The Value of Time after Time/Value

Excuse me

• (a) As a Photographers, after the “seeing” and the “blind” activities with your own work, how much time do you spend exploring your own results in every step? (only with regard to the Value of the Image)

• (b) As a Photographers, how much time do you spend making that same Image evaluation once faced and reviewing other’s works?

Years ago, Pierre Gonnord (a French Portraitist Photographer) said during a conference “… it takes time to contemplate a Work, is not a matter of 30 seconds” … “The analysis of an Image is a very complex task ..., however it usually resides in a very narrow visual context, or in most cases, it is completely absent”

How much time do your devote to that observing & analyzing activities? And how do you do it? Do you have the “equipment” for that?

Thank you in advance for your comments

i have a space where i spend a lot of time, where i put every "good" print... it sits there for varying amounts of time where i can be with it - look at it, consider it, think how i could improve it, enjoy it, evaluate it, etc. after a period of time it is either printed with the changes in mind, given away, or put in a box to be considered later because it somehow doesn't have that "je ne sais qua" that makes me pursue it.

jvo said:

i have a space where i spend a lot of time, where i put every "good" print... it sits there for varying amounts of time where i can be with it - look at it, consider it, think how i could improve it, enjoy it, evaluate it, etc. after a period of time it is either printed with the changes in mind, given away, or put in a box to be considered later because it somehow doesn't have that "je ne sais qua" that makes me pursue it.

Click to expand...

Interesting diagnostic method, thank you for sharing jvo!

Every couple of months I go trough all my negatives for one year (for example 2012, or 2014...) - and look all scans again. Interesting is that I often find some picture worth printing that I was thinking were bad couple of years ago.
I also regularly review my prints, and reprint some (the main rule is that I love less contrast as I go older ).

darkosaric said:

Every couple of months I go trough all my negatives for one year (for example 2012, or 2014...) - and look all scans again. Interesting is that I often find some picture worth printing that I was thinking were bad couple of years ago.
I also regularly review my prints, and reprint some (the main rule is that I love less contrast as I go older ).

Click to expand...

That's a good exercise indeed! To my way of thinking it also happens (to find that worth) when looking/analyzing "again" the works of others.

Thanks for your post Darko

I make what I think are great prints, I then matt them to final presentation, and over time look at them and see if I still like them or look for areas
to change, once I have what I think is perfect (for me) I put the image up for exhibition to see what others think.

Yes I also find that I appreciate in some pictures what I call their "liveability" factor, can I see the picture day after day and still like it? Perhaps when we first see a picture the quality of attraction is in the bold simple visual elements. Then later, after we become familiar with these bold simple visual elements we also become aware of some flaws, and perhaps eventually we may decide to retain or discard the picture based not on the visual strengths but on the visual weaknesses?

tedr1 said:

Perhaps when we first see a picture the quality of attraction is in the bold simple visual elements. Then later, after we become familiar with these bold simple visual elements we also become aware of some flaws, and perhaps eventually we may decide to retain or discard the picture based not on the visual strengths but on the visual weaknesses?

Click to expand...

Indeed perhaps, and in my opinion what you see is not the same at the first sight, than giving it the second look - or the subsequent ones -, even without letting the time pass by in the middle of those glances. It happens, sometimes, that you find something new within a few seconds at the very time of that visual route, or in a different way, letting yourself go with your eyes all over the work, changing distances, focusing or drawing attention to one particular point … Those differences or findings increase when you increase (your eye-level) or change your way of thinking (or knowing), after spending time improving or learning ...

Because as I see it, visual elements are present on any one of them (the different glances I mean), perhaps it is more related to our defined concept and/or the amount of visual elements we have in our minds (knowledge) in those visual moments, or the importance we give for one over the other, or the value of those elements that we take into account to make that difference (weak or strength as you’ve said in your case) within to many others aspects as well.

Of course there must be a ending "watching" point.

Thank you tedr1 for sharing this point of view, too philosophical I know, but that’s the way I like this thread to be as well.

(…)

And I would also like to know the other way around, I mean: What happens when you look at the work/s of other/s Photographer/s? Do you give it or provide the same “eyes”, or on the contrary you change your state of mind and the depth or intensity of your look?

The key word for me is: interesting. I don't analyze work (consciously) based on the knowledge of how a picture should look like (composition, etc.) or others might perceive it as I don't want to be influenced by how pictures are made. This would eventually lead into designing a picture. If i'd wanted that, I'd do graphic design - much less hassle. I just go by what I find interesting. That could be something else every day. I don't have favourite pictures, or picture I like, just those I find interesting and those I do not.

The thing with evaluating old proof-sheets and seeing different, happened to me as well. I think that's normal. With looking at images we are becoming better at looking at images and our perception changes over time. Personally, I'm so far behind of developing and proofing the "recent" stuff, revisiting contacts is hopeless

Anyways, that's just me, how I works for me personally.

Andi

~andi said:

... I don't analyze work (consciously) ... would eventually lead into designing a picture.

Click to expand...

Thanks ~andi

"Interesting" comment indeed. However, I believe that the painstaking analysis should be done at some point (conciously or not) because that's some way of improving, and that instantly means putting oneself from one good state into another better, don't you think? (and "better" is a suggestive state of mind sometimes). Improve - like worsen - could be why perception changes over time in one way or another, and happily not in the same order. As for the design thing, I also think it's a good exercise to remember that not-designing is a another way of designing.

I understand that you decide to follow the criterion of guiding yourself by your own way of understanding the interesting thing, and If it works for you, no more words to say, I like it very much.

Thanks again for sharing it!
Best

Hi Lag,

LAG said:

"Interesting" comment indeed. However, I believe that the painstaking analysis should be done at some point (conciously or not) because that's some way of improving, and that instantly means putting oneself from one good state into another better, don't you think? (and "better" is a suggestive state of mind sometimes).

Click to expand...

I'm with you there. Knowledge of the rules is important. Doing some analyzing now and then can be very helpful in understanding the rules and their application and develop your own work in a certain direction. How much that drives your practice depends of the goals, I think. If you like to sell photographs you need to know some things about how most people react to photographs (e.g. rule of thirds helps, nice landscape with certain properties our early ancestors found "here we are secure from the saber-tooth cat" helps, current trends, etc.). In my opinion neither way of working is valid or invalid. In the end there's the picture, and I don't care how it came to be. Most of my pictures, I don't find interesting at all. Output is like one interesting picture per year or so. Certainly I could have made a lot of them looking "better" by applying some rules. But that's not at all what I am doing when I snap the shutter. For me snap time is deciding to what I want to include in the frame, that's it. You often hear that photography which doesn't follow the formal rules is "bad" work in itself. I'm not sure if that is so. I certainly can't proof on or the other. It might be, it might be not. However, I can say if I find a picture interesting or not

The subconcious/concious thing a very very interesting topic in itself. That's probably too much for this thread and not philosophical enough. Discoveries the field of neuroscience during the last 15 years are very exciting in that regard.

LAG said:

Improve - like worsen - could be why perception changes over time in one way or another, and happily not in the same order. As for the design thing, I also think it's a good exercise to remember that not-designing is a another way of designing.

Click to expand...

Yes, I believe it is so. The design metaphor I used was maybe not very good to express my thought. What I meant was that for me personally, I found the camera is not a good tool for translating an idea, a concept, a picture in my head into 'reality'. It's much easier for me to use other tools of illustration/design for that. Not that it can't be done (advertisement photography comes to mind). For example, if I'd want giant a elephants on stilts carrying buildings across the desert it's far easier for me to get that using a brush than a camera. However, I chose the camera, and I am not trying to express my imagination with it. My task is to select the content, a slice if life if you will, and then let the rest happen. The resulting picture then "works for me" (="interesting", "something else") or it doesn't.

LAG said:

I understand that you decide to follow the criterion of guiding yourself by your own way of understanding the interesting thing, and If it works for you, no more words to say, I like it very much.

Thanks again for sharing it!

Click to expand...

Thank you very much for the appreciation. That's exactly how it its. Very well put. I'm very lucky that I am able to deal with photography in such a dilettante way. If i would have to feed the cat with photography, it would be very different.

This is a very interesting thread. It's great to have something non-technical once in a while.


Andi

~andi said:

For me snap time is deciding to what I want to include in the frame, that's it.

Click to expand...

I like this

~andi said:

... I chose the camera, and I am not trying to express my imagination with it. My task is to select the content, a slice if life if you will, and then let the rest happen.

Click to expand...

Very attractive point of view this time! Perhaps, because the camera is far less likely to have the ability to translate that imagination, therefore is least efficient than our brains. But in the end, do we want (or need) to have the same content in mind & film/paper? or Do we have to translate within the exactly same existing proportions or importance what we've seen in relation what we finally get? Must it be an identical-memory debt in order not to deceive ourselves? With the appropriate expertise we can achieve both, and at the same time be able to dissociate them (imagination/reality, camera/brain)

~andi said:

If i would have to feed the cat with photography, it would be very different.

Click to expand...

If I had a dollar every time I heard that ...

~andi said:

This is a very interesting thread. It's great to have something non-technical once in a while.

Click to expand...

Well, truthfully this thread is technical, and for me, even it’s the hardest part. Think for a minute Andi, what’s our head but a Photographic box with two holes for light? Two! that doubles the difficulty, and there’s another added handicap, when we blink eyes, our brain fills that tiny emptiness, our cameras do not, again double effort for us. Brain and camera see & store the data differently, though both can do that to remember (it's on us if we want the same outcome), and that requires ... (1)

We start to see the way nature intended, and at this very moment is different for each one of us. However we can “develop” our way to see … by “fixing” in our brains both what we see and what we learn seeing, and it’s unfailingly done the way each one of us were giving by that nature to see, and depending on the ability we have to recall the fixed by the same nature. Tools, methods, procedures, skills, memories, … (1) tecnhnique.

Kind regards!

LAG said:

But in the end, do we want (or need) to have the same content in mind & film/paper? or Do we have to translate within the exactly same existing proportions or importance what we've seen in relation what we finally get? Must it be an identical-memory debt in order not to deceive ourselves? With the appropriate expertise we can achieve both, and at the same time be able to dissociate them (imagination/reality, camera/brain)

Click to expand...

I'm afraid, I lost you there (might be a language problem, I'm not a native speaker).

I believe it can't be the same. The camera can not exactly translate, it can transcribe. It records how life looks like to a camera at a certain point in time (with all those parameters like film, lens, etc. thrown into the mix). The result is something different entirely, not even visible to the naked eye. Then it gets developed somehow and its transformed into something else (negative, sensor data), then with enlargement it's something else again. Finally it becomes something else in our brains when we view it. And as no brain is the same, that something else can't be replicated. As our brains change 24/7/365, that something else will be different every time.

I'm not contradicting what you said here (since I've not yet grasped it), just thinking out aloud. I believe I have to think more about to gain more understanding. I've not thought that much about those things, I admit.

LAG said:

Well, truthfully this thread is technical, and for me, even it’s the hardest part.

Click to expand...

I agree, it is very hard for me too. Probably why I chose the camera over the pen

LAG said:

Think for a minute Andi, what’s our head but a Photographic box with two holes for light? Two! that doubles the difficulty, and there’s another added handicap, when we blink eyes, our brain fills that tiny emptiness, our cameras do not, again double effort for us. Brain and camera see & store the data differently, though both can do that to remember (it's on us if we want the same outcome), and that requires ... (1)
We start to see the way nature intended, and at this very moment is different for each one of us. However we can “develop” our way to see … by “fixing” in our brains both what we see and what we learn seeing, and it’s unfailingly done the way each one of us were giving by that nature to see, and depending on the ability we have to recall the fixed by the same nature. Tools, methods, procedures, skills, memories, … (1) tecnhnique.

Click to expand...

Hmm.. I can't give you a reply to this right now. I really have to think about that a bit more. I'm not sure our heads can be compared to a photographic box (I know you meant it on the metaphoric level, but so do I). I've to think more about it.


Best
Andi

~andi said:

I'm afraid, I lost you there (might be a language problem, I'm not a native speaker).

Click to expand...

I am not a native speaker either. Could be that of course. Let's see if I can explain it better now with fewers words and an example:


So, you're not trying to express your imagination with the camera you choose, you include things in the frame and that's it, and let the rest happen! Ok, perfect! - I was assuming perhaps that when you select "those things" it is for some reason first, right? (then, to my way of thinking, whether we want it or not, the image is emerging from our imagination in that selection step - however we tend to think we're only expressing, either real things or not) ... But, with my answer (full of questions) I was trying to ask you if those things that you've included, you want them to (or if they must) be the same or not in the end (as you've selected) ...

~andi said:

I believe it can't be the same. The camera can not exactly translate, it can transcribe. It records how life looks like to a camera at a certain point in time (with all those parameters like film, lens, etc. thrown into the mix). The result is something different entirely, not even visible to the naked eye. Then it gets developed somehow and its transformed into something else (negative, sensor data), then with enlargement it's something else again. Finally it becomes something else in our brains when we view it. And as no brain is the same, that something else can't be replicated. As our brains change 24/7/365, that something else will be different every time.

Click to expand...

With the word "translate" I was trying to say more or less: "to move/carry one thing from one place (our view) to another one (our outcome) but with the same integrity" (when needed). I agree it was not the best word/verb, and it's hard for me in english too (perhaps a better word could have benn transfer, IDK) ... but exactly, you got my point! I said it before "Brain and camera see & store the data differently" & "the camera is least efficient than our brains". I agree with the changing part in the whole Photography stages

~andi said:

I'm not sure our heads can be compared to a photographic box (I know you meant it on the metaphoric level, but so do I). I've to think more about it.

Click to expand...

I made an analogy to explain that very similar things - with very different working difficulties - can do very different things, to achive - sometimes - the very same result (Wow!)

I think the thread is being slightly diverted with these thoughts, but I'm not complaining.

Thanks for this nice chat!

I'm just clarifying here, then I'll stop As you said, it's gotten a bit off-topic.

LAG said:

I am not a native speaker either. Could be that of course. Let's see if I can explain it better now with fewers words and an example:
So, you're not trying to express your imagination with the camera you choose, you include things in the frame and that's it, and let the rest happen!

Click to expand...

Exactly. I'd got even further: I don't try to express my imagination with a camera at all.

LAG said:

Ok, perfect! - I was assuming perhaps that when you select "those things" it is for some reason first, right?

Click to expand...

Right. I include what i find interesting at that moment. I don't know the reason why this is interesting at that moment. I probably need full a psychoanalysis to find this out

LAG said:

(then, to my way of thinking, whether we want it or not, the image is emerging from our imagination in that selection step - however we tend to think we're only expressing, either real things or not) ...

Click to expand...

This is not the case with me. At least I try to avoid it. I don't have the picture in my head. I don't know what I got until I printed it.

LAG said:

But, with my answer (full of questions) I was trying to ask you if those things that you've included, you want them to (or if they must) be the same or not in the end (as you've selected) ...

Click to expand...

Ah, I got you now. For me they can't be the same. What I've selected is just what I wanted to include in the frame. The result is something completely different from what was photographed. I don't know what the picture looks like until i see it. I understand the school of previzualizing things and getting it "on paper" as one imagine it during taking the photograph. I think it's a good exercise to train a certain ability. It's diametrically different to what I feel doing with a camera. It don't like trying to take pictures I already know.



View attachment 170813



Did you see the fish at time of exposure and took the time to frame it correctly, etc. or was it a gut reaction to snap the shutter and you discovered it later?

LAG said:

I made an analogy to explain that very similar things - with very different working difficulties - can do very different things, to achive - sometimes - the very same result (Wow!)

I think the thread is being slightly diverted with these thoughts, but I'm not complaining.

Thanks for this nice chat!

Click to expand...

Thank you! Very nice chat indeed I've got something to chew on. But for now I'm back in the DR printing this enormous backlog...

~andi said:

I'm just clarifying here, then I'll stop As you said, it's gotten a bit off-topic.

Click to expand...

Don't worry about that! (I think that this thread is between you and me ...)

~andi said:

Right. I include what i find interesting at that moment. I don't know the reason why this is interesting at that moment. I probably need full a psychoanalysis to find this out

Click to expand...

Perhaps here is where "The subconcious/concious thing" you've mentioned before, comes in handy.

~andi said:

I don't have the picture in my head. I don't know what I got until I printed it... What I've selected is just what I wanted to include in the frame. The result is something completely different from what was photographed. I don't know what the picture looks like until i see it

Click to expand...

That's the key word on this, I think. I know what you mean but it's quite difficult not having a mental cross visual reference before photographing, not only of pictures we´ve seen before, or similar examples taken before, visual references of any kind "Learned or memorized" (archived in our minds - the shape of a fish is an example, for instance) because we never wear an "empty-of-previous-visual-references-mind" with us (Physically speaking).

~andi said:

I understand the school of previzualizing things and getting it "on paper" as one imagine it during taking the photograph. I think it's a good exercise to train a certain ability. It's diametrically different to what I feel doing with a camera. It don't like trying to take pictures I already know.

Click to expand...

I know we know that theory ~andi, and many others things learned with her. Look, the way I see it is more complex, because besides the subjet/s - or those things you include - you have many other factors or reasons to evaluate with it/them, and that takes us inevitably to our "learned things" again.

~andi said:

Did you see the fish at time of exposure and took the time to frame it correctly, etc. or was it a gut reaction to snap the shutter and you discovered it later?

Click to expand...

"River fish": I was looking for a fish in the river to take a photograph for a work under contract, I think that my mind was predisposed to this (in this case at least the shape of it was as a reference in my mind, among with many other things/ideas). As you already know, as the light shifts, the shadows do the same, so I couldn't see that light/shadow shape before until I was in the right place looking at the right place, then I came closer to it because some things (you cannot see in the frame) were bothering the message I wanted. Then I took some photographs (not only this one), and after a few minutes I saw some floating tree leaves, I waited til I was lucky enough to put "the eye of the fish". I am sure that all this would have been difficult to achieve with a gut reaction, at least not the same. And perhaps not impossible.

I think we need a break to think about it deeply. I have another ideas to put on the table

Thanks again!

~andi said:

The subconcious/concious thing a very very interesting topic in itself. That's probably too much for this thread and not philosophical enough. Discoveries the field of neuroscience during the last 15 years are very exciting in that regard.

Click to expand...

I take the blame for changing - only a little bit - the topic of this thread, enough to tackle a short idea, deep in content but in a few words. Two days ago, one student ask me for an idea for him to focus in, then I remember one thing I learned one day. I told him, "- Don't think. Pick a book at random. Pick a word from it at random. Don't think. Repeat it. Don't think. Put those words together: You got it, let's go now, do that photo!": I was giving him one of the tools from the Lateral Thinking. From that moment on, It only depends on him, to be honest with himself to obtain raw material to work with, any way he wants. It's so important to do it quickly without thinking, to make it pure.

~andi, I remember this thread then, and not only because of the "quoted" reference above, but also because of your way of "trying not to take pictures you already know"/"include things in the frame". Well, even with that Lateral method, it is astonishing to know how the speed of our conscius part try to invade our subconscious part from our minds to guide us as usual. Our way of looking is that fast too!

And I wanted to tell that here to end with this stage, that's all.

Your turn
Best

The trick is not to think but be devoid of any conscious consideration, which is often difficult to do.

Back to OP (b)

I would like to put another thing on the table because it seems as if the part that touches us to speak about how we do analyze the works from other people, makes it harder to attract comments. Perhaps we may be more comfortable talking about others opinions about others works ... How about this questions?

When you are faced with an assessment (of any scope) about a work (artistic or not), by a technocrat:

What kind of credit do you give to that judgment? Is it the same your attitude (agreement/disagreement) when - regardless of the work in question - the review is from someone you already know? Is it the same when that review - independently of the technocrat - is from some work you already know - you have your own judgment about – or different than when it is a new work for you? Do you remeasure your opinion again about it? Do you compare judgments? … And the most important question (perhaps) with a random example: What is the correct visual reading?

cliveh said:

The trick is not to think but take devoid of any conscious consideration, which is often difficult to do.

Click to expand...

"More than" often, very true!
Thanks cliveh

I like to spend at least 2 weeks with an image before I decide if I need to change something or not. Or whether it's even worth the effort.

Eric Rose said:

I like to spend at least 2 weeks with an image before I decide if I need to change something or not. Or whether it's even worth the effort.

Click to expand...

Thank you for your comment Eric.

I have a double-choice question for you about that change (view/review), if you're so kind to answer of course: Let's imagine that you have found that "the change" is needed, how would it be? (1) Modifying that creation? (taking decisions with the final result), or (2) Rebuiling that creation into a new one? (taking the decision to start again) I know, more or less, what are the huge amount of consequences involved of either decision (or new others) but I prefer your answer first. And by the way, could you share what are the grounds that lead you to that change?

Best

p.s. As for the effort, in my humble opinion, is always valuable, if you keep in mind that the reward is not always in the outcome itself, but the learning working on it, whatever the way in your answer.