Living life through "Rose Tinted Spectacles"

Ian Grant · Mar 7, 2008

A recent comment about one of my images made me laugh.

I don't like this photo. In Black and white it makes the valley look bleak and uninviting. Seen from the Rhigos Mountain road the views of this valley can be quite stunning.

Social comment isn't all about pretty pictures. Further down the same valley the youths who stole and burnt out the car stabbed a black male student at the small local University just because he was different, a month before I made the image.

This brings into question the motives for making images, do you take "Picture Postcard" type images that sell or make social comments that don't. I prefer to speak my mind through my images.

Ian

ntenny · Mar 7, 2008

At least the commenter was honest enough to say something negative. A lot of people seem to have a really strong gut feeling that the *only* conceivable reason to make an image is "this looks pretty". I don't get where they're coming from, certainly, but there seem to be plenty of painters and photographers happy to oblige them, so I suppose it all works out.

I can't do "postcard" images as a rule. I greatly admire the abilities of people who can do it well, and especially those who can make visually strong, pretty pictures and *still* be communicating something beyond "this is pretty".

BobbyR · Mar 7, 2008

The trouble with "communicating" a message through pictures, is the interpretation of the picture is entirely up to the viewer. (I have seen people say--No, no you are no looking at it the right way--to which the viewer may respond from--how am I supposed to see it--to--I see it the way I want to see it.(People have the ability to do that with the written word, but it is not as easy.)

When I used to go hunting, a winter scene, that on a bright sunny day, makes one feel as if everything is right with the world, on a damp yet cold, stone grey day, can appear as if the world is devoid of life.
In black and white, how it is viewed, whether full of life, or stone cold dead, is strictly up to the viewer.

The particular picture below, simply reminds me of many valleys, my dad used to drive through while taking the "shortest" way through the mountains on vacation, neither good nor bad, simply familiar.(One thing about the off the maidnpath roads through the Rocky Mountains, wrecked and burnt out cars off the side of the road, were not rare.
Bob

Marco B · Mar 7, 2008

Ian Grant said:
This brings into question the motives for making images, do you take "Picture Postcard" type images that sell or make social comments that don't. I prefer to speak my mind through my images.
Ian

Hi Ian,

I can fully agree with your motivation for taking pictures. If this feels right for you, just do it. Pictures certainly don't need to be "pretty" to be of interest...

However, if I may put a more meaningful comment to your photo, if the car is of such interest to the story you are trying to tell, maybe it would be better to put it a bit more prominently in the picture. Also, the story will probably be best told if the picture is part of some kind of (journalistic) type of series of photographs... but maybe you are already working on that

Marco

Ian Grant · Mar 7, 2008

Yes Marco, the car wasn't that important at all it just happened to be there, but the image will be exhibited as part of a series.

Ian

DannL · Mar 7, 2008

I am partial to this type of photography. I have been criticized as shooting in a documentary style, to which I always respond "good". And for that reason when I see photography such this, the historian inside me screams "where's the loupe, bring me a loupe". These are the types of photographs (speaking of the original of course) that will be hanging in the local historical society museums hundreds of years in the future. They make excellent historical reference material.

Ian Grant · Mar 7, 2008

err did I say I'm actually an Industrial Archaeologist, but very deviant as I seem to be becoming a Classical Archaeologist

Ian

Rich Ullsmith · Mar 7, 2008

The critic/commentator has personal knowledge of your particular scene, so you are already competing with their own perception and memory of what an image of that valley should look like. Being unfamiliar with that scene, I'm first most interested in the quality of the print (which is impossible on a monitor) and second, what is that thing in the foreground? After hearing the context, I find it quite compelling as an image.

copake_ham · Mar 7, 2008

I think the commenter was correct in what s/he saw - which is to him/her an unflattering view of the valley - with the "helpful" suggestion of where you can find a "better" venue.

Apparently, this person only viewed the photo as a kind of banal "postcard" - revealing more his/her individual perceptual limitations. You can never know what the thoughts were of other viewers who never commented.

I wouldn't spend too much time trying to fathom this person's rather shallow perspective of what you were trying to convey.

Ian Grant · Mar 8, 2008

Actually I found it interesting to see the images the commenter had uploaded, they said it all.

Ian

arigram · Mar 8, 2008

As long as you let your humanity to drench your photographs, everything is acceptable.
Comments of others are after all, their own personal view of the world and they give you
insight in their mind not your work, unless they are exceptional...
Anyway, most people comment to help themselves not the artist.
(including this comment)

David H. Bebbington · Mar 8, 2008

Ian Grant said:
A recent comment about one of my images made me laugh.

I don't like this photo. In Black and white it makes the valley look bleak and uninviting. Seen from the Rhigos Mountain road the views of this valley can be quite stunning.

Social comment isn't all about pretty pictures. Further down the same valley the youths who stole and burnt out the car stabbed a black male student at the small local University just because he was different, a month before I made the image.

This brings into question the motives for making images, do you take "Picture Postcard" type images that sell or make social comments that don't. I prefer to speak my mind through my images.

Ian

To be brutally frank, I don't like the picture either - because I really can't tell what it is trying to say. It seems to have been photographed on b+w IR film, I suspect for no better reason than that you had no other film with you. This of course has distorted the tones of what I presume is actually rough grass, but without any apparent purpose, except that about half the area of the print is filled with a gray mush. If the idea of the picture was "Harsh reality raises its ugly head, even in what might be considered an idyllic setting", you simply haven't got this on the film, in terms of either tonality or composition. Sorry, but there it is.

Best regards,

David

Ian Grant · Mar 8, 2008

To be frank David your views are meaningless and in fact quite worthless You have an obsession with IR film, something I haven't used since 1979. . . . . .

You need another coarse of corporal punishment, where's Nurse Hicks, he'll don his stockings and suspenders to admonish you.

A 10"x8" negative/image really doesn't work well at 600 pixels wide . . . ..

Ian

coigach · Mar 8, 2008

An interesting discussion.

I'm not sure that I'd pay too much attention to the negative comment as the poster has obviously misunderstood what you were trying to achieve.

I am curious though about the need to start a thread musing about a negative comment - seems a bit thin-skinned to me. If you're going to post a picture and invite comments then surely you have to take the rough with the smooth? (even if the rough is ill-informed...!).

And anyways, you have to face the fact that not everyone will agree with you. I can certainly see beyond 'picture-postcard' images, but I'm not sure that as a single image this picture is entirely successful as social comment either. Perhaps it would in the context of a wider group of pictures?

Cheers,
Gavin

bruce terry · Mar 8, 2008

Interesting, just proves you don't know but a small part of what's been put into a picture and what a criticizer is pulling out of it. You think you're just looking at an 'image' but there is SO much more going on: ego, too much info, too little info, misconceptions, preferences, vendettas ... and why most folks just chip-in with a feel-good "Nice capture Buddy" what Ari said.

As ntenny said right off, Ian's commenter should be given credit for at least bothering to honestly state what he saw about the subject matter of this single photograph, having no clue I must assume the picture was part of a series in which case he might have said, "Bravo, well done, Ian!"

Hell, all this yada-yada makes me want to see the full monty!

Ray Heath · Mar 8, 2008

g'day Ian

i also don't particularly like the image and i don't undersatnd your comments

you justify this image as making some kind of social comment, then further on you say the burnt car out wasn't important

so hows about you explain what you meant to convey by this image only in terms of what is actually in this image

Ray

David H. Bebbington · Mar 8, 2008

Ian Grant said:
To be frank David your views are meaningless and in fact quite worthless You have an obsession with IR film, something I haven't used since 1979. . . . . .

You need another coarse of corporal punishment, where's Nurse Hicks, he'll don his stockings and suspenders to admonish you.

A 10"x8" negative/image really doesn't work well at 600 pixels wide . . . ..

Ian

Ian, if you're only going to get angry if people say what you don't want to hear, I shall say nothing further.

I shall just direct a question to "coigach", who says:
<<I'm not sure that I'd pay too much attention to the negative comment as the poster has obviously misunderstood what you were trying to achieve.>>

Don't hide your light under a bushel, "coigach", if you're so much smarter than me and have understood the picture where I have so dismally failed, please share your insights with us!

Regards,

David

coigach · Mar 9, 2008

Er David, I was talking about the original poster Ian quoted, not you

Taken in the context of Ian's other images (gallery + website) I'd suggest that he is trying to show landscapes with the echo of human history on them - he is an industrial archeologist after all! I'd say that he was trying to show a particular landscape as it is - warts, mineworkings and all - rather than an idealised 'picture-postcard' view. So far so good.

Where I have a problem is that beyond the statement 'this is the real landscape' it doesn't say much else (a bit like the accusations levelled at 'picture postcard' views, but in reverse). What point is he trying to make? Is there another point?

I accept that seeing this image in a wider sequence might make this observation redundant, and I said this in my original post.

Hope this makes my take on things clear.

Cheers,
Gavin 'bushel' Smith

jpeets · Mar 12, 2008

As has been pointed out, reactions to an image are totally subjective.

That being said, I studied the image, and like some others, don't quite "get it". It is definitely of documentary value, but I don't see where it goes beyond that. Caveat: this is coming from someone who is decidedly not fashionable in their tastes:I appreciate what might be called "aesthetic" photography (eg Weston, White, Porter, etc., sometimes dismissed here).

The postmodern stuff leaves me cold - often clever, but also often failing as images unto themselves, and needing much in the way of propping up with stories, captions, etc.

I was reading recently a comment (in the context of a review of a show at MOMA) that art abandoned aesthetics some 30 years ago. I can believe that.

Living life through "Rose Tinted Spectacles"

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