Goyaesqe or Out of Focus?

dazedgonebye

dazedgonebye

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Lenswork is about my favorite photo magazine. There's usually at least two featured works that I like, and the Editor's Comments section has often sparked a worthwhile thought process in me.
In this month's End Notes, Bill Jay relates a story about actor/photographer Richard Gere that I found entertaining.

Actor and Buddhist Richard Gere is also a photographer. You may have seen his latest book of photographs, Pilgrim, an homage to Tibet with its fuzzy neo-Pictoralist images. One critic gushed, "Gere's photographs capture the motion that occurs even in stillness."
More realistically, and with better vision, the Dali Lama was not impressed with his protégé's work. Gere admitted that "His holiness has told me, urgently and repeatedly, that my photographs are crap. His exact words were 'These photos are of poor quality. Why is there no sharp focus? There is no clarity!' I said, 'But your holiness, it's Goyaesque.' And he said, 'No! It's out of focus!'"
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Very funny story.
I saw Gere's photos long time ago, I don't remember where. I had the same impression as his holiness. More than that. They were also badly exposed.
Did he use a contax ps?
 
Goya's paintings are generally very clear.

Monet on the other hand... Way off focus and I wouldn't pay good money for one of them.

I don't know Richard Gere's photos; he uses a Leica Minilux Black (just like mine) so he must be good.
 
It is hard to tell from the small photos in the URL. However, as I seen them, the third one has a lot of grain, if not out of focus. It may be an enlargement of a small area in a larger negative. The third from the last is about the same imho. In number two from the top, the verticals are off. That may be an unavoidable consequence of a wide lens, but might have been corrected in printing. Number four seems to be an attempt to show the moon, not knowing it would be so small in the photo. Several seem to be poorly exposed, but they may have been difficult lighting situations for the film used and the altitude.

All have potential, but I would have wished to render most of them a little differently. Of course, that doesn't mean I would have been able to do so.
 
Quote: "Gere admitted that "His holiness has told me, urgently and repeatedly, that my photographs are crap. His exact words were 'These photos are of poor quality. Why is there no sharp focus? There is no clarity!' I said, 'But your holiness, it's Goyaesque.' And he said, 'No! It's out of focus!'"

You just can't bull**** the Dali Lama. 🙂
 
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As others have noted, it is hard to tell given that small size of the images,but on the whole, I think that there are a couple of very good photos in the bunch. A couple display a certain impressionistic character that I could understand being interpreted as crappy from a technical point of view, such as the one of the praying monk with the shaft of light on his face.

To each his own.
 
ClaremontPhoto said:
But, Goya is very clear.

Look at 'The Nude Maja' and 'The Clothed Maja', two of his best-known pictures.
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Yes, they seem sharp enough. But what about Saturn Devouring his Son? That one seems a tad unsharp. And it's also very well known.

Still, I'm not sure why "Goyaesque" would mean out of focus in popular parlance. It's not one of the first things I think of when I think of Goya.
 
Saturn Devouring His Son is sharp, it's just that it's a painting.

I agree that Goyaesque is an odd term for out of focus. Monetesque might be better. Mabe the Dali Lama needs some art education?
 
crawdiddy said:
Still, I'm not sure why "Goyaesque" would mean out of focus in popular parlance. It's not one of the first things I think of when I think of Goya.
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The first thing that I think of Goya would be the dramatic use of highlight. The glowing shirt of the man being shot is the classic example
 
Don't we use the term "impressionistic" for images that are out of focus and unsharp - dreamy, if you will. At least that's my usage. So a more apt painter to name might be Monet/Manet/Pissaro/Renoir.

/T
 
dexdog said:
The first thing that I think of Goya would be the dramatic use of highlight. The glowing shirt of the man being shot is the classic example
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Goya was a painter about two hundred years ago.

He has nothing whatsoever to do with the photograph of the man being shot.

Robert Capa's 'Falling Soldier' of 1936.
 
dexdog said:
The first thing that I think of Goya would be the dramatic use of highlight. The glowing shirt of the man being shot is the classic example
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I agree, dexdog.

I think maybe it's Richard Gere who needs some art history.😉
 
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