A picture that has always bothered me

I dont know how many of you guys have spent long periods of time around established artists, but one of the common threads I can connect between every single successful artist is the constant railing on fans and/or critics who have approached them with the "I loved what you were trying to say when you did" or "When you put the meaning of X in Y" etc. The exact content of this thread is what is used for amusement over drinks. After being exposed to such similar reactions with artists working in at least four different mediums, I completely abondoned trying to "figure out" what artists are "trying to say" because its all nonsense, all you are doing is prescribing your own baggage to the work and viewing it through that filter instead of just appreciating it for what it is. What some artist was "trying to say" with their output is really none of my business. My impression of things is generally far cooler, I think if you guys hung out with your heroes and got the honest back story to your favorite works you'd be really disappointed. The fantasy I had about this or that was usually far more interesting than the real story when I finally heard it from the horses mouth.

Usually these types of discussions amount to two people arguing over what temperature the water was when what the artist was thinking about was a brick. yeah. So you spend all this time debating water and you never see the brick. And thats art criticism. wonderful.
 
A photo is a photo, a frozen moment in time, nothing more, nothing less. All the stuff you're talking about is entirely your interpretation of what happened before (or after) the moment he pressed the shutter.
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I agree with the above statement. Some people love a movie and some hate it, same goes with photographs or any other form of expression.
Lighten up.
Men and women are different and I like the difference.
 
pesphoto said:
BTW...would you classify this photo by Erwitt showing us the human condition?
http://static.wallpaper.com/croppedimages/testuser5_may2007_magnum_am240507_1_WPaG9r_3dai5h.jpg
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Yes, I would! That's a really striking picture. It captures the mood of an era, and records one man's workaday humiliation. It's well composed, too, in my view--so it's both rigorous and moving, to me. It's true that other people captured similar images, so it isn't so "original," but I'm more concerned with emotional impact than originality.

oscroft said:
I really don't see how photographing what was actually in front of him could be considered manipulation, unless you are expecting him to only portray objective truth - which you say you aren't. (And if you don't expect him to portray objective truth, then why shouldn't he capture an amusing fleeting moment?)
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He should, and did. He can do whatever the hell he wants! I just don't like it.

It's manipulated in that he chose THAT MOMENT instead of one that might have characterized the scene in, perhaps, a more truthful way. Honestly, I don't know if he sat waiting for that pic to materialize, or if it was a chance capture, or whatever. I just think it's shallow, compared to his better stuff, and I thought it was worth discussing why I think so. But as for manipulation...if you see something that is not quite what you want...and then you wait for it to become what you want...then that isn't hugely different from turning it into what you want in post.

But again, I'm not suggesting Erwitt shouldn't take pictures like that, or even get what he wants however he wants to get it (after all, I'm perfectly willing to let Arbus, Wall, and Crewdson do that). I just thought it would be useful and interesting to discuss what makes a good picture, using that one as a springboard, since it's a picture that, as somebody pointed out on page 2, strikes me in a very personal way.

Also--and this isn't directed at you necessarily, oscroft--I'm kind of surprised that some of you are complaining that I'm making a big deal out of nothing. I mean, if you like art, it seems to me that the best way to express it, other than to make some art of your own, is to discuss and debate its merits. That's how you learn to appreciate it better, and to expose yourself to alternate viewpoints. Right?
 
WoolenMammoth said:
I completely abondoned trying to "figure out" what artists are "trying to say" because its all nonsense, all you are doing is prescribing your own baggage to the work and viewing it through that filter instead of just appreciating it for what it is.
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WM, there is no right way to look at a piece of art. The reason you figure things out is for yourself--to understand and deepen what it means to you. You keep referring to "baggage." But baggage is something that holds you back, something that weighs you down. I'm talking about bringing a life philosophy to my analysis of art--this is an approach that broadens my understanding both of art works, and of my life. And by listening to other people's philosophies (as in the title of this forum), I can expand my understanding of the world further still. So that life will be more interesting to me. So that I'll be happier.

Nothing is "what it is." It's ALL in the eye of the beholder. That's why it's fun to talk about it.
 
My day job is as a writer, BTW, and I recently told some writing students, on the subject of analyzing literature, "If you want the wrong answer, ask the author." I believe that very passionately. Art is made for personal reasons, and it's received the same way--different interpretations are inherent to artistic endeavor, and what make it so endlessly fascinating.
 
It's manipulated in that he chose THAT MOMENT instead of one that might have characterized the scene in, perhaps, a more truthful way.
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Or in a way that YOU approve of.

The problem: You were not there, so you don't know if it stayed the same way for 1 second or 5 minutes.

You are seeing what you want and commenting on what you think, which is fine, but you inject your interpretations as "fact" without any knowledge of the actual circumstances at the time the shot was taken.

As I read your comments, you talk as if you were there and observed it first hand. If that's the case, I stand corrected.
 
lewis44 said:
Or in a way that YOU approve of.

The problem: You were not there, so you don't know if it stayed the same way for 1 second or 5 minutes.

You are seeing what you want and commenting on what you think, which is fine, but you inject your interpretations as "fact" without any knowledge of the actual circumstances at the time the shot was taken.

As I read your comments, you talk as if you were there and observed it first hand. If that's the case, I stand corrected.
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Like I've said over and over, I fully admit that I don't know how it was shot, and I never said anything about "fact." I absolutely have not been writing as though I was there--in fact, I've repeatedly admitted that I have no idea how it was done. I'm not talking about that. When I say "truth" I am talking about the spirit of the scene--whether here Erwitt has captured it. I don't think he has captured what's interesting about the way people are looking at those paintings, and what they might be thinking about them. Rather, I think he's chosen a possibly non-representative moment in order to make a clever, but ultimately empty, visual joke.

Honestly, I expect and welcome disagreement, that's why I posted this. But you're accusing me of saying stuff I didn't. Let me make this clear--to me, this picture is suffused with the probability that it is not a moment representative of the scene. Even if he didn't wait for it, though, the picture just isn't to my taste. I definitely admire Erwitt's eye--he saw this moment and grabbed it, and more power to him. But I think he's floating here in the sentimental end of the pool.
 
Erwitt's image proves that ALL photographs lie in one way or another. Photographs can never be fact. Once a person puts a camera to their eye and trips the shutter, it is their vision that we are seeing. All that is true is the photographer's intended interpretation of what he/she saw.
 
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This is an interesting thread, so thanks for being provocative, Mabelsound. Speaking of writers, I remember hearing E.L. Doctorow (Ragtime, Billy Bathgate and so on) reflect on knowing enough and knowing too much-- someone asked him how much research he did about characters and he replied that it was important to him NOT to know everything about a character. There had to be something he didn't or perhaps could not know. A balance of the useful and practical with the mysteriousness of experience, my own and the experience of others.
 
I like it. It's funny. Never seen it before. You may disagree with what it says - that doesn't make it a lie. And how come no one has mentioned the guy in the back of the group with the dark rain coat doing...er...what exactly? Now there's a man who really enjoys his art! Lighten up. 😀

/T
 
lewis44 said:
Lighten up.
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Tuolumne said:
Lighten up. 😀
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Never!!! ;-)

And rolly, I never heard that Doctorow quote. I like it--it makes sense to me. Art should have something ineffable about it, even to the artist.

Another thing I like to tell students is, if you set out to write something, and you know exactly how you're gonna do it, then do something else.
 
I've followed this thread with bemusement and amusement at different times. Essentially I agree with Mabelsound about the interpretation of 'Art.' We do, subconciously, and should, conciously, look at 'Art' with our own eyes, experience and processes to see its meaning to and for us, the viewer.

I have also been quite surprised by some of the comments that have transpired from this discussion around the idea that frivolity, absurdity, inanity and to use a nice English word, silliness have no place in photography, possibly even 'Art.' Surely life and the oft discussed 'Human Condition' include all of these as a part of a greater whole. Whilst the work compiled over the years by the likes of Don McCullin, plus others mentioned, is essential for us to learn, to try and adjust or to simply understand the darker, more unjust nature of Life, there must also be a place for that which expresses, demonstrates, celebrates and delights in the absurdities of the lives we create within the world that we have created.

I fully understand that this can and will be seen as trivial fluff by many, but the world is full of trivial fluff into which some people like to dive headlong into, simply as it is, as all things fluffy, comforting and pleasant. I have met many people suffering pretty horrendously with one thing or another, often it is the silliness of Life that has kept them going.

Simply my opinion from my experiences.

NOTE: I should point out that I enjoy taking silly, and often pointless, photographs of little things that make me smile. It helps to improve my life and, I believe the medical fraternity are on the verge of proving, is excellent for your heart.

🙂
 
mabelsound said:
My day job is as a writer, BTW, and I recently told some writing students, on the subject of analyzing literature, "If you want the wrong answer, ask the author." I believe that very passionately. Art is made for personal reasons, and it's received the same way--different interpretations are inherent to artistic endeavor, and what make it so endlessly fascinating.
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Oh, boy. WM would have waaay too much fun if I divulged my day job. It's probably enough to say: I hang out with artists, too. He's partly right, when we're talking about certain established critics, or schools of criticism, or the kind of critical activity generally whose relationship to the artist is like that of the remora to the shark (then again, perhaps that's unfair to the humble remora, who's just trying to get by). But when it's just us losers, where's the harm?

(Speaking of being a loser: I'm stuck in an office all day, today, YrDdraigGoch; but I did sneak out for a while to shoot a first roll on a newly-acquired Ikonta 523/B)
 
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Nh3 said:
They cared about the human condition "as-it-is" and did not try to make pretty photographs of it and hide the suffering, misery and barbarism.
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Do you honestly believe that the 'human condition "as-it-is"' consists solely of " suffering, misery and barbarism"? Blimey, I thought this kind of po-faced, undergraduate marxism had died out sometime in the 1980s.

IMHO, one of the fantastic things about the 'human condition "as-it-is"' is the way that wit, beauty, love and many, many other pleasures persist and thrive. Protraying them is not some kind of shallow bourgeois deceit. It's essential to any rounded, honest picture of the "human condition".
 
I should add, I like silly things too. Though my sense of humor is more along the lines of social awkwardness and absurdity--I do indeed like Monty Python, and regard the LOLcat has a pop phenomenon of the first order. In fact, I have even made some LOLchickens. Here's some art for ya:

dontunderstand.jpg
 
Come on fess up Mabelsound the real reason you have an issue with this image is you just dont like having to stare at naked man butts.😀
 
I think Wittgenstein gets the final word here:

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
1 The world is everything that is the case. *
2 What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts.
3 The logical picture of the facts is the thought.
4 The thought is the significant proposition.
5 Propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions. (An elementary proposition is a truth-function of itself.)
6 The general form of truth-function is: [
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,
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, N(
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)]. This is the general form of proposition.
7 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
 
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