insatiable down-hill run to record more moments, all the moments, and possibly, at least once in a lifetime, "the perfect moment", provided that it existed, ever.

As any other human endeavour, photography is a dialogue about a large number of potentially contradictory views of reality and perception.

All the photographers are aiming towards some ideal of perfection, being it technical, linguistic, artistic, or any combination of the above. Just, no two photographers would ever agree on which such ideal should be. Otherwise, photography would be massively boring, there would be no reason to share our work with others, and there would be no need for a place like Photrio, at all...


OneEyedPainter

 

[Vaughn]

I aim for imperfect. It is human.

There is no aim. There is only hit.
…or however Yoda talked.

I do the best I can and try to keep learning from the experience. That’s good enough. Perfection will have to be patient.

 

[CMoore]

Like anything else, defining a specific thing or event might be difficult.
The perfect...............
Movie
Photo
Baseball glove
Hamburger
Song
House
Wife
Etc etc etc

But the definition of "Perfect" probably jibes with most peoples grasp of the word.............

Definition of PERFECT

being entirely without fault or defect : flawless; satisfying all requirements : accurate; corresponding to an ideal standard or abstract concept… See the full definition

www.merriam-webster.com

 

[snusmumriken]

If I may, I believe the original question is somehow ill-posed. I bet nobody would be able to define perfection in any artistic endeavour, or at least not in any meaningful/useful/universal way.

If by "perfectionism" we mean the quest for perfect adherence to a specific set of technical standards, often self-imposed and almost impossible to achieve in full by definition, then we can easily find hordes of such photography practitioners. They have tried a sizeable fraction of the combinatorially infinite number of possible juxtapositions of camera, lens, filter, film, film developer, fixer, washing technique, enlarger (and enlarger lenses), paper and paper developer, washing and drying schedule. Yet, they seldom produce any image with a "wow" factor, at all. And even if they did, they would probably not even notice, as their mind is already pondering about the next combination of camera, lens, filter, film, developer to be tried.

There are other photographers who are obsessed with the precise way their pictures represent the message they want to convey through them. They often produce many images that are widely considered "memorable", albeit the same pictures would raise many a eyebrows among the technical-perfectionists above, and they are often so busy with the next thing they want to say with an image to become unable to enjoy their achievements for a brief moment.

Then there are photographers to whom the sheer pleasure of taking a tangible record of a single, infinitesimal moment in time is enough satisfaction to keep going and expose the next roll, many more rolls, in an insatiable down-hill run to record more moments, all the moments, and possibly, at least once in a lifetime, "the perfect moment", provided that it existed, ever.

As any other human endeavour, photography is a dialogue about a large number of potentially contradictory views of reality and perception.

All the photographers are aiming towards some ideal of perfection, being it technical, linguistic, artistic, or any combination of the above. Just, no two photographers would ever agree on which such ideal should be. Otherwise, photography would be massively boring, there would be no reason to share our work with others, and there would be no need for a place like Photrio, at all...


OneEyedPainter

That’s very persuasive, but at the end I’m finding it hard to swallow that all photographers are aiming towards some ideal of perfection.

Setting aside any argument about what is being perfected, we surely all recognise what is meant when we describe someone as a ‘perfectionist’ as a personality trait? They are likely to be obsessive, prevaricate about starting, reject a lot of work as inadequate, be reluctant to show - or disown - work that seems finished, etc etc…

To judge by results in the particular category of still lives, I would put Irving Penn and Robert Mappelthorpe in that category, but I know little about either as personalities. I do know that Penn built an entire darkroom in which to pursue the aesthetics of the platinum process, which to most photographers would not seem worth the trouble. (But the results were gorgeous. I saw an exhibition in London many years ago.)

 

[Don_ih]

I bet nobody would be able to define perfection in any artistic endeavour, or at least not in any meaningful/useful/universal way.

Perfectionism is a kind of obsessive characteristic that drives someone to constantly adjust whatever they are doing or making to satisfy some personal desire to fully refine the outcome. It's an attempt to make the reality equal the ideal. That is an attitude that one can apply to whatever they're doing. With photography, you're probably more likely to see it in the darkroom work or the computer work (whichever you do). The "taking" phase may not allow for endless messing around to achieve the desired outcome, since the situation being photographed may not last long.

 

[oneeyedpainter]

It's an attempt to make the reality equal the ideal.

Indeed, but which of the many ideals around are we talking about, exactly? Perhaps "perfectionism" is an obsessive form of personal research for a specific match to a specific ideal, but we should aknowledge that the perfection sought by different people will unavoidably be of different kinds and flavours.


The perfectionist attitude of one specific photographer could be perceived as mannerim, or as pure technical fixation, or as sloppines and poor attention for detail, or as sheer ignorance, depending on who is judging the situation. We all have seen thousands of technically perfect negatives which convey totally no emotion, and hundreds of immortal images which lack pinpoint sharpness and immaculate adherence to this or that rule. This does not mean that there could not be perfectionists behind both kinds of images. Only of quite different flavours, perhaps

Emotion is what makes a picture perfect, and emotions are personal and generally hard to convey exactly.

 

[Eishwaneeren]

Perfectionism is one of the characteristics of the Procrastinator.

Hmmm mostly because every important task is overly demanding. I have an obsessive disorder of sorts, I'm going through a lot of changes as a young adult, feels like I'll eventually put aside this obsession.

 

[Eishwaneeren]

Welcome to Photrio @Eishwaneeren !

Please define 'perfection'? I think there are plenty of examples that qualify. How many tries did Weston do to get the perfect pepper? How much time did Adams spend on perfecting the Zone System to get as close as possible to his artistic vision? How strict were Cartier-Bresson's philosophy and discipline in nailing the 'decisive moment'?

I think in photography, and especially amateur photography, it's relatively easy to find perfectionists. Whether they actually yield perfect results - probably not by their own definition, as that would be antithetical to being a perfectionist!

Hello, thanks for welcoming me .

Perfection is a very visual concept, for me perfect work means meeting current demands (which have changed and added work & weight to an already heavy task) with the original ideal -- and also making the two work together. It is a visual concept in my opinion in almost every condition as far more information in the mind needs to be maintained consistently, and you need extra help by keeping it visualised. Of course that is a definition from me, putting aside what causes, leads to it and the suffering after its success. Also for me personally perfection needs the ideal conditions in the mind.

I agree with both sides, and that is a very lame stance, but as I stated, I'm changing myself to a more actionable mindset -- recently I just shot from my phone and the pics actually looked decent! I hadn't shot in an unusually long time (since last September -- I shoot a lot, but don't get time to edit properly and post). I'll add two of those. For context I shot ~1500 decent pics last year (that is after a 2 year long break from all photography, so my creative energy was brimming).

And yes I am never ever satisfied with anything, which in real life means a lot of pain, heh.

 

[Eishwaneeren]

“Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.”

Voltaire.

@Eishwaneeren If you say "I suffer from perfectionism" then you have identified the fact that your work suffers because your expectations are hampering your creativity. Perhaps it's time to consider loosening your definition of what makes for good output.

I agree

 

[Eishwaneeren]

Maybe product photography. Getting exactly the perfect photo of the glistening, steaming hamburger.

Perfection is for idealists and the otherwise naive.

I am one, so far. An idealist.

 

[Eishwaneeren]

They have tried a sizeable fraction of the combinatorially infinite number of possible juxtapositions of camera, lens, filter, film, film developer, fixer, washing technique, enlarger (and enlarger lenses), paper and paper developer, washing and drying schedule. Yet, they seldom produce any image with a "wow" factor, at all. And even if they did, they would probably not even notice, as their mind is already pondering about the next combination of camera, lens, filter, film, developer to be tried.

Imprisoning yourself in perfect standards give way to sterility of the mind. That is the enemy of creativity. If you could guess i suffer from all these things, I'm working on changing though.

Beyond that it's also true that perfectionist artists consider their clinical methods above creativity itself, like neutering a passionate beast - physically powerful, not the other context of neutering. No exploration can really be done once the beast dies.

 

[Eishwaneeren]

There are other photographers who are obsessed with the precise way their pictures represent the message they want to convey through them. They often produce many images that are widely considered "memorable", albeit the same pictures would raise many a eyebrows among the technical-perfectionists above, and they are often so busy with the next thing they want to say with an image to become unable to enjoy their achievements for a brief moment.

Ernst Haas. That man made photos that need explaining to everyone new.

 

[Eishwaneeren]

All the photographers are aiming towards some ideal of perfection, being it technical, linguistic, artistic, or any combination of the above. Just, no two photographers would ever agree on which such ideal should be. Otherwise, photography would be massively boring, there would be no reason to share our work with others, and there would be no need for a place like Photrio, at all...

I suppose you could see a perfectionist as someone prepared for the moment, and the other who treats progress as a long term aim to perfect his work. I am in the middle, but all my life I have been too obsessed with tiny details. I'll be buying a small camera to shoot whenever I should, it is beautiful to be able to do that. It's a short vs long term thing.

Then there are photographers to whom the sheer pleasure of taking a tangible record of a single, infinitesimal moment in time is enough satisfaction to keep going and expose the next roll, many more rolls, in an insatiable down-hill run to record more moments, all the moments, and possibly, at least once in a lifetime, "the perfect moment", provided that it existed, ever.

I share that habit, esp with my film camera, but development takes so long that I basically never use it.

 

[Don_ih]

we should aknowledge that the perfection sought by different people will unavoidably be of different kinds and flavours

That was implicit in what I said. The "ideal" doesn't exist anywhere outside the mind of the one who considers it.