Fine art photography

[wlewisiii]

Shrug. I take artsy-fartsy pictures. On rare occasion someone else likes them. On even rarer occasion, they actually like it enough to want a print. Someday I'll find someone willing to actually _PAY_ for a print.

But I'm still an artist... :angel:

William

 

[JohnTF]

John, above, says "sometimes you are looking through the viewfinder and you just know it is a shot you have been looking for."

Would an interesting project for this group of Philosophers and Tax men be to post a picture that is an example of what John said? A picture where what you saw the moment you shot it turned out to be what you were looking for in the way of a photograph?

Another way of saying it: One of my favorite American poets was William Stafford. Bill was an avid photographer as well. He used to say that the reason you write a poem is NOT because you know what to say. It's because when you are really writing a poem, you discover what you to say.

To me this applies so well to photographing, and maybe it would be fun to have a run at taking the thread back to pictures?

PS-- I would post something here but, I'm embarrassed to say I don't know how to get a picture from my computer into this thread and if anyone would kindly demystify that process I'd be much beholding.

Enjoyed your earlier post in this thread, well thought out, and I share your uploading lack of expertise, I think I did an elaborate work around in a couple of stages, but will leave it to those who actually know the right way to answer that.

There are several examples in my photos uploaded to gallery, though, again not uploaded with much technical talent.

Also, I may not have digital images, nor a large scanner, I borrowed a friend's epson, and the two of us spent four hours scanning half a dozen 11x14 prints to very large files, lots of work arounds that day.

Strangely, I saw a recent photo posted of a church with red doors, and was thinking of it today as I drove home from downtown, and spotted four interesting buildings in the afternoon light, and three interesting churches all with red doors facing the afternoon sun. M8 is in repair, will have to begin to keep something M mount in the car.

For some reason, I just do not find much in town, I know people who do, but perhaps my mind is elsewhere when I am in town?

Regards, John

 

[Roger Hicks]

You film guys... ;D

Dear Jan,

Be fair: when I started using computers, they didn't HAVE colour. The first word processor I used was an ICL dual 2903 mainframe, which as far as I recall was three million pounds. That was in the office, not at home, and it was also used for other things...

Cheers,

R.

 

[jan normandale]

Dear Roger,

I have a hunch you're younger than me or close. Glad to hear we are where we are in this tech world. Lots of challenges for sure. I've a digital P&S Canon S3 and a 14$ digi / POS not P&S for 'digital crappy cam' shots. The rest of my stuff is film along with a cheap Epson 4490 flat bed for scanning. On the digital equipment front it sounds close, unless you have an M8 up your sleeve.

Cutting to the chase I was merely having fun with the posters who commented that the yellow text was illegible or nearly so. That's why the post was yellow text.

In regard to the OP, darned if I can say what art is. I leave that to others. There's been a good number of ideas and opinions provided here. Regarding the the IRS advice portion of this thread, I live in Canada and the CRA has it's own rules.

cheers Jan

 

[hawkeye]

Okay, here's the deal. When I originally posted this thread one of the things I tried very hard to avoid was defining "Fine Art Photography." The core of the question, I believe, was not to find out what peole thought was fine art photography but rather were there forum members who could make a living selling photographic prints through galleries, agents etc...

I shoot commercially. I can call myself a "professional" photographer and writer because I make ALL my income through the sale of my articles and images. I shoot on demand. I shoot or write whatever a client asks for. That I am successful at it may be pure chance, the result of the quality of my work or the fact that there is no one else in the general area I live in, in a far corner of the US, with as many cameras and lenses and lights.

In the same sense when I use the term "fine art photographer" I think I am speaking of those photographers who make all or most of their living selling prints.

The thread has devolved a bit into a discussion of the quality of work, about the point at which a photograph becomes art and whether even selling one's work somehow diminishes it as art. Rather make those judgments I was trying to get a sense of what it was out in the world to try to live my selling prints--usually the matted and framed type.

Fine art photography for me is in the same niche as the fine arts themselves. The word "fine" is used I think to differentiate some art from I guesswhat would be the 'coarse' arts. Or to put it another way the edgy arts. The cutting edge stuff.

Personally--and not relevant to what I'm looking for--my feeling is that "fine arts" is a descriptor for "cleaned up" art. It is I believe a bourgeois concept. A way to re-fine an art to make it palaple to the mass of people.

Most arts go through this. Jazz was once degenerate music and now its in every elevator in the world. The other day at my local supermarket the background music was the Police singing "Every Breath You Take" followed by Dylan's "Masters of War." Time and familiarity has I guess soften and re-fined them. But ah, the irony.

Steve

 

[Roger Hicks]

Fine art photography for me is in the same niche as the fine arts themselves. The word "fine" is used I think to differentiate some art from I guesswhat would be the 'coarse' arts. Or to put it another way the edgy arts. The cutting edge stuff.

Steve

Dear Steve,

Sorry, which is 'fine' and which is 'coarse'?

And what is 'cutting edge'?

A lot of good, new art is 'cutting edge', 'edgy' or even 'unpopular': cf Whistler's 'The Falling Rocket: Nocturne in Black and Gold'.

All too many people therefore subscribe to the classic logical fallacy of the omitted middle: anything that is unpopular is therefore good. There can be good, old-fashioned or traditional art, and good, new ideas (Duchamps, Oldenberg) to say nothing of over-intellectualized or over-pseudo-intellectualized modern art (Riley, Warhol). And plenty of bad art of all categories.

I sometimes need a run-up to appreciate an artist (in another field entirely, Ligeti; in photography, Parr; in painting, Hockney) but equally there are some where I suspect that I am never going to 'get it' and that in a few years time, no-one else will either: they are a product of 'the painted word'.

Cheers,

R.

 

[rolly]

If the attachment below isn't working someone please let me know.

This shot was the result of a surprise. For a few months in spring and summer I was intrigued by the light falling into an alley way off a big street. I had tried maybe ten different times to make a photo turn out the way it seemed like it could, and as I was walking around one morning before lunch I happened to pass the same alley and the light seemed to be just right, and I pulled out my camera and set it fairly wide open, no more than f4, and took a shot. Just as I did a guy shouldered past me and I realized he was going to walk right into the alley. I had one shot and then he disappeared. The only work I had to do later was to bring up the shadow detail.

I liked how this was and was not what I was looking for. In any event, it was what I saw, even if I have no idea how it all became a picture.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Roger,

I have a hunch you're younger than me or close. Glad to hear we are where we are in this tech world. Lots of challenges for sure. I've a digital P&S Canon S3 and a 14$ digi / POS not P&S for 'digital crappy cam' shots. The rest of my stuff is film along with a cheap Epson 4490 flat bed for scanning. On the digital equipment front it sounds close, unless you have an M8 up your sleeve.

Cutting to the chase I was merely having fun with the posters who commented that the yellow text was illegible or nearly so. That's why the post was yellow text.

In regard to the OP, darned if I can say what art is. I leave that to others. There's been a good number of ideas and opinions provided here. Regarding the the IRS advice portion of this thread, I live in Canada and the CRA has it's own rules.

cheers Jan

Dear Jan,

Relative ages: dunno. I was born on the middle day of the middle month of the middle year of the 20th century. To those who say that 15 isn't the middle of 30, nor 6 of 12, nor 50 of 100, I say: yes it bloody is.

Your yellow text joke was much appreciated (and highlighted...).

On art, I find myself rather more on Hitler's side than I like: I know it when I see it. We would no doubt agree that this is not the same as saying that my appreciation (or yours, or Hitler's) is definitive.

As for the IRS, well, I'm in France as the employee of a UK company, so I'm well acquainted with a diversity of tax codes. My point in that strand was simply that Americans sometimes imagine that the IRS is all-powerful (lamentably close to the truth, like Her Majesty's Customs and Excise); utterly inflexible (some way from the truth); incomprehensible (no, just ask the right questions); and universally applicable (I've filed taxes in the UK, USA and France...). That, and, as I said, it was to argue that the IRS is at least as good an arbiter of Fine Art Photography as any art critic I've ever read, and probably better than some, including that intolerably overrated baggage Susan Sontag.

Oh, yes; and I do have an M8 up my sleeve...

Cheers,

R.

 

[hawkeye]

Roger

What I meant is that art like science is always expanding its boundaries. Defining art is creating a boundary. Within this circle is art, outside is not. But then the job of the artist or at least the effect of the artist to bump up against those boundaries--those edges- and then the definition expands and the universe of art is a little bigger and then the next artist moves it a little more.

So Weston and Adams were radicals who made sharp, deep depth of field images, in opposition to the soft focus images of the day. Their f/64 movement was radical in its time but by expanding the definition of what is photographic art is now within the circle.

Whoa my head hurts......off to France on Wednesday to clear our the little grey cells mon ami......

Steve

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Steve,

Ah; thanks. I pretty much agree, but here are a couple of further thoughts.

I'd certainly be happier with 'the effect of the artist' rather than 'the job of the artist', because the latter contains the seeds of shock-for-shock's-sake: the omitted middle I mentioned.

I'm not convinced of the radicalism of Weston and Adams: look at landscape photography (especially American) from the 1870s and 1880s, and you see that the Linked Ring (a factious crew!) and the Photo-Secession with their soft, muddy images were radicals too. More a question of fashion and the dialectic, I'd suggest.

Where are you going in France? If you're passing...

Cheers,

R.

 

[hawkeye]

Roger

I'll happily concede and accept "the effect of the artist"

And understand that I am a photojournalist and I find that I can't really get beyond the "narrative" image--pictures that tell stories. So by my own definition I am not an artist. I shoot what I see as opposed to "creating" images as some have suggested is the mark of the artist.

Years ago I studied with Duane Michals ( he of "Sequences" the 1970s books). He has some work in the new issue of "Aperture" magazine. It is closer to art. He has some lovely images of gardens and a few other subjects. The image area is cut in the shape of a Japanese fan and Duane has written little poems around the black matte.

Very pretty and interesting. When I studied with Duane he tried really hard to break me of my story pictures but I never got it right.

We've rented an apartment in a small town about 30 Km south of Rouen. we'll be there and probably day trip to Honfleur and Paris in those couple of weeks we are there.

I'll email once we arrive. You'll be in Photokina for part of the time so we will see what we can manage.

Ciao

Steve

 

[Migracer]

We are what we see.

We are what we see.

Dear Roger and Steve
I have been enjoying this thread very much. You are both very much right and some what wrong. The part I feel that needs an asterisk is the taxation point. I do not believe that a point of paying taxes based on your taxable income makes you an artist, it does in the eye of the state but not in the eye of the beholder. In the 1990 I made income (loses) from having several photographers working for me doing motor sports photography. I bridge the point between the two of you. On one hand I am a photo journalist and this year that will be my largest share of my income. On the other hand the reason I get published is that I look at the motor sport world differently than any one else. Because of my teachers (my Uncle Ernie Caparros and my Father Rogelio Caparros ) I was influenced by both the pure artist, Ernie and the photo journalist Rogelio. Ernie was an award winning director of cinematography The Miracle Worker (the original with Patty Duke). Rogelio photos were run in most Hispanic publications in the 1940’s to the 1970’s most of his images were of war, auto racing and baseball, with side trips into commercial and “street photography”. From Rogelio I learned the need to be ready to shot at any moment, steady camera control, panning techniques, dark room imaging and the importance of clarity of image. From Ernie I got the creative eye. To take in the whole image, how light affects the subject what lens will give the result you want, mixing of different light sources to achieve a natural look. Both of these men were artist… and journalist too. I have been sidetracked with my photography taking a back seat to the other things I needed to do to make the “easy money” to provide for my family. Now is my time and I am devoting all of my efforts to photography. I am learning from the involvement with this site, the discussions and the critique. At any given point I have at least 4 cameras on me, 2 digital 2 film I am expanding what I shoot and learning, absorbing. Roger, maybe by the time we are 100 we will get it right.

Miguel


http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=25727

 

[Roger Hicks]

I do not believe that a point of paying taxes based on your taxable income makes you an artist, it does in the eye of the state but not in the eye of the beholder. . . maybe by the time we are 100 we will get it right.
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=25727

Dear Miguel,

For the first, I agree completely. All I meant was that it's as good a definition as any, because art is indefinable; or alternatively, it can be defined in a huge number of ways. I would certainly not present it as THE definition, or even as a particularly good one.

As for the second, yes, that's the depressing bit, isn't it? Life ain't long enough to learn all you need (or even want). As the old Latin tag has it, ars longa, vita brevis.

Cheers,

R.

 

[hawkeye]

"To take in the whole image, how light affects the subject what lens will give the result you want"

Miguel

Absolutely. We photographers are all about light and how light illuminates subjects. I also believe that the task is to convey to the viewer my response to what I am observing.

A simple example would be photographs of something we've seen a million times. Something like the Eiffel Tower or the Grand Canyon. when I see thee things I have a response to them. Most people I think will photograph these places as a record, simply to show they were there. What I strive for and it sounds like what you are trying to do is to use the image you create to produce a response in the viewer.

Ansel Adams Yosemite pictures are an example of going beyond the document. Thousands of pictures had been made of 'El Capitan' and "Half-Dome' before Adams but he produced images that produced an emotional response in the viewer. His huge gorgeous original prints really stop you in your tracks and gives you a sense of what he felt.

Steve

 

[FallisPhoto]

In the same sense when I use the term "fine art photographer" I think I am speaking of those photographers who make all or most of their living selling prints.

That won't work either. Prior to the invention of the digital camera, pretty much every photo ever sold was a print. How about this: People whose photography is intended to end up hanging on walls?

 

[hawkeye]

Would you add books to that definition? Like coffee table books?

 

[Migracer]

Art is everywhere now!

Art is everywhere now!

Some of the most stunning images these days are on the web and this is a medium that is truly revolutionized the reach and growth of photography. I can only hope that coffee table books are part of art! I worked with John Blakemore on his coffee table book "The Techniques of Grand Prix Photography'. I am currently working on a coffee table book for the local market on the Forgotten Structures of Forsyth County. Some of the best “art” work is in advertising. One form that I am not sure if needs a distinct category is the mixture of photography and computer art. We all know we can now make some incredible images starting with a base of a photograph and then taking it beyond the realm of what we can do in a dark room. More fuel for the fire. I think you need to do a longer article or a series of articles!

 

[JohnTF]

Dear Miguel,

For the first, I agree completely. All I meant was that it's as good a definition as any, because art is indefinable; or alternatively, it can be defined in a huge number of ways. I would certainly not present it as THE definition, or even as a particularly good one.

As for the second, yes, that's the depressing bit, isn't it? Life ain't long enough to learn all you need (or even want). As the old Latin tag has it, ars longa, vita brevis.

Cheers,

R.

Roger, can one legally be an artist, but perhaps, just not a good one, or is that an oxymoron? I knew some people who were legally in retail and never turned a profit, they did, however make the payroll and pay their bills?

Hope you are enjoying beer and sausage in Koln. ;-)

Regards, John

 

[Migracer]

Clarity is Fussy

Clarity is Fussy

Roger, can one legally be an artist, but perhaps, just not a good one, or is that an oxymoron? I knew some people who were legally in retail and never turned a profit, they did, however make the payroll and pay their bills?

Hope you are enjoying beer and sausage in Koln. ;-)

Regards, John

John! Any of us can consider ourselves artist, even if we don’t make a penny from our art. I think the main tenant of Steve starting this discussion was trying to narrow the definition of fine art for an article. Some opinions believe that the old tradition of being represented by a gallery is the measure, others say is a financial thing. I think we have as a group contributed a great deal of opinions to both clarify and blur the definition of fine art photography. This may be a defining moment for Steve, I think this is more than one articles worth and a whole series of articles may be the way to do this, if his editor thinks it has some worth. Given how much it has created in this forum one would have to say that this is a discussion that many photographers and artist would be interested in. The truly interesting thing for me is that Steve chose a primarily film based forum to institute the discussion. We are dealing with two completely different formats that both can be considered for the definition of fine art without exclusion of the other. We are a male dominated group and are not completely representative of the Fine Art consumers. We may be a good representation of artist. Hey Steve if you get releases from all of us I think the series is writing it self. How about if we all work a little harder on judging each others work.

 

[JohnTF]

John! Any of us can consider ourselves artist, even if we don’t make a penny from our art. I think the main tenant of Steve starting this discussion was trying to narrow the definition of fine art for an article.

Well said, and I fully agree, was just referring to the other part of the argument, a "legal" and perhaps Tax-man definition.

With the interest extant, along with the increase, both in numbers, and quality, of currently available and affordable equipment, it has become less of a question of wrestling with necessarily difficult technology, leading to a lot of very good work done by people who are Amateur, and hopefully subject and image oriented as opposed to mainly a technician.

I think Roger brought up the "law of excluded middle", and there is obviously a degree of both in most people who are serious about capturing good images.

I think the argument can be made that much of the best work is amateur produced, certainly there are many images produced by people searching seriously to find just those types of excellent images.

Would be interesting to see where RFF members would put such a theoretically sliding scale?

Regards, John