part 2 - how do you know if you have vision?

FrankS said:
We're going to have to reach a common understanding of the term "vision" before this discussion can be fruitful.
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Easy.

Vision-A: The ability to see things.
Vision-B: The ability to visualize how a picture is going to look before you take it.
Vision-C: A grand idea what your photography is all about.

Now everybody can specify what meaning of the word he is talking about.

Philipp
 
M. Valdemar said:
You know it if you do. You don't have the slightest question about it and you don't care what anyone else tells you.

PS: I don't delight in telling anyone anything about their talent or lack thereof. You asked me and I told you. I also think I'm capable of critical self-evaluation, which I also expressed.

I'm a better writer than a photographer. I'm an OK photographer, nothing earthshaking. I make my living writing, which I have done very successfully for most of my life. I also hate to have to write anything if I have to, usually when the client is about to murder me months past a deadline, I finish a job. But I can rant on for hours on a forum, where I don't make a dime.

* PS: I gave my opinion about the photographs of two people in the other thread. Do you think I'm wrong or wildly off the mark?
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It was 3 photographers, inclouding myself, that you gave assessments of. Wildly off the mark, no. As I said, I react more to your manner, the way you say things. I have a quibble about you saying that I could not support myself with photography, based on the 3 photos of mine that you saw, but that's jsut a minor quibble, and part of your manner: you were not going to give an opinion without trying to make it hurt a bit.

I have a problem with you saying that "good" means "great". You do this just so that you won't have to say that most of us here at RFF are good photographers. You wouldn't want to provide such a compliment, for some reason. To me, a good photographer is capable of consistantly making technically adequate pictures that please ourselves, and others, such as paying customers.

Are most of us great photographers creating great works of art? Of course not! Are most if not all of us at least good photographers? Yes we are.
 
On the other hand, I think there is commercial vision, which is the ability to pre-visualize and produce images to a certain style. They may be clever, they may be fairly stunning visually, they may contain celebrities, but an idiot savant could produce such images. As an example, I would classify Annie Leibovitz is such a photographer. Extremely talented, commercial vision, but nothing that advances perception.

On the other hand, I would classify Ilse Bing, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Richard Avedon, and Diane Arbus, just to name a small few, as commercially successful (or at least prolific) photographers who also managed to change the collective perception of the world through the medium, who had a vision that reached beyond the mundane and was instantly recognizable.
 
Well, maybe you could support yourself, and maybe not. I didn't add that to offend you. I would give the same advice to anyone who asked me.

Is everyone at RFF "good"? I refer you to my last post in that thread where I bowed to populism. Absolutely. EVERYONE who manages to properly expose a frame is good.

Everyone wins. No child left behind.

FrankS said:
It was 3 photographers, inclouding myself, that you gave assessments of. Wildly off the mark, no. As I said, I react more to your manner, the way you say things. I have a quibble about you saying that I could not support myself with photography, based on the 3 photos of mine that you saw, but that's jsut a minor quibble, and part of your manner: you were not going to give an opinion without trying to make it hurt a bit.

I have a problem with you saying that "good" means "great". You do this just so that you won't have to say that most of us here at RFF are good photographers. You wouldn't want to provide such a compliment, for some reason. To me, a good photographer is capable of consistantly making technically adequate pictures that please ourselves, and others, such as paying customers.

Are most of us great photographers creating great works of art? Of course not! Are most if not all of us at least good photographers? Yes we are.
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M. Valdemar said:
On the other hand, I think there is commercial vision, which is the ability to pre-visualize and produce images to a certain style. They may be clever, they may be fairly stunning visually, they may contain celebrities, but an idiot savant could produce such images.
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Garry Winogrand said:
"There is nothing as mysterious as a fact clearly described. I photograph to see what something will look like photographed."

Does that mean he had no commercial vision? Was Winogrand an idiot savant also?
 
M. Valdemar said:
Well, maybe you could support yourself, and maybe not. I didn't add that to offend you. I would give the same advice to anyone who asked me.

Is everyone at RFF "good"? I refer you to my last post in that thread where I bowed to populism. Absolutely. EVERYONE who manages to properly expose a frame is good.

Everyone wins. No child left behind.
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Please re-read:

I have a problem with you saying that "good" means "great". You do this just so that you won't have to say that most of us here at RFF are good photographers. You wouldn't want to provide such a compliment, for some reason. To me, a good photographer is capable of consistantly making technically adequate pictures that please ourselves and others, such as paying customers.

But then again, nevermind. Please don't bother to waste any of your time with my threads or posts, and I'll extend you the same favour. It is not possible to like and to get along with everyone, and an attitude such as yours I find unpleasing. I'm here at RFF for pleasure and entertainment, not to clash with personalities like yours.

Have a good life.
 
Personally, I'm not crazy about Winogrand. I don't dismiss him, but to me, he took the photographic equivalent of the "five monkeys at a typewriter" approach. When everyone wears streaming cameras attached to their heads that record everything they see, everyone will be able to freeze-frame dozens of "great" photographs from their personal Ashkensic record.

Pitxu, I didn't say that a good photograph has to have any qualities like exposure or focus. As for your photo, I like it, it illustrates a mood or a feeling. It's not "one for the ages" but it almost reminds me of something Druidic or timelessly occult. I have looked at some of your photos and liked a number of them.
 
rxmd said:
Easy.

Vision-A: The ability to see things.
Vision-B: The ability to visualize how a picture is going to look before you take it.
Vision-C: A grand idea what your photography is all about.

Now everybody can specify what meaning of the word he is talking about.

Philipp
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i like not to define things all that clearly when i am looking for others to answer a question.
you can get replies that are very unexpected.

too bad that's not happening here though.
 
Pleasing yourself and others is fine. What you seem to object to is a quantifiable quality that elevates certain images above the average.

MacDonald's hamburgers please billions of people. Many swear by them, would testify in front of Saint Peter that a Mickey D hamburger is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

The person who says "this hamburger is not very good" would anger these people who LOVE these hamburgers. Would he be right or wrong?

He would be labelled by many an elitist, arrogant, opinionated snob. They would have torchlight processions to oust this person from their midst. How dare he not like them, EVERYONE likes them.

OK with me if you don't answer me or interact with me any further. I have no ax to grind with you.

FrankS said:
Please re-read:

I have a problem with you saying that "good" means "great". You do this just so that you won't have to say that most of us here at RFF are good photographers. You wouldn't want to provide such a compliment, for some reason. To me, a good photographer is capable of consistantly making technically adequate pictures that please ourselves and others, such as paying customers.

But then again, nevermind. Please don't bother to waste any of your time with my threads or posts, and I'll extend you the same favour. It is not possible to like and to get along with everyone, and an attitude such as yours I find unpleasing. I'm here at RFF for pleasure and entertainment, not to clash with personalities like yours.

Have a good life.
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I was at the flea market today. I saw a news photo of de Gaulle saluting Eisenhower's casket at his funeral. It was a GREAT photo.

The guy wanted $150 for it so I didn't buy it. I will probably never see it again.
 
Didn't someone say "When I hear the word culture I reach for my gun"?

(Actually "Wenn ich Kultur höre ... entsichere ich meinen Browning,")

* Peyote is not entirely a bad thing.
 
I'm not going to get into the fight between Valdemar and everyone else, since I didn't read the thread that started in.

I do want to say that I agree with him about Winogrand. The guy left 9000 rolls of film he hadn't bothered developing when he died, and that was only a couple years of shooting.

Jesus! No artist can shoot that much and have any pretense of having worked on a coherent project. The guy walked the streets with a motorized 35mm camera (a Leica, though he could have done what he did with any 35mm camera fitted with a motor-drive) and randomly pointed it without looking through the viewfinder or even in many cases at the subject at all while holding down the button with the motor on sequence mode. Of course his photos that you see in books and exhibits were cool....anyone doing what he did over a period of years could pick a couple hundred really neat photos out of the hundreds of thousands or even milliions he shot. He was a band of monkeys with typewriters spitting out Shakespere.
 
Pitxu said:
Shakespere's pretty good though, no matter how it's arrived at.

And Garry certainly had a lot of fun doing it.:)
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I think he probably did have a lot of fun. When I was working on my BFA, the photo professor showed us a video of Winogrand working. He was obviously enjoying himself, but does that make his work good art? My grandma has loads of fun making watercolor paintings of flowers, none of which are good art. But she has fun. There's lots of old women like her that have fun painting flowers. Few of them are in major musem collections. Except Georgia O'Keefe....but she was GOOD. I'm still not convinced that Winogrand is.
 
Fred,

I have seen a lot of Winogrand's work, including the book you suggested. Didn't change my mind. The artist who keeps reworking a painting till he gets it right was a concious participant in the making of that painting. Even Jackson Pollock was looking at his canvases when he was randomly throwing paint at them. Winogrand was simply a consumer of film, he usually didn't even bother looking toward the thing he was photographing, it was completely random. I think some of his photos are neat, but I won't delude myself into thinking that he had any real part in their creation. Sometimes people say to photographers something along the lines of: "Nice photo, you must have a good camera". Photographers usually get offended at that because we know it takes brains to make a photo. I suppose in a way GW showed that the camera can indeed make good photos, no brains needed. Doesn't mean I have to respect him as an artist, because he isn't one.

Though we disagree, I can respect your viewpoint as a felow artist. You're also the only person here who defended GW on the merits of his work, rather than making jokes about it.
 
You have to let Winogrand's results speak for themselves. When we observe the talented, they often make their work appear easy or simple. When we try to imitate them, we realize it's not as easy as it appears. Winogrand's technique involved exposing lots of film, rapid-fire. His style may appear random, but that style can mask a keen sense of timing and great instincts. You can purchase a bulk film back and motor drive like Garry did. He got great results. Your mileage may vary.
 
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