I recieved an email today...

N

Neare

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i cant take your photography seriously anymore, you make out that they're just pretty pictures. i thought there was meaning behind them.

you just see art how i wouldnt expect youd see it, there needs to be a pretentious element to art otherwise it becomes a chore.
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I received an email from a painter. In it he said the above.

Do you agree with his statement about photography in general?

EDIT: He's trying to say "Your photography doesn't seem deep enough, you have to be pretentious to be good at art."
 
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well I can't really tell what his satement is. But if he didn't offer you a free ipad or discount pharmaceuticals, I wouldn't take them too seriously ...
 
Agreed. It does have the ring of some computer-generated spam (or some pseudo-random thing written by someone who's not a native speaker).

Weird.

Scott
 
I dont know what kind of spam emails yall are receiving...but that doesnt sound like one i;ve ever gotten.

Where did this "painter" read you only take pretty pictures? Do you know who this person is by their email? They sound like a pretentious artist to me
 
ahh, no I know the person it's not spam and he's really quite bad at writing.
He's trying to say "Your photography doesn't seem deep enough, you have to be pretentious to be good at art."

Saying that my photos were only pretty pictures actually annoyed me quite a lot. Here I am not taking photos of flowers yet my work only qualifies as pretty still?
 
Actually he's saying more than that. In the second part, he is talking about how one is able to sustain output as a long-term endeavour (ie. not have their art become "a chore"), which he states is done via the art conveying some form of deeper meaning (at least for the artist) than just pure aesthetical beauty. This is not entirely uncontroversial, but seems a more than reasonable position to adopt.

In the first part, he is not saying that your photos are "just pretty pictures" - he is saying "you make out that they're just pretty pictures" ... not that you MAKE pretty pictures, but that you MAKE OUT that they are just pretty pictures ie. that you yourself state/assert ("make out") that your photos have no meaning deeper than aesthetics. In fact he actually states that he thought there WAS more to your pictures than aesthetics ("i thought there was meaning behind them"), so when you state "saying that my photos were only pretty pictures actually annoyed me quite a lot" you appear to be reading his thoughts in the opposite way to the manner in which they were clearly intended and articulated.
 
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Well, the definition of pretentious is trying to portray or convey an idea larger than one's own merit to do so.

So... what this painter friend of yours is saying, is that if you want to make anything worthwhile, you need to strive to make something that you don't have the right to make.

So, i wouldn't bother being offended. I don't know if this guy is a close friend of yours or what, but he sounds like a real bore.

Keep snapping and have fun! :)
 
Why do you care what a bunch of strangers on the internet think?
I would ask this question to people who you know and respect.
 
seanathan said:
Well, the definition of pretentious is trying to portray or convey an idea larger than one's own merit to do so.

So... what this painter friend of yours is saying, is that if you want to make anything worthwhile, you need to strive to make something that you don't have the right to make.

So, i wouldn't bother being offended. I don't know if this guy is a close friend of yours or what, but he sounds like a real bore.

Keep snapping and have fun! :)
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Except that taking such a literal interpretation of the words used (in one who is clearly slightly illiterate), such that the words become nonsensical, and then using the fact that the literal interpretation is nonsensical as cause for not taking offence is a pretty devious form of self-delusion.

If one was to take a non-literal interpretation of the words, such that they actually make sense, which is not hard to do given the context ("If you want to make anything worthwhile, you need to strive to make something with meaning - something beyond the purely aesthetic"), should the original poster take offence then ?
 
I got one from the head of the FBI.

It was a Nigerian scam email. Hey, don't let someone else judge your work. It's yours, not his, so keep doing what you like.

Painters? A dime a dozen. I have 10 or 15 vying to paint the walls of my house because nobody wants to buy their garbage.

Ignore him, he's just an unemployable day laborer who is trying to bring you down.

Oh, he can paint my kitchen for $5 an hour, and double his current income if he wants...
 
DamenS said:
Except that taking such a literal interpretation of the words used (in one who is clearly slightly illiterate), such that the words become nonsensical, and then using the fact that the literal interpretation is nonsensical as cause for not taking offence is a pretty devious form of self-delusion.

If one was to take a non-literal interpretation of the words, such that they actually make sense, which is not hard to do given the context ("If you want to make anything worthwhile, you need to strive to make something with meaning - something beyond the purely aesthetic"), should the original poster take offence then ?
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I guess I had not taken into consideration that this fellow may not be a native English speaker. The question framed in the way you put it totally changes how one should react.

I don't know, personally I try not to think of the value of art and aesthetics in this way, because I feel that there is no way to ever reach a tangible conclusion. That doesn't mean that my crafts are meaningless to me, but trying to frame it in absolutes doesn't seem to lead anywhere. At least for me. I just try to have fun with photography and pursue what is fascinating.
 
Neare said:
I received an email from a painter. In it he said the above.

Do you agree with his statement about photography in general?

EDIT: He's trying to say "Your photography doesn't seem deep enough, you have to be pretentious to be good at art."
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This `painter` lives in Ponsonby , right?:D
regards
CW
 
haha no he's wellington based. And by painter, I mean artist etc.

How this came about was due to an old photo I had taken while down in wellington. It was of this building with really odd architecture and at the top it had this spire covered with mirrors. It was shining light directly at me from where I was standing and I thought it would look good in print, and it did. So he too really liked this photo.
However, yesterday he revealed to me that the reason he liked the photo was because he knew that there were immigrants living inside this building in poverty (I didn't know this though, he assumed I did) and he thought that I had taken the photo of the circular windows of the building as some representation of their condition. When he found out that I didn't have that intention he lost all interest in the photo.
So he tried to tell me that in order to make good art you have to have deep intentions like his poverty one before creating it.

So I thought about this and have come to the conclusion that I disagree. I don't necessarily think that you have to have any intentions beyond simply instinct when taking photos. Yes, you can have an intention of what you want to convey, but it is not necessary to take a great photo. I think Winograd would be a good example of instinct or lack of intention.
 
His friend means he can no longer find any meaning in photos which were not actually meant to have a meaning - pretty clear really !
 
Neare said:
ahh, no I know the person it's not spam and he's really quite bad at writing.
He's trying to say "Your photography doesn't seem deep enough, you have to be pretentious to be good at art."

...
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Since you know him, why don't you ask him what he meant?

I looked at the first page of your blog, and I'm seeing some identity/gender issues being discussed photographically. So maybe this painter was expecting some deep revelations, and was disappointed by something you said or did.
 
Neare said:
haha no he's wellington based. And by painter, I mean artist etc.

How this came about was due to an old photo I had taken while down in wellington. It was of this building with really odd architecture and at the top it had this spire covered with mirrors. It was shining light directly at me from where I was standing and I thought it would look good in print, and it did. So he too really liked this photo.
However, yesterday he revealed to me that the reason he liked the photo was because he knew that there were immigrants living inside this building in poverty (I didn't know this though, he assumed I did) and he thought that I had taken the photo of the circular windows of the building as some representation of their condition. When he found out that I didn't have that intention he lost all interest in the photo.
So he tried to tell me that in order to make good art you have to have deep intentions like his poverty one before creating it.

So I thought about this and have come to the conclusion that I disagree. I don't necessarily think that you have to have any intentions beyond simply instinct when taking photos. Yes, you can have an intention of what you want to convey, but it is not necessary to take a great photo. I think Winograd would be a good example of instinct or lack of intention.
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Seems he has explained himself. And he has a point - a photo, however pretty, would be rendered deeper if it also addresses a wider human issue. So, put me down as pretentious of Ponsonby.

Winogrand did have a wider, distinct aesthetic I reckon, if only via the way he edited. But of course you can read intentions in them that weren't necessarily his. If that happens all the time with your photos, then you've discovered the masterful trick of seeming deep, which is every bit as good as being deep.
 
Neare said:
haha no he's wellington based. And by painter, I mean artist etc.

How this came about was due to an old photo I had taken while down in wellington. It was of this building with really odd architecture and at the top it had this spire covered with mirrors. It was shining light directly at me from where I was standing and I thought it would look good in print, and it did. So he too really liked this photo.
However, yesterday he revealed to me that the reason he liked the photo was because he knew that there were immigrants living inside this building in poverty (I didn't know this though, he assumed I did) and he thought that I had taken the photo of the circular windows of the building as some representation of their condition. When he found out that I didn't have that intention he lost all interest in the photo.
So he tried to tell me that in order to make good art you have to have deep intentions like his poverty one before creating it.

So I thought about this and have come to the conclusion that I disagree. I don't necessarily think that you have to have any intentions beyond simply instinct when taking photos. Yes, you can have an intention of what you want to convey, but it is not necessary to take a great photo. I think Winograd would be a good example of instinct or lack of intention.
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Neare, interesting question,

I agree that some photographs are only "skin-deep" or just "pretty pictures," my favorite example (and one that annoyed my wife every time I mentioned it :) ) are those modern "lifestyle/pre-wedding" shooting sessions that (I think) tried *too* hard to be cute, memorable, and original, usually with subjects that are naturally beautiful or cute to begin with. Once you see the image, that's it, nothing else to "get" from the picture.

Another photograph contains only a styrofoam food container floating on a river, yet the way it was recorded and processed invoked a deep emotional reaction every time I saw it. This one I would say has more "depth."

So I guess what your artist friend was trying to convey is that he likes photographs that connects at the emotional level, not just at the aesthetics level.
 
shadowfox said:
So I guess what your artist friend was trying to convey is that he likes photographs that connects at the emotional level, not just at the aesthetics level.
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That sounds right, and an interesting distinction. I'd say that some people (likely most) are "subject oriented" and some are aesthetics oriented. I face this gap with my wife, for whom a good picture portrays a subject she relates to in a positive way. Picture qualities like focus, framing, etc are not important if she likes the subject. And why shoot/print black and white if it could be so much better in color?

And like many, she doesn't quite get why I would take a picture of someone I don't know. As we read in the forums, people on the street get suspicious of one's motives for doing that. But my wife understands anyway that there are valid views other than her own. :)
 
Worrying about what others say of your photographs makes no sense...
Worrying about what you're not sure others say about your photographs is even worse... ;)

Cheers,

Juan
 
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