Originality or Quality?

jpeets · Apr 13, 2008

jnanian said:
not everything in this world is perfect.

Agreed, and I do appreciate the aesthetics of Wabi-sabi.

To me there is an air of artificiality in some of the works I referred to, compared to technically good photographs of subject matter reflecting Wabi-sabi.

Sort of like the difference between a piece of antique furniture bearing the scars of age and a modern reproduction that has been hammered and scratched and "distressed". The former speaks to involvement in lives lived and has a "truthful" character. The latter is a contrivance. The market prices reflect the fact that most people share my distinction.

John Koehrer · Apr 13, 2008

IMO There can't be any true "originality" in art it's all derived from something going all the way back to cave painting.
You shoot landscapes --- Jackson-- Portraits, Cameron/southworth-Hawes,still life Talbot. It all comes from the same place. Even using the camera obscura so you could make art.
Most originality today is marketing hype "I don't fix my pictures properly so they fade" yak, yak, yak. OOOOO! I make 'em big or I make 'em little. Depends how you sell it. The wet plate stuff in the last VC is a gimmick too.
I take pitchers 'o dead folk using an arcane process & it's art. Shades 'o Witkin. BFD! "It's all the same f**kin' thing man."( J. Joplin)
If you make a decent photograph that satisfies yourself what's the dif if it satisfies critic x? Critic a through m can find it OK. Unless critic x has the support of big $$ "art Patrons" Then a-m will suck up to the $$$.
Remember, If you don't know, baffle 'em with BS.

Scott Peters · Apr 13, 2008

I am not going to argue 'original' but I do look for something perhaps 'fresh' - slightly different? As to quality, at a certain level the 'craft' aspect is 'expected'? Yes we are all influenced by past work, whether it be photography or other media. I do like images that remain fresh after viewing them mutilple times. sometimes its not hte print that immediately grabs you, but teh one that grows on you over time...

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Apr 13, 2008

frank said:
I don't understand this statement. The Romans didn't build ruins.

Romans: a stoic and imperious people who evolved from a rag-tag band in 8th Century BCE into the biggest superpower of the antique world, possessing a stranghold on the Mediterranean contour and most of Western Europe for centuries until a protracted but dramatic downfall around the 5th Century CE. Illustrious representants: Julius Caesar, Virgil, Cicero.

Romantics: High-spirited and passionate young men of the 19th Century CE, carried by the intensely spiritual philosophies of German philosophers like Hegel and Schopenhauer, and poets like Schiller and Goethe. Were known for pithy aphorisms such as "beauty is truth, and truth beauty," disdain of the oncoming Industrial Revolution, and intense, but not always sincere, interest in the folk tales of peasants and other earthy people. Notable examples: Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley.

It so happened that the latter were also interested in the civilization remains left behind by the former.

keithwms · Apr 13, 2008

Originality.

Quality is easy, it can be learned. It can even be mathematically defined.

Originality is what keeps us from being replaced by copy machines.

sly · Apr 13, 2008

Justin, you've stirred up alot of people with this thread, haven't you?
I think you have to know your medium; what others have done with it, what you can do with it; before you start to push the boundaries and perhaps become "original". I first sudied photography in the seventies, dropped it for many years, and have been back with it for the last decade and a half (part of that time exploring and then getting tired of digital). My learning curve never seems to flatten out. I still feel like a rank beginner. I'm sure I have some considerable distance to go before I find my true vision, and maybe I'll never get there. I would be thrilled to get closer and closer in skill to the greats, even if I am never labelled "original" by someone who has set themselves up as an authority. I'm having lots of fun with my explorations and it's keeping the gray cells busy.
Yours in Development

Allen Friday · Apr 13, 2008

I don’t really care if my work is original, especially because I have been told I am original, in the meaning of the fourth definition found in my dictionary: “4. A peculiar, especially an eccentric person.”

I do, however, try to keep my work innovative. If not within the context of the entire Art world, at least as it applies to my own vision and techniques.

rwyoung · Apr 14, 2008

Having an engineering background and what would have been enough Calculus (Calc-useless now that I've forgotten so much of it) to choke a horse...

"Derivative" makes me think of a changing of value versus time. So maybe that is a good thing. Perhaps you look at Saint Ansel's work or Brother Bresson's, or Prophet Ray's, absorbing some element which then begin to change over time and make your own.

bjorke · Apr 14, 2008

Over this weekend I hacked a bit at a flickr group I created a while back, called New Black and White

I would say that well over 95% of all the pictures submitted to the group are of the "originality doesn't matter to me" variety -- menaing the same same same same same pictures over and over again. It's depressing.

However, I don't think that "originality" is really on anyone's mind when they are creating, even for the most original of works. If they are really passionate about what they are doing they are simply true to the work.

Later, after they are successful, they can become Cindy Sherman and live forever on the wealth from one idea.

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Apr 14, 2008

In a more superficial, but related vein, I invite tenants of either side to ponder the current list of the 100 most popular first names for babies in the province of Québec.

http://www.rrq.gouv.qc.ca/Interactif/PR2I121_Prenoms/PR2I121_Prenoms/PR2SPrenoms_01.aspx

Originality is not always a virtue. "Oceane" for a daughter ? Hum, maybe not...

bjorke · Apr 17, 2008

Do they still have the list of approved names in France? If you were an immigrant and named your kid after your grandfatehr Vladimir the government would often reject it as not being French enough. I think the CEE may have nixxed that, but maybe not.

Early Riser · Apr 17, 2008

keithwms said:
Originality.

Quality is easy, it can be learned. It can even be mathematically defined.

Originality is what keeps us from being replaced by copy machines.

I completely disagree with this. In the first place I think really good work combines both aspects. However it is not easy to do high quality work and when I say high quality I'm not just talking about the basic photographic essentials like good exposure and focus. I'm also including good composition and design, a sense of light and mood, timing, feeling, and the ability to produce a print that really sings. To me that is quality. And from having viewed countless thousands of photographs in galleries and online I have seen only a small percentage that combine those factors.

It is far easier to take another photo of a strip mall at midday, label it as "original" or "edgy" and then assign some deep meaning to a rather pointless and effortless image than it is to spend countless hours honing your skills and seeking incredible compositions with just the right combination of light, atmosphere and conditions. Original is a dime a dozen nowadays. All you have to do is shoot something that is not commonly done, like maybe a turd on a plate (or a picture of Christ in tray of piss) and voila! You're original! Most images that are not commonly produced are because they are shocking, offensive, unattractive, uninteresting, mundane or simply dumb. However it seems that in a desperate attempt to separate themselves from their art school compatriots, many curators or gallery directors will embrace anything that is considered original or edgy, and it's amazing just how much of that work was done a generation or two before and rejected. If it takes an essay to explain a piece of art then the work itself does not speak to people.

You want to see originality, then take a photo of routinely photographed subject matter and put your own spin on it, shoot it in a fresh way, but not some BS original for the sake of original way, but in way that still makes an image that sings but makes people look at the subject in a new way. And in my opinion shooting something with a Holga, or using some old esoteric process that degrades image quality so that the print has a "look" is not original either. While those methods may enhance the mood or affect of an image, like dodging or burning in, it is purely the image content that matters. And if an image only works as an image because you shot it or printed it with some esoteric method, and doesn't work as a straight representational image, to me that means that the inherent image lacks any real merit and is relying on a gimmick to make it interesting.

keithwms · Apr 17, 2008

Sorry, I don't quite see how you are disgreeing with me!

I would say that doing anything just for the sake of being different is... not necessarily original at all! Of course, we all remember the famous highschool nonconformists who all had the same ripped jeans :rolleyes: That's not originality. Originality is... something new, something fresh. It's not copied. And it's not necessarily esoteric (which by definition means already known, albeit not by the majority).

Originality doesn't conform itself to push pre-established buttons.... it affects people in creative ways that they hadn't been affected before. It's hard to define, but you know it when you see it.

Now, everything that I said is entirely independent of equipment or what output technique is chosen.
Of course you have to have an original vision and deliver it reasonably well. Simply being able to identify what is original requires technical proficiency, to the point that routine tasks become intuitive.

My point was that technique can be learned through hard work and determination. Not everyone can master all techniques, of course, but most techniques are teachable and learnable by mere mortals. Originality... there's no specific recipe for it. In fact it's the recipe that's not in the book yet. So all you can do is arouse people to the possibility that they have "it", and then step back and let them do their thing.

Let me defer to the musical analogy, which I think is appropriate. You can't really extract an original composition out of a budding musician, but you can train that budding musician to recognize what is original versus what is formulaic. Then sometimes, sometimes that pupil will become interested in contributing something original, as opposed to delivering a piece composed by someone else. Just about anybody can learn how to play piano; if they put in enough hours, they can deliver a technically sound performance. But there are few Mozarts and Gershwins and Jelly Roll Mortons.... and besides that compsotional aspect, one can frequently hear performances of the works of these composers that lack originality of interpretation.

Early Riser · Apr 17, 2008

keithwms said:
Sorry, I don't quite see how you are disgreeing with me!

Keith you said;

"Quality is easy, it can be learned. It can even be mathematically defined.

Originality is what keeps us from being replaced by copy machine."

My point is that quality is NOT easy, and is not easily learned. There are people who have spent decades doing photography and have a complete lack of quality. You seem to equate quality as more of a purely technical thing, whereas I equate quality with technical ability AND content such as composition, sense of light and mood, feeling and timing. And to me it's how you combine all those factors that can be original.

What so many seem to define originality as is not so much as the content of an image but the choice of subject matter.

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Apr 17, 2008

bjorke said:
Do they still have the list of approved names in France? If you were an immigrant and named your kid after your grandfatehr Vladimir the government would often reject it as not being French enough. I think the CEE may have nixxed that, but maybe not.

The Internet knows everything:
http://www.affection.org/prenoms/loi.html

The list of approved name was established during the French Revolution. The law was first changed in 1966, to allow more customary names like nicks, names inspired by literature/mythology. In 1981, it was broadened further, to allow names from other cultures. In 1993, it was finally broadened to pretty much anything that does not create a prejudice to the child (ridiculous names, etc).

keithwms · Apr 17, 2008

Alright, I can agree that it can take years - or a lifetime- to learn how to produce high quality work. But I'd still consider that "easy" in the conceptual sense. Easy in the sense that playing a Gershwin prelude is "easy." Of course it's actually very difficult from a classical, technical standpoint, but still those technical tasks at their most demanding are still "easy" compared to the conceptual mountains he had to ascend to produce that original and influential sound.

My point is that even physically demanding work can be "easy"... from a conceptual standpoint. The Liszt technical exercises are "easy."

But originality invents its own technique. It finds a way to make us think new thoughts- as opposed to refining the thoughts of others.

Originality can be hard to relate to in the short term. I will freely admit seeing some famous "high art" that despite winning various awards left me entirely unmoved. But rather than curse that kind of work, my tendency is to question whether I have the breadth of experience in art to recognize what is or is not original. My suspicion is that the most groundbreaking originality cannot be recognized in the short term; it's something that influences others for generations and then we might look back and discover that all that new art was posisble because of one original concept many years prior.

In my own photography, I feel that I am now able to recognize some cliches, and work within them deliberately to try to understand them more and try to find out what might be original as opposed to homage. Obviously it's a process that has no end and one doesn't know what will result.

That's the difference between originality and the adherence to technical recipe: the latter provides you a well-defined end and you work carefully toward it. But originality is much harder, it requires faith that something new and worthwhile to say will be found, eventually.

cole · Apr 18, 2008

All art is about gimmicks . A straight black and white photograph is as much a gimmick as a photograph shot with a holga and stained with piss. What makes it quality work, is the illusion of originality.

Cole

phenix · Apr 18, 2008

Another trick to become original:

1) Chose a photographer you like the work from a conceptual point of view (technical is possible too, but not essential). Stick with his/her work, and re-shoot the most of his/hers photographs, some even repeatedly. What’s important in this autodidactic learning is to guess what your virtual mentor felt and thought when he/she took the picture you’re re-shooting. Get infused by his feelings and thoughts.

2) At one moment, you’ll feel a strong need to leave your mentor and to be yourself. At that point there are two options:

2a) "The 180° turn": hate to imitate his/her work and want to be yourself immediately. At this time, you have some chances to discover a new point of view, but these chances are weak, and there is the risk to collapse if you find no original way.

2b) "The development": you feel no pressure to become original, but you discover, by surprise, that you could see one of your mentor’s photographs differently. Next day you'll see different another photograph, and next day two others or more. In between a week or a month, you'll feel that your brain is building a system, an original one, helping you to see and express yourself differently. Don't check if you made a discovery or you just rediscovered – leave it for later. What is important at this stage is to leave your new conceptual system to mature. During this period, it is very possible and normal to change your style once, twice, or even three times (don’t do it more). In one of these new styles, you'll find yourself as an original, mature (or almost) artist. Now you can check if you really are original or not – chances to be are now about 99.9% (I would say).

Obviously, I recommend the 1+2b option, because I’ve seen it at work (not with me). As for me, years ago and not in photography, I made the mistake to take the 1+2a way, and finished badly.

haris · Apr 18, 2008

Ok, what is originality? Take any photographic subject and how can you photograph it to be different from photographers who did it before? I don't thik there is angle, perspective, point of view, anything which wasn't done before. Then only one can do is to photograph same subject, but with different techniqe. And then, is that artistic originality or techical development

Did old masters thought about originality when made again and again paints of Jesus, Holly Mery, this od that biblical scene, this or that ancient scene or mythological being... And no matter if Venus was painted by this or that painter, we today consider all of those painters as great. After all, what is Michelangelo's David. Just another sculpture of hansome nude man, and sculptures of handsome, nude men old Greek sculptors were made by thousands before Michelangelo did it. So, was Michelangelo original artist, and did he cared about that, and do we care about it when we think about Michelangelo

removed account4 · Apr 18, 2008

cole said:
All art is about gimmicks . A straight black and white photograph is as much a gimmick as a photograph shot with a holga and stained with piss. What makes it quality work, is the illusion of originality.

Cole

as the book of ecclesiastices states there is nothing new under the sun ...

keithwms · Apr 18, 2008

Various comments above imply a certian doubt/skepticism that originality even exists any more, in the field of photography. If that is your feeling, if you really think you can't bring something new, then, by jove, why do photography at all?!

Like I said, you have to have faith that originality exists. If you don't have that faith that something original is out there, then pray tell, why carry on in the field. Just to master someone else's recipes? Where's the fun in that?

Again, let me defer to the musical analogy. I don't want to talk about specific photography because people have too many invested opinions about what is or is not original, and that baggage just pollutes the discussion.

The composer Alexander Scriabin started very much im the Chopin vein; listen to his early works and you will immediately hear it. But Scriabin allowed himself to transform and toward the end of his short life, produced some masterpieces that can only be described as highly, highly original. The very foundations of written music- key and time signatures and so forth- fall into dimmer light and his music just explodes with new chromatic ideas. He became a proponent of the idea that sound comingles with the other senses to produce higher associations. Just listen to vers la flamme- is it piano music? or something else? If you look at where Scriabin started and where he finished, the voyage he took is simply astonishing. And, I think, inspiring.

Now, after Chopin, or even after Mozart, it could well have been said that there is nothing original left to do in piano composition. Certainly you will find critics who have alleged this at various points.

Now look, piano has far fewer degrees of freedom than photography: there are 88-97 keys and three pedals on a piano. Though there are an infinite number of ways to elicit the tones, the tone scale itself is discrete and the number of "pleasing" combinations is apparently quite finite! But yet that discrete-tone instrument produces tremendous variations and now, almost 400 years after Cristofori, still inspires composers to do original work across many genres. The range of emotion that can be expressed though that discrete-tone instrument is very broad indeed. And yet there are plenty of people who feel that there is nothing else truly original to be done with the instrument... do you think they are right? If so, then for crying out loud, don't bore yourself or your audience.... take up a different instrument!

Ian Leake · Apr 18, 2008

keithwms said:
Various comments above imply a certian doubt/skepticism that originality even exists any more, in the field of photography. If that is your feeling, if you really think you can't bring something new, then, by jove, why do photography at all?!

I kind of agree, although perhaps the word "originality" is a bit misleading. If something, whether it is piano music, architecture, or photography truly comes from within then it must, almost by definition, be unique and personal. If it is unique and personal then it must be original. I think this is usually called "vision" in photography, though I'm sure other arts have similar phrases for the same thing.

The search for "originality" as a goal may or may not lead to vision. More often I think it leads to intellectually-driven conceptual work that is either banal or so far up its rear end that there's no daylight. The search for "truth" is much more likely to lead to vision.

Ian Leake · Apr 18, 2008

And as an afterthought: just because nobody's done something before doesn't mean it has value, and likewise just because something has been done before doesn't mean it has no value.

bjorke · Apr 18, 2008

Why bother with EITHER???

PROOF

LOTS of "awards" there

and here too

keithwms · Apr 18, 2008

Ian, I certainly agree with the afterthought.

The main point is that it's important to distinguish between those things which can be perfected by exercise, versus those things that cannot and which require big, creative leaps of faith. Things for which you can't even design an exercise, per se.

It is possible that a person becomes so trained (indoctrinated?) that the ability to find a personal vision /originality is suppressed. As a physics teacher, I see this on a daily basis. We, as a college profession, do tend to shove solutions down student's throats... before they ever find their own questions. See the danger? Some of my colleagues do not! and they are content to release problem-solving automatons into the world.

The danger in photography is similar- people need to feel uninhibited enough, technically and creatively, to deliver their original vision. But they also need to have that essential faith that they have something new worth contributing, something worth working toward. otherwise they will simply fall into any of the well-established channels.

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