HCB & Flickr peasants

I thought it was funny. I was thinking of all the HCB related threads on RFF, especially one about what type of shirt he was wearing in a picture. To see a photo by someone so venerated voted a "delete," by flickr people is funny. It reminds me of my own frustration with social media and how the creme does not always rise to the top.
 
It reminds me why I deleted all my flickr photos bar one and don't go there any more.

There's enough fools in my life already without going looking for them! :D
 
Yeah, I've laughed at that one plenty of times - my favourite comment was "Cartier Bresson is the guy on the bike ?!"

Both hilarious & really concerning at the same time.. As one poster commented, this just goes to show that a large proportion of the general public / fauxtographers value technical qualities over form / composition / feeling / art, which I find really sad..
 
Unfortunately I can't view the Flickr photo as I'm in Singapore and it's protected by Flickr's 'safe search', but if it's what I think it is then this is the famous delete-me groups' comments on HCB's photos.

The 'delete-me' group, where you post a photo and the group make a sport of harsh criticism and calling for the shot to be deleted or saved when you get 10 deletes or saves - whichever comes first, it determines the fate of the photo. Mostly it's quite fun as long as you don't take it, or yourself too seriously.

I think someone was having fun by posting HCB to the group knowing they'd get a rise, I think more than a few of the comments are tongue-in-cheek.
 
I also can't see it because of the "Safe Search" feature and I'll be d*amned if I'm going to join just to have a look. Flickr sucks...
 
For those who cannot view the photo in question, it's here on the Magnum site -- pic 22.
I'll save you all from play-by-play discussion :)
 
"Cartier Bresson is the guy on the bike ?!"
by Hughes Léglise-Bataille

Edit: Opps, this was already posted. My bad.
Flickr isn't so bad for viewing people who take photos of their wife in lingerie. You just gave to look at the whole community with a different approach. I consider everyone on there a horrible photographer and more so, a horrible person who will perish without anyone remembering them. Until they prove otherwise. Then I'll comment nicely rather then rude and obnoxious. It has worked out great for me.
 
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Well, it just goes to show you that what makes a good photo is very subjective... techincal stuff aside.
 
As a peasant, why is this photograph good? Other than HCB did it...

Personally this does not give me any feelings, good or bad. Should not people be allowed to say what they feel about this? Just step back a couple of steps, would you see the HCB in this photo if you did not know it was HCB? My point is that it is very hard to judge anything from an other perspective other than your own, And according to a lot of people here, since the photo is on Flicr (HCB or not) it is bad.
 
To me, sig, it is a great composition... additionally, the historical significance of the work when compared to his contemporaries.
 
Double Negative said:
Flickr is like the cesspool^H^H^H^HYouTube of the photo world.
Click to expand...


PNut earned that title a loooong time ago. It was merely a Clash of The Testosterones (and of the old vs. young, which never ends well) which did it in. People over at Flickr mellowed-out once some people were told off.
 
That pic has great composition IMO ... as do ninety nine percent of his published images.
 
sig said:
As a peasant, why is this photograph good? Other than HCB did it...

Personally this does not give me any feelings, good or bad. Should not people be allowed to say what they feel about this? Just step back a couple of steps, would you see the HCB in this photo if you did not know it was HCB? My point is that it is very hard to judge anything from an other perspective other than your own, And according to a lot of people here, since the photo is on Flicr (HCB or not) it is bad.
Click to expand...


This is exactly the kind of posturing against posturing that poisoned the "debate". There are extremes in it which will not concede a single hair. The photo is not about "feelings". It is also not about being or not being able to express an opinion: it isn't even about giving out opinions as fact with a glaring absence of context or awareness of history, which the "debate" keeps on gravitating to.

I'm sure that the U.S. Constitution is just a piece of paper, if you don't care for that sort of thing. That some people invest value and significance over it doesn't mean that they're wrong and you're right for pointing it out.

When people run out of reasonable arguments, they resort to shouting and yelling. That, yes, I would say would make a "peasant", if you (not you, but a general "you") want to call it that.

Anyway, that Mona Lisa has the wrong White Balance, and its horizon is not straight, so surely it's not a good image. Other than Da Vinci painted it. And what has he done for us lately? I'm sure he didn't use a D700 and was completely wrong to not foresee this, and everybody who thinks he's a genius is misguided. :bang:
 
Double Negative said:
Flickr is like the cesspool^H^H^H^HYouTube of the photo world.
Click to expand...

Wow, that "Mario" thread is 5 years old. Time flies.

In recent years, flickr seems to be improving (IMHO). Maybe it's related to the fact that facebook now has more photos than flickr... could it be that facebook is now the dumping ground for amateurs?
 
O/T rant:

A lot of Flickr is awful.

A whole lot of it is great, much better than anything I can do. Is there more bad than good? Yes. A lot of people use it like facebook, etc., just to post the pictures from their trip to Disney World.

Flickr is also a simple and quick way to host pictures. It's a terrible place to discuss gear. I think calling it cesspool or saying it sucks are the kind of hyperbole that is so typical of the internet.

I've seen a lot of members on here that have some friggin awesome photography on Flickr. That alone, in my book, makes it at least somewhat worthwhile.


EDIT: The other thing I will add, at my own peril: I'm sure everyone here loves HCB, including me. Would all of his pictures be what they are out of the context of his body of work? If none of you had seen the "Mario's Bike" shot previously, and I buried it in the midst of all of my other cr@ppy pictures in my Flickr stream would you fawn over it?

Are they ignorant about the masters? Perhaps.. Does it make them dumb? Maybe ;)


Definitely subjective, and yes I'm sure this has all been said before; just the first time I'm seeing it.
 
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