Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
His family made sewing thread. I don't think he was personally ever involved with the business though.
HCB: "I don't Like Photography, I never have"
- Thread starter Chriscrawfordphoto
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 68
- Views 8K
His family made sewing thread. I don't think he was personally ever involved with the business though.
Boris Stupak
Well-known
In one of my alternative personas, I am recognized by numerous authorities as being one of the greatest artists of all time. I am a celebrated Schlockmeister of the first order.
thirtyfivefifty
Noctilust survivor
You don't have to explain this to me. I know this. Explain it to my friends who I wrote about saying. To my friends who are not photographers, taking pictures is just taking pictures unless they see something more than just taking pictures.
Michael Markey
Veteran
Having read through the HCB bio twice he comes across as a very contradictory character.
Rather an awkward sod with a chip on his shoulder about the fact that he came from one of the wealthiest families in France.
The result was that he didn`t feel that he fitted in anywhere.
He tried to be a filmmaker and even an actor at one time.
Neither career lasted very long.
He was always asking "where does the money come from" .
I suspect that he knew some folk had the benefit of private wealth as he did.
He had a talent for good one liners but my impression was that they had little substance beyond that and were very much dependent on his mood at the time.
Rather an awkward sod with a chip on his shoulder about the fact that he came from one of the wealthiest families in France.
The result was that he didn`t feel that he fitted in anywhere.
He tried to be a filmmaker and even an actor at one time.
Neither career lasted very long.
He was always asking "where does the money come from" .
I suspect that he knew some folk had the benefit of private wealth as he did.
He had a talent for good one liners but my impression was that they had little substance beyond that and were very much dependent on his mood at the time.
Sejanus.Aelianus
Veteran
It seems to me that any thread, which idolises someone, is quickly overtaken by Newton's Third Law. Perhaps a more measured approach to "great photographers" will press fewer buttons?
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
thegman
Veteran
Wouldn't it be fair to say that you can simply call yourself whatever you like? I think it's also fair to say it does not matter what The Man calls you.
If you consider yourself an artist and photographer, just artist, or just photographer, it's a personal choice, end of story?
If you consider yourself an artist and photographer, just artist, or just photographer, it's a personal choice, end of story?
cz23
Well-known
I mean the fact that photography is a recording medium grounded in objective reality. Which makes it harder to achieve the more subjective expression that, for example, painting or poetry are capable of. Not impossible, but harder.
John
kaiwasoyokaze
Half Frame Goodness
I agree, but I also accept that some people adore him and others don't. I personally feel some of the same way you do about HCB as well. It seems like a burden in photography to refer back to him again and again.
jdvf
Established
Now I know why I am a mediocre tennis player and below average photographer. I should start hating my hobbies.
Greg
Erik van Straten
Veteran
If he didn't like photography, why did he expose 17.000 films and took his camera to bed?
Erik.
Erik.
Richard G
Veteran
Interestingly Lord Clark of the marvellous TV documentary 'Civilization', the author of 'The Gothic Revival' and 'The Nude' and a man with an exquisite aesthetic sense, was also an heir to a cotton fortune, Clark's cotton, which my mother used, the empty wooden reels used then by me for all sorts of projects.
tunalegs
Pretended Artist
He liked taking pictures, but not photography. I can sympathize. Although working in the darkroom can be amazing, I'd rather shoot slides and let somebody else take care of everything between me pushing the button and me looking at the image I got. Just like some people enjoy having a nice lawn, but don't appreciate mowing it.
Michael Markey
Veteran
I too like his work its just that my impression of him ,from reading the bio, suggested that he was in many ways rather dissatisfied with his lot.
He seemed to blow hot and cold about a few things during his life as no doubt all of us are apt to do at times.
He seemed to be more prone to do so than most but again its only my impression.
It doesn`t detract from his achievements just the veracity of some of his statements.
Sejanus.Aelianus
Veteran
Seems like a good approach. 😉
L Collins
Well-known
To me, Robert Frank is one of the few photographers who can be called an Artist. His work transformed photography.
But watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt97Jomj5nw
In it he explains what he loved about photographing in Paris. it was "the flowers", which to my mind is like Isaac Newton saying his theory of gravity was nothing special - he just liked apples.
The point is this: most great artists can be amazingly inarticulate, in fact, clueless, about what makes their work so powerful, including an icon like Frank. Almost invariably the explanation diminishes the power of the work by circumscribing it. It's because aesthetics are not capable of articulation. They involve a whole different mental process.
Likewise, you won't have to define yourself as an "Artist" to be one; you work is capable of doing that for you.
But watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt97Jomj5nw
In it he explains what he loved about photographing in Paris. it was "the flowers", which to my mind is like Isaac Newton saying his theory of gravity was nothing special - he just liked apples.
The point is this: most great artists can be amazingly inarticulate, in fact, clueless, about what makes their work so powerful, including an icon like Frank. Almost invariably the explanation diminishes the power of the work by circumscribing it. It's because aesthetics are not capable of articulation. They involve a whole different mental process.
Likewise, you won't have to define yourself as an "Artist" to be one; you work is capable of doing that for you.
kbg32
neo-romanticist
"In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a Leitmotiv."
– Henri Cartier-Bresson
Quite a quote from a man who "hated" photography. Given his success and his wealth, HCB didn't have to work. He found something he loved and stuck with it until he tired of it and returned to his earlier love of drawing and painting. Photography to him in later life was an earlier career, that which he didn't like to talk about. And when he did, it was something he said he hated. He could afford to say that.
– Henri Cartier-Bresson
Quite a quote from a man who "hated" photography. Given his success and his wealth, HCB didn't have to work. He found something he loved and stuck with it until he tired of it and returned to his earlier love of drawing and painting. Photography to him in later life was an earlier career, that which he didn't like to talk about. And when he did, it was something he said he hated. He could afford to say that.
Charlie Lemay
Well-known
If you pay attention, you will notice tHat there can be no OBJECTIVITY. Everything is always SUBJECTIVE, We always agree to ignore that when we call anything OBJECTIVE.
"Photography is not about the thing photographed. It is about how that thing looks photographed." - Garry Winogrand
"Photography is not about the thing photographed. It is about how that thing looks photographed." - Garry Winogrand
Richard G
Veteran
Good summation. He must have been seriously devoted to it for a very long time. Reading the account here, recorded by a young Indian journalist, of his obsessional routine with the film at the end of a day is not the mark of a man uninterested in his work.
TheFlyingCamera
Well-known
Understanding that concept, and then executing it, are perhaps the two most difficult things about making a photograph be more than just a record snapshot. Grasp that, and execute it, and you ARE an artist who understands his or her medium. One problem with photography is that there is a wider range of possibilities for people to enter the medium, from people who have no artistic aspirations whatsoever to people who are at heart technicians to people who have only artistic aspirations and no technical qualifications. In no other medium can these options exist. Painting, drawing, sculpture - all have a prerequisite of artistic intent because there is an act of will required to pick up a pencil, paintbrush or chisel and interpret. This is true because of the length of time involved in the making of the work - even if you are drawing a thing to record it, the thing is not static during the time you draw it. You are interpreting the thing in how you render the appearance. Even moreso an event; in capturing the event, you are creating relative interpretations of relationships between objects and subjects which may no longer be true by the time you are done with rendering them.
Because photography allows you to render objects, subjects and their relationships in real time, and in an approximation of absolute proportion to one another, it enables us to eschew or ignore artistic intent. It is possible to make a photograph without conscious interpretive intent. Yes, a camera imposes bounding lines, requires you to aim it selectively, and it alters the perspective and relationship between foreground and background dependent upon the lens utilized. But, using the same lens to photograph the same scene at a different time will not change the framing or the relationships of perspective. If I paint or draw a scene, I can use the same paper or canvas, same pencils or brushes and paints, and I can willfully distort those relationships and perspectives. If I am some kind of obscenely talented technician, I can through an act of will forcibly approximate an exact replica of the scene I previously drew/painted, but I cannot exactly copy it, brushstroke for brushstroke, charcoal mark for charcoal mark, and in all likelihood I will render a very different sketch or painting, because my INTENT will be to interpret it differently.
Nobody makes record sketches, paintings, or sculptures. You don't bring a sketchpad, canvas, or chisel and marble on vacation to document the fact that you and your partner/friends/family went to Notre Dame cathedral. But you do use a camera for that purpose. No painting, drawing or sculpture is composed recklessly, casually. Even if the execution is horrible, there is conscious intent in the composition. Even in children's scribbles in elementary school, there is intent in composition - the green blob next to the blue rectangle is mommy in her dress next to daddy in his suit, with the red house on the right, and the dog, the one thing that really looks like what it is supposed to be, is floating above the house because it is supposed to be in the back yard but the child doesn't understand perspective yet. But the proper relationships by intent are there. There are no telephone poles growing out of daddy's head, the roof of the house is not cut off, and all of mommy, daddy, the house and the dog are complete and whole as they were meant to be, not a collection of legless torsos and excess sky or torsoless feet, knees and a scalped poodle, all running downhill to the left because the camera was aimed low and at an angle.
Similar threads
