Overrated photographers...

Brian Sweeney said:
It is fair to say that Ansel Adams is popular in the United States as he spent his life photographing it.

I guess you might have photographers that do that in Spain, or in other countries, and they will be more popular in their native countries than elsewhere. If you think highly of a Spanish photographer, are they over-rated? Or does their rating apply to popularity in Spain?

Ansel Adams is "highly rated" as a great photographer in the US. There is a bias because of his subject matter.

Do other countries have any photographers like Ansel Adams that spent a lifetime photographing the natural beauty of the land that they lived in? Are they popular? Or are they "also highly over-rated" because the rest of the world does not think as much of their work?
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Just like Adams in the US, Araki in Japan has a relevance that's higher there than in the rest of the world... There are several great photographers born in France, and Bresson is considered the greatest there and also in the world by most people, photographers and critics...

Cheers,

Juan
 
Hey...Everyone's a Critic!!!!


I still say Annie Leibowitz...I've never seen anything in her work that shouted "GREAT!!!!!"
 
Fawley said:
[quote It all came to mind because today I remembered an old friend who started a series of e-mails between friends to write a list of the best 10 rock LPs ever,
Juan
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Rock! Now there's an area where the pioneering greats have never been equalled.:) I only recently discovered the fantastic music, 1968 to 1970, from Fleetwood Mac when they were heavily blues influenced. Absolutely breathtaking guitar work. I've never heard anything like it before.

Thanks for the great thread Juan.[/quote]

I'm glad you find it interesting as I do!

Cheers,

Juan
 
This is, without a doubt, the most entertaining, enlightening, and most important, the most educational thread for the amateur photographer on this forum. I wasn't familiar with many of the names mentioned here before reading this thread, but I have searched for images by every name mentioned and tried to view them with a critical eye, and now I am inspired to learn even more.

Thank you all for this.
 
If anyone has interest in Mapplethorp, I highly recommend Patti Smith's new memoir of their time together - "Just Kids". It's a very interesting look at two young artists long before they made their defining works. It provides some perspective on Mapplethorp, especially, that is usually missing in discussions about him and his work.

William
 
Juan Valdenebro said:
Rock! Now there's an area where the pioneering greats have never been equalled.:) I only recently discovered the fantastic music, 1968 to 1970, from Fleetwood Mac when they were heavily blues influenced. Absolutely breathtaking guitar work. I've never heard anything like it before.

Thanks for the great thread Juan.
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I'm glad you find it interesting as I do!

Cheers,

Juan[/QUOTE]

Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel ... John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett
 
I cannot think of a more renown photography educator than Ansel Adams. Keep in mind that it was Adams that brought us out of the soft focus pictorial era. This alone was a major event in photography.

Ralph Gibson is probably overrated.
 
CameraQuest said:
The interesting thing in this thread to me are the relatively unknown and commercially unsuccessful photographers who imagine themselves in a position to judge which well known and commercially successful photographers are overrated.

That is like Holgas judging which Leica lenses are sharp.

Stephen
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That's a bit of an odd statement for numerous reasons. Firstly, it's like saying ornithologists cannot speak about birds unless they walk around flying, chirping and laying eggs. You can actually now alot about something without knowing how to do it.
Secondly, commercial success is not a good basis on which to discuss the artistic merits of any given photographer. Aferall we're talking about images, not money.

That being said, while I think everyone's entitled to their opinion of a photographer's work, I do agree that we all should take a humble approach at judging the technical skill of a successful photographer. Some posts back someone said something like ''Annie Leibovitz is not a good photographer because she can't set f stops''. That's just a silly statement. The woman has been taking pictures compulsively for the past 40 years and even though the big productions and comps she does these days might not appeal to everyone, I'm sure we could all learn a great deal from her.
 
I tend to judge a photographer's work based on my tastes. How others rate him is neither here nor there. I think it is silly to judge a photographer (or anything else, really), because of someone else's opinion of him.
 
I don't understand this trashing of Ansel Adams. He made a successful career doing what he loves. He was very good at it. The fact his taste in photography does not blow your hair back does not really give an excuse to trash the guy or his work.

The critic's position is an easy one. None of our work is above condemnation.
 
Galen Rowell. His work is just horrific to me. It's like someone vomited skittles all over a bunch of cookie-cutter "near/far" compositions.


CameraQuest said:
The interesting thing in this thread to me are the relatively unknown and commercially unsuccessful photographers who imagine themselves in a position to judge which well known and commercially successful photographers are overrated.

That is like Holgas judging which Leica lenses are sharp.

Stephen
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You don't have to be better at a person's craft to have an opinion of it. That's like saying we shouldn't get to pick our president because we've never run a country.
 
Almost all these photographers you mention as being overated are famous & have made a ton of cash from their so so photographs! So after careful consideration & viewing much of you guys photographs on flickr & in the gallery, my conclusion is that you all are just too darn good at what you are doing, & thats why you aren't rich & famous. :D So with that said, I'll throw in my 2 cents...Sally Mann! I guess because I never cared for seenig her underage kids running around naked!
 
CameraQuest said:
The interesting thing in this thread to me are the relatively unknown and commercially unsuccessful photographers who imagine themselves in a position to judge which well known and commercially successful photographers are overrated.

That is like Holgas judging which Leica lenses are sharp.

Stephen
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With all respect, I find this statement, not only elitist, but highly insulting to the members of RRF who have posted here. Opinions about photographers and styles of photography are as old as the medium itself. To say, that because one might not be as well known or commercially successful as the photographers they are commenting on, they should have no right to judge another's work, is unerringly wrong. Is this not a democratic forum, where even if one's views might not be popular, they can be freely expressed?
 
It's personal for me. I've had way too much William Wegman, Annie Liebowitz, Steve McCurry, and the members of the f64 group shoved in my face for too long. Every time I go into one of the big bookseller stores, the photography section is littered with their books. This is what is representative of photography to the greater uninitiated and what I consider overrated.

I've had AA and Weston pushed at me as the examples of the finest in photography ever since I was a teenager studying photography back in the late 70's early 80's. As young man, I wanted to see Winogrand, Arbus, Friedlander, and anyone else doing anything other than shots of peppers, half dome, and nudes in the sand.


/
 
Finder said:
I don't understand this trashing of Ansel Adams. He made a successful career doing what he loves. He was very good at it. The fact his taste in photography does not blow your hair back does not really give an excuse to trash the guy or his work.

The critic's position is an easy one. None of our work is above condemnation.
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No trashing at all... We all respect Ansel Adams... We all love him... He's just not the most relevant photographer ever, but of course he's a great photographer and a great human being...

Cheers,

Juan
 
CameraQuest said:
The interesting thing in this thread to me are the relatively unknown and commercially unsuccessful photographers who imagine themselves in a position to judge which well known and commercially successful photographers are overrated.

That is like Holgas judging which Leica lenses are sharp.

Stephen
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Since when are notoriety and commercial success the litmus test for whether or not someone knows or does not know anything?
 
Ah, Ralph Gibson. The Somnambulist, right?
I suppose my rating of him is reflected in that I had not thought of him until someone posted his name in this thread ...
 
And some photographers are over rated for a time and then drop back into what I guess you could call normality. My personal favorite happens to be Edward Weston. Though I seldom hear his name pop up today, at one time it was Weston / Adams or Adams / Weston. Adams did big 'perfect' and Weston did small 'perfect'. Now Weston is relatively seldom mentioned.

I suspect that the ratings are strongly affected not only by the in crowd but also by what is available to view. Adams that are less than perfect in subject as well as printing are seldom seen. On the other hand I have seen many of Weston's that are humdrum (Hot Coffee) or downright banal (nude with gas mask).
 
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