A Great photograph...

[charjohncarter]

It's a hard call. My daughter got top grade in statistics, which to me (and most other people) was a hard class. I told her ought to pursue statistics. She said, 'no I don't like it.'

I had a patient that seemed like a 'nowhere guy' one day he showed me some of his art work. It was beautiful. Even though I knew he wouldn't even graduate from high school, I had a friend that employed artists for advertising. He actually worked out on that job.

I guess you never know what talent people have until it sneaks out.

 

[johannielscom]

Yes, context is something I had not considered that much. I think Steve McCurry's work is great, but if 'Afghan Girl' was a model in a studio, then I'd have no time for it at all.

Considering how it was created, 'a model in a studio' wasn't that far off...

Anyway, Clint Troy allegedly shoots better stuff than Garry Winogrand (his words in another thread), so I'm not pitying him for missing out on talent.😀

 

[airfrogusmc]

I think we are pretty much saying the same thing. I'm not for one second suggesting that HCB's photos were accidents, or anything like accidents. But like you say, you'd have to look at the rest of his work to know that.

Simply by looking at that one photo in a vacuum, would you be able to say HCB was a great photographer? I think we would both agree that the answer is no, and you'd have to look at the rest of his work to decide that.

My point was that if someone makes a 147 break in snooker, they must be an excellent snooker player, as only excellent snooker players can do it. You can't tell if someone is a great photographer simply by looking at a photo, hell, you couldn't really tell if the photographer was even human.

My point was only that defining someone as a good photographer is much more difficult than many other pursuits, where skill levels are absolutes and not a matter of opinion.

I'm certainly not expressing a view on HCB's skill level, only that coming to a view on that is not simple.

You should never judge a photographer by just one piece. One great at bat doesn't make someone and MVP no more than one good photograph makes a great photographer but bodies of work the produce a style surely can in some cases and did in Bresson's case.

 

[airfrogusmc]

thegmen, I totally agree with you. Photography has context to deal with, not to mention intent. Conclusions cannot necessarily be drawn from a "masterpiece" photograph- perhaps within a career where context and intention are more easily found. Personal ambition, luck, and curatorial whimsy play a large part in success for both the photographer/artist. Same with the snooker player (ambition, luck). A 147 break in a pub or a world championship indicates a quality player, as determined by the rules of snooker. Art has less rules, I hope.

But in Bresson's case and the photo of the man jumping is an amazing photograph on its own because of all the repeating shapes, the tones, the implied motion and can you see the arrow in the shapes? Bresson was a master at shapes in his images in the negative space all being formed by the more obvious.

 

[Clint Troy]

Anyway, Clint Troy allegedly shoots better stuff than Garry Winogrand (his words in another thread), so I'm not pitying him for missing out on talent.😀

Well, it should mean three things: I am a confident guy, I don't think much of Winogrand, or it's simply the reality 🙂
Who knows!

 

[Jamie123]

What's up with that?

Being a great pianist is one way of being a great musician but you do not have to be a pianist at all in order to make great music. There are many other ways. The same goes for photography. If someone has great timing and a great sense for composition that's certainly good and may that's what makes them a great photographer. Or at least great at a certain kind of photography. But there are other ways to make great photographic work.

 

[sailor]

It's a hard call. My daughter got top grade in statistics, which to me (and most other people) was a hard class. I told her ought to pursue statistics. She said, 'no I don't like it.'

I had a patient that seemed like a 'nowhere guy' one day he showed me some of his art work. It was beautiful. Even though I knew he wouldn't even graduate from high school, I had a friend that employed artists for advertising. He actually worked out on that job.

I guess you never know what talent people have until it sneaks out.

More than 30 years ago when I was a primary school teacher I started a photography group with the main purpose of producing a slide tape show for a national competition on crime prevention.

When you ask for volunteers you are stuck with the people who put themselves forward. When I looked at my small team I wasn't too hopeful but in order to be fair, everyone could try out for the different jobs (photographer, scriptwriter, sound man, etc.). When it came to the position of photographer most of the results were what you would expect from kids who had never seen, far less used, an SLR before. They were all fingers and thumbs and the photographs were pretty ordinary. Except for one girl who was an absolute natural. She quickly mastered the mechanics of the camera but what was more impressive was her ability to frame a shot. Without any suggestions from me, she was shooting from different angles, crouching down or standing on top of a desk for different effects. She was brilliant. What made all the more surprising was that she had shown precious little talent thus far in her school career. She was a very quiet, shy child who never really stood out in any way - until she had a camera in her hands.

To cut a long story short, we won a substantial amount of money for the school by coming second in the competition, due in no small part to our photographer's talent. At Parents' Evening I was singing her praises to her mum and dad, trying to encourage them to allow her to develop her photography skills but they couldn't have cared less. They had very low expectations of her and it was as if they didn't believe what I was telling them. They seemed unable to accept that she had a gift.

Not long after, I moved away to a different school. I often wonder whether she ever did do anything with her photography. I like to think that she did but the reality is that probably she didn't as she was not a pushy child and her parents were offering no encouragement or support.

 

[charjohncarter]

More than 30 years ago when I was a primary school teacher I started a photography group with the main purpose of producing a slide tape show for a national competition on crime prevention.

When you ask for volunteers you are stuck with the people who put themselves forward. When I looked at my small team I wasn't too hopeful but in order to be fair, everyone could try out for the different jobs (photographer, scriptwriter, sound man, etc.). When it came to the position of photographer most of the results were what you would expect from kids who had never seen, far less used, an SLR before. They were all fingers and thumbs and the photographs were pretty ordinary. Except for one girl who was an absolute natural. She quickly mastered the mechanics of the camera but what was more impressive was her ability to frame a shot. Without any suggestions from me, she was shooting from different angles, crouching down or standing on top of a desk for different effects. She was brilliant. What made all the more surprising was that she had shown precious little talent thus far in her school career. She was a very quiet, shy child who never really stood out in any way - until she had a camera in her hands.

To cut a long story short, we won a substantial amount of money for the school by coming second in the competition, due in no small part to our photographer's talent. At Parents' Evening I was singing her praises to her mum and dad, trying to encourage them to allow her to develop her photography skills but they couldn't have cared less. They had very low expectations of her and it was as if they didn't believe what I was telling them. They seemed unable to accept that she had a gift.

Not long after, I moved away to a different school. I often wonder whether she ever did do anything with her photography. I like to think that she did but the reality is that probably she didn't as she was not a pushy child and her parents were offering no encouragement or support.

Too bad, sometimes an outside push is all they need. If only you had not moved, who knows?

 

[mugent]

Photography is a part art, part craft, and part skill, so you can't really judge it alongside things like piano playing, or even painting, which is a higher skill level.
However, any *painting* or sculpture is considered art, whereas only very few photos get that badge.
I think photography is a unique pursuit in this regard, an art form, that doesn't require a large amount of skill, but requires a huge amount of *something else*, which I'm not sure what that is...
It used to require substantial craft skills, I used a darkroom regularly for years, and was still fairly crap at printing at the end, it takes years to get good at it.


I don't see why we have to defend photography, it's a unique pursuit, and the components that go to making a good photograph are also unique.

 

[Keith]

To some people a great photograph can be three puppies on the lid of a biscuit tin ... to others it's a man jumping over a puddle!

Life is mysterious ... thankfully. 🙂

 

[charjohncarter]

One quick note for young photographers. I used 35mm RF (and a SLR) cameras until 1976. Then I got a Rolleiflex, it was an eye opener. Everybody will be using digital from now on with their 100% similar viewing, so you young people ought to think of a TLR for a different look or view of the world. I have a couple for sale, no joking. But at least you will be different, which I don't see too much of lately.

 

[shadowfox]

Does it really matter? We are who we are, but anybody can be better than they are now. Greatness is for others to decide. All we have control over is our own next steps.

John

I agree with John.

It takes a continual effort to be better than we were in the past.
Some people are willing to put the efforts, some don't. Some put enough, others don't.

Back to the piano example from Clint. My daughter plays piano better (by leaps and bounds) than she was last year, why? because we replaced her teacher. The previous one didn't push her to the edge of her ability, this one does.

In photography, most of us don't have a coach or teacher, so it depends on us to push ourselves. Those who does, becomes better and better, those who don't ... will still be shooting photos that does not excite them nor anyone else.

Sure, genius is genius, cannot be replicated, dissected, or formulated. But genius are rare, so unless we are one, best focus our efforts to become better incrementally.

That's what makes life such an interesting proposition.

 

[jsrockit]

A 147 break is a 147 break, but many photographs will only be considered works of art if you know who pushed the shutter release. So that, for me, makes it very tricky to say 'this person will be great, and this one won't.'

I would say the photographer has to find the right subject, the right compostion, the right angle of view, the right light, etc, etc. and not only the decisive moment.

 

[russelljtdyer]

It's Always Luck

It's Always Luck

The fact is, the photos that people ooh and ahh over like HCB's man jumping over a puddle could have been taken accidentally. Not saying it's not a good picture, but in all seriousness, it can't be proven that he didn't accidentally trip the shutter whilst the camera was hanging round his neck.

It was actually taken accidentally--or at least the man leaping was not known to Cartier-Bresson when he took the shot. He describes the circumstances of how he took that photograph in an interview:

Cartier-Bresson was looking at the back of the train station through a wooden fence--one of the boards of the fence was missing. The composition looked interesting to him, so he pushed his camera lens through the opening in the fence, but the opening wasn't wide enough for his whole camera. The fence blocked his view finder. Since he was using a rangefinder camera, he could not look through the lens and he couldn't focus it well. He just snapped the shot and didn't know what he had until the film was developed. He said in the interview that he didn't know there was a man running across his shot--he wasn't there before he put his camera through the hole in the fence--and that he had leaped at that moment.

The interviewer commented that it was lucky that he got that shot--it was lucky that he caught the man with his foot just over the water. Cartier-Bresson responded, "It's always luck. It's luck that matters. You have to be receptive, that's all. Like the relationship between things, it's a matter of chance. If you want it, you get nothing. Just be receptive and it happens."

 

[rodinal]

It was actually taken accidentally--or at least the man leaping was not known to Cartier-Bresson when he took the shot. He describes the circumstances of how he took that photograph in an interview

This is a revelation for me, thank you!

 

[airfrogusmc]

It was actually taken accidentally--or at least the man leaping was not known to Cartier-Bresson when he took the shot. He describes the circumstances of how he took that photograph in an interview:

Cartier-Bresson was looking at the back of the train station through a wooden fence--one of the boards of the fence was missing. The composition looked interesting to him, so he pushed his camera lens through the opening in the fence, but the opening wasn't wide enough for his whole camera. The fence blocked his view finder. Since he was using a rangefinder camera, he could not look through the lens and he couldn't focus it well. He just snapped the shot and didn't know what he had until the film was developed. He said in the interview that he didn't know there was a man running across his shot--he wasn't there before he put his camera through the hole in the fence--and that he had leaped at that moment.

The interviewer commented that it was lucky that he got that shot--it was lucky that he caught the man with his foot just over the water. Cartier-Bresson responded, "It's always luck. It's luck that matters. You have to be receptive, that's all. Like the relationship between things, it's a matter of chance. If you want it, you get nothing. Just be receptive and it happens."

Yes and the key is the photograph was good without the man jumping because of all the repeating shapes, the wonderful line and other geometric esthetics that were there before the man jumped. The man jumping made it a great photograph. But Bresson recognizing those elements and putting himself in the right places he tended to create his own luck.

 

[jsrockit]

Isn't this a little like sinking a fifty foot putt after a hundred and fifty attempts ... then being slapped on the back for your great putting? 😀

No, not at all. One is a sport in which the whole purpose of the game is to get the ball in the cup in as few attempts as possible. Photography doesn't have these rules.

 

[daveleo]

It was actually taken accidentally--or at least the man leaping was not known to Cartier-Bresson when he took the shot. He describes the circumstances of how he took that photograph in an interview:

Cartier-Bresson was looking at the back of the train station through a wooden fence--one of the boards of the fence was missing. The composition looked interesting to him, so he pushed his camera lens through the opening in the fence, but the opening wasn't wide enough for his whole camera. The fence blocked his view finder. Since he was using a rangefinder camera, he could not look through the lens and he couldn't focus it well. He just snapped the shot and didn't know what he had until the film was developed. He said in the interview that he didn't know there was a man running across his shot--he wasn't there before he put his camera through the hole in the fence--and that he had leaped at that moment.

The interviewer commented that it was lucky that he got that shot--it was lucky that he caught the man with his foot just over the water. Cartier-Bresson responded, "It's always luck. It's luck that matters. You have to be receptive, that's all. Like the relationship between things, it's a matter of chance. If you want it, you get nothing. Just be receptive and it happens."

That's interesting. I always thought it was a set-up shot.

 

[airfrogusmc]

That's interesting. I always thought it was a set-up shot.

Bresson was the anti set up guy. He might park himself in an area where all the elements in the background and foreground are there and wait but heres what he said on the subject of set up shots for him
"'Manufactured' or staged photography does not concern me. And if I make a judgment, it can only be on a psychological or sociological level. There are those who take photographs arranged beforehand and those who go out to discover the image and seize it. For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which - in visual terms - questions and decides simultaneously. In order to "give a meaning" to the world, one has to feel oneself involved in what he frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, a discipline of mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry." -Henri Cartier-Bresson

"This recognition, in real life, of a rhythm of surfaces, lines, and values is for me the essence of photography"-Henri Cartier-Bresson