Is this a good photo?

roteague · Jul 28, 2006

BradS said:
I am shocked and dismayed that so many of us are so quick to dismiss the work of another. That, to me, is the height of arrogance. I expect that kind of behaviour here in my work place - where I am always surrounded by smart people who always seem to insist on convincing everybody within earshot that they're the smartest guy in the room.

Why is it arrogance to dismiss something that you find boring and without merit?

JBrunner · Jul 28, 2006

One can find significance in any finite visual pattern.

Gerald Koch · Jul 28, 2006

Does Shore fancy himself as a sort of present day Atget. Documenting various things but in modern color. However, Shore lacks Atget's insight and humor to name two missing concepts in his work.

catem · Jul 28, 2006

blansky said:
What if I told you that 4 people were killed in that house. Two of them children.

Michael

I'd be sad, and a bit shocked by it, and I'd wonder what you were trying to prove by posting the picture.

If it is true, it doesn't do anything at all to alleviate my fear of the suburbs, about what goes on behind closed doors. (Which for me is part of the ambiguity within the original image).

Cate

davetravis · Jul 28, 2006

A worthless, washed-out, un-inspired point and shoot, piece of crap!
My dog could do better by pushing the shutter release, by accident with her nose!

jimcollum · Jul 28, 2006

Joel Sternfeld already did that with the book On This Site ( http://www.photoeye.com/templates/mShowDetailsbycat.cfm?Catalog=CI105 ). Locations where infamous crimes occured... (although i didn't see that house in the book :^)

jim

blansky said:
What if I told you that 4 people were killed in that house. Two of them children.

Michael

tim atherton · Jul 28, 2006

davetravis said:
A worthless, washed-out, un-inspired point and shoot, piece of crap!
My dog could do better by pushing the shutter release, by accident with her nose!

interestingly, although you hear this a lot (usually about Eggleston mind you), I've never actually come across any ones dog (or granny, or kid) who actually can.

And even more so, I've never come across any of the above who have ever managed to make money of their "snapshots' either (not that that's the only criteria, but it's a good one to start off with..)

blansky · Jul 28, 2006

Stargazer said:
I'd be sad, and a bit shocked by it, and I'd wonder what you were trying to prove by posting the picture.

If it is true, it doesn't do anything at all to alleviate my fear of the suburbs, about what goes on behind closed doors. (Which for me is part of the ambiguity within the original image).

Cate

But you said previously that "it wasn't as scary".

Does this innocuous middle American suburban picture now carry more weight.

Michael

davetravis · Jul 28, 2006

I've never actually come across any ones dog (or granny, or kid) who actually can

No kids or grannies?
Perhaps not, but this is like elephants that "paint," and someone calls it "art."
I'm glad I missed this nobody's "body" of work!

Lee Shively · Jul 28, 2006

There have been instances of children's artwork being considered Art (with capital "A") by critics and other artists.

There is a theory I read somewhere that says a childs' ability to see creatively, use his imagination and make art is something that declines as the chils matures and gets told what they should be interested in--by the creatively brain-dead adults, I suppose.

DBP · Jul 28, 2006

BradS said:
It is the 3rd of June, 1976 - Fort Worth, Texas. It's not spring and yet not summer either. The freshness of spring has gone from the air. The oppressive heat of summer is hinted at by early afternoon. The kids are out of school. Our nation is already starting to celebrate its bi-centennial. The neighbors are gone on summer vacation and we're watching their house. None of us bother to lock our doors. There are power lines running through the yard, a peanut farmer in the white house and a hostage crisis that will change the course of politics in America and the middle east for years to come. We americans are still reeling from the "Energy Crisis" and our involvement in Vietnam. The neighbor's kid is home from college and parked his new, Japanese economy car on my side of the street. A house, a yard...a place to call home. More than even some Americans can hope for really. And yet, maybe this IS as good as it gets. Life can be like that.

Yawn. ...indeed.

Carter was president from 1977-1981. Ford was president in 1976. Interesting that the only completely unelected president happened to coincide with the bicentennial.

pentaxuser · Jul 28, 2006

OK Grant. You've now had 11 pages of opinions without much general consensus but I suspect that you knew you'd get both of the above in advance.

So who took the picture and why and what was your reason asking for opinions in a thread as opposed to the Critique Gallery?

Genuine inquiry on my part by the way.

Thanks

pentaxuser

jimcollum · Jul 28, 2006

yea.. all those nobodies.. shore, sternfeld, eggleston, meyerowitz, atget, misrach, freiedlander, winogrand (they're just normal people walking around), evans, kertesz, klein, strand, doisneau. most of their work are just 'snapshot's of the world around them.

i can understand not enjoying someone's work, or agreeing with a vision (that fact that i'd prefer a print by misrach or strand over one by ansel doesn't mean ansel wasn't a great photographer.. just means i prefer the other aesthetic more.

and i have heard the same type of feedback about adams.. gee. .it's only a photograph.. how hard can it be to take a picture.

jim

davetravis said:
I've never actually come across any ones dog (or granny, or kid) who actually can

No kids or grannies?
Perhaps not, but this is like elephants that "paint," and someone calls it "art."
I'm glad I missed this nobody's "body" of work!

DBP · Jul 28, 2006

I don't like it. I have never cared for the school of art that says that representations of ordinary things are art because they capture the essence of ordinariness in daily life, or some such drivel. Warhol was a one trick pony whose work was more interesting to talk about than to look at. This falls into the same category in my book.

Lee Shively · Jul 28, 2006

The painting Georgia O'Keefe did of the night sky through an open tent flap opened my eyes to the magic possible by seeing the ordinary in an extraordinary way. For me, that is truly art.

blansky · Jul 28, 2006

Lee Shively said:
The painting Georgia O'Keefe did of the night sky through an open tent flap opened my eyes to the magic possible by seeing the ordinary in an extraordinary way. For me, that is truly art.

One of my photography teachers always stressed that "impact" was created by taking an ordinary thing in an "unordinary" manner.

The photograph is question that started this thread certainly doesn't do that for me.

I think it was Polanski or Hitchcock that said if you want to create suspense or horror, don't use a medieval castle, use an ordinary apartment building or house. ( I think Polanski in reference to Rosemary's Baby)

I believe the magic in photography IS the use of the ordinary or even mundane in an unusual manner. BUT just photographing the mundane doesn't pass the test.

Michael

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Jul 28, 2006

JBrunner said:
One can find significance in any finite visual pattern.

JBrunner, I must admit that you have made me aware of my fondness for these collages of faded crappy house shots. If you live in the country, it's always a bit sad to see the houses for sale, because they are hardly glamorous, and the pictures are badly taken, usually overexposed etc.

But like the Shore photo, I don't think I would have any fascination for such photos taken in isolation. I find that the one that was singled out at the beginning of this thread to be of little interest. Some photos work as part of a series/reportage, some photos work as a standalone object. There has been much debates about the serial/standalone issue in photo, given that the serial makes you closer to cinema. Still, I like Shore, and I find his best pieces stand alone.

jimcollum · Jul 28, 2006

blansky said:
The photograph is question that started this thread certainly doesn't do that for me.
Michael

although i like Shore's work as a whole a lot, this individual image by itself doesn't work as much for me

catem · Jul 28, 2006

blansky said:
But you said previously that "it wasn't as scary".

It isn't. It's your story that's scary.

blansky said:
Does this innocuous middle American suburban picture now carry more weight.

It carries more significance than it did before, because of the story you have told.

As an image, on it's own, it doesn't carry any more significance than it did before, and doesn't (IMO) carry as much significance as Shore's.

Shore's success is in implying possible scariness (maybe only to me!), which is, as your story indeed suggests, a part of life in Suburban America.

For me, that's the mirror he's held up to us, and that's what makes him forward-looking for his time : not merely recording or documenting, not saying "this is what it is like" but "is this what it is like?"

Cate

blansky · Jul 28, 2006

Stargazer said:
It isn't. It's your story that's scary.

It carries more significance than it did before, because of the story you have told.

As an image, on it's own, it doesn't carry any more significance than it did before, and doesn't (IMO) carry as much significance as Shore's.

Shore's success is in implying possible scariness (maybe only to me!), which is, as your story indeed suggests, a part of life in Suburban America.

For me, that's the mirror he's held up to us, and that's what makes him forward-looking for his time : not merely recording or documenting, not saying "this is what it is like" but "is this what it is like?"

Cate

Cate, I'm not sure if you were aware when this thread started whose work, the picture in question belonged to, so I don't know if you are adding in elements or emotions to the picture that are not there for me.

That being said, we live in different environments, with different life experience, but if you can, would you tell me, or try to analyze for me what in the picture, disturbs, implies danger, or what is it that leads to the conclusions you have described.

I'm truly interested.

Michael

tim atherton · Jul 28, 2006

blansky said:
One of my photography teachers always stressed that "impact" was created by taking an ordinary thing in an "unordinary" manner.

Michael

What precisely do you mean by impact and why does a photograph have to have it? (to me, "impact" implies something forceful, loud, a collision - between the viewer and the picture perhaps? - a strong effect, arresting, almost violent.)

Because for me the power of a photograph comes not from its impact - which seems generally an immediate thing (I suppose you can have low impact, or even a slow motion impact I guess, but those terms qualify the word down to almost nothing), but rather from the discontinuity and inherent ambiguity to be found in a photograph. It is there that things are reveled, that the "magic" is to be found, where something is revealed. This can be an immediate thing, or it can be a slow, gradual thing - but to me, it's not the same as "impact"

blansky · Jul 28, 2006

tim atherton said:
What precisely do you mean by impact and why does a photograph have to have it? (to me, "impact" implies something forceful, loud, a collision - between the viewer and the picture perhaps? - a strong effect, arresting, almost violent.)

Because for me the power of a photograph comes not from its impact - which seems generally an immediate thing (I suppose you can have low impact, or even a slow motion impact I guess, but those terms qualify the word down to almost nothing), but rather from the discontinuity and inherent ambiguity to be found in a photograph. It is there that things are reveled, that the "magic" is to be found, where something is revealed. This can be an immediate thing, or it can be a slow, gradual thing - but to me, it's not the same as "impact"

In my opinion and probably that of the teacher I had, the "impact" is what drew me to a particular picture instead of moving on.

Granted some photographs have impact by hitting you in the face and others have impact( at least to me) by their confident silence, but in all the cases of pictures that "speak to me", they have that something that pulls me in. Even if it is a quiet nuanced seduction.

I am never very impressed with "access" pictures where someone has access to a place I can't go nor am I very impressed with grab shot type stuff where an image is snagged.(not to be confused with stalked)

The picture in question offers me nothing and even as a slice of life picture to me fails.

You speak of the ambiguity, and slow revelation but I'm a little wishy washy on that one. I think that is just a case of the viewer adding personal things to the image that are not there.

If that makes it interesting to you, fair enough, but not to me.

It's like if I took a picture of a can of spam. Artsy types could come up with all sorts of personal foolishness about, it's an attempt to show we need to feed the hungry of the world, or it's a case of the protetariot's ingenuity, or it's just sooooo campy and 1950s, or it's an indictment of the state of the computer industry today, or it's a slice of life or 100 other things but all I had in mind was a picture of a can of spam.

Michael

jimcollum · Jul 28, 2006

blansky said:
It's like if I took a picture of a can of spam. Artsy types could come up with all sorts of personal foolishness about, it's an attempt to show we need to feed the hungry of the world, or it's a case of the protetariot's ingenuity, or it's just sooooo campy and 1950s, or it's an indictment of the state of the computer industry today, or it's a slice of life or 100 other things but all I had in mind was a picture of a can of spam.

Michael

of course, you'd have to print it at 50x60" :^) (unless you contact printed it in platinum)

tim atherton · Jul 28, 2006

blansky said:
You speak of the ambiguity, and slow revelation but I'm a little wishy washy on that one. I think that is just a case of the viewer adding personal things to the image that are not there.

If that makes it interesting to you, fair enough, but not to me.

Michael

Oh - I think it's more than that - it's part of the essential nature of almost any meaningful photograph

It's like if I took a picture of a can of spam. Artsy types could come up with all sorts of personal foolishness about, it's an attempt to show we need to feed the hungry of the world, or it's a case of the protetariot's ingenuity, or it's just sooooo campy and 1950s, or it's an indictment of the state of the computer industry today, or it's a slice of life or 100 other things but all I had in mind was a picture of a can of spam.

or maybe a pepper...

catem · Jul 28, 2006

blansky said:
Cate, I'm not sure if you were aware when this thread started whose work, the picture in question belonged to, so I don't know if you are adding in elements or emotions to the picture that are not there for me.

No, I didn't know who the photographer was, and I still haven't looked at any more of his work. I'm familiar with Eggleston's work, and maybe it reminded me of that, though it seems different (gentler? - kind of). So I didn't 'add in' anything apart from what I felt when I looked at the picture.

blansky said:
That being said, we live in different environments, with different life experience, but if you can, would you tell me, or try to analyze for me what in the picture, disturbs, implies danger, or what is it that leads to the conclusions you have described.

I'm truly interested.

In fact, I find it quite hard to explain, because it's not immediately an intellectual thing, but quite a visceral thing. But it's about how meaning is conveyed through imagery, (to me anyway), I'll TRY to put it into words....

First, there's the fairly ordinary-looking suburban-looking house, nothing particularly amiss - but then you look again and it seems as if some of the windows may be boarded up, it's hard to tell. The sills look a bit wrecked. It's a bit distant, and I feel I can't work out what's going on there. It's very different from the house you posted, which seemed to have everything in it's place, very "there" and readable. I know this was an illusion, given the context, but that's not the point at the moment.

There's something about the surroundings that's unsettling, I can't quite place them (this could be cultural). The grass looks neat in places, but then it becomes on the the edge of wildness. The road, also, is not neat and well maintained, it's little more than a rough track. Again, the roads seem to be great swathes through everything, or rather very much a part of the picture, possibly taking you places (where?) possibly cutting you off from something (the houses?). Taking precedence over the houses. This reminds me very much of Eggleston - that child beside the highway...(if I'm remembering rightly). It seems no accident there's a sign-post and an intersection, quite central to the photograph.

It seems there are lots of questions - about belonging, about stability ........those cars tucked into the bank I find oddly threatening...(who do they belong to? Why isn't the red car parked in the driveway?) I wouldn't like to go and explore that house, there's something about it, it's not as it first seems...

But I didn't "think" all this, I just felt a kind of disquiet (or just questioning?) creep in as I was looking at it. I find it an interesting image, in fact. But you have to look at it, give it time, lose yourself in it a bit. Not take it at face value. If you do give it time, maybe your story would be a different one...

Now if anyone says that's a load of c***p after I've tried hard to express verbally something quite emotionally-felt I'll be really p***** off.

Cate

Is this a good photo?

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