beautiful photograph --- OR --- a photograph of beauty?

[BradS]

Lately I've been...mulling over, or irritated by, the difference between for example....an otherwise un-exceptional photo of a beautiful young woman and and exceptional photo of an ordinary person. My irritation gets worse as the comparison is exaggerated...for example, a tasteful nude in an un-remarkable landscape versus a masterfully executed photograph extraordinary landscape in difficult lighting.

Sometimes, I just find myself reading comments people post and thinking...sheesh, how hard is it to make a "beautiful photo" of a spectacularly beautiful, provocatively dressed young woman?

As another example, a few years ago, somebody posted on of Stephan Shore's photos and many folks dissed it as ordinary.

Is it impossible to make a "good photo" of the ordinary?

 

[Cheryl Jacobs]

This is why I don't photograph professional models.

That's all for now.

- CJ

 

[Thomas Wilson]

This is why I don't photograph professional models.

That's all for now.

- CJ

Exactly.

 

[jd callow]

Most nudes of beautiful (or more likely sexually fit) models are often little more than exercises in thinly veiled voyeurism. On the flip side beautifully crafted images of landscapes in difficult light are oft times only exercises in technical virtuosity and composition. Composing is important, but not generally a substantial end in itself. The other example that you departed from immediately, the "exceptional photo of an ordinary person" or even an exceptional photo of an extraordinary person is something to aspire to.

In a way nearly everything is ordinary. We don't often get chances to shoot nuclear blasts or open heart surgery and even beautiful or extraordinary people or just people. It is what is done with the subject, light, context and medium that gives the subject or photograph value.

 

[VaryaV]

As another example, a few years ago, somebody posted on of Stephan Shore's photos and many folks dissed it as ordinary.

Is it impossible to make a "good photo" of the ordinary?

Isn't that something. I would never view Shore's work as ordinary. I have a couple of his books and can literally get lost in his images for hours on end, he captures a point in time, memories, the past, etc. and makes the audience have to 'think.'

The master of the ordinary was Sudek but in his hands the ordinary became transformed into something else entirely. He could make a masterpiece out of anything.

I think it's all in the skill, technique and vision of the artist.

Excellent point JD, hadn't looked at it that way before.

 

[BradS]

Most nudes of beautiful (or more likely sexually fit) models are often little more than exercises in thinly veiled voyeurism. On the flip side beautifully crafted images of landscapes in difficult light are oft times only exercises in technical virtuosity and composition. Composing is important, but not generally a substantial end in itself. The other example that you departed from immediately, the "exceptional photo of an ordinary person" or even an exceptional photo of an extraordinary person is something to aspire to.

Mr Callow,
You've expressed what I was thinking much better than I did. Thanks.

It seems to me that it is much more difficult to make good photos of ordinary people...or maybe, it is just much more difficult for viewers to recognize an extraordinary photo of an ordinary person.

 

[Leighgion]

I go with not impossible, but difficult, especially in the case of pretty ladies.

In my experience, the trouble with photos of pretty ladies is that the photographer is almost inevitably caught up in showcasing that the model is pretty and... that's about it. It stops there. Often there's lots of lighting setup, but I find very rarely does the photographer take all of those ingredients and try to cook up something genuinely interesting.

Pretty girls are as appealing to me as the next guy, but anonymous pretty girls aren't enough to anchor photos for me, especially since I started doing more photography of my own. Acknowledging the model is pretty is quickly swamped by annoyance that the photographer did essentially the same things as the last photographer who did a model shoot.

 

[2F/2F]

Who is askin'? Tell 'em to buzz off and let you work.

 

[Paul Cocklin]

I think it's probably difficult to make a good photo of anything, if by 'good photo' we mean a picture in which the viewer's emotions are brought into play. I think the shots of nude attractive people are kinda the easy way out in the sense that nude attractive people are almost guaranteed to bring out at least some sort of emotion in the viewer. BUT...

I think the extraordinary photographs (of anything, not just nudes) do more. Or at least do it differently. The emotions brought out by a remarkable work are not lust, they are the stronger emotions of sympathy, fear, love, etc. They are the emotions that resonate with us all and strike deeply. Lust, after all, is a relatively fleeting (if often recurring) emotion. The strongest bonds are created by an image that conveys to the viewer that it could be them in the scene. It's that connection, I think, that really drives someone to call an image extraordinary.

My two cents.
Paul

 

[darkosaric]

Sometimes, I just find myself reading comments people post and thinking...sheesh, how hard is it to make a "beautiful photo" of a spectacularly beautiful, provocatively dressed young woman?

Yep. Me too often - sometimes I see people commenting self portrait of some young good looking girl: "wooow, your photos are sooo goood...", and poor girl starts to think that she is actually good photographer. I have gallery on deviantart, there you can find many examples of this. And now saying this: maybe it is time to make personal web page, and move from deviant... but I am lazy

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

My favourite William Eggleston quote, à propos of the ordinary:

I am afraid that there are more people than I can imagine who can go no further than appreciating a picture that is a rectangle with an object in the middle of it, which they can identify.

They don't care what is around the object as long as nothing interferes with the object itself, right in the centre. Even after the lessons of Winogrand and Friedlander, they don't get it. They respect their work because they are told by respectable institutions that they are important artists, but what they really want to see is a picture with a figure or an object in the middle of it. They want something obvious.

The blindness is apparent when someone lets slip the word 'snapshot'. Ignorance can always be covered by 'snapshot'. The word has never had any meaning. I am at war with the obvious.

Source: http://www.egglestontrust.com/df_afterword.html

 

[Bob F.]

My yardstick for a beautiful portrait of a beautiful woman remains the photograph of Ellen Terry by Julia Margaret Cameron taken in 1864...

But, I think the same photographer also made exceptional studies of less intrinsically photogenic subjects. http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/photography/features/photo_focus/cameron/highlights/index.html , so yes, it is possible, but not easy...

 

[Shawn Dougherty]

I think extraordinary photographs (of anything, not just nudes) do more. Or at least do it differently. The emotions brought out by a remarkable work are not lust, they are the stronger emotions of sympathy, fear, love, etc. They are the emotions that resonate with us all and strike deeply. Lust, after all, is a relatively fleeting (if often recurring) emotion. The strongest bonds are created by an image that conveys to the viewer that it could be them in the scene. It's that connection, I think, that really drives someone to call an image extraordinary.

My two cents.
Paul

I think that is very well said and is along the lines I've been thinking. Thanks for taking the time to verbalize that for us, Paul. Shawn

 

[SuzanneR]

I'm a firm believer that it is possible to make good and beautiful pictures of just about anything or anyone. Actually, I expect a beautiful model or beautiful landscape would, in fact, be quite difficult to make into interesting pictures. It can be so easy to let the subject matter carry the photograph... making it obvious (and pitting you against Eggleston ) , but a good eye can find a good photograph just about anywhere. Even the obvious!!

 

[eddym]

I'm a firm believer that it is possible to make good and beautiful pictures of just about anything or anyone. Actually, I expect a beautiful model or beautiful landscape would, in fact, be quite difficult to make into interesting pictures. It can be so easy to let the subject matter carry the photograph... making it obvious (and pitting you against Eggleston ) , but a good eye can find a good photograph just about anywhere. Even the obvious!!

Very true, Suzanne. You took the words right out of my mouth. Some of my most difficult portrait subjects have been "beautiful" people.

 

[Cheryl Jacobs]

I'm going to add to my previous response. I find it almost inevitable that beautiful images come from ordinary and/or "unappealing" subjects. My response is in photograph format at www.cherylnicolai.com , under "the regulars" gallery.

- CJ

 

[eddym]

I've always felt the purpose of art is to elevate the mundane to something more than itself.

...especially if what is mundane is the viewer!

 

[cloudhands]

I'm part of a flickr group in my town that organizes photo excursions to different locations, among other things. I've been to a couple and without fail, 50% of the photographers have a pretty young thing (or the best that they could get, hah!) dressed up in some ridiculously tight vinyl dress or latex bondage suit. When the pictures are posted up on the flickr site, everyone oohs and aahs about how fantastic and "artistic" the pics are. So incredibly lame and played out. "Thinly veiled voyeurism" is right.

 

[jd callow]

My favourite is the hopelessly incongruent nude in the woods or nude on the felled tree (both with 3" pumps) and or the infinitely more minimal and therefore artistic nude with umbrella or nude with cabbage and the obligatory comment: "nice tones."

 

[Shawn Dougherty]

My favourite William Eggleston quote, à propos of the ordinary:



Source: http://www.egglestontrust.com/df_afterword.html

Great link, Michel

I especially enjoyed:

"They were nothing - just ordinary looking photographs, but they were the same pictures I had worshipped and idolized, yet I wouldn't have given ten cents for them. I still go back to the book every couple of years and I know it is the tones that make the composition come across."

&

"The blindness is apparent when someone lets slip the word 'snapshot'. Ignorance can always be covered by 'snapshot'. The word has never had any meaning. I am at war with the obvious."

I haven't given Eggleston his due consideration yet. I will now. Shawn

 

[SuzanneR]

My favourite is the hopelessly incongruent nude in the woods or nude on the felled tree (both with 3" pumps) and or the infinitely more minimal and therefore artistic nude with umbrella or nude with cabbage and the obligatory comment: "nice tones."

The Obvious.


We all need to be at war with it.

 

[jd callow]

Yes, but obvious may lack the banality or stupidity or, or... words fail me. I think that obvious done for obvious' sake could be a good thing.

 

[ishutteratthethought]

what about a beautiful photographer taking a photo of something not so beautiful and making it pretty so we can all say now THAT is one beautiful photograph of something ordinarily not so beautiful taken by one beautiful photographer.....

 

[BradS]

My favourite is the hopelessly incongruent nude in the woods or nude on the felled tree (both with 3" pumps) and or the infinitely more minimal and therefore artistic nude with umbrella or nude with cabbage and the obligatory comment: "nice tones."

I'm pretty sure I don't understand what you're saying...

For whatever it may be worth, I'm also pretty sure that I have done this exactly - but, apparently not always with the intended effect. When I leave a comment like "nice tones" on something that to me falls into the category of "yet another inane photo of a naked beautiful woman" my intent is to say that..."I've looked at the photo and after I got past the lust reaction...all I was left with was some observation of technical mastery (or, happy accident). It's kinda like saying...."Ok, so you talked (or paid) this pretty young woman into posing nude...and then photographed her draped over a huge rock on a beautiful beach (or whatever)...She's beautiful, I am aroused...great...nice going...so what! "

After the viewer gets past the sexual arousal response, is the photograph really any better than say...Dorthea Lang's Migrant worker? Or for that matter is Migrant worker really all that good? or it is only famous now because of context?

Like Paul said earlier, I think Migrant Worker is great because the viewer empathizes with the subject. It is somehow interacting with our humanity...while the inane nude only stimulates our lust.

However, the subjects of all the FSA photos (again, just using these as an exaple) were, I submit to you, just ordinary, mundane and common at the time they were photographed.

 

[jd callow]

Dorthea Lang's Migrant worker v. nude with blank stare on white background... The tones will probably be nicer on the nude.