Are the greats really that great?

[tron_]

I was looking through some images the other day (more specifically some stuff Capa shot during the Normandy landing) and it made me wonder how his work would be treated if it were shot today. Part of me feels like it would be thrown to the wayside and picked apart for being "too blurry" or "too grain" or whatever.

It seems like with the flood of photography filling our daily lives, we have become very critical and selective on what we deem "good" photography.

That leads me to the thought; by todays standards, are the greats really all that great? Or do people worship them because it's the status quo to respect the old masters?

 

[Shawn Rahman]

Nice topic, Suraj.

I'd like to add one thought before people let loose on this: when we talk about the greats, remember that what we are looking at is, for the most part, their greatest hits.

For example: for the dozens of Cartier-Bresson shots that we know and love, imagine the tens of thousands that probably suck?

 

[cliveh]

I was looking through some images the other day (more specifically some stuff Capa shot during the Normandy landing) and it made me wonder how his work would be treated if it were shot today. Part of me feels like it would be thrown to the wayside and picked apart for being "too blurry" or "too grain" or whatever.

It seems like with the flood of photography filling our daily lives, we have become very critical and selective on what we deem "good" photography.

That leads me to the thought; by todays standards, are the greats really all that great? Or do people worship them because it's the status quo to respect the old masters?

You are aware that these negs were almost completely destroyed in the drying cabinet? But in answer to your question I would say some are and some aren't, depending on your taste.

 

[PKM-25]

by todays standards, are the greats really all that great?

Yep, they are that great, unless the standards you are talking about today are technical....

There are two lines of standards that run either apart or together depending on who you are and what you are after. One is the most common today and by far the easiest to master, the technical. The other is the personal narrative, the emotion of an image or it's ability to tell a story, be worth even a fraction of said "A Thousand Words"...

If you are even going to ask this question, you have to take off your house slippers and put on their shoes as they would be. You have to put everything...and I do mean *everything* into proper context, what clothes they wore, what cars they drove, the war, the politics, every single thing you can imagine and then take another look at it.

The gear, the technical, that stuff only matters if the person using it is driven, immersive and really freaking talented. Otherwise, those technical standards are the stuff of photo enthusiasts who work a day job dreaming of being a photographer.

These kinds of questions are a distraction from dedicating one self to what really matters....how powerful of a photograph do you have?

 

[snapguy]

rate

Like everything in life some are overrated and some are underrated. Do you think you could have done better considering the equipment available and the pressure (bombs, etc.) the photogs were under? First, you had to get there. Not everybody could wander onto, say, the Normandy beachhead at just the right time. Not everybody has the guts. Many people would freeze up or run away. How many years have you been taking photographs under extreme pressure? Do you know how you measure up when people are getting their guts blown out and their heads shot off? I can sit in my easy chair and ask why a TV reporter was a block away from the shooting and dying in Syria. But I don't.

 

[Colin Corneau]

I'm not sure I see the point in comparing the technical limitations of past years to the capabilities offered today.

If Capa had a Canon 1D-X I'm sure his photos would have looked tremendously different; similarly, if most photographers today had to contend with the technological limitations Capa did in WW-2 I suspect the wheat would be separated from the chaff pretty quickly.

That's not even taking into account the fact that many artistic and aesthetic conventions that are long established today were either blazingly new or not even invented yet, back then...hindsight is 20/20, as they say.

 

[trythis]

I think you could ask this about all art after 1914 or so. Artists are made famous through web of critics, dealers, agents, etc. looking to become famous by "discovering" an artist so they can advance their own careers. Agents and gallery owners must sell the artist as the newest, greatest thing and therefore advance their careers. Artists, photographers or otherwise are a cog in the machinery of "the business." They are (a major) part that dealers, agents, museum curators, sponsors, and critics use to capture consumer imagination and earn their dollars through sales and admission costs.

There are, of course, great images that pull our eyes into the composition; undeniably, emotionally powerful images do exist and hats off to those that capture them. We can all stare in awe, deservedly.

There are some seriously ugly piles of stink in museums all over the world and everyone knows it when they see it, so why are they there on equal footing?

I think the romance for both situations is generally fabricated through "the business," so to answer your question with a question:

Do you (individually) buy into greatness or not? Its up to the beholder, always, and if the beholder buys into it, then they do, if not, then not.

So simple! ha:munch:

 

[omaha]

Interesting question.

I spend as much time as I can wondering through art museums, looking for ideas. On Saturday I was studying this piece by Makovsky when I caught myself thinking that the Photoshop work to lay in the back-light highlights on her right shoulder were a little sloppy.

Erp.

That was really pretty much a stupid thought on my part.

Recently (on another forum) a participant posted a photo he had submitted to a local camera club for judging. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the photo was a compositional train wreck. What interested me is how the camera club judge (and pretty much everyone else on this particular forum) jumped down a rabbit-hole of talking about technical stuff like noise and high-ISO performance of CCD vs CMOS sensors and color accuracy and a bunch of other stuff that had nothing to do with the fact that the photo was very poorly composed in the first place.

Photography has always had a certain "geeky" quality to it. That certainly didn't start with digital. But I do think digital has accelerated that quite a bit. There are lots of computer programmers and such for whom the technical vibe of digital photography is irresistibly attractive...so they buy their Canikon and their Photoshop and their NiK Silver Efx and their Topaz and suddenly they are artists.

For anything involving speed, we really have raised the bar. Compare a 1968 issue of Sports Illustrated to one from today.

But for carefully composed artistic photography, it seems like we have been going backwards for 50 years.

Anyway, just some random thoughts. Worth what you paid...

 

[gone]

It's impossible to compare things from one era to another. Having said that, quality will win out every time.

 

[cliveh]

It's impossible to compare things from one era to another. Having said that, quality will win out every time.

How do you define quality?

 

[MSchuler]

My personal opinion is that the viewer has to take context into account. The work may have been technically challenging to create (Gus Pasquarella's Hindenburg photo), or it may be more important as a historical record than as an aesthetic statement (the Hubert van Es photo of the evacuation of Saigon). This is why knowledge of the history of photography is valuable and why approaching all images with a sense of humility is important. The critical analysis skills of one who complains that Capa's "Falling Soldier" is grainy are suspect.

 

[Bob Carnie]

I think the cave man had it pretty tough making those images.

 

[Ian Grant]

Capa's images were great for their time, screwed up in processing (the D-day stuff) not his fault.

I remember seeing an exhibition of Don McCullins work in Bath (UK) in the late 80's, amazing images mostly of war zones, I heard 2 guys complain about his composition and it brought tears, they wanted the dying to be in the right place for the photo.

Ian

 

[omaha]

Somehow related to this, I was just discussing the movie "Nebraska" with a co-worker. It was shot on digital, then run through whatever software the video guys use to make it look like very grainy B&W film. I explained how I found that to be an affectation. That if you want that look, you should shoot film (actually, you'll need to find some crappy film) in the first place. Or if you want to shoot digital, then embrace it and release the movie in full, razor sharp, glorious digital.

She looked at me like I was out of my mind.

 

[David Allen]

In virtually every field of life there will be people who are successful because of technical ability before their time, being in the right place (when taking the image or exhibiting), luck, connections, the correct "friends', doing something 'new', being identified by a curator as 'important' or having work that 'speaks' to people. Overall this is all about the 'business' where some people make it and many don't. None of this concerns me (of course I would like to be famous but only because I could do more work and not have to myself transport my work up and down four stories (equivalent of 8 flights in the UK) of stairs when having an exhibition.

Success is a question of luck but I make my work because I have to and am happy with my 'lot'. If my images please me then, in my terms, I am fulfilling what I want to do.

David.
www.dsallen.de

 

[pbromaghin]

Yes, they were that good...

http://www.adammarelliphoto.com/2011/10/w-eugene-smith/

 

[Maris]

...I spend as much time as I can wondering through art museums, looking for ideas. On Saturday I was studying this piece by Makovsky when I caught myself thinking that the Photoshop work to lay in the back-light highlights on her right shoulder were a little sloppy.

Erp.

That was really pretty much a stupid thought on my part...

Not so stupid after all; actually brilliant! Painting is Photoshop except the computer in which the picture is formed is in the artist's head rather than on the artist's desk. In both cases the challenge is to get the picture in the mind/memory file out into the visible world. One way is to use an artist's hand and brush to lay down spots of colour on a flat surface. The other way is to use a printer to lay down spots of colour on a flat surface.

Photography does not work that way but there are still great photographs and great photographers. Robert Capa's photographs of the Normandy landing are great because the subject matter was great. And Capa is great for having the guts to be there. An exquisite is counterpoint is Josef Sudek's photographs of Prague. Here the subject matter is elevated toward greatness by the skill and photographic sensitivity of Sudek himself.

In one case greatness is discovered; in the other case greatness is created.

 

[ntenny]

IMHO, "greatness" doesn't stand alone; it always depends on the context. As Maris says above, Capa is great for having the guts to be in the Normandy landing; and for millions of people who weren't there, his photos *define* the vicarious experience of being there. So of course they look like perfect captures of the reality of the moment, because for most of us they *are* the reality of that moment!

I wonder, though, what would happen if you mixed up an undifferentiated pool of the work of acknowledged masters and competent amateurs. If a previously unknown photo by HCB or Kertesz or someone---but a good example, something that they would look at and say "that one's a keeper"---showed up in the APUG gallery under a fictitious name, would it stand out?

-NT

 

[frank]

I think you could ask this about all art after 1914 or so. Artists are made famous through web of critics, dealers, agents, etc. looking to become famous by "discovering" an artist so they can advance their own careers. Agents and gallery owners must sell the artist as the newest, greatest thing and therefore advance their careers. Artists, photographers or otherwise are a cog in the machinery of "the business." They are (a major) part that dealers, agents, museum curators, sponsors, and critics use to capture consumer imagination and earn their dollars through sales and admission costs.

There are, of course, great images that pull our eyes into the composition; undeniably, emotionally powerful images do exist and hats off to those that capture them. We can all stare in awe, deservedly.

There are some seriously ugly piles of stink in museums all over the world and everyone knows it when they see it, so why are they there on equal footing?

I think the romance for both situations is generally fabricated through "the business," so to answer your question with a question:

Do you (individually) buy into greatness or not? Its up to the beholder, always, and if the beholder buys into it, then they do, if not, then not.

So simple! ha:munch:

I agree with this. There have been a few artistic geniuses, but many, many artists have become great because of the business of galleries and dealers.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

The greats were great. That's why they're called the greats.

Dan said it well that you have to put yourself in their shoes, and be in the right context before you look at work and judge.

I sometimes complain that it's difficult to carry a camera bag around, a tripod, and be fully dressed for winter shooting when it's three feet of snow outside and temperatures in the 'It's bloody cold out here Mr. Bigglesworth' realm. Compare that to a situation of taking pictures in a war zone, with no choice but to go on. Dirty, tired, thirsty, possibly suffering emotionally difficult environments, possibly not knowing where to be safe, or where your next meal is going to come from, you still have to worry about making good photographs that serve the documentation of war. You would be pretty great just to survive. And lucky.

As far as somebody like Cartier-Bresson, well they only show us the best work. There are thousands upon thousands of terrible ones too, but they had the skill to recognize the really good ones. Those photographs were made in time where they had access to certain materials, and they worked with them to the best of their ability. You must, must, must look at the content, how it describes the subject matter in that time, and what they tell us.

I was just at the Harrison PHotography Gallery at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts to view some of the donations that Martin Weinstein had given the museum over the years, and among the prints were a lot of Ruzicka photographs. Many of them had big blotchy areas, full of artifacts added by the process, but you look beyond and see these intense beautiful highlights, and depictions of objects in a time before World War 2, for the most part. You have to look beyond the little technical flaws, which can also be brought about by improper process and generally the hand of time.

Pay respect to those who helped form the genre of photography as art before us, by realizing what they contributed, instead of finding flaws.

 

[jp498]

Certain things are timeless, like things that are evocative, moody, etc.. Some people did that to a very high standard with their camera and film in the day which the current photoshop generation can learn much from.

Composition, I don't think we have any modern advantage over them but to stand on people's shoulders as they did.

I think it's like cars. There are great old cars which were great then and remain special now. There are new cars that are wundermachines of excellence that build on the shoulders of tradition but fall short in other areas. it's all good to enjoy it all.

 

[thegman]

I think war photographers are a different case to HCB etc. as what we're really talking about is courage, rather than photographic skill (although that is present too, of course).

If we talk about photography as a means to an end, such as HCB etc. the only opinion you need is your own really, if I think HCB isn't all he was cracked up to be, who cares?

There will always be hero worship, always more glory after death, if you can cut away all that BS and still think a photographer is great, then maybe so. If you could remove HCB from history, but keep his 'greatest hits', upload to Flickr under anyone's name, would they still be considered amazing photographs?

 

[Gerald C Koch]

Capa was there on the beach during the invasion. It is miraculous that he survived let alone that he was able to take photographs. The greats had a vision of the world that was not found in the average person.

 

[cliveh]

As far as somebody like Cartier-Bresson, well they only show us the best work. There are thousands upon thousands of terrible ones too, but they had the skill to recognize the really good ones.

I don't agree with this and have heard too often the machine gun approach will produce the genius pictures. This is just not true. When he photographed Ghandi's funeral he said he had about five rolls of film. It is not about taking hundreds of pictures (otherwise digital photographers would produce hundreds of brilliant pictures and they don't) but a few with slight variance of composition. Well that is my opinion from research and also from my own practice.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

I don't agree with this and have heard too often the machine gun approach will produce the genius pictures. This is just not true. When he photographed Ghandi's funeral he said he had about five rolls of film. It is not about taking hundreds of pictures (otherwise digital photographers would produce hundreds of brilliant pictures and they don't) but a few with slight variance of composition. Well that is my opinion from research and also from my own practice.

Clive,

Did I anywhere me nation machine gun? No.
Over the course of a career, especially 35mm photographers tend to accumulate thousands or tens of thousands of negatives.
Nobody shows them all, and I was trying to highlight that they published those that they thought were worthy of it.