Does humour belong in Photography?

[arigram]

I can't believe you guys forgot Gary Winnogrand!
Humor, social critique and an artistic eye in perfect balance!
Even Henri Cartier-Bresson has some humorous photographs.
I have also seen other random photos from a variety of photographers which
are strong evidence to the fact that its a crazy world after all!

 

[blansky]

Hey Michael...isn't that from a Meat Loaf song......

Murray

Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman from the Bat out of Hell album (cd) the same masterpiece album that produced Paradise by the Dashboard Light


Michael

 

[Andy K]

Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman from the Bat out of Hell album (cd) the same masterpiece album that produced Paradise by the Dashboard Light


Michael

For Crying Out Loud is my favourite track after Bat Out Of Hell (which has earned me three speeding fines over the years!). I still have my original vinyl album, and the album picture disc and the 12" single in blood red vinyl. Also got the gold remastered CD version. I prefer the vinyl though.

 

[SuzanneR]

I can't believe you guys forgot Gary Winnogrand!
Humor, social critique and an artistic eye in perfect balance!
Even Henri Cartier-Bresson has some humorous photographs.
I have also seen other random photos from a variety of photographers which
are strong evidence to the fact that its a crazy world after all!

He's hard to forget! I mentioned him earlier in the thread!! A favorite... the woman eating ice cream in front of a clothing store with a headless male mannequin... very humorous, indeed!

 

[arigram]

I am sorry Suzanne I miss the reference to Winogrand in your first stop...
Still, I thought the whole thread was referring to him and was expecting to see a whole tribute written!

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I think that with photography, you have to have a certain amount of intentionality to create humor in an image, which seems to run counter to people's intuitive expectation of spontaneity/accidentalness in humor. I'm not saying you can't have it, but you just have to work harder at it to make it seem like you didn't work at it at all... (aah, irony).
I have one image that seems to always provoke laughter - lesbian rhinos in action at the National Zoo. Apparently, rhinos are quite fertile in captivity, so to prevent overpopulation, the zoos segregate the rhinos by sex, but they don't sterilize them, so when one female rhino goes into heat, the other one responds because they're kept in a single-sex environment.

 

[Helen B]

Madame de Staël, the daughter of Jacques Necker, a finance minister of Louis XVI, wrote in a discourse on literature: “The English language created a word, humour, to express a hilarity, which is in the blood almost as much as in the mind ...What the English depict with great talent is bizarre characters, because they have lots of those amongst them.”

(Extracted from The Economist online.)

Not restricted to the English, is it?

 

[sunnyroller]

Laughter

I just read a quote in our local alternative paper The Free Press, attributed to Carl Sagan. "The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus and they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."

Is he implying that Bozo was not a comedic genius?

I am certainly pro humor in photographs.

sunny

 

[gr82bart]

Reading some of the posters here, I think humour is missing in the photographers. So how could they convey humour in their work?

Art.

 

[bjorke]

He's hard to forget! I mentioned him earlier in the thread!! A favorite... the woman eating ice cream in front of a clothing store with a headless male mannequin... very humorous, indeed!

..which was the cover of Women Are Beautiful, for which he was endlessly pilloried by the fem activists and self-conscious critics of the day.

Had Garry lived longer, though, he had proposed a second book called Son of Women are Beautiful

There is always an awkwardly-fine line w/street photography, in finding humour without deliberately mockery. Then again irony and ambiguity are SP's stock-in-trade so no hay problema

​

 

[Rubin]

Maybe you've been seeing the wrong exhibitions? We laugh all the time in museums. Try seeing some Henri L'Artique for instance - very amusing. Personally, we really like some photo's by swiss based artists Fischli & Weiss. I could enumerate a few others if you'd want, but all depends on your own sense of humour as well. Alas, from this distance, I can't judge to what sort of humourous types you belong. And then, some may laugh where others fail to see the humour. Happens all too often. An example: Gilbert & George's photo works is funny to some, pointless to others.

But on the whole: humour and art are not by definition mutually exclusive, so there is no reason why there couldn't be photographs as works of art that are also funny or even hilarious.

Well written. I agree.

 

[wiseowl]

Absolutely, of course humour belongs in photography, as does sadness, pathos, and every other human emotion

Martin

 

[arigram]

Absolutely, of course humour belongs in photography, as does sadness, pathos, and every other human emotion

Martin

So, how about this one I fished off my news service?
I think it contains all the above...

Btw, those who want to see silly photos of our great "Leaders" let me now...

 

[removed account4]

a lot of people believe humor is essential in photography and life but i agree with g82bart, very few people
now, 13 years later show any humor at all in their photography ( at least here on photrio ) and a lot of people
are a bit to serious ..
then again i could be wrong.

 

[Peter Schrager]

Whether I photograph a tree or a person I always look for the humor....if not then why be here?..

 

[Sirius Glass]

a lot of people believe humor is essential in photography and life but i agree with g82bart, very few people
now, 13 years later show any humor at all in their photography ( at least here on photrio ) and a lot of people
are a bit to serious ..
then again i could be wrong.

The first and only photograph I posted on APUG was very humorous. Unfortunately in the first day it was copied, stolen, ripped off hundreds of times. As a result I removed it and have not posted my photographs on the internet.

 

[MattKing]

The first and only photograph I posted on APUG was very humorous. Unfortunately in the first day it was copied, stolen, ripped off hundreds of times. As a result I removed it and have not posted my photographs on the internet.

Are you saying that because of APUG, you lost your sense of humour?
In case no-one else has noticed, this thread had lied dormant for 13 years before John woke it up again.
And sadly, if you read through it, there are a bunch of the original participants who are either no longer here, or no longer on this earth.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Are you saying that because of APUG, you lost your sense of humour?
In case no-one else has noticed, this thread had lied dormant for 13 years before John woke it up again.
And sadly, if you read through it, there are a bunch of the original participants who are either no longer here, or no longer on this earth.

I did not say I lost my sense of humor. I said that as a result of posting a humorous photograph, I no long post any photographs on the internet. <<wink>> <<wink>> Even an attorney could figure that out. <<wink>> <<wink>>

 

[removed account4]

Are you saying that because of APUG, you lost your sense of humour?
In case no-one else has noticed, this thread had lied dormant for 13 years before John woke it up again.
And sadly, if you read through it, there are a bunch of the original participants who are either no longer here, or no longer on this earth.

i think a lot of people are humorless
and i am bummed that so many
of the people who commented
in this ancient and honorable thread
have left the building.
i'm guessing zeus would laugh
and chuck a lighting bolt..

 

[BrianShaw]

... as would Jupiter.

 

[removed account4]

... as would Jupiter.

by jove i think you're right

 

[Theo Sulphate]

Cannot believe no one has yet mentioned Philippe Halsman. His "Dali Atomicus" made me laugh the instant I saw it, over 50 years ago.

What inspired that photo and the day-long process it took to produce it is quite a story.


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Salvador_Dali_A_(Dali_Atomicus)_09633u.jpg

 

[benjiboy]

Where did this thread come from some of the people haven't posted for thirteen years?

 

[Berkeley Mike]

I think that a successful photo is charming. That is, it gets immediately to the personal part of you, past defenses. After that you react: funny, sad & etc.

 

[slackercrurster]

Don't see why not.