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How does photography help one study?

Don Heisz said:
...There just might not be anything else to it at the moment. Of course, attitudes and goals can change.
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It's possible that it all in fact is, horse crap. But I do think that there are some people who operate on a different wavelength that comes naturally to them, and is much harder for the rest of us.
 
ChristopherCoy said:
It's possible that it all in fact is, horse crap. But I do think that there are some people who operate on a different wavelength that comes naturally to them, and is much harder for the rest of us.
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Except you can't expect to get someone else's enjoyment out of your own activity. That other people think and operate differently is a function of them being other people. You are restricted by but also thoroughly enabled by your own set of variables.
 

I don't know that I'm looking for enjoyment from someone else's activities, or even attempting to use other peoples variables, but I do know that I'm looking for a deeper understanding of my own work. When I say that I believe there are some people who operate on a different wavelength, what I'm referring to is their ability to understand and definitively state what their work means to them. I can't tell you that about my own interests. If I photograph a lightbulb, it's "just a lightbulb" to me. The only thing that I can say for certain is that I like taking photos. Maybe there doesn't have to be any deeper meaning than that for anyone else, but I believe that in order to appreciate my own work more and grow more, there has to be some sort of continual and changing understanding.

ETA: That was a rather profound statement though, and one that I can ponder for quite a while. Thank you for that.
 
If one looks as what they are drawn to photograph and how they photograph the subject, could tell something about the photographer's beliefs and values. If that is of interest to you, study it.
 
That's an interesting take for sure.I haven't read the biography by the way so I don't know how Patti is presented, but I can tell you she is an outstanding writer with a warm and engaging tone. She won the National Book Award for her work on Just Kids if that makes any difference. At any rate enjoy the biography and when you're done let us know if you recommend it.
 

I finished it a few months ago... well mostly finished it. I got tired of reading the same chapter over and over and over, or at least it seemed like the same chapter, so I don't think I finished the last two or three. The biography, I found, presented both of them as better salespeople than artists. It was more about how they positioned themselves within certain circles to gravel at any opportunity for notoriety. I started the book with an interest in Mapplethorpe, and ended it with a "whatever" attitude towards him. It was kinda like meeting big bird in person... he isn't that big after all.
 

Skip the Smith book.

Edited to add: I'll skip that biography based on your take. I don't know how a biographer could present Smith and Mapplethorpe as better at sales than art. Especially after seeing/reading/hearing their art. They each produced classics in their field and Smith is still at it regardless of how much salesmanship was involved.
 
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Have you ever seen Patti Smith in performance?
Powerful and mesmerizing!
I liked the book as well.
Mapplethorpe makes me uncomfortable, but that may mean he succeeded in what he intended.
 
MattKing said:
Have you ever seen Patti Smith in performance?
Powerful and mesmerizing!
I liked the book as well.
Mapplethorpe makes me uncomfortable, but that may mean he succeeded in what he intended.
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I have. She came through town before the pandemic on a book tour so I got tickets. I thought it would be just a speaking engagement but she offered to do a song and ended up doing about ten for an audience of 500 or so.

I was in college in Cincinnati when Mapplethorpe had a show there and the whole city got its knickers in a twist. I attended the show and it certainly left an impression: flowers, celebrities, and of course the S&M content that ended up earning the museum and its director indictments on obscenity charges. It was a fascinating time to live in that city.

https://hyperallergic.com/278022/20...l-cincinnati-reflects-on-robert-mapplethorpe/
 
MattKing said:
Have you ever seen Patti Smith in performance?
Powerful and mesmerizing!
I liked the book as well.
Mapplethorpe makes me uncomfortable, but that may mean he succeeded in what he intended.
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I've attempted to watch some of her performances online, but I would never willingly go to see her. I'd probably sit there with my mouth half open and that "WTF" look on my face the entire time. I equate her with that attention starved three year old repeatedly saying "mommy look what I can do. Mommy look what I can do. Mommy look what I can do."

Mapplethorpe only makes me uncomfortable when he gets bloody. The sex stuff I find interesting, but then, I'm a gay man so it's like a prerequisite. But I still think both of them were attention seeking narcissists who were better salesmen than artists.
 
My background is fine art, whatever that is. Much later I became more serious about photography, while continuing to paint, print and make pottery. I've heard a lot of "artist's statements" over the years, and have learned to completely ignore them. They usually have no idea what they're talking about, and their statements are often at odds w/ what they're actually doing and showing. The worst are these MFA types who love to drone on and on.

So that's where I would put Mapplethorpe's statements. He was a great photographer/artist, but all artists should be seen and not heard. Just like children, because that's what most of us still are.

Have I learned anything from my study of photography? Sure.....don't use fixer as a developer, and Russian lenses are great but run like hell from their cameras.
 
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momus said:
But, these folks have an army of fans who regularly attend their lectures or gallery pre openings, and they're generally all of a type. We used to call them the un-intelligentsia, lol.
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I get that. I've been there as one of the fans or followers. But I've realized that I did that because I had no clue where I wanted to go, or what my art was about. I still don't think I fully know for sure what I want to do, or where I want to go, but it was easier to adopt someone else's philosophy than develop my own. The only thing I can tell you for certain today is what I DON'T want it to be about.
 
I only saw her once - at the Commodore, in Vancouver. That meant that the large audience was right there, with the people standing in front just a couple of meters away.
Her connection with the crowd was electric. They fed off her intensity and mirrored it back, which in turn energized her. And it was absolutely amazing how powerful her singing was, particularly when you consider how relatively slight she was.
Online performances probably couldn't do her justice, because they rarely do a decent job giving a sense of how connected the artist and the audience are.
 
Before photography a well educated individual was taught drawing and sketching, along with such subjects as Greek and Latin. Why? Because it trained powers of observation and analysis of the world around us. Photography provides a similar opportunity.
 

That’s an interesting take on it!
 
People were taught drawing and sketching because when people were able to travel like 1700 onwards, they were expected to be keeping detailed travel diaries with lots of sketches and drawings.
 

Photography can teach one to see, if one wants to learn.
 
Photographing a thing (using the term thing in the broadest, most general sense possible) is a way to see not just the thing itself, but how you reacted to it - it gives you a tool to see not only what you found attractive about it, but WHY you found it attractive (and again, using the word attractive in the broadest possible sense - this would apply equally to a naked person of the appropriate sex as it would to a hard-boiled egg as it would to a crushed soda can that has been run over by cars in the street for a week). There's a yin-yang thing going on, an action/reaction thing. You see the thing, you photograph it reflexively, then when you look at the photograph, you see all the details that were there that made you want to photograph it but you were (possibly) not consciously aware of at the time. It allows for both analytic and autonomic responses.
 

I'm going to grit my teeth and dive into Just Kids.
 
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