Art or documentation...

[Carterofmars]

[Without photography] All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain.. Batty

Great quote from a great film. So applicable to photography, perfect quote for photography really.

That is a quote on Ducky's signature here on the RFF. It got me thinking a little this morning. Really about something I've pondered a lot while making pictures of the streets surrounding the neighborhoods I frequent.

Question to the members: Is that what we're all about, capturing these moments? Or are most of us interested in creating 'Art'? I'm not talking about the photos that are obviously 'Art' like Frank Petronio.

This is aimed more at the photographers shooting the 'Snapshot Esthetic'.


Do you make photographs for Arts sake, or are you trying to capture all those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain...

 

[Ducky]

I recalled that movie line when taking some casuals of my grand-kids, I see them with more detail than I did their parents. My granddaughter is happy, animated, interested and a joy to be with. So was her father but I do not have casual shots to prove/remind myself.
Those moments with him, especially since he died a few years ago, are all lost except in memory. I can't share them.
Art, documentary, PJ etc. are not my concern, I only want to keep moments, before they are lost, like tears in rain.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Half the time, surely, there's not much difference. It's quite hard to remove all clues about the era in which a photo was taken: clothes, cars, hairstyles, make-up. Sure there are plenty of exceptions, but even then it's often a more or less fleeting moment: the fall of the light, the relationship of shapes.

Cheers,

R.

 

[back alley]

can't recall who said it at the moment...i photograph to see what things look like photographed by me...

that's why i shoot.
no sense of history or future involved.
i like when others like my images but that's not why i shoot.

 

[bmattock]

I take more photographs that are documentarian in nature than anything else, I suppose. I also do my best to categorize them, embed them with Exif data that describes what they are and when and where they were taken, and so on. I share them on Flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wigwam/sets/

The primary reason I do this is because I enjoy it. If that were my only motivation, it would be enough; I don't need another reason other than that I like to do it.

However, I also find that I enjoy looking at photographs of historic events, people, locations, and so on.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/4351637442/

However, most people do not keep records like the ones kept by the Library of Congress, and photographs of a bygone age, stripped of their context, are less interesting to me, and I suppose, less useful to historians and cultural anthropologists and the like.

So I enjoy what I do, and I consider it leaving something behind that may one day be of value to others. I do not pretend that it is art, it is not. I would suppose that I am not talented enough nor creative enough to be an artist in any medium, although I have had the good fortune to take a few photographs that others find artistic.

I do not know of anyone else who does what I do. I am reminded that some of the photographers we now consider icons were paid by the government to do just as I do, during the Great Depression. I do not put myself in their league, but our approaches are similar - photograph everything, and record the circumstances as well as the photograph. Why no one else does this today is a mystery to me, but to each their own. This is what I choose to do.

 

[Ducky]

It's quite hard to remove all clues about the era in which a photo was taken: clothes, cars, hairstyles, make-up.
R.

Very true, I was looking through my copy of "Dream Street", Gene Smith's Pittsburgh Project which would have bee my time and enjoyed the clothing and people as well as the project itself.

 

[Carterofmars]

can't recall who said it at the moment...i photograph to see what things look like photographed by me...

that's why i shoot.
no sense of history or future involved.
i like when others like my images but that's not why i shoot.

That was said by one of my heros: Garry Winogrand.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

I guess I generally do it for art's sake. I take family photos but almost never look at them--I prefer to keep those experiences in memory--I feel as though the photos corrupt the memories.

Sometimes a family photo turns out to be an art photo...but I mostly take pictures to excite the eye, my own and maybe others'. I just like the way of seeing that photography makes possible. It makes the world seem filled with possibility...maybe that's a better way of putting it, for me, than "art."

Documenting things makes me a little leery...it's participating in the illusion that anything can last. Nothing can last...I don't believe in any kind of afterlife or immortal soul...there's only the moment...photography is a way of embracing that moment and sharing it with other people.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Documentary photography can be art. Before photography many people painted and drew the kind of documentary images of ordinary life that many photographers make when they do street photography, photojournalism, and documentary work.