HCB Appreciation

[Elmarc]

The question remains: does it matter? If he did or did not "engage" with his subjects, it's largely irrelevant to what we have. He didn't get his friends to pose for photos. He didn't get subjects to jump for a "fun" photo. He wasn't after the standard gawping grin from people. He didn't demand attention from his subjects. Those aren't the things he wanted when he pointed a camera. But it doesn't matter what he didn't want - I think there is plenty of room to be pleased by how good he was at getting what he did want.

My thoughts exactly. I was going to post something similar but you beat me too it.

 

[koraks]

I think there is plenty of room to be pleased by how good he was at getting what he did want.

Quite so. To expand on this and also to reach back to an in my view artificial/forced distinction that was made earlier: there's no reason why the emphasis in an image on structure or composition would be at odds with or erode the emotional undertone or message. When I look at most of the examples shown in this thread, HCB's images strike me as witty, elegant and playful. If I were to hypothesize what this would say about the person who made them, I would expect this person to be interested in highlighting the comical and cheerful aspects of the 'human condition'. In my mind, that's an inherently human-centered and arguably humanistic approach. Whether or not he engaged directly with his subjects, I don't know - and to the extent it speaks from the images, it's a mixed bag: in some instances he must have done so and there must have been at least a degree of rapport between photographer and subject. In many instances, the human actors are more anonymous and of a more transient nature - but there still seems to be a strong element of engagement perhaps not always with the individual, but at least with people as such.

 

[snusmumriken]

The question remains: does it matter? If he did or did not "engage" with his subjects, it's largely irrelevant to what we have. He didn't get his friends to pose for photos. He didn't get subjects to jump for a "fun" photo. He wasn't after the standard gawping grin from people. He didn't demand attention from his subjects. Those aren't the things he wanted when he pointed a camera. But it doesn't matter what he didn't want - I think there is plenty of room to be pleased by how good he was at getting what he did want.

I couldn’t agree more about appreciating what we have … except that understanding what he wasn’t is key to understanding what he was. You describe it perfectly.

 

[nikos79]

The question remains: does it matter? If he did or did not "engage" with his subjects, it's largely irrelevant to what we have. He didn't get his friends to pose for photos. He didn't get subjects to jump for a "fun" photo. He wasn't after the standard gawping grin from people. He didn't demand attention from his subjects. Those aren't the things he wanted when he pointed a camera. But it doesn't matter what he didn't want - I think there is plenty of room to be pleased by how good he was at getting what he did want.

We do agree. It doesn't really matter. Kind of
Engagement isn’t a moral requirement, but a descriptive tool also to assess photos: it helps explain why some photographs feel that they work and some others not.

 

[Don_ih]

it helps explain why some photographs feel that they work and some others not

It in no way explains anything about photos that don't attempt any kind of engagement - certainly nothing like whether or not they work.

"This landscape doesn't work because it's not a photo of a clown. I like clowns."

 

[koraks]

why some photographs feel

Photographs don't feel. You feel about a photograph. That's a very different thing, it's also very obvious, but apparently it's still easily overlooked.
A photograph isn't an objective, universal truth in itself. It's open to interpretation. Thank god for that; it makes the art a whole lot more interesting, too.

 

[nikos79]

Photographs don't feel. You feel about a photograph. That's a very different thing, it's also very obvious, but apparently it's still easily overlooked.
A photograph isn't an objective, universal truth in itself. It's open to interpretation. Thank god for that; it makes the art a whole lot more interesting, too.

I agree that photographs don’t feel, it is us that we do as a result of them. And yes, they’re open to interpretation, thankfully, others it would be boring. But interpretation doesn’t exist in a vacuum. When certain responses happen across different viewers, they form a shared ground (maybe a subjective objectivity?) that allows discussion and disagreement to be meaningful.

When I say a photograph doesn’t work for me, I’m not claiming a universal truth, I think we discussed it a lot in the past too, but I am placing my response in relation to others. If our readings are close, dialogue is easy, if they’re far apart, it becomes harder — but still quite informative. And the reader can gain from that friction on either side.

And since this is an HCB appreciation thread among very knowledgeable people, I’m already assuming a shared admiration (hopefully) as a common ground. My comments are meant as a closer, more critical look at specific images and HCB artistic signature and not a departure from that appreciation.

 

[Don_ih]

When I say a photograph doesn’t work for me, I’m not claiming a universal truth

If all it amounts to is "I don't really like it", then there's nothing more to say. An actual critical commentary would be to claim that a photo doesn't "work" since it doesn't quite do what it seems to be trying to do - that it fails in some way. Even that ends up bringing in a lot of presuppositions.

To claim a photo "doesn't work" because it doesn't do what the photographer never even tried to do makes no sense.

 

[nikos79]

If all it amounts to is "I don't really like it", then there's nothing more to say. An actual critical commentary would be to claim that a photo doesn't "work" since it doesn't quite do what it seems to be trying to do - that it fails in some way. Even that ends up bringing in a lot of presuppositions.

To claim a photo "doesn't work" because it doesn't do what the photographer never even tried to do makes no sense.

Don, It’s never meant as a simple "I don’t like it." Saying something like "I don’t like Bach" for example would be meaningless, because personal preference plays no real role there.

What I’m trying to do with HCB is closer to saying: I understand the work, I admire a great deal of it, and there are also parts that feel less compelling or perhaps too comfortable for him, and why not: let's do a dialogue to challenge our views on photography and within this process we might also enrich our understanding and appreciation of HCB too.

 

[nikos79]

To lighten up the atmosphere:

 

[snusmumriken]

I agree that photographs don’t feel, it is us that we do as a result of them. And yes, they’re open to interpretation, thankfully, others it would be boring. But interpretation doesn’t exist in a vacuum. When certain responses happen across different viewers, they form a shared ground (maybe a subjective objectivity?) that allows discussion and disagreement to be meaningful.

When I say a photograph doesn’t work for me, I’m not claiming a universal truth, I think we discussed it a lot in the past too, but I am placing my response in relation to others. If our readings are close, dialogue is easy, if they’re far apart, it becomes harder — but still quite informative. And the reader can gain from that friction on either side.

And since this is an HCB appreciation thread among very knowledgeable people, I’m already assuming a shared admiration (hopefully) as a common ground. My comments are meant as a closer, more critical look at specific images and HCB artistic signature and not a departure from that appreciation.

@Don_ih, @koraks: this is fair enough, isn’t it? What else can there be to say in an HCB Appreciation thread, if not “I really like that” and “Wow, yeah, me too”?

By the way, it is perfectly acceptable to say that a gooseberry feels hairy, without assuming any sentience on the part of the gooseberry .

 

[Elmarc]

Of course there are several. I regret using the word 'rarely' in post #834. I should have said 'less commonly' or something similar. At a rough count in the books I have, direct engagement accounts for about 5% of the photos, excluding portraits. Arguably I should also have excluded landscapes-without-people from the total, but someone else can do that if bothered.

About the two boys in the photo above, I would say that it doesn't imply an easy relationship of photographer and subject. I am possibly one of the most socially awkward people you could meet, yet I too have a photo of gypsy boys being brash towards the camera. To me, HCB's photos with direct engagement are generally a bit uncomfortable. The Berlin taxi drivers, for example, where it looks as though he has just shoved the camera in their faces. There are several eye-witness accounts of how he would vanish after taking a shot, rather than sticking around to explain.
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I was not my intention to correct you but to offer one exception to the rule. I think it is sometimes overlooked how diverse HCB's photos actually are. They take in Surrealism, symbolism, photo journalism, abstractions, still lifes, portraits, landscapes etc. The convenient catch all phrases or descriptions that he seems to have been lumbered with over time tend to do a disservice to his varied oeuvre.

 

[Elmarc]

To lighten up the atmosphere:

Isn't this originally a black and white photo?

 

[snusmumriken]

I was not my intention to correct you but to offer one exception to the rule. I think it is sometimes overlooked how diverse HCB's photos actually are. They take in Surrealism, symbolism, photo journalism, abstractions, still lifes, portraits, landscapes etc. The convenient catch all phrases or descriptions that he seems to have been lumbered with over time tend to do a disservice to his varied oeuvre.

I totally agree. Sorry to have misread your intention.

 

[nikos79]

Isn't this originally a black and white photo?

Well ...
Maybe he had a color film as well

 

[GregY]

If all it amounts to is "I don't really like it", then there's nothing more to say. An actual critical commentary would be to claim that a photo doesn't "work" since it doesn't quite do what it seems to be trying to do - that it fails in some way. Even that ends up bringing in a lot of presuppositions.

To claim a photo "doesn't work" because it doesn't do what the photographer never even tried to do makes no sense.

Well articulated Don...

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Indeed. His comments are not really about the photos IMO. They're about the inner workings of his own psyche. That's fine, but let's recognize that as a separate and largely unrelated topic from HCB's photographs.

You can't separate one's inner psyche with their interpretation and feelings about a photograph or art in general.

 

[MattKing]

I think we can appreciate a lot about HCB from the fact that so relatively few of his published photographs exhibit a sense of engagement with his human subjects.
The same applies, in reverse, to most of the iconic portrait and people photographers.
I point out that the title of this thread is HCB Appreciation. I read "Appreciation" there as being a tiny bit about "liking" and, much more importantly, "understanding".