Isn't this a tired genre?

troyholden · Jun 3, 2013

San Francisco is a great place to live -- and photograph. I shoot the City daily and have been for several years. While I mostly shoot w/ compact 35mm cameras, we've got some LF shooters out here as well!

I wish the fellow in the Petapixel engaged with the street and people more. Shooting SF with a tele is not necessary. Most street widths work great with a 35mm or 50mm. His "edit" of 301 final images could use a few more edits. Asking someone to look through 300+ photos is a tough request.

Eric Rose · Jun 3, 2013

Wow! So many attitudes!! Who do you guys think you are anyway? Taken a look at the APUG gallery recently? Talk about tired genres. I'm guilty of it too, but then again I don't get on my high horse and shout down others. Well most of the time anyway Nervous breakdown with a camera, bad photographer?? What is APUG the "cool people table" in high school? Sure sounds like it.

Poisson Du Jour · Jun 3, 2013

Not very imaginative or original at all. Nothing new to see. Move on.

gleaf · Jun 3, 2013

I am enlightened.. "The Hungry I" was still there when the photo was taken. Long Long ago we dropped in for folk muic and visiting headliners. (long long is 44 years about now)

blansky · Jun 3, 2013

What I don't understand is why anti digital people are cruising PetaPixel.

Is it so they can make posts saying that digital sucks.

As for the photographer he calls himself a photography enthusiast as are many on this site.

So why the anger. His project didn't really work but at least he's out shooting.

Tom1956 · Jun 3, 2013

blansky said:
What I don't understand is why anti digital people are cruising PetaPixel.

Is it so they can make post saying that digital sucks.

As for the photographer he calls himself a photography enthusiast as are many on this site.

So why the anger. His project didn't really work but at least he's out shooting.

You know something? You're right. At least he's shooting and I'm not. Not really. Where I live everything is a gasoline expenditure. That racks up some big bills quick, and I just don't have it. So yeah, I'll hand him that. At least he's not letting a camera becoming A knick-knack on the furniture. Cameras that don't get used annoy me lying around.

zsas · Jun 3, 2013

Thanks for the link OP. Love when somone comes up with a project and executes it! Happy the photographer who did this series did it. I am sure he learned something about himself and the people in his community. I am sure this experience will help him grow (artistically, technically, locationally, etc, etc) and appreciate the community he lives is. Love when I am reminded about the passage of time using photography as a vignette like this as opposed a stark frozen moment....

Get out there and find your vision...maybe in a year the photog will look at this series in a different light and improve upon....lessons learned...etc....all's good here.....glad folks are getting out there and photographing......back in the day only those in lab coats were able to feed their punchcard programs into the big mainframe and see if it worked, today we can write our own code at home and run it own our own computers, upload it, sell it....make big money.......errrrr wrong thread.....but you get my point

zsas · Jun 3, 2013

To add one more asside to my above post, one of the folks I admire, Bill Schwab, spoke at a Apug meetup last summer and he said to, "Get out there, photograph, get to know your community....". I believe this photog in question is living those virtues, how on earth can I judge the success of his work? This might be the 1st of a life long body of work....

It's bad sentiment that artists hear over and over that makes some hide their art for fear of the jury (just think of the fear Maier had of folks seeing, judging her work).....

lxdude · Jun 3, 2013

blansky said:
What I don't understand is why anti digital people are cruising PetaPixel.

Is it so they can make posts saying that digital sucks.

I don't see any reference to digital in the original post.

Is the original poster indeed anti-digital? Or is that an assumption?

lxdude · Jun 3, 2013

desertratt said:
Point number one -- isn't this a project shot with one of those Gidget-Digetal thingamabobs and does it not belong in DPUG?

Myself, I don't think the medium matters when the discussion does not involve the medium. The OP was about the "genre'.

pstake · Jun 3, 2013

zsas said:
To add one more asside to my above post, one of the folks I admire, Bill Schwab, spoke at a Apug meetup last summer and he said to, "Get out there, photograph, get to know your community....". I believe this photog in question is living those virtues, how on earth can I judge the success of his work? This might be the 1st of a life long body of work....

It's bad sentiment that artists hear over and over that makes some hide their art for fear of the jury (just think of the fear Maier had of folks seeing, judging her work).....

I hear what you're saying, Zsas. It's a very warm sentiment and it makes me feel a smidge bad about the things I wrote. We all start somewhere and flop around trying to find our vision, voice, etcetera, and some of us never really find it. So far, this describes me. But I think the flip side of it is that if there is no criticism, no calling a spade a spade, then the really good stuff gets lost in the blur because nobody can/will differentiate gimmicky crap from art.

Just my two cents. I wonder what the OP thinks about all this. Or what his Maine Coon would say if it could and more importantly if it cared.

MaximusM3 · Jun 3, 2013

Simple question: what's a tired genre anyway? I guess rock and roll, jazz, blues are tired as well. For me, there is good photography, bad photography, and everything in between. All of it, at the end of the day, is a strictly personal, subjective opinion. Does make for heated discussions though

Alan Klein · Jun 3, 2013

It's harder to find a unique trait these days because everything has indeed been said and done, but that should not preclude us from appreciating good art, no matter what it is.

“there is nothing new under the sun.” Eccl. 1:9 “all things are wearisome” 1:8. “The eye never has enough of seeing, or the ear its fill of hearing.” 1:8 “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.” Jn. 4:13

Print your usual "boring" stuff. Frame it nicely. Give it as a gift to a friend or family and they will treasure it as something new and wonderful and not boring. And you will have brought happiness to someone else. And then you will have found purpose for your wonderful work.

hoffy · Jun 3, 2013

Michael R 1974 said:
What's the criticism, exactly? The idea is tired or the execution sucks?

I don't know. While it may not be great photography, isn't everything tired? And hasn't it always been? How about flowers are tired? How about lith is tired? How about all that wet plate crap is tired? How about all the boring HCB rip off snapshot images are tired? Exhausted, actually. Waterfalls, portraiture, trees, red filter skies, cliffs, silos, bridges, star trails, Vivian Maier and on and on and on. There's nothing wrong about slice-of-life pictures. This is just another anti-digital thread.

Eric Rose said:
Wow! So many attitudes!! Who do you guys think you are anyway? Taken a look at the APUG gallery recently? Talk about tired genres. I'm guilty of it too, but then again I don't get on my high horse and shout down others. Well most of the time anyway Nervous breakdown with a camera, bad photographer?? What is APUG the "cool people table" in high school? Sure sounds like it.

blansky said:
What I don't understand is why anti digital people are cruising PetaPixel.

Is it so they can make posts saying that digital sucks.

As for the photographer he calls himself a photography enthusiast as are many on this site.

So why the anger. His project didn't really work but at least he's out shooting.

zsas said:
Thanks for the link OP. Love when somone comes up with a project and executes it! Happy the photographer who did this series did it. I am sure he learned something about himself and the people in his community. I am sure this experience will help him grow (artistically, technically, locationally, etc, etc) and appreciate the community he lives is. Love when I am reminded about the passage of time using photography as a vignette like this as opposed a stark frozen moment....

Get out there and find your vision...maybe in a year the photog will look at this series in a different light and improve upon....lessons learned...etc....all's good here.....glad folks are getting out there and photographing......back in the day only those in lab coats were able to feed their punchcard programs into the big mainframe and see if it worked, today we can write our own code at home and run it own our own computers, upload it, sell it....make big money.......errrrr wrong thread.....but you get my point

+1 to all of the above.

If any of you are ever in Adelaide, Australia, let me buy you a beer.

While the photographer who is the subject of the uncalled ridicule in this thread might not win any Pulitzer prizes, they captured what they saw in this 24 hour period and I am sure this has a personal meaning to them. More power to them!

Some of the comments I have read in this thread are akin to photoclub judges, which is something that no-one should aspire to.

Isn't this a tired genre?

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