Overrated photographers...

[Bike Tourist]

Yeah, many famous photographers would not cut it these days, but for many reasons:

1. Consider the photographer in context, in his time period. What may have been innovative then may be routine today,

2. Have empathy for the poor photographer who was just plain lucky and got undeserved breaks. Think of the mental strain in trying to maintain a false image of greatness!

3. Fashions change. The hot item today will be yesterday's news tomorrow.

I have to say when I had the opportunity to go to Yosemite and see some Adams originals I, too, was underwhelmed. Mostly, I think, because my expectations were set a little too high. It didn't turn out to be a life-changing experience. But then, what is?

 

[shadowfox]

imo he's just an "ero oyaji" 🙄

😀
I think you're right, Jon.

I have much more respect for Daido Moriyama whose works do not seem to depend on the "ero" aspect too much.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

It's one thing to state that "In my opinion, I do not care for the work of a said photographer". It is another to announce that they are Over-rated. The problem with the latter, is that the person making the statement is announcing that Others should not like the individual as much as they do. The assertion is that the other person liked the photographer more than they should, perhaps based on "group-think".

So I have to ask, what photographers should be highly-rated, and on what metrics?

Log onto Photo.net. Sort the gallery images based on "Most views in the last month". Ansel Adams and other Landscape Photographers will not be among the most viewed images. The photographer that was able to get their models to....... win.

 

[Pherdinand]

Log onto Photo.net. Sort the gallery images based on "Most views in the last month". Ansel Adams and other Landscape Photographers will not be among the most viewed images. The photographer that was able to get their models to....... win.

Is AA on photo.net?? Cool!

5'm not sure your definition for overrated is right Brian.
I am asked about my oppinion, i can say what i think is overrated.
I.e. what i think it is not worth all the applaud that it gets.
It doesn't mean i am saying that others should not like it, not at all. It just means that I cannot see why they do, so in my oppinion it is overrated.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Then this may be an English as Second Language issue.

To state that a person is "Over-rated" means that others are wrong in their assessment.

Using your definition, "NB23" was over-rated. To me, out of focus, poorly composed, poorly exposed". To others, it was "breaking the mold".

 

[shadowfox]

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

Wow, I missed this one.

From where I am, the above statement is like a bartender putting down people drinking at his bar when they start talking about which drinks (or drinkers) they don't like.

Rather... odd, isn't it?

 

[Pherdinand]

Then this may be an English as Second Language issue.

To state that a person is "Over-rated" means that others are wrong in their assessment.

might be.
My mistake, then.

But still, even according to your definition AA is overrated 😀 😛

 

[Roger Hicks]

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.
.

Not really. He was one among many. Yes, he was a founder of f/64, but at the time, Weston was probably more important, and certainly was able to charge more for his pictures on the basis of his fame. Also, pictorialism itself was relatively short-lived: there were plenty of sharp pictures before they started to peddle their theories.

I'd actually back Frank Meadow Sutcliffe (1853-1941) as both a more important photographer than Adams and as a genius of 'straight' photography. He suffered, however, from several disadvantages. He wasn't American (and was not therefore feted by a relatively young nation looking for heroes); his view of the world, while still romantic, did not present the faux wilderness beloved of Sierra Club groupies; he didn't write long and tedious books; and he never became trapped by either technique or subject matter, photographing only what his fans expected of him.

If you don't believe me, take a look at http://www.sutcliffe-gallery.co.uk/gallery.html. AA was a great photographer, and if you see some of his non-Yosemite work, he's even nore impressive; but he's mostly a figurehead, remembered for the naming of Zones (which is a work of genius) and the rest of the Zone System (which wasn't).

It comes back to something I said earlier, about 'Winner Takes All'. A few names are well known to almost anyone who pretends to know anything about photography, and AA is one of them. But the key word is 'pretends'. As you learn more, you find that simplistic attributions ain't worth the POP they're printed on.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I see some problems with this thread: some are language, others are announcing that highly regarded photographers known as the "Portrait photographer of a Nation" are over-rated.

If you cannot appreciate the photography of Ansel Adams because you do not live in America, I would hope you could appreciate it as a photographer. The man invented processes to increase the dynamic range of the available material, and used it to its greatest capability.

It would be the equivalent of a digital photographer in "modern Times" having a sensor made from Gallium Arsenide to get rid of the IR problem without sacrificing half of the sensor's spectral ressponse and having a custom LOG pre-amp used before the A/D to preserve shadow and highlight detail.

And Pherdi- using the photo.net metric, AA would never be able to make it today.

 

[Roger Hicks]

might be.
My mistake, then.

But still, even according to your definition AA is overrated 😀 😛

Of course he is.

BY SOME PEOPLE.

You can think he's a great photographer. Even 'one of the greatest'. But as soon as you say 'The Greatest', you're overrating him except by your own narrow definition. Likewise HCB or anyone else you choose.

On balance, I susect that both AA and HCB may indeed be overrated, because most of those who praise them to the skies are familiar with the work of surprisingly few other photographers. It doesn't negate their greatness. It just means there are a lot of other great photographers who are neglected because there are far too many people who can't see beyond the work of their superheroes.

And this is not the result of English as a second language.

Cheers,

R.

 

[RichL]

Rodger, thanks for the Sutcliffe link, I had never heard of him before. Amazing how he could combine both the romance and the drudgery of life (farming, fishing...) into the same print.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Again- if you announce that someone is "Over-rated", the connotation in English is that "others should not rate them as highly as they do".

That makes some assumptions regarding the rating that others give him, and the reasoning that went into it. I rate Ansel Adams very highly based on seeing an exhibition of original prints, and reading about the processes used to create them. I am not "over-rating" Ansel Adams. The man is one of the best photographers of the 20th century.

 

[shadowfox]

Hi Roland,

Now I feel a bit guilty...

Juan, don't feel guilty. Roland just have that "make-senseness" about him that sometimes can do that to you 🙂

I cringe when I saw this thread originally, but it turned out to be an interesting one without so much as mud-hurling, except for one very peculiar comment.

As for overrated, I feel sad every time I flip a magazine and saw photographs that I have a hard time "getting it" (not based on my preference at all, just artistic merits) and sold for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. *I* think those photographs are overrated.

But I don't know enough about the photographers to say whether they are or not.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I see some problems with this thread: some are language, others are announcing that highly regarded photographers known as the "Portrait photographer of a Nation" are over-rated.

If you cannot appreciate the photography of Ansel Adams because you do not live in America, I would hope you could appreciate it as a photographer. The man invented processes to increase the dynamic range of the available material, and used it to its greatest capability.
.

Dear Brian,

Which ones? I'd lay odds that anything AA did (from a technical point of view) can be traced back to earlier technicians, often at the Kodak research labs.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

But Roger- how many photographers actually let plates soak in Mercury vapors befor using them, made custom dodge and burn tools, messed with the chemicals to get results wanted?

I know some that made custom detectors and log pre-amps. But that is my world. Technical Photography.

 

[PKR]

Dear Juan,

A fascinating analysis, and one that's quite hard to argue with.

As for the Zone System, the naming of Zones was a work of genius but the sensitometry is crude and derivative and (above all) pointless in an era when you can buy affordable densitometers.

Incidentally, I wish I could write Spanish with the clarity you habitually bring to English. Distressingly few native English/American speakers are as good. Sure, there are occasional grammatical errors or at least idiosyncrasies, but they almost never stand in the way of comprehension.

Cheers,

R.

Adams and Minor White set up the photo Dept. at The San Francisco Art Institute. I thought that they were both credited with "popularizing" the Zone System, but weren't credited with the "invention" (if you can call it that). I don't remember the inventors name, but do remember reading about the guy.. I think someone on the periphery of the f 64 group?

Adams, if nothing else, was one of the world's best b+w printers. If you have never seen one of his prints, with out a piece of glass in front of it, it's something to see. I have never been able to produce the range of tones from a negative that Adams could.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Basically, a highly-rated photographer these days just has to be good at one thing- porn.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Again- if you announce that someone is "Over-rated", the connotation in English is that "others should not rate them as highly as they do".

That makes some assumptions regarding the rating that others give him, and the reasoning that went into it. I rate Ansel Adams very highly based on seeing an exhibition of original prints, and reading about the processes used to create them. I am not "over-rating" Ansel Adams. The man is one of the best photographers of the 20th century.

Dear Brian,

Sorry: don't agree.

The connotation to me, as a native English speaker, is that they enjoy a wider popularity, and more adulation, than is really justified.

Drop the photographic contex, and consider a 'celebrity': Paris Hilton, let s say.

Is she 'overrated'? In one context, no: she sells celebrity rags and is an object of adoration to many.

In another context, yes. There are also plenty who view her as a worthless baggage.

Those who adore her uncritically are surely overrating her. So are those who buy the trashy magazines in which she features. Indeed, I would say that the fact I can remember her name is overrating her. It's all a matter of context.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

Juan, don't feel guilty. Roland just have that "make-senseness" about him that sometimes can do that to you 🙂

I cringe when I saw this thread originally, but it turned out to be an interesting one without so much as mud-hurling, except for one very peculiar comment.

As for overrated, I feel sad every time I flip a magazine and saw photographs that I have a hard time "getting it" (not based on my preference at all, just artistic merits) and sold for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. *I* think those photographs are overrated.

But I don't know enough about the photographers to say whether they are or not.

Thanks for your words, Will...

I also feel sad because of language things... Stephen is very right when he says it's funny some of us mediocre photographers (yes we are!) judge the great ones in a big nonsense: I really think he's right... And then us people feel a bit offended but no one should feel offended, as Stephen loves photography and this forum as much as us and even more, as we all know and can see from this wonderful space we have here on RFF and from his great site too... I feel like a fool saying Adam's not the best, etc., because that means so little: maybe just talks about my personal fears or maybe envy, in a good sense, I mean... We all should understand there are serious reasons for what Stephen said: reasons of truth, and he said it honestly, and directly, and with a deep respect for photography and for great photographers... And with a big respect for us: trusting us... Thank you Stephen for being clear!

I hate words! They're never enough!

Cheers,

Juan

 

[PKR]

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

I once worked in the industrial sales Dept. of a large camera store. When I left to pursue a career, after having secured enough work to pay my rent, I was amazed by some of the people who worked in that store, who I thought were friends, who would no longer talk to me or help me when I shopped in this store. These were mostly younger people (my age at the time). I didn't understand, until one of the older employees explained the "situation' to me.