the great schism of photography

[juan]

Apparently not.

 

[removed account4]

Public Service Announcement

This is a 6 year old thread...even the zombies died.

not sure about that, the schism has been around since the 1830s and is alive and well today
just look around, read around, relevant still.. no zombies.

 

[wiltw]

Maybe the topic is better served with a fresh date on Post 1, so that those who read the age of the threads will not avoid an active and fresh discussion!

 

[KenS]

The question you might be better 'answered by asking yourself...

Do you make photographs to meet your own need to be 'creative' or.. do you make photographs to 'show others' how
'good' a photographer you think you are?

I spent 40-odd years making photographs of a 'something' observed by the scientist viewer's eye... and got payed for so doing.

In my 'retirement years' I now make photographs for (little old) Me". If 'Joe Blow' (or my 'best' friend does not 'like' them... I don't give a damn. If.... when looking at the composition on the ground glass, 'I" ...and ONLY I decide, if the scene.... the 'composition is 'really' worth that sheet of film (as well the time and 'cost' of processing, I then activate the shutter.... and 'move on' seeking another scene worth recording to the second sheet of film in the 'holder'.

Ken

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

More like a chasm...

 

[MurrayMinchin]

I'd argue that doing technical tests allows a freedom of artistic expression unavailable to those who don't test, with rare exceptions.

Mere mortals like me do tests so we can foresee in our minds eye, before the shutter is tripped, a clear path to the final photograph which often bears little resemblance to the original scene. It also allows little revelations when pondering how to achieve a challenging image that brings new techniques into your list of possibilities.

An example of a rare exception would be jnantz, who with a force as elemental and undeniable as an ocean tide, exists in a state of constant flux where he can pull ideas out of nowhere in pursuit of the images he creates....but it's based on decades of non-linear experimentation.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Public Service Announcement

This is a 6 year old thread...even the zombies died.

Reminds me of a story about Albert Einstein that I heard just yesterday. He was walking with his teaching assistant across the Princeton campus where he teached a course on physics. The assistant was complaining to him.

"Dr, Einstein. You gave the students the same test that you gave the class last year. All the questions are the same."

"Ah, yes. That's true." said Einstein. "But the answers this year are different."

 

[Vaughn]

I'll just hope for the best if I run into a chef with the same philosophy (I cook only for myself.)

I think it is a mistake to see this as two end points of a continium. I am not at either end, nor anywhere in between. The duality just is not going to cut it. They are just two different paths, amongst many one can take with photography.

PS -- there are many reasons I show my work to others. Ego, for sure, and money also. But the most important reason is to learn.

 

[Don_ih]

do you make photographs to 'show others' how 'good' a photographer you think you are?

Doing that is a sure route to despair.

Photography is like any other pursuit. There will be people who use different angles to approach the same goal (in this instance, making a photo). The end result is rarely going to be judged by the method - it will be judged as a thing itself. As in, "I like this photo" or "I hate this photo" -- maybe even a "Is that even a photo?" With sufficient space, even the person who made the photo will judge it on its result, with the means of creation only being a vaguely related and foggy memory.

I, personally, am fairly cavalier regarding exposure and development, with only a bare minimum of what I'd call "testing" under the hood, but I still have a clear idea of what the image will be from viewfinder to print. That it sometimes (or often) (or majorly) doesn't end up that way is, perhaps, a disappointment. But I highly doubt anyone, even with the greatest knowledge of all the malleable and fixed characteristics of all the variables involved, will end up much less disappointed. For all one's knowledge and creativity, one can still be quite often wrong.

 

[Sirius Glass]

 

[Bill Burk]

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 still believe in the "right brain - left brain" concept. But Vaughn, you are probably right too. The two sides are not divided unless you cut the medulla.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

In some ways, this is the sort of thing that has moved me away from digital. In part, I enjoy using analog cameras because there's a cadence to it, a process that I enjoy going through. I find newer film cameras with motor drives and auto everything boring as well, as the process of using them is similar to digital. The more I have been using my various cameras, the more I have moved towards looking to create, and enjoying, the sort of images that you describe here. That said I don't much care for my Holga - still trying to find an appreciation of it. I'd sell it, but it's hardly worth the effort to me. No, I'll let it sit on the shelf for a few more months and, one day, I'll decide to load some film in the sucker and try again.

I think Holgas are something that grow on you- it's not an instantaneous appreciation like there is for other more precise instruments. Also, like other less precise instruments, you have to develop an understanding of how it works, the kinds of images it makes, and the best way to control it, to get a real feel for what it is capable of. If you can bear in mind its limitations, and take advantage of those, then you can yield solid negatives to work from and take in whatever direction you want to. I'm happy mine does NOT leak light anywhere- that's one "feature" I'm happy to forego. But the focusing funkiness, the low resolution, and the limited shutter speeds are all things I can work with. It really does make it more about the content than it does about it being "photographic" (in the sense of "photographic" meaning highly detailed, sharply rendered, and a striking degree of verisimilitude).

 

[MattKing]

Also, like other less precise instruments, you have to develop an understanding of how it works, the kinds of images it makes, and the best way to control it, to get a real feel for what it is capable of.

Michelle Bates does wonderful work with Holgas and other plastic cameras.
And she carries duct tape with her wherever she goes!

 

[Vaughn]

I still believe in the "right brain - left brain" concept. But Vaughn, you are probably right too. The two sides are not divided unless you cut the medulla.

Yes, a useful concept...but as I grow older, my agnostic tendencies have grown beyond our concepts of god to also include our concepts of the workings of the human brain. My brain was poisoned early on by that Zen mantra; The mind cannot know the Mind. Create a model for the workings of the brain and our levels of conscienceness (or whatever the model calls them), work that model until it can't be worked anymore, and one still ends up at the same place one started, wondering how the heck it all works. But it all adds to our wealth of knowledge.

But as an agnostic, I tend not to believe in the concept of left and right brain, just like I do not believe in a god with human attributes. I do not believe in beliefs, in general, and certainly none of my own.