the great schism of photography

removed account4 · Jun 5, 2015

roger I was being tongue in cheek
iron is pretty much all that washes out
the state of California deems Classic cyanotypes ready made sun print
paper non-toxic ... the kids were putting stuff away, cleaning up
and getting ready for their next class ... sorry you didn't get my dumb inside joke ...
I agree, respect for chess is good and a healthy thing to learn early ..

markbarendt · Jun 5, 2015

frank said:
So why focus on/bother with the extremes?

Because boredom sucks and mediocrity is a disease.

Roger Cole · Jun 5, 2015

jnanian said:
roger I was being tongue in cheek
iron is pretty much all that washes out
the state of California deems Classic cyanotypes ready made sun print
paper non-toxic ... the kids were putting stuff away, cleaning up
and getting ready for their next class ... sorry you didn't get my dumb inside joke ...
I agree, respect for chess is good and a healthy thing to learn early ..

Sorry, there's just so much hand wringing over nearly-harmless stuff these days that I didn't catch that. Carry on.

gzinsel · Jun 5, 2015

I thought the schism in photography was in the way photographers worked i.e. thru rigorous discipline, or working from the flow!! I didn't think this was an analog or digital debate thread.

pdeeh · Jun 5, 2015

I haven't seen any of the usual film vs digital bollocks in this thread. Plenty of other bollocks but not that. Which is refreshing

removed account4 · Jun 5, 2015

pdeeh said:
I haven't seen any of the usual film vs digital bollocks in this thread. Plenty of other bollocks but not that. Which is refreshing

its was attempted but no one followed down that path, i agree refreshing .. but today is another day.

Sirius Glass · Jun 5, 2015

Tamara said:
On a semi-related note, when I bought my first e-reader a couple years ago, teams of ninjas swarmed into my house and seized all my thousands of printed books and burned them in the yard, then warned me of the terrible things they would do if I ever bought another.

Digital or analog: You must choose. They are not tools, they are tribes to which one must swear terrible oaths of fealty. True fact.

Big Grin!!

gzinsel · Jun 8, 2015

so, should we take an APUG poll? how many people work with/thru a rigorous discipline or those that work with/thru "the flow" or how many work with a hybrid? i.e. some technical qualities, while still allowing some "room" for chance/happenstance/luck/?

blansky · Jun 8, 2015

I completely disagree on taking a poll.

frank · Jun 8, 2015

I imagine that over 95% of photographers use both sides of their brains.

It's only a schism if there is a significant disconnect, which in this case I don't think there is.

frank · Jun 8, 2015

True.

removed account4 · Jun 8, 2015

hi gzinsel

while it might be interesting to have a poll, i have a feeling it would just
cause trouble between folks who are loosy-goosy and those with a more rigid way of doing things.
seeing most people are in the middle who do both not sure what good a poll would do
but have people suggest what one person thinks is loosy goosy isn't loosy goosy at all, or what one person thinks
is rigid, really has nothing to do with discipline &c ...

i've started threads similar to this over the years, and people who are more rigidly disciplined
have held it against me, claiming that i am trying to create a divide between the apug membership/readership ..
or that i an not truthful about my methods &c because, --- their perspective doesn't allow for people do act with such
contempt for their materials or whatever holier than tho way they put it ...
i am sure folks know from reading threads / posts, looking at gallery posts,
blog posts, flickr uploads, websites &c they can take note without a poll what the deal might or might not be ...
and in the end it really doesn't matter because its all a big grey area anyways ...
we all use cameras, film, developer and paper and that is the important thing, not the whole tribal take sides &c sort of thing.

===

- michael - i try not to use my brain when i make photographs, i try not to think at all ...

FWIWIMHO, great artwork + photography doesn't consciously come from the brain .. but its more like an autonomic function ...

frank · Jun 8, 2015

Or from our reptilian brain.

blansky · Jun 8, 2015

frank said:
I imagine that over 95% of photographers use both sides of their brains.

It's only a schism if there is a significant disconnect, which in this case I don't think there is.

I think you're referring to my comment on right brain vs left brain, and the point is not that people don't use both sides, the point is that various people are dominant in one more so than the other. Some people are more "artsy" and some people are more math/engineering/practical in their approaches.

I cringe at math, don't care about process any more than it's a means to an end, don't tinker with equipment much, am not overly technical and don't really care much about the inner workings of stuff.

Yet I have a career in photography.

In the wristwatch world that I dabble in, there are people like me who love the aesthetics of watches more than the love of the movements in them. And others it all about the magic of movements.

I just think that there are people who are more dominant in one area than the other. And that's a good thing.

frank · Jun 8, 2015

blansky said:
I think you're referring to my comment on right brain vs left brain, and the point is not that people don't use both sides, the point is that various people are dominant in one more so than the other. Some people are more "artsy" and some people are more math/engineering/practical in their approaches.

I cringe at math, don't care about process any more than it's a means to an end, don't tinker with equipment much, am not overly technical and don't really care much about the inner workings of stuff.

Yet I have a career in photography.

In the wristwatch world that I dabble in, there are people like me who love the aesthetics of watches more than the love of the movements in them. And others it all about the magic of movements.

I just think that there are people who are more dominant in one area than the other. And that's a good thing.

I was referring to your post about sides of the brain and completely agree that some are dominant left and some right, and it is not one or the other as suggested by "schism".

frank · Jun 8, 2015

I'm a mix of north and south German. Now there's a schism. /

blansky · Jun 8, 2015

frank said:
I was referring to your post about sides of the brain and completely agree that some are dominant left and some right, and it is not one or the other as suggested by "schism".

But I think schism is the arguments put forward by the various people that are in one or the other camp, without realizing that the other camp just doesn't think the same way they do.

But it's also basic tribalism that occurs in Nikon vs Canon, Apple vs those other morons, Ford vs Chevy, religion vs religion, Democrat vs Republicans, capitalists vs socialists etc etc where a lot of the arguments are not even based in reality most of the time, just that people seem to love to be part of a tribe.

frank · Jun 8, 2015

Beware of extremists of any sort.

blansky · Jun 8, 2015

frank said:
Beware of extremists of any sort.

Yup.

removed account4 · Jun 8, 2015

blansky said:
Yup.

uh-huh

Vaughn · Jun 8, 2015

This "right brain - left brain" concept is a myth -- I suppose it is a useful (but limiting) metaphore for tendencies in the thought process, but it has no real ground to stand on.

If one thinks one is bad at math, then one will be bad at math. We are what we think. If one thinks there is a divide between art and science or between the creative and technical sides of photography then there is one. If one thinks there is not, then there is not. I prefer to think that it is all one and to divide things into two reduces the potential and/or strength of the whole creative process.

frank · Jun 8, 2015

Vaughn said:
This "right brain - left brain" concept is a myth -- I suppose it is a useful (but limiting) metaphore for tendencies in the thought process, but it has no real ground to stand on.

If one thinks one is bad at math, then one will be bad at math. We are what we think. If one thinks there is a divide between art and science or between the creative and technical sides of photography then there is one. If one thinks there is not, then there is not. I prefer to think that it is all one and to divide things into two reduces the potential and/or strength of the whole creative process.

Do you not think that there areas of specialization in the brain?

There have been some fascinating studies done on split brain individuals who either through injury, birth defect, or surgery to suppress seizures, have no functioning corpus collosum.

blansky · Jun 8, 2015

Vaughn said:
This "right brain - left brain" concept is a myth -- I suppose it is a useful (but limiting) metaphore for tendencies in the thought process, but it has no real ground to stand on.

If one thinks one is bad at math, then one will be bad at math. We are what we think. If one thinks there is a divide between art and science or between the creative and technical sides of photography then there is one. If one thinks there is not, then there is not. I prefer to think that it is all one and to divide things into two reduces the potential and/or strength of the whole creative process.

I don't know the scientific aspects of it and I agree that new thinking has debunked it to some extent through MRIs, but that doesn't really explain the fact that some people are more one way than the other. And in personal experience it has nothing to do with whether I thought about being bad in math, the fact was that I was, and bored and didn't really care about the technical as much as the creative/ artistic aspects of things. And to this day sort of glaze over when people discuss the mathematical or the technical.. So perhaps it's not about ability, but instead about interest.

So to me it's not provable but it is observable.

But we are all different. Some people are also susceptible to addictions and others are not.

And ironically, your post may have been sort of a classic case of, I like math, and am creative also, so really everyone else is and they just don't realize it, which is just more manifestation of the schism.

Sirius Glass · Jun 8, 2015

blansky said:
I completely disagree on taking a poll.

+1

Tamara · Jun 8, 2015

blansky said:
I completely disagree on taking a poll.

I completely agree with the above disagreement.

the great schism of photography

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