Ilford’s Hopeful Offerings to tri-x 320

Interesting discussion about point of interest, clutter and obscuring unwanted details.

I'm very much from the defined subject school of thought. My work often has a centric composition, which pretty much screams what the main subject of the image is. I've also used enlarger diffusion as a means to control distracting details and focus the viewer's attention on what I want them to look at. While I'm sure my years as an advertising photographer re-inforced this in me, the work I did as a teenager is not all that different from what I do today.

All of that said I am amazed at people who can find organization in a cluttered environment and capture it with clarity. But those people are rare. Burtynsky certainly does this. But so many others just create messes.

When I started shooting landscape I tried to hide as many distracting elements as possible, but things like telephone poles electric lines are too ubiquitous so instead I decided to use them and not hide them, so often they have in fact become the main subject of some of my images.

I find images without a main subject to become rather tiresome and pointless. Even in much of my own work I often ask myself if I have a photograph with enough interest or just a background in need of a subject.

Michael R 1974 said:

I don't know, Early Riser. I think there is room for both if either is done well. Photography these days is often about things like bokeh, how to obscure unwanted detail, selective focus, alternative printing methods, and on and on, in an effort to clearly define the purpose of the photograph. There is nothing wrong with that. My point was only that it is just as easy and justifiable to take the opposite position. I actually find a refreshing quality (strangely enough as the work is quite old) in images like Tice's urban landscapes, Shore's work, etc, and find many images with a clear, overt center of interest rather tiresome, stale and pointless (the same sort of descriptions people often have for Shore's work). So I just want to be clear I'm not talking about random pictures of nothing. Rather, I mean carefully composed pictures with no definite "main subject". I get such a kick out of looking at that kind of work when it is done well. The clarity can give a real, tactile sense of place, time and space. Just trying to present an alternative view here. Why does a photographer necessarily have to lead the viewer into the image by the nose all the time? Anyhow I don't want to argue about this. Everything is subjective in the end.

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Michael I think you misread me. First I'm not making an argument, I'm stating my preference. Also I stated that there is work that i like that is more cluttered but that most people don't do that well. I do work with a very overt subject, but to keep it from being tiresome, as you stated you sometimes feel with that type of work, is that I try to capture it at dramatic moments, or with dramatic light. To me work that is cluttered or lacks a subject and looks like it was shot midday with a clear, vacant sky is very tiresome and I often wonder why would anyone even bother pulling out a camera to record it.

Michael R 1974 said:

My point was only that it is just as easy and justifiable to take the opposite position.

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I definitely agree.

As I have said in many other threads on similar topics, as soon as a Rule for an effective photograph is defined, then invariably a throng of photographers will adopt it. Herd mentality. At that point, any photograph is distinguished from the flood of facsimiles simply by not blindly following The Rule.

So even though "being different" doesn't in itself imply its own creative worth, it is worth at least as much for violating the Rule as the other photographs are worth because they follow the Rule.

I suppose that I shouldn't call them anti-photographs- the photographs that are successful simply because they break the rules. I should probably call them contrapositive photographs or something like that. Some of Shore's work falls in that category, in my opinion.

Michael R 1974 said:

I've really got to stop discussing things like this.

It just comes down to everyone's personal preferences, aesthetic leanings etc.

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Michael,

You got that 100% right and that's why I think that these discussions are often repetitive and end up nowhere, aside from providing some entertainment with spirited, highly opinionated arguments.
It's photography...we all have an opinion and, as always, someone's turd is always someone else's gold...and viceversa. How did this thread get derailed anyway?

MaximusM3 said:

Michael,

You got that 100% right and that's why I think that these discussions are often repetitive and end up nowhere, aside from providing some entertainment with spirited, highly opinionated arguments.
It's photography...we all have an opinion and, as always, someone's turd is always someone else's gold...and viceversa. How did this thread get derailed anyway?

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Actually there are some very good things learned here.

One of those things is that there aren't hard and fast rules in how we apply the tools and techniques of photography.

It is truly important to know that each of us can get different results and we can each be right.

MaximusM3 said:

Michael,

You got that 100% right and that's why I think that these discussions are often repetitive and end up nowhere, aside from providing some entertainment with spirited, highly opinionated arguments.
It's photography...we all have an opinion and, as always, someone's turd is always someone else's gold...and viceversa. How did this thread get derailed anyway?

Click to expand...

Actually there are some very good things learned here.

One of those things is that there aren't hard and fast rules in how we apply the tools and techniques of photography.

It is truly important to know that each of us can get different results and we can each still be right in our own results.

Michael R 1974 said:

I've really got to stop discussing things like this.

It just comes down to everyone's personal preferences, aesthetic leanings etc.

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I'm going to respectfully disagree Michael .

I think it very useful when people write or talk about how (and maybe why) different aesthetics make an impression on me.

It helps me see things in photographs that I might not have seen before.

And maybe more important, it helps me communicate to others who may have looked at less photography than I have why it is important to look for things that are unusual, or not otherwise appreciated by the viewer.

One thing that many people don't realize is that visual perception isn't just a personal preference. There's hard wiring in us, the software that visually interprets light and form, and the way the visual hardware works. These things at the base level are universal. Someone with knowledge or experience in these things knows how to make a viewer's eye move around the image, knows how to affect mood through tone and light, can create optical illusions, and even create conditions that cause the visual chain to break down. Reaction to composition, tone, lighting on the most fundamental level is not a preference, it's a program.

Where preference comes to play is in each person's personal experiences in life, and also their photographic background, that is the depth of their photographic references and their actual experience. As an example, for my personal work, which is most often described as peaceful or serene, one of my first and most moving moments was when I was a small child and went into the backyard very early one morning and was made to feel extraordinarily at peace by the early morning light, the birds singing, and the peacefulness of it all. Should one be surprised that I seek out those times and places for my work and that I have a personal preference for that type of work. So this has become a preference of mine. It is a preference based on a personal experience.

I spent 25 years shooting advertising photography, mostly still life, and very often there was a silhouette product shot. That is a product placed dead center in the frame, on a white background.
And the environmental still lifes I did, that is a product or subject in a scene, had to be impeccably lit, perfectly composed, communicate a specific mood or feeling and also be visually interesting and attractive. Ads in a magazine may only have a half a second to make someone decide to stop and pause on that page, so you need to reach people fast. That photographic background will influence the work I produce and my perceptions of the work of others.

Having produced about 25,000 images on assignment, and thousands more personal images, and having shot a very wide range of imagery will also affect my view of the technical aspects and choices of other people's work because in all liklihood when I see a photograph, it's something that I have already shot before many times. To be blunt there's almost no work on APUG or flickr that I haven't done before and with the professional requirements of doing it perfectly every time. And that has an enormous impact on my perceptions on the work of others.

The first trip I took to specifically shoot landscape was out west. In the course of my life at that point I had seen very few snow capped mountains for real so I ended up taking countless images on that first trip that at the time I thought would be great because seeing a snow capped mountain was a new and exciting experience for me. But having gone on dozens of long trips to beautiful places since then, I am not so easily impressed anymore. So when my wife points out to me just how beautiful and dramatic she thinks the volcanic fields are in Hawaii, my response is, "I've seen better". So when I travel now, and I pass scenes that would have caused me to stop the car short and run out and set up my gear, I don't even slow down. Because my frame of reference is far more sophisticated than it was when I first started shooting landscape. If one asked me, a dozen years ago, when I shot that first snow capped mountain if I thought it was a good shot, I'd feel justified in saying that I thought it was, and that was my personal preference and therefore there's nothing wrong in that. Ask me about that same shot now, and I'll tell you ,"it sucks". Personal preferences change, they evolve if you have more experiences. So the question becomes on what level are you critiquing your own work, or the work of others? Are you enamored with work today that you will later dismiss when your own experience and abilities increase?

Early Riser said:

One thing that many people don't realize is that visual perception isn't just a personal preference. There's hard wiring in us, the software that visually interprets light and form, and the way the visual hardware works. These things at the base level are universal. Someone with knowledge or experience in these things knows how to make a viewer's eye move around the image, knows how to affect mood through tone and light, can create optical illusions, and even create conditions that cause the visual chain to break down. Reaction to composition, tone, lighting on the most fundamental level is not a preference, it's a program.

Where preference comes to play is in each person's personal experiences in life, and also their photographic background, that is the depth of their photographic references and their actual experience. As an example, for my personal work, which is most often described as peaceful or serene, one of my first and most moving moments was when I was a small child and went into the backyard very early one morning and was made to feel extraordinarily at peace by the early morning light, the birds singing, and the peacefulness of it all. Should one be surprised that I seek out those times and places for my work and that I have a personal preference for that type of work. So this has become a preference of mine. It is a preference based on a personal experience.

I spent 25 years shooting advertising photography, mostly still life, and very often there was a silhouette product shot. That is a product placed dead center in the frame, on a white background.
And the environmental still lifes I did, that is a product or subject in a scene, had to be impeccably lit, perfectly composed, communicate a specific mood or feeling and also be visually interesting and attractive. Ads in a magazine may only have a half a second to make someone decide to stop and pause on that page, so you need to reach people fast. That photographic background will influence the work I produce and my perceptions of the work of others.

Having produced about 25,000 images on assignment, and thousands more personal images, and having shot a very wide range of imagery will also affect my view of the technical aspects and choices of other people's work because in all liklihood when I see a photograph, it's something that I have already shot before many times. To be blunt there's almost no work on APUG or flickr that I haven't done before and with the professional requirements of doing it perfectly every time. And that has an enormous impact on my perceptions on the work of others.

The first trip I took to specifically shoot landscape was out west. In the course of my life at that point I had seen very few snow capped mountains for real so I ended up taking countless images on that first trip that at the time I thought would be great because seeing a snow capped mountain was a new and exciting experience for me. But having gone on dozens of long trips to beautiful places since then, I am not so easily impressed anymore. So when my wife points out to me just how beautiful and dramatic she thinks the volcanic fields are in Hawaii, my response is, "I've seen better". So when I travel now, and I pass scenes that would have caused me to stop the car short and run out and set up my gear, I don't even slow down. Because my frame of reference is far more sophisticated than it was when I first started shooting landscape. If one asked me, a dozen years ago, when I shot that first snow capped mountain if I thought it was a good shot, I'd feel justified in saying that I thought it was, and that was my personal preference and therefore there's nothing wrong in that. Ask me about that same shot now, and I'll tell you ,"it sucks". Personal preferences change, they evolve if you have more experiences. So the question becomes on what level are you critiquing your own work, or the work of others? Are you enamored with work today that you will later dismiss when your own experience and abilities increase?

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I call it having lost the innocence needed to take a good photograph. Basically getting spoiled to the point when nothing is ever good enough, yours or of others. Since you have already done and seen it all, as you explain above, it is much easier to be overly critical and dismiss most as crap, whether it is your work or the work of others. Look, everything has been said and done before and no one is trying to re-invent the wheel, BUT, being cynical, spoiled, overly critical and simply hard to please, is not a pleasant place to be from a creative standpoint.

I am sometimes amazed at some of the pictures my son takes with his iPhone and I know exactly why they look the way they do. Because is not constrained but cliche, technical bullshit, what has been done before, and he doesn't question himself. The eye of a child, innocence..once we forget that, we all become constricted in our square little world... and you know what? It usually sucks.

MaximusM3 said:

I call it having lost the innocence needed to take a good photograph.. . . .BUT, being cynical, spoiled, overly critical and simply hard to please, is not a pleasant place to be from a creative standpoint.
.

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I have to disagree with this. Although Early Riser's state of mind could lead down a blind alley, this kind of rejection of cliche and overused photo vocabulary can lead down new and creative paths. I think you yourself, "Maximus" have had some choice words for the cliches of landscape photography and "old barns." I feel the same way. And I also feel like Early Riser, in that I've grown up some photographically and visually and now wish to do something better and more insightful than I did just a few years ago. Is this jaded and spoiled (NO!) or is it just creative growing pains?(YES!)

Now one way, I believe, to escape this creative junction (it does not have to be a dead end) is to take a new direction, rejecting your favorite approaches, rejecting all genres and setting out on a new path. This CAN lead to the kind of child-like newness and discovery that you see your son having. The joy of discovery is sometimes just on the other side of this long, depressing trudge up the same old hill . . . .

MaximusM3 said:

I call it having lost the innocence needed to take a good photograph. Basically getting spoiled to the point when nothing is ever good enough, yours or of others. Since you have already done and seen it all, as you explain above, it is much easier to be overly critical and dismiss most as crap, whether it is your work or the work of others. Look, everything has been said and done before and no one is trying to re-invent the wheel, BUT, being cynical, spoiled, overly critical and simply hard to please, is not a pleasant place to be from a creative standpoint.

I am sometimes amazed at some of the pictures my son takes with his iPhone and I know exactly why they look the way they do. Because is not constrained but cliche, technical bullshit, what has been done before, and he doesn't question himself. The eye of a child, innocence..once we forget that, we all become constricted in our square little world... and you know what? It usually sucks.

Click to expand...

Massimo, I would think that having seen many images before would actually spur some people on to doing something different. But if you don't have a sophisticated visual reference library then you are likely to shoot exactly what has been done before and most likely in the same way because you simply don't know any better. Having a sophisticated visual library doesn't stop you from photographing squashed chewing gum on the street or aiming a camera at an uncommon scene. So while one without any previous visual experience can claim that they are being creative because they are shooting things that THEY have never seen before, they may in fact be shooting the most cliche images out there.

To a tribesman, living in some remote jungle somewhere, who has never ever seen a photograph before, showing him someone's family christmas card portrait might blow his mind and he'd think it's the most amazing thing he's ever seen. Does that mean that the same image should receive the same reaction from the rest of us?

Michael R 1974 said:

I'm pretty confident nobody is more critial of their own work than I am, which is why my output is very limited.

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I think a lot of people think that about themselves. But to be honest most aren't all that self critical. As for myself, I spend 3-6 months on the road solely for the purpose of shooting landscape photography, the rest of the year processing and printing. I've done this for more than a decade. My portfolio consists of about 88 landscape images. That's less than 9 a year.

Early Riser said:

One thing that many people don't realize is that visual perception isn't just a personal preference. There's hard wiring in us, the software that visually interprets light and form, and the way the visual hardware works. These things at the base level are universal. Someone with knowledge or experience in these things knows how to make a viewer's eye move around the image, knows how to affect mood through tone and light, can create optical illusions, and even create conditions that cause the visual chain to break down. Reaction to composition, tone, lighting on the most fundamental level is not a preference, it's a program.

Click to expand...

Wow, I couldn't disagree more. Sorry

The hard wiring you refer to, it's actually adaptive wiring... adapted to our experiences. Even relatively simple things like perception of colour are actually quite individual. There are many visual perception "games" that show just how individual perception is. And regarding studies of the movement of the eyes / shift of attention across an image, those have been done in terms of male versus female etc. but even then there is a lot of variation within the genders. The newest studies are showing that wiring changes with time as well. People used to think our brains were pretty much wired at an early age. New studies in 'plasticity' suggest something quite different.

Bottom line... perception is the most individual thing about us. So it would be quite difficult to compose an image that appeals to everyone... and if such a thing did exist, it'd probably be rather mundane. We can probably all agree when an image is "pretty" but that is about as general a descriptor as possible.

Michael R 1974 said:

I have been in that kind of funk for many years now.

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Many possible reasons for feeling that way. One of the interesting reasons, discussed by Sally Mann, is the compulsion that your future images need to be "better" than your last, or at least keep up that standard. Well now that's very hard!!! Many of us were creative and full of ideas when we started photography and later... not so much. At that point it's better not to force it but rather to go in a very different direction.

I haven't felt compelled to do photography for a while. No big deal, I know I am moody and will eventually turn back to it. In the meantime I just set a few projects for myself like an IR video and some other nutty gear things.

it must be very hard living upto one's standards if
everything is a bore, if one has done everything before
( and you can do it better than everyone else ) ...

( sounds kind of sad ... )

it seems photography is an illusion ...
advertising photography is all about illusion, creating things that don't exist,
technically perfect images are heavily manipulated ...
whether by using long ( or short ) exposure techniques to alter our sense of reality
or in the darkroom to emphasize things that weren't emphasized in "reality"
or in other ways, and are fantasies of what places or things might be like ...


photographers are great at pulling the wool over everyone else's eyes ...

Snide remark: Ilford is going to have to work very hard to make THIS version of Tri-X...

Perhaps there is some type of hard-wiring the unites us all. But if we all had common hard-wiring, this discussion would not have risen.

There will always be differences in people's tastes, perceptions, experiences, mental baggage, and exposure. I think it's interesting to read about Burtynsky, for example. While I find that I can understand why others like that type of photography, today I can't say that I am one of them.
All I really care about, is that I'm happy with my prints, wherever I am with relation to other photographers and the collective history they represent. So I dive into my soul to find what I think is good or not. I don't care for a moment whether it's been done before, or if others will like it or not. My outlook is simply that I like to be a photographer, I love to print, it's exciting to share the work, and maybe discuss it. I confess that I really enjoy to give portrait prints to people that sat for me, but I think because it was a collaboration and they were part of a shared creative process, or they might be pleasantly surprised by a snapshot I made of them, in which case they also helped by simply being there. Either way, my focus goes inside my intellect, soul, and heart. What feels good there is what is right for me. Based on it I develop a vision of what I want the prints to look like. I don't care about anything else.

I don't know if that makes me different from others or not, because I often don't know what the motivation is for others to practice photography. But I thought I'd share my experience and how I view things, in case others might recognize themselves in it. When I have only myself to satisfy, I feel free in my creation. It is true, though, that as the years pass by I refine my craft and become more skilled at what I do. It's easier to achieve what I want from a 'Kodak moment'. But in some way I miss the days where I was less 'refined' (for the lack of a better word). Some of the pictures I made in the past I feel are very pure in vision, because of how uncluttered they were by my thoughts.
To me it's both a blessing and a curse at the same time to be more complete and experienced; the blessing is that it's easier to transform exposure to a print I like, the curse is that I don't try things that I don't think will be any good, where in the past I might have and come up with a surprisingly good picture. I like the idea of serendipity, where if I'm out working on my photography I also sometimes get lucky. If I'm too selective, or calculating, I fear I'm not as spontaneous, and many spontaneous shots from the past I still like a lot, to the point where I'll bring the negative to the darkroom to print when I should be working on the pile of new stuff...

jglass said:

I have to disagree with this. Although Early Riser's state of mind could lead down a blind alley, this kind of rejection of cliche and overused photo vocabulary can lead down new and creative paths. I think you yourself, "Maximus" have had some choice words for the cliches of landscape photography and "old barns." I feel the same way. And I also feel like Early Riser, in that I've grown up some photographically and visually and now wish to do something better and more insightful than I did just a few years ago. Is this jaded and spoiled (NO!) or is it just creative growing pains?(YES!)

Now one way, I believe, to escape this creative junction (it does not have to be a dead end) is to take a new direction, rejecting your favorite approaches, rejecting all genres and setting out on a new path. This CAN lead to the kind of child-like newness and discovery that you see your son having. The joy of discovery is sometimes just on the other side of this long, depressing trudge up the same old hill . . . .

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Jeff,

I don't totally disagree with you, as this is a very fine line. It all boils down to subjectivity, as always, and at which stage we are in. It is true that experience can lead to better things (and it does) but it is also true that theory of diminishing returns rears its ugly head after a while. I'm sure many have had the same experiences, where the more you put into it, the less you get out of it that is satisfactory to our now higher standards. When that happens, I usually pick up my Holga and use it for a month. It forces me to be child-like because it's a simple piece of junk and all technical BS is removed. I try to see simply and not worry about what has been or hasn't been done before... and sometimes it works, especially at the printing stage with some fun surprises.

Max

Early Riser said:

Massimo, I would think that having seen many images before would actually spur some people on to doing something different. But if you don't have a sophisticated visual reference library then you are likely to shoot exactly what has been done before and most likely in the same way because you simply don't know any better. Having a sophisticated visual library doesn't stop you from photographing squashed chewing gum on the street or aiming a camera at an uncommon scene. So while one without any previous visual experience can claim that they are being creative because they are shooting things that THEY have never seen before, they may in fact be shooting the most cliche images out there.

To a tribesman, living in some remote jungle somewhere, who has never ever seen a photograph before, showing him someone's family christmas card portrait might blow his mind and he'd think it's the most amazing thing he's ever seen. Does that mean that the same image should receive the same reaction from the rest of us?

Click to expand...

Sure, Brian..that is in a perfect world. I don't think that I have to tell you how hard it is to be original and relevant these days, and do "something different". Frankly, I think one is better off not having a sophisticated visual library at all (or at the very least block it out your mind). By doing that, there is no mind clutter and no perceived danger of copying someone else, or introducing constant doubt. I feel that by doing that, one has a much better chance at developing a unique style and being original. Of course, there are no guarantees but that's how I feel...and of course this is nothing but my humble opinion and by no means any kind of indisputable gospel.

keithwms said:

Wow, I couldn't disagree more. Sorry

The hard wiring you refer to, it's actually adaptive wiring... adapted to our experiences. Even relatively simple things like perception of colour are actually quite individual. There are many visual perception "games" that show just how individual perception is. And regarding studies of the movement of the eyes / shift of attention across an image, those have been done in terms of male versus female etc. but even then there is a lot of variation within the genders. The newest studies are showing that wiring changes with time as well. People used to think our brains were pretty much wired at an early age. New studies in 'plasticity' suggest something quite different.

Bottom line... perception is the most individual thing about us. So it would be quite difficult to compose an image that appeals to everyone... and if such a thing did exist, it'd probably be rather mundane. We can probably all agree when an image is "pretty" but that is about as general a descriptor as possible.

Click to expand...

Keith, the argument that how I see red may well be different than how you see red is an old one, however the comparative relationship of color perception seems to be consistent. If your whole visual spectrum has a slightly yellow shift then your red might be a little yellower than my red, the blue a little yellower, etc but for the most part the relationships among all the colors you see will be consistent because the spectrum is a continuous gradation. If not there would be no basis for ANY form of color theory. But for those of us who have worked in the field of mass communication there are some things that seem to be a pretty consistent. If you put a highly saturated deep red right next to a highly saturated deep blue, they will appear to "vibrate" for most people, especially when using transmissive media. For those who like to drop out type on web sites, that is have white type against a black background, the viewer stands a very high chance of having a residual "ghost" image appear for a short time when they look at other things. If you put an object against a certain color background, if the object is a different color, it will appear to take on some of the opposite color of the background. This is why many experts tell you that if you use your monitor for color editing photographs, use a gray or neutral desktop color. Because if you spend all day looking at blue, then when you step away, everything in the room will look yellow. This is possibly an attempt by the eye to adapt, but it is a false adaptation and is temporary once the subject views neutral light. Older people or people with cataracts have lower contrast vision. This is why many photographers print darker and contrastier as they age. Also for people with lower contrast you may need to burn the edges of your prints more if you plan to mount them on white board because the brightness of the white might flare and make the print edge look lighter. For people with good vision contrast, that edge might now appear too dark. And anyone who has done tonal values on a digital file against a white background, and then switched to a black background, the brightness and luminosity, as well as contrast of the image will appear to have changed significantly. When one understands human vision, one takes these factors into account with their work. And that is why it's not just personal preference, but there IS a science to design, composition, tone and color.

These are not unique to people but are commonplace. The placement of a distracting or contrasting object on the edge of composition WILL lead the eye toward it because our visual perception system is designed to differentiate things that might not belong some where, things that contrast, like a striped predator against a solid background. But put that predator against a striped background it becomes near invisible unless it moves. And that's also why there are animals who's visual system heavily favors the detection of movement. This is a design that is wired. These are not gender based like having a man's eye when looking at the photo of an attractive woman will go straight to her feminine characteristics and linger, whereas a female looking at the same image might instead focus longer on clothing, jewelry etc. In nature I can assure you that when there's a threat, say a predator, both men and women focus on that threat and not on some other thing like a flower. No matter how much cultural indoctrination there might be, a man and a woman will always focus on the predator.

Eye sight does not exist to view art, it exists as a survival mechanism and a great deal of it is very hard wired and much of that hard wiring is unchangeable even if it poses a small risk. As in the case of moths flying into flames. Their vision consists of a compound type eye with tunnels. Their navigation ability is based on light entering a specific tunnel, and moving to another tunnel as the moth changes orientation. And as it is believed that a moth uses the pinpoint light of the moon or stars as it's natural compass, the small fixed point light of a candle confuses it as unlike the stars and moon, to which the moth's actual spacial relationship does not relatively change, the moth can fly around the candle, so it's spacial relationship to the candle changes, causing the moth to follow it's visual navigation system into the flame. I would think that such an adverse outcome would have caused moths to "adapt" or evolve their system, but alas the benefits heavily outweigh the potential cost, so no change has been required via evolution.

And maybe you missed where I state,"Where preference comes to play is in each person's personal experiences in life, and also their photographic background, that is the depth of their photographic references and their actual experience." And yes I've also read articles on the plasticity and adaptiveness of the brain. But you have to understand is that they are reacting to memes in our society, they are not adapting to some natural change, they are adapting to a cultural change, and the culture can also reinforce certain things, and imagery is one of them. There is a reason why so many mass visual things, ads, packaging, movies, etc become so uniform and predictable. It's because they are all based on the same formula and the understanding that human visual perception has some generalities and constants.

MaximusM3 said:

Sure, Brian..that is in a perfect world. I don't think that I have to tell you how hard it is to be original and relevant these days, and do "something different". Frankly, I think one is better off not having a sophisticated visual library at all (or at the very least block it out your mind). By doing that, there is no mind clutter and no perceived danger of copying someone else, or introducing constant doubt. I feel that by doing that, one has a much better chance at developing a unique style and being original. Of course, there are no guarantees but that's how I feel...and of course this is nothing but my humble opinion and by no means any kind of indisputable gospel.

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Maximus I understand where you're coming from. But in this day and age when pretty much everyone on the planet has a camera on them everyday, where countless images from movies, TV, photography, marketing and art, from the past and present bombard us, it's hard to find something completely original. The vast majority of even cutting edge work has been done before. I see a great deal of work being swooned at my young curators, and recognizing much of this "cutting edge" type work as having been around in the 1970's. But these young curators weren't around then so they are impressed with it as being something new, because to them it is new. I think all we really can do is try to make that common scene more unique, or at least more unique to our own vision while trying to find something that we, or others, might not have seen before.

Cole Thompson had a long discussion about not viewing other photographs on his blog . Dead Link Removed

For some people, their work around is to employ a very strong technique or process to jazz up an otherwise boring or cliche image. For the last few years Wet Plate photography has been very popular, and there are some people doing excellent work with it. However a great deal of the imagery using it has little going for it except the effects of the process. It's as though the content didn't matter, and all that mattered was the process.

Early Riser said:

And maybe you missed where I state,"Where preference comes to play is in each person's personal experiences in life, and also their photographic background, that is the depth of their photographic references and their actual experience." And yes I've also read articles on the plasticity and adaptiveness of the brain. But you have to understand is that they are reacting to memes in our society, they are not adapting to some natural change, they are adapting to a cultural change, and the culture can also reinforce certain things, and imagery is one of them. There is a reason why so many mass visual things, ads, packaging, movies, etc become so uniform and predictable. It's because they are all based on the same formula and the understanding that human visual perception has some generalities and constants.

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I didn't miss what you said, in fact, I merely think you underestimate the role of what you said

As I said: there are some mundane things that unite us. We can probably all agree that something is "pretty", but that's about it. If you're satified making pretty images that have some sort of universal appeal, well, that's your right.

Indeed I am very familiar with the knee-jerk response mechanisms; in fact, several of my former students are employed at a company in DC that quantifies them by e.g. hidden video in a commercial setting. These methods are creating quite a stir in the press lately... their software can predict peak shopping times for certain demographics and reveal mass responses to window displays and background music and so forth. No question that those methods work. And we all know that McDonald's uses yellow because it's regarded to be a more appetizing color than the others. But again those are all very base responses. If a photograph is all about base responses then I'm afraid it isn't much of a photograph. It's more like the lowest-common-denominator, formulaic imagery that advertisers use. That is the photographic equivalent of pop music. if you need the money and know how to make it then go right ahead and make those photographs

So, again, all of us can probably agree on "pretty" and "delicious" and base things like that, but when it comes to evocative imagery... I stick to my guns: that's very individual. And it's far more challenging to make effective images that are also complex.

i agree with what you have said 100% keith

most things are subjective + opinion
whether it is if something tastes good, or looks pleasing

jnanian said:

it must be very hard living upto one's standards if
everything is a bore, if one has done everything before
( and you can do it better than everyone else ) ...

( sounds kind of sad ... )

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Setting a higher standard makes one reach higher than they might not have ever tried. Setting a higher standard is the opposite of complacency, it is the antidote to boredom, it is creating a challenge. And having done almost every genre of photography does not mean it's boring, in fact it broadens your perspective. You can bring methods, techniques and concepts not ordinarily associated with a specific genre and experiment with them in that genre. And it further pushes one to do work that stands out to them. I'm a better photographer today than I was 5 years ago. I can't wait to see my work 5 years from now.

Sad? Far from it. Sadness is for those who never grow.

previously you suggested one thing, and now you suggest something differently.
sorry, i don't think i have the energy to respond politely to this,
so i would rather not say anything at all ...

keithwms said:

So, again, all of us can probably agree on "pretty" and "delicious" and base things like that, but when it comes to evocative imagery... I stick to my guns: that's very individual. And it's far more challenging to make effective images that are also complex.

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Keith your last statement is in agreement with what I said. That there is a fundamental and consistent way in which human visual perception works, and a knowledge of that can be used to influence the viewer of a photograph. But that our personal experiences effect the way we interpret or respond to our work or the work of others. The whole point is that when we combine our personal preferences with a knowledge of design, composition, etc and how they effect visual perception we now have a more effective means of expressing ourselves with our work.