HCB Appreciation

cliveh · 2025-11-30T09:00:44-0500

nikos79 said:
Exactly, something very difficult that very few of us might have and it takes years to develop. I am only starting to touch the surface personally to be able to look at photographs.
But do you really believe you can do it without even practicing it? I am afraid that you would only look at them through cultural context, while being part of the art (as a photographer) you will come to appreciate them by admiring the language of photography (e.g. the form, the nuances, the play of light, the juxtapositions, the frame, the visual dialogue, etc.)
I am not saying to admire the technical aspects of a photo but the aspects that are part of the medium and its art that can't be described unless you somehow know about them through your experience with photography

Well said.

Milpool · 2025-11-30T10:01:17-0500

My two cents is you’ve perhaps been taken in by the photographers overcompensation complex defence condition tactic.

nikos79 said:
For a movie no I don't believe it, it works in other levels.
I indeed think that a photograph should be able to speak for itself but then it needs a very sensitive and "trained" viewer someone like Alex says that knows "how to look"
Me I am not even there yet this is something very difficult and frankly if I haven't practiced photography I don't think I would have stood a chance

Alex Benjamin · 2025-11-30T10:03:05-0500

nikos79 said:
I am not saying to admire the technical aspects of a photo but the aspects that are part of the medium and its art that can't be described unless you somehow know about them through your experience with photography

I don't know how old you are, Nikos, but if, as I suspect, you came of age at the turn of the millenium, there is something that is beyond your knowledge and that may be clouding your judgement. There was a time, before advent of digital photography and, even more importantly, of the iPhone, when everybody—or just about—had some experience with photography, that is, with using a film camera. They were everywhere.

So if you had a family, you had a film camera. If you traveled, you had a film camera. That's how people recorded memories. And people actually looked at them—looked at, not scrolled through—alone, with the family, with friends.

This means many, many people had experience with photography. They knew the basics of the craft of photography. Meaning they knew how to focus (until autofocus arrived, of course, but even afterwards they still knew what that meant), they knew about overexposure and underexposure, they knew about f-stops and often also about sunny 16, and knew that if your speed was too low people would be blurred.

And those who wanted to know a little more could get a magazine sur as Popular Photography, or the equivalent in whichever country you lived in, or take a darkroom class in college.

All this to say that there was a photographic culture, and a culture about photography, that was immensely different than it is today. And also about photographers, because you had magazines like Life or Harper's Bazaar that made household names out of photographers that most people today don't have a cue about.

To think that Susan Sontag did not have hands-on and frequent experience with a camera is absurd—it would be a statistical aberration. Susan Sontag grew up in that culture, was part of that culture, understood that culture. In fact, if you don't understand how different the photographic culture was back then, you lose part of what About Photography is about, because it was written within a photographic culture—a culture about photography and about making photographs—that is wildly different than the culture of the iPhone, Facebook and Instagram.

warden · 2025-11-30T14:28:13-0500

You don’t have to be a photographer to write well about photography. You have to be a writer.

GregY · 2025-11-30T14:48:03-0500

Alex Benjamin said:
I don't know how old you are, Nikos, but if, as I suspect, you came of age at the turn of the millenium, there is something that is beyond your knowledge and that may be clouding your judgement. There was a time, before advent of digital photography and, even more importantly, of the iPhone, when everybody—or just about—had some experience with photography, that is, with using a film camera. They were everywhere.

So if you had a family, you had a film camera. If you traveled, you had a film camera. That's how people recorded memories. And people actually looked at them—looked at, not scrolled through—alone, with the family, with friends.

This means many, many people had experience with photography. They knew the basics of the craft of photography. Meaning they knew how to focus (until autofocus arrived, of course, but even afterwards they still knew what that meant), they knew about overexposure and underexposure, they knew about f-stops and often also about sunny 16, and knew that if your speed was too low people would be blurred.

And those who wanted to know a little more could get a magazine sur as Popular Photography, or the equivalent in whichever country you lived in, or take a darkroom class in college.

All this to say that there was a photographic culture, and a culture about photography, that was immensely different than it is today. And also about photographers, because you had magazines like Life or Harper's Bazaar that made household names out of photographers that most people today don't have a cue about.

To think that Susan Sontag did not have hands-on and frequent experience with a camera is absurd—it would be a statistical aberration. Susan Sontag grew up in that culture, was part of that culture, understood that culture. In fact, if you don't understand how different the photographic culture was back then, you lose part of what About Photography is about, because it was written within a photographic culture—a culture about photography and about making photographs—that is wildly different than the culture of the iPhone, Facebook and Instagram.

Thank you Alex

Alan Edward Klein · 2025-11-30T15:30:54-0500

If you need an art degree to appreciate a photograph, then it's not a very good picture.

cliveh · 2025-11-30T15:36:38-0500

Alex Benjamin said:
I don't know how old you are, Nikos, but if, as I suspect, you came of age at the turn of the millenium, there is something that is beyond your knowledge and that may be clouding your judgement. There was a time, before advent of digital photography and, even more importantly, of the iPhone, when everybody—or just about—had some experience with photography, that is, with using a film camera. They were everywhere.

So if you had a family, you had a film camera. If you traveled, you had a film camera. That's how people recorded memories. And people actually looked at them—looked at, not scrolled through—alone, with the family, with friends.

This means many, many people had experience with photography. They knew the basics of the craft of photography. Meaning they knew how to focus (until autofocus arrived, of course, but even afterwards they still knew what that meant), they knew about overexposure and underexposure, they knew about f-stops and often also about sunny 16, and knew that if your speed was too low people would be blurred.

And those who wanted to know a little more could get a magazine sur as Popular Photography, or the equivalent in whichever country you lived in, or take a darkroom class in college.

All this to say that there was a photographic culture, and a culture about photography, that was immensely different than it is today. And also about photographers, because you had magazines like Life or Harper's Bazaar that made household names out of photographers that most people today don't have a cue about.

To think that Susan Sontag did not have hands-on and frequent experience with a camera is absurd—it would be a statistical aberration. Susan Sontag grew up in that culture, was part of that culture, understood that culture. In fact, if you don't understand how different the photographic culture was back then, you lose part of what About Photography is about, because it was written within a photographic culture—a culture about photography and about making photographs—that is wildly different than the culture of the iPhone, Facebook and Instagram.

Alex, I think you misunderstand my comment about Susan Sontag. I’m not saying her comments are not valid, but it is different to be present during a photographic age than having a deep understanding of the subject. I could write a critique about Thomas Chippendale and say his design concepts don’t fit with my idea of fashion and ergonomics. But the fact that he spent his whole life carving and creating cabinets unsurpassed to this day make my critique diminish in relation to his experience with carving wood. I could stand up before a class of students and say why I think a Cartier Bresson image is pretentious and irrelevant. But could I go out and create an image on par with his talent? No.

Alex Benjamin · 2025-11-30T15:57:03-0500

cliveh said:
I’m not saying her comments are not valid, but it is different to be present during a photographic age than having a deep understanding of the subject.

Clive, I think you might be misunderstanding what her subject actually was. Susan Sontag was first and foremost a cultural critic. Culture—in the widest sense of the word—was her main subject of investigation. On Photography is not about making photographs. It's (mostly) about the role and meaning of photographs within the culture—how photographs are viewed, how they are received, etc. And of that, culture, she had a deep understanding.

In On Photography, photography is another means of asking questions about some aspects of who we are—just as its "sequel", Regarding the Pain of Others, is.

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