"First of all, you have to have a bad camera"

RayPA

RayPA

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"First of all, you have to have a bad camera", and, "If you want to be famous, you must do something more badly than anybody in the entire world."

Miroslav_Tichy

A shout-out to Tichy, the 'outside artist'/peeping-tom photographer who died on Tuesday.

Tichy:

miroslav-tichy.jpg


His camera:

miroslav-tichy-camera.jpg



RIP.

/
 
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I wonder how he'll be regarded in fifty years ... as a true artist of worth, or just a phenomenon of his time!
 
Good question. Truly a case of a photographer, his life, and his work all rolled up into one inseparable chunk. As a result, his images take on a rare type of complexity—working on many different levels.



/
 
Oh christ, I thought he was already dead!

I liked the show at ICP last year, especially the vitrines filled with all his crap cameras. And of course the blurry photos of naked girls.
 
RayPA said:
Good question. Truly a case of a photographer, his life, and his work all rolled up into one inseparable chunk. As a result, his images take on a rare type of complexity—working on many different levels.
Click to expand...

I agree.

Without the context of his life and his cameras, I'm not sure the images can stand on their own merit.
 
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Everyday I come to this forum and learn something new. This has to be the best place on earth besides sitting in the Swedish ladies' volleyball team locker room during showertime.
 
I have to ask...

I have to ask...

Griffin said:
Everyday I come to this forum and learn something new. This has to be the best place on earth besides sitting in the Swedish ladies' volleyball team locker room during showertime.
Click to expand...

How was that? Are the towel fights as wild as they say?

🙂
 
If my tpying iss a bti ddogy it's becuase I've gnoe bnild thinknig abuot Swedes...

I haven't a clue about whether it's art or not, or whether he was a visionary or a lunatic (perhaps a bit of both), but I cannot help thinking that he puts a different perspective on those occasions when, for example, everyone goes berserk over the next big thing, or when a thread gets right up itself about bokeh (or brassing... or gold plate... or fakes... or whatever, but we all know it happens).

If someone can get images of any sort with cameras and lenses quite literally made from junk (he made his own telephoto lenses from rubbish, for goodness sake), it makes you wonder why we think the latest expensive toy, or that elusive wonderlens, will improve our photography. Well, it does me.

I can't help thinking that a few have-a-go types here would have loved to have sat down with him and heard how he did it.

Adrian
 
I'd love to see what the internals of his cameras looked like. Anyone else think it's interesting that he had several cameras? Maybe he's a hoarder. 😉
 
He was hedging against future price increases. Check out crazy KEH prices for his cameras in UGLY condition -- inventory very thin.
 
It is interesting to know that the government over there treated him about like the government over here treats people like him. With one exception, he did not have to sleep in doorways or under bridges.
 
Saw a Tichy exhibition in Paris a couple of years ago and did not really know what to think about it. Definitely have a weak spot for people who choose not to follow the hordes and I love the fact that he built his own cameras, but the more I think about it he just was a peeping tom. Nothing wrong with that by the way, in a certain way all of us here are voyeurs. It also does not mean I did not like some of the pictures, or that part of his photographic work could not be considered art, but somehow I doubt it will withstand the test of time.

Nonetheless, a very original person and in my opinion we can use more of those in this rather bland modern world of ours.
 
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I am really glad to have seen a fairly extensive exhibition of his works in Stockholm in 2008. I think many, if not most of his work only alludes to being photographs, at least in the way we perceive them today. In a sense, he is the same as Daido Moriyama and many other contemporary photographers, concerned more about the act and the process than the technicalities or the results. Always bending what's on the negative, cropping, blowing up, and framing in strange ways.

I really, really enjoyed Miroslav's work, as old as it may be, it still offers a refreshing view on what photography really is. Taking photography to it's bare minimum somehow, letting it show no more than what it's capable of showing - an interpretation and a synthetic visualisation of reality. Some of his works were "augmented" by lines drawn by ballpoint pens, drawn to accentuate a ventilation grate or the curve of a leg, a few photographs were just what appeared to be different shades of grey, augmented by these same lines drawn by ballpoint pens.

As for his photographs "standing on their own merit", whose artistry stands on it's own merits? A J. Pollock is a J. Pollock because J. Pollock painted it, an A. Kiefer is an A. Kiefer because A. Kiefer painted it... The artist and the story behind the same is inseparable from the art.
 
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I saw the show at the ICP ad thought that the best part were the cameras. I struggle to get a good picture with my super sharp, well maintained equipment and there he was taking "interesting" pictures with recycled junk. The photos were "interesting" in that there were some odd angles and strange perspectives that were likely due to his desire to be unobstrusive and well as the limitations of the equipment. From the photos it seemed that he was regarded as the town eccentric - always taking pictures of women, but harmless in that he didn't directly bother anyone.
There was one group of photos taken at the local town swimming pool of women and teenage girls in their swimsuits - in one photo a young woman in lounging around obviously unaware of the camera. In the next view she obviously had seen the photographer and is now clearly posing for the camera. Clearly he was tolerated and not regarded as a threat.
But, what are the ethics of this? At the time of the ICP show, I seem to recall a lot of debate here and in other forums about this. Try this today and you will probably be arrested and marked as a sex offender.
 
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