What was your latest theoretical/analytic/critical/art related photography book?

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cliveh

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How did we all get along before we had ... Chemistry theory, string theory, relativity theory, you name it theory ... ?

The prevalence of this sort of anti-intellectualism is very worrying, it seems to me.

Why think about anything?

But he has a very valid point. The images of countless photographers before many of the theories you mention are still classics and not dependent on any theory.
 

Black Dog

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I started out on burgundy,but soon hit the harder stuff

I disagree. I think a good background in Critical theory is important and that self criticism and self analysis are key to improving your own work in any art form including photography.

I'd been making images for over 20 years and working in photography professionally, also commissioning work from other photographers before changing direction in 1986. I'd done very little personal work between 76-86 mainly die to lack of time.

So from 1986 onwards I began re-evaluating my personal work and soon decided on some major changes, th edecision, at the same timew I began reading Critical theory books. They made sense and as I began making new bodies of work I actually found it easier to make the work I wanted.

It's not just what you photograph, it's what are you trying to say, who or what is your audience, and every now and again it's necessary to re-evaluate.

Maybe the most important dedision I made was to produce bodies of work, coherent possible exhibition sets, that definitely came from reading numerous books, theory and mongraphs.

The changes in direction and reading Critical theory, then going on workshops (Peter Goldfield, Pail Hill, Peter Catrell, Fay Godwin & John Blakemore), just confirmed I was going in the right direction. About 10 yeas later I decided I wanted to learn more about contextualising my work, it was years since my last academic study and I made a decision to go back to University and study Industrial Archaeology (my work had gone in that direction). Later 2001-3 I did an MA in Photography, ultimately that came down to being able to analyse your own work, contextualise it with reards to photography/photographers as awhole, work to chosen criteria.

The bottom line is that I'd chosen the right way for myself in the late 1980's, I'm critical of my own work, edit quite ruthlessly. I'm lucky that I've mingled with like minded photographers who's opinions I respect and that has helped as well.

Ian
That's been my experience too [and I was fortunate to assist with the workshops at Duckspool circa 1999, which really broadened my horizons]. I'd also recommend the previously mentioned books by Robert Adams,Paul Hill and AD Coleman, plus Art and Fear [Ted Orland], and On Being A Photographer [David Hurn and Bill Jay]. Non photography books have always been a real source of inspiration for me as well, as you might guess from my sig! For instance A Sand Country Almanac {Aldo Leopold] and Mountaineering In Scotland [WH Murray].
 

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I can't make sense of your statement Clive, I suspect you may be chasing a straw man, or simply misunderstanding my rebuttal
 

Moopheus

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I can't make sense of your statement Clive, I suspect you may be chasing a straw man, or simply misunderstanding my rebuttal

Well, I didn't quite follow it either. You seemed to be trying to make a comparison between the physical sciences that have affected every aspect of our lives and academic critical theory which has, you know, not. Which is, I think, pretty funny. By what criteria does one judge the success or failure of critical theory? Scientists have to produce some sort of result that can be somehow verified in the real world. Unless they are working in String theory. Then they have to hope they can get enough press to get by on grants and book contracts, at least for a while. Hmmm...I guess there is a connection to critical theory.

Clive: I wouldn't say exactly 'no theory,' or at least not in a really formalized sense. I mean, every photographer of the past operated with some idea formed out of their own personality, interest, and background. Different things motivated them. There may have been some commonalities due to the medium they chose to use, but not necessarily very much beyond the trivial and obvious connections. I mean, what's the connection between Doc Edgarton in the Nevada desert photographing bomb tests and Diane Arbus photograping nudists in a camp?
 
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John Koehrer

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Little boy looking at a display of photographs says to the photographer.
"Hey mister, why did you take that picture?"

Photographer says to little boy.
"I thought it looked neat."

Art theory may be good for your resume but in real life. "I thought it looked neat" works.

To which I might add. Blah, blah, blah!

And even more, "Those who can't do, teach!" Or write criticism?
 

MattKing

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I doubt art criticism ever directly improved anyone's photographs.

But its funny - if you read a lot of art criticism, you start to notice a lot of things, and when you notice things, you tend to see even more things.

And sometimes, as a result, both your photographs, and other people's photographs, become more interesting.

And somehow, I think more interesting photographs are better photographs.
 

Ian Grant

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Taking what you said a little further Matt, I thing reading critical theory, particularly books or articles about other photographers work, going to exhibitions etc ultimate has a subconscious effect on the way you see.

It does make you think in a way that becomes intuitive, it also gives you confidence in your work. Mastery of craft is equally important and helps to enable us to be more creative.

Perhaps what's most important is finding what direction to go in taking the randomness out of what you're shooting. That doesn't mean not taking the odd shots that fit the "I thought it looked neat" that John Koerhrer mentions, I find those images often become the seeds for possible new projects.

That you do find reading non technical books is that successful photographers work to produce coherent bodies of work, set themselves goals, work on projects and there's no randomness to their image making, or presentation.

Ian
 
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doughowk

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Some have suggested A.D. Coleman as a good read. He's a self-described destruction critic (see his recent rants on Robert Capa). Judy Seigel (issue #5 of "World Journal of post-factory photography") provides the best antidote to Coleman's tirades and self-inflation.

A sampler of various writings on photography would be Ashley la Grange "Basic Critical Theory for photographers" . But I'm still wading thru it.
 

Moopheus

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Perhaps what's most important is fiding what direction to go in taking the randomness out of what you're shooting.

Why would I want to do that? Randomness is the project. Order is an illusion of the mind.
 

pdeeh

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Why do you think that? It is surely an illusion of the fish
 

Sirius Glass

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I doubt art criticism ever directly improved anyone's photographs.

But its funny - if you read a lot of art criticism, you start to notice a lot of things, and when you notice things, you tend to see even more things.

And sometimes, as a result, both your photographs, and other people's photographs, become more interesting.

And somehow, I think more interesting photographs are better photographs.

Back in the 1960s camera club criticism improved my composition and cropping skills.
 

cliveh

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Photography is a bit like quantum physics, in the fact that you either have coherence or decoherence.
 

MattKing

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Back in the 1960s camera club criticism improved my composition and cropping skills.

Camera club criticism and art criticism are only slightly related.
 

frank

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Camera clubs are great for learning the fundamentals, but staying too long, they become stifling.

Time for you to go, grasshopper!
 

Sirius Glass

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Camera clubs are great for learning the fundamentals, but staying too long, they become stifling.

Time for you to go, grasshopper!

I agree. That is why I stopped going to camera clubs by the 1970s. [Read the post, I put the time frame in it. Cricket!]
 

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....On Photography by Susan Sontag. I don't want to limit this conversation by bookending it (so to speak) with these two classic texts,...

It was so good I threw my copy on the fire rather then return it to charity shop, for recycling.
 

Black Dog

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Some have suggested A.D. Coleman as a good read. He's a self-described destruction critic (see his recent rants on Robert Capa). Judy Seigel (issue #5 of "World Journal of post-factory photography") provides the best antidote to Coleman's tirades and self-inflation.

A sampler of various writings on photography would be Ashley la Grange "Basic Critical Theory for photographers" . But I'm still wading thru it.

I agree to some extent,but have found him interesting and I'm glad I make the effort.
 

Ian Grant

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Paul Hill (a well known UK Workshop leader and educator - also an excellent photographer) said that Camera Clubs were Photography for Sport.

It depends what you want from your photography and creativity. I joined a camera club in the early to mid 80's but realised it wasn't really for me fairly quickly, but it gave me a chance to experiment to see what I really wanted to be producing. As I moved away I found many others felt the same. I ran quite a few workshops in the late 1980's early 90's with these dissatisfied camera club members.

A high point though was being asked to give a talk at Litchfield, the titular President was The Earl of Litchfield - a relative of the Queen (he attends once a year). After a good talk, I was heckled for saying that Photographs were shown in art galleries, by then I'd had a few exhibitions, I turned on my major heckler he told me he worked in a Camera store - I asked him if he'd heard of the Photographers Gallery in London, The Untitled in Sheffield and a few others he hadn't and I'd highlighted his ignorance.

There's a few Camera clubs who know me and my opinions and I go back every 3-5 years, they aren't the norm though.

Ian
 

Moopheus

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Photography is a bit like quantum physics, in the fact that you either have coherence or decoherence.

All possible images exist in our photographs in superposition until we develop them?
 

cliveh

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All possible images exist in our photographs in superposition until we develop them?

Or should that be before we expose them?
 

cliveh

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When I look at a Van Gogh painting I can see sheer brilliance and genius in his depiction in paint. In the same way I can look at photographic images by Eugene Atget. I don’t need to read a 28 page description of image analysis to appreciate the work. The evidence is there before me.
 

Sirius Glass

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All possible images exist in our photographs in superposition until we develop them?

All photographs are perfect with perfect composition until the film is immersed in developer and then photographic image decay begins.
 
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TheFlyingCamera

TheFlyingCamera

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It was so good I threw my copy on the fire rather then return it to charity shop, for recycling.

My mention of Susan Sontag was as a single example of critical discussion of photography. Neither her book nor Barthes' book were meant as definitive examples. If you find that you disagree, or even violently disagree, how about arguing your point about what you disagree with instead of being, pardon the pun, inflammatory? Saying that you disagree with her enough to throw her book in the fire does nothing to refute her points (if anything, if you actually read what she wrote, you're making her point about the relationship between men, the male ego, violence and photography). Please, do counter her arguments if you find them stupid. I have my own issues with her take on the medium, and I'd love to hear someone else articulate their own understanding of how photography works (on a non-mechanical level).
 
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TheFlyingCamera

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When I look at a Van Gogh painting I can see sheer brilliance and genius in his depiction in paint. In the same way I can look at photographic images by Eugene Atget. I don’t need to read a 28 page description of image analysis to appreciate the work. The evidence is there before me.

Clive - there's a difference between appreciating an image (a perfectly worthwhile pursuit in itself) and being able to articulate WHY that image is brilliant, what it means not only in isolation but in context. If you had previously only seen Italian Renaissance paintings, and then had a Van Gogh plopped in front of you, you'd probably have a similar reaction to it that many of his contemporaries had... "WTF?!?!?!" in today's vernacular. You wouldn't see it as brilliant, in all likelihood - you'd see it as crap finger-painted by a lunatic. Today, we see Van Gogh as a visionary who completely changed the game. But why did he do what he did? Why is what he did so revolutionary? What about Monet? His water lilies are also game-changing paintings, but to understand them you need to know that Monet was painting with a very specific agenda - he was trying to replicate on canvas exactly what he saw through his cataract-laden myopic eyes. There's his theory - his art was all about painting the world as he visually perceived it rather than how it was supposed to appear, or how others saw it. You can certainly get into an argument about the metaphoric meaning of that act, but we're not here to argue about Monet or Van Gogh specifically.
 
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