the great schism of photography

[eddie]

What about us poor souls who are neither any good with the artistic side nor the technical side of photography?

You become the source of cheap, second-hand, equipment.

 

[frank]

What about us poor souls who are neither any good with the artistic side nor the technical side of photography?

We post in photography forums.

 

[removed account4]

What about us poor souls who are neither any good with the artistic side nor the technical side of photography?

hi alan
if someone practices they get better at anything they do ..
what i think happens ( or what i think i see happening through
participating on websites and photo forums ) is i see people who
decide they are not good at something and decide to be drastic in their approach
they may change everything they do, thinking everything was wrong, they may buy different
gear thinking new gear might help them &c ... sometimes those things help, sometimes they don't
for example using a camera with more auto functions so that part of the equation is taken care of, so he or she
can concentrate on seeing, and composition .. and then when they feel more confident ... working on the other aspects ..
i've seen lots of people dive head first into trying to understand complicated technical things and freeze up and get frustrated
and then they spend time and effort using zillions of different papers, films and chemistry instead of concentrating on one thing at a time ..
or maybe the other side of the coin is, the person's abilities ( aesthetic and technical ) is ok, and it is just a past time to have fun
and it really doesn' t matter .. and that is OK too .. after all, it is supposed to be fun, not an albatros around one's neck..

 

[Jim Jones]

. . . if someone practices they get better at anything they do . . . .

Yes, up to a point. When the wonder of learning something new wears thin, we might get bored and revert to producing boring pictures. With luck and effort we keep learning, and apply that knowledge to improvement.

 

[alanrockwood]

You become the source of cheap, second-hand, equipment.

Alternatively, we soak up the available supplies of cheap second hand equipment, thereby raising the price for those more worthy of the purchases.

 

[pdeeh]

This is a brand new image, part of a 20 or so image series, it is very technically involved at every step. But the image is not about technique at all.

Dennis

That's my sort of picture. Yum.

I'd be intersted to know how it was made, but I don't care how it was made.

 

[Roger Cole]

These either/or threads are getting tedious. Please stop.

Or don't, as you will.

 

[Roger Cole]

I especially appreciate the way photography takes advantage of both sides of the brain, and I try to give each side its turn.

That's a great part of the appeal for me too. Well said Bill.

I really like using my technical/scientific/engineering sort of mentality to create something expressive.

 

[georg16nik]

Which brings to mind Henri Cartier-Bresson's criticism of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and the other West Coast f/64 crowd - (I'm paraphrasing) "how can you sit there taking pictures of rocks when there's a war on?"....

All wars are started by over-privileged folks like Bresson, then they complain why nobody is documenting them
Ansel, Edward & company were concerned with the higher purpose that exists in pure form only in mother nature.
Bresson and company by default were mainly interested in their own, infinite syphilitics pathology and low morals. To them, war felt home.

 

[benjiboy]

All wars are started by over-privileged folks like Bresson, then they complain why nobody is documenting them
Ansel, Edward & company were concerned with the higher purpose that exists in pure form only in mother nature.
Bresson and company by default were mainly interested in their own, infinite syphilitics pathology and low morals. To them, war felt home.

That's unfair, untrue and very disrespectful of this man's memory, I'm not surprised he felt that way, H.C.B in WW11 was a French soldier, and was a prisoner of war for three years having to do forced labour in a Nazi labour camp while "Ansel, Edward & company were concerned with the higher purpose that exists in pure form only in mother nature"

 

[removed account4]

That's unfair, untrue and very disrespectful of this man's memory, I'm not surprised he felt that way, H.C.B in WW11 was a French soldier, and was a prisoner of war for three years having to do forced labour in a Nazi labour camp while "Ansel, Edward & company were concerned with the higher purpose that exists in pure form only in mother nature"

you are 100% right,
it is sad that people twist things around ...

i know of people whose family members were POWS at forced labor camps
and they were never the same, broken .. it is hard to believe humans would
do such things to other people, starve them &c .. but unfortunately humans haven't
evolved much since the stone age. only a few years earlier ( than ww2 ) a country/ empire mass murdered 1.5 million
and still deny doing it .. and a few years before that probably the same country/empire killed 250,000,
and a few years before that someone else killed millions of others... its surprising the human race has survived this long ..

at least we can look at pretty pictures ...

 

[rthollenbeck]

if you have been here for longer than a few minutes you realize
that there are all sorts of people here who use a camera.
some are technicians, some are not, and some are both

it doesn't all boils down to 2 sorts of photographers..

There are two sorts of people; those who devide people into sorts, and those who do not.

 

[removed account4]

There are two sorts of people; those who devide people into sorts, and those who do not.

i guess you haven't read many threads since you arrived here in nov 2013 ...
since 2003 i have read countless threads often times that end up with a technical person/fanatic
claiming someone who doesn't use their techique is a fool, or an idiot or wannabe or worse
"wasting resources" ( recent thread ).
yes there is a divide between people who care for exactitute
and folks who aren' t that anal retentive ( or a mix or the two ) ...

i'm a mix of the 2, i use technique when i am doing a commission and there is no room for error
and when i am doing my own thing, i probably have 40+ worth of technique running in the back of my head
as i don' t worry about using sunny 16, expired materials, shutters that haven't been serviced, developers made of
cabinet garnered materials ...
i try to bridge the divide, but the more i read of people who are nasty to others who don't use a light meter
or use expired shelf stored or questionalble materials, or who don't use senitometry, or denitometry or step wedges &C to get perfection, the more i
leave the technical side of my photography behind ... i don't want to be associated with some of the closed minded people who profess those beliefs
no not all people are like that, but the vocal few really pack a wallop ...

YMMV

ps. i am honored that your post was #7, its a magical number
http://numerology-thenumbersandtheirmeanings.blogspot.com/2011/05/number-7.html

 

[rthollenbeck]

Mostly I just read the posts without comment..... Even before 2013. I read a simalar quote about two kinds of people attributed to Mark Twain(no doubt falsely). I thought it was funny and plugged it into this post. Just a stab at humor, not a stab at anyone's opinion.

 

[frank]

Mostly I just read the posts without comment..... Even before 2013. I read a simalar quote about two kinds of people attributed to Mark Twain(no doubt falsely). I thought it was funny and plugged it into this post. Just a stab at humor, not a stab at anyone's opinion.

No worries, that's a great humorous quote!

 

[Sirius Glass]

Mostly I just read the posts without comment..... Even before 2013. I read a simalar quote about two kinds of people attributed to Mark Twain(no doubt falsely). I thought it was funny and plugged it into this post. Just a stab at humor, not a stab at anyone's opinion.

Did you see post number 27 on this thread? Way before post number 71. Try reading all the posts first.

There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.
Mark Twain

Sources
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/marktwain393535.html
http://thinkexist.com/quotation/there_are_basically_two_types_of_people-people/339141.html
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mark_twain.html

http://www.surface51.com/mark-twain-10
http://www.quote-coyote.com/quotes/authors/t/mark-twain/quote-3415.html


Gee, that did not work out the way you planned it.

 

[Arklatexian]

I understand your point.

I guess my point is the following, the divide here is and always has been, and was substantially added to with digital coming in, is the two camps of, and to put in rather bluntly, is pretty pictures over moving pictures.

And that will never change, although it could be a live and let live, truce.

And to me it comes down to the left brain vs right brain theory of what photography is about. Granted craftmanship should be an underlying goal of both camps. But neither side is able to really buy into what the other side is selling.

Is the impact of the picture on the wall, whether digital or analog more important than the process one took to making a print in the first place.

As I said, is a masterpiece of printing like an Ansel print more "important" that say McCurry's Afghanistan girl.

And the answer here is the schism that I believe the OP suggested.

If you think this schism is "new", from experience I can tell you that much of what is being discussed now was discussed in the middle of the twentieth century. In the 4th paragraph above, a question was asked about which is more important? After working in 13 photo salons, watching the judges work, to me the answer is "both". Both have what every really good picture has and that is "impact". This is what made you want to look at either one a second and a third time. Not especially the quality of the prints nor what film they were shot on. So, I guess the answer to the question is the middle-of-the road. I wish I could say the same thing about politics in my state.......Regards!

 

[georg16nik]

That's unfair, untrue and very disrespectful of this man's memory, I'm not surprised he felt that way, H.C.B in WW11 was a French soldier, and was a prisoner of war for three years having to do forced labour in a Nazi labour camp while "Ansel, Edward & company were concerned with the higher purpose that exists in pure form only in mother nature"

You can romanticize about Bresson & cie all you want, his comment in regards to Adams speak for itself.
The world wars made the 1% very rich while the other 99%, the soldiers, turned to prisoners, victims or heroes, that's all there is to it.

 

[pdeeh]

Ben's perspective is from one who has been a soldier and fought in wars, it may be a different perspective from yours, but it doesn't strike me as "romanticising".

But then your habit appears to be one of being "provocative" in your posts, so perhaps it isn't worth entering into a serious discussion.

 

[NJH]

jnanian may I be someone to thank you for these posts and the threads that have come from them. It has helped me to see that my own personal take on photography is really not that different to many other people, forums and the internet in general are a great place for making the extremes look like the norm rather than the other way round.

Simple example, I was chatting to someone the other week who only shots B&W film, no colour at all. I told him I wasn't much taken by colour either until I shot some Velvia in the summer right after heavy rain showers when the colours are so deep and intense. I could see he was open minded and was thinking about it, especially this time of year here when the blues and greens can be pretty mind blowing.

 

[NJH]

The world wars made the 1% very rich while the other 99%, the soldiers, turned to prisoners, victims or heroes, that's all there is to it.

To here someone from Germany say that is offensive in the extreme, it is a perpetuation of this idea that the German people were completely innocent of any of the crimes committed by Nazi Germany and it was all the fault of a small criminal elite. Nice rewriting of history to fit your narrow mindset.

 

[georg16nik]

To here someone from Germany say that is offensive in the extreme, it is a perpetuation of this idea that the German people were completely innocent of any of the crimes committed by Nazi Germany and it was all the fault of a small criminal elite. Nice rewriting of history to fit your narrow mindset.

Humans are predatory beings in general, so any claim about innocence is humoristic at best, especially in regards to the “great powers”.
Hence, Bresson's criticism of Ansel Adams - e.g "..how can you sit there taking pictures of rocks when there's a war on?.." received Adams response: “..the understanding of the world of nature will aid in holding the world of man together..”

 

[removed account4]

People can practice al they want. Sure they will improve. But if they don't have it- they will ever get it...that is the bottom line. And by it I mean genius or at least highly skilled.

well, i sort of agree with you and sort of not, but i am guessing most people who are not extremely skilled or a mad genius realize this ..
their "it" means they get "good enough" to be able to make a photograph the way they want. ... ( nothing wrong with that ! )
because it means different levels of skill, creativity, anal retentiveness, loosy goosiness, &c to different people ..
like a state of equilibrium ..

 

[frank]

With dedicated practice, everyone can realize their potential, whatever that potential is.

 

[benjiboy]

To here someone from Germany say that is offensive in the extreme, it is a perpetuation of this idea that the German people were completely innocent of any of the crimes committed by Nazi Germany and it was all the fault of a small criminal elite. Nice rewriting of history to fit your narrow mindset.

That's true, the Nazis didn't cease power they were elected and enthusiastically supported throughout the war by the German people.