What do photographs tell us about the photographer?

Roger:


A friend of mine is an artist who shows his work in a gallery on the England/Scotland border. He says a thick oil painting fetches a better price than a watercolor 'because you get more paint for your money'. True.

I once tried to sell prints and ran up against people (idiots) who questioned my prices because 'the shop charges only about €10 for a print that size'.
 
ClaremontPhoto said:
Roger:


A friend of mine is an artist who shows his work in a gallery on the England/Scotland border. He says a thick oil painting fetches a better price than a watercolor 'because you get more paint for your money'. True.

I once tried to sell prints and ran up against people (idiots) who questioned my prices because 'the shop charges only about €10 for a print that size'.
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I sold a photo at a show once, and was thrilled - happened to be standing next to the couple who bought it - they did not know I made that photo. Then they agreed with each other that the sepia barn (my photo) matched their couch exactly. So much for greatness. I match someone's couch.
 
Retroactively deleted. Not because the argument was invalid, but because I can't be arsed to argue. I'll just go to bed early instead.

Marx: every class acts in its own class interest.

Cheers,

Roger
 
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Bill,

Not trying to avoid the question, but I think, "Explain your work" and, "Explain yourself (As pertains to the work. Not What food you like)" amount to about the same thing.

The point was that the artist is explaining himself the best he can...in the work.

"What you get is what you get." Who said that?

Cheers,
Gary
 
Coming back to the OP's questions what photos can tell about the photographer - if anything.

I think you have to take into account for what purpose the photo was taken. Was it for a commercial job or was it for the fun of taking pictures. In case of the latter the photo will reveal what's of interest to the photog (and yes, also what gear he used -but I rate that unimportant in context of the question- flame away folks :D).

If the photog takes 100's of pics of old cars and car shows, it's a pretty safe bet he's not exclusively riding a bike (or a bus) to work every day. If he's posting 100 pics of dogs on flikr he's most likely not a cat person, supposing the dogs are still alive... but even the opposite would tell a lot.

Whatever special subject maybe his main focus, it says something about his area of interest. Execution of the photograph tells a lot about his skills with the medium and if he's caring about what he is doing. Putting effort into it or just snapping for an electronic piece of memory - maybe even a print who knows?

There's point & shoot snapping and there's HCB snapping - obviously he was anticipating or plain put, often just waiting for the deceicive moment - in other words waiting until someone jumped that puddle or a rider came cycling around that corner to include the human element in his picture. Because otherwise it would have been just a boring shot.
 
Micky D said:
Okay, you have a hell of a lot of photos there, but after about ten minutes I would guess:

You're a very organised type of guy, everything in it's right place.
This probably comes from a military career or police work, maybe both, very proud to be a vet'.

You're a trained observer, you don't miss much.
You're very disciplined and upright.

Outwardly you're very strong and severe, but inside you're a big softy, a very likeable nice guy.
You have no problems getting up real close to people (physically) and are quite happy in a big crowd, though you like to get away from it all sometimes. You'd probably like to get out into the wilderness more often for some nature photography.

You're not a gear-head, though I suspect you do have quite a bit of gear, eclectic, RFs, SLRs.

You're no longer in the military/law enforcement, I can't say what you do now but most likely something technical. You're well read, very well read even.

You're probably an "Artist" but just don't know it yet.:)
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Dear Micky,

Ah! I see! It's like astrology!

Build from what you know, to what you don't, based on probabilities and what the customer wants/expects to hear. The photos tell you more than star charts, but to a considerable extent, both are merely a prop for your own intuition.

(This is not an insult or an attack. Far from it. I used to be quite good at astrology until I gave it up some 40 years ago. People often said, "Wow! How did you know that from my star signs?" I never had the heart to tell them that the star signs were, to be generous, of limited influence except insofar ar the truth that people who believe in astrology like confirmation that they match their star signs.)

Cheers,

Roger
 
Roger Hicks said:
All right: let's turn this around.

Does anyone 'with a single shred of functioning brains' dismiss any and all opinions unless he knows the full life history of the person delivering that opinion?

Clearly not. We all read all sorts of opinions all the time. We may agree more or less with them; we may have a higher or lower regard for their originators as people. To refuse to address any opinion because its author is not personally known to you is clearly foolish. The only other reason to refuse to address it is because you do not consider it worth addressing.

The idea that there is a log-rolling, self-serving Art Establishment is not exactly unpopular. Dismissing it with words like 'Duh' (Fred's, not yours) will lead many people to suspect that there may be some truth in this idea.
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Unless I read it wrong, I think Fred's 'Duh' was endorsing that idea, not dismissing it.

I don't have a specific interest in this case, and noted that I was addressing the general line of argument rather than your particular quote--because "Address the argument, not the person!" is offered as a supposed tautological declaration of victory in arguments all the time and it's usually rubbish. So it gets tiresome.

Obviously you can't evaluate the entire life history of every commentator. But since it was about personal experience, of course who is speaking matters. Their biases and prejudices matter. Biases and prejudices are the atoms of an opinion; unless you're enough of an expert in a given field to judge those against what you think are the facts, you have to know something about the person in question to have any prayer.

If I'm an alien from another planet who doesn't know about the concept of race, and I read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, I'm gonna find it really convincing because I don't know anything about the topic and I haven't bothered to find out the biases and prejudices of the writer. Obviously, this would be a huge mistake. Get what I'm saying here?
 
Roger Hicks said:
Dear Micky,

Ah! I see! It's like astrology!

Build from what you know, to what you don't,
Click to expand...

Not in the least. It's psychology.

I don't even know bmattock, (I only joined this forum this afternoon while searching the web for information on a recently acquired soviet rangefinder.)
 
Micky D said:
Not in the least. It's psychology.

I don't even know bmattock, (I only joined this forum this afternoon while searching the web for information on a recently acquired soviet rangefinder.)
Click to expand...

It's kind of spooky, actually. My first thought was just like Roger's, but I saw that you were new and don't know jack about me. Pleased to meet'cha, by the way.
 
climbing_vine said:
Unless I read it wrong, I think Fred's 'Duh' was endorsing that idea, not dismissing it
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Dear Climbing Vine,

We evidently differ in our interpretations of his comments.

Your point about the Protocols is well taken, but equally, you must take mine that if we insisted on personal acquaintanceship with the author ef every opinion we address, we would all waste far less time on forums like this, where often, we don't even know the name of the person delivering an opinion.

Before I saw your most recent post I has deleted both the post you quote (not much point seeing you've quoted it) and my reply to Fred. This is not because the arguments aren't worth pursuing, but because I don't have the time -- or, increasingly, the inclination. Please do not take this as a personal attack: it isn't, any more than it's an admission of defeat.

Cheers,

Roger
 
Micky D said:
Not in the least. It's psychology.

I don't even know bmattock, (I only joined this forum this afternoon while searching the web for information on a recently acquired soviet rangefinder.)
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Dear Micky,

My apologies. It was meant to be lighthearted. Of course I could get cynical and say that astrology (at least in the sense of casting indidual horoscopes, and at least in the sense of the bits that are any use, which aren't many) is mostly psychology.

I would not however reverse that statement to make the classic error of the omitted middle and say that psychology is mostly astrology.

How are you doing with the information on the rangefinder?

Cheers,

Roger
 
Think in terms of photographs as windows (into what?) mirrors (of whom?). Or more interestingly, some of each or both at different times. They usually point to the question of the relationship between the photography and her subject. There is also a third party who completes the circuit: the viewer. Some say photographs are memento mori of a particular moment, never to occur again.
 
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I think if you are going to accept that you can tell something about the photographer from his pictures, you have to assume for the sake of this arugument, a consumately adept picture taker who is very good at what he does.

There is very little you could tell about my sister from her pictures other than, she has a woeful sense of compisition, the identies of her sitters is not important to her, otherwise she would include their heads more often, and she likes her cat a lot.


So, assuming a little bit more than competence, assuming an "artist" (for lets take the best clay we have to work with)


What can you tell me about Cartier Bresson (to pick a particular chap of whose work is generally known to all of us.)

As an ex intelligence officer I shall endeavour to provide a summary.

So, He speaks French. We can tell that from the byline.
He is poor becasue he only owns one camera and lens.
He travels a lot (probably hitching rides.)
He is reasonably able bodied, since he walks a lot, his clothes are probably worn and his shoes need resoling.
He may very well be Asian-French, since he seems to have lived in Asia quite a while, therefor I postulate that he is from Indo China.
Probably has some Socialist tendancies since he often phtographs poor people in the street. This fits with the Hanoi connection.
He is short. Shorter people are less threatening to strangers, and since he is Vietnamese, this is likely.
He is sneaky by nature, catching people unawares, again providing evidence of his poor upbringing and pointing to a life on street probably homeless.
I suspect the Leica was stolen.
He seems to have had some arty types take pity on him at some stage and put him up; it known he took some of their portaits. Probably against their wishes.
He obviously informed the Communitst party in France, since he went to Paris, and later took more than one trip to Russia at the height of the Cold War. There is strong possibilty he was recruited as an asset during the Spanish Civil war.
The fact that he avoided photographs of himself speaks volumes about his usefulness to the international communist conspriacy.

The only photographic portait known with any certainty that depicts in the early stage of his life can be desibed like this:
Examining the negative, and the large amount of dark area on one side of the picture, it is apparent that the camera was jammed into a gap in a board fence and the self timer used.
The subject is caught in the act of quickly running and trying to cross a puddle in order to get into position, but the camera went off early and caught him before he was ready.
 
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Qed

Qed

Previously, "There is also a third party who completes the circuit: the viewer."

Quod est demonstrandum.


Carlsen Highway said:
I think if you are going to accept that you can tell something about the photographer from his pictures, you have to assume for the sake of this arugument, a consumately adept picture taker who is very good at what he does.

There is very little you could tell about my sister from her pictures other than, she has a woeful sense of compisition, the identies of her sitters is not important to her, otherwise she would include their heads more often, and she likes her cat a lot.


So, assuming a little bit more than competence, assuming an "artist" (for lets take the best clay we have to work with)


What can you tell me about Cartier Bresson (to pick a particular chap of whose work is generally known to all of us.)

As an ex intelligence officer I shall endeavour to provide a summary.

So, He speaks French. We can tell that from the byline.
He is poor becasue he only owns one camera and lens.
He travels a lot (probably hitching rides.)
He is reasonably able bodied, since he walks a lot, his clothes are probably worn and his shoes need resoling.
He may very well be Asian-French, since he seems to have lived in Asia quite a while, therefor I postulate that he is from Indo China.
Probably has some Socialist tendancies since he often phtographs poor people in the street. This fits with the Hanoi connection.
He is short. Shorter people are less threatening to strangers, and since he is Vietnamese, this is likely.
He is sneaky by nature, catching people unawares, again providing evidence of his poor upbringing and pointing to a life on street probably homeless.
I suspect the Leica was stolen.
He seems to have had some arty types take pity on him at some stage and put him up; it known he took some of their portaits. Probably against their wishes.
He obviously informed the Communitst party in France, since he went to Paris, and later took more than one trip to Russia at the height of the Cold War. There is strong possibilty he was recruited as an asset during the Spanish Civil war.
The fact that he avoided photographs of himself speaks volumes about his usefulness to the international communist conspriacy.

The only photographic portait known with any certainty that depicts in the early stage of his life can be desibed like this:
Examining the negative, and the large amount of dark area on one side of the picture, it is apparent that the camera was jammed into a gap in a board fence and the self timer used.
The subject is caught in the act of quickly running and trying to cross a puddle in order to get into position, but the camera went off early and caught him before he was ready.
Click to expand...
 
I think Micky D is right on the money here. If you look at a series of photos by a particular person you will gain some insight into that individual. This to a point is dependant on the photographer being honest with themselves and photographing in a style they truly feel is correct for them and not one that is adapted or formed to please their peers!

There are a few people on this forum who really reveal themselves with their photography and I find their work very interesting for that reason!
 
PMCC's point is indeed a significant one. and bears thinking about.

Apart from my dramatisation, another way of thinking about this is a book I read once on found unkown snapshots looked at as Found Art and discussed in that light. In this instance it is the case of having an unkown photographer with no intentions at all for the photo, and the art is provided by the perceptions of the viewer.

What can you tell about the Viewer from a photograph to me is an interesting question.
 
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