Photographically, What is Your Holy Grail?

[dave lackey]

Thank you, Lynn, always nice to hear from you and we wish the best to you and the ladies of your house as well.🙂

A thought just occurred to me when looking at your avatar. Soon, I hope, the F will be back from Nikon and in your hands! The thought is that pursuits of photo grails evolve with life but they change also when you change gear. One wonders what images are waiting for you to make when that lovely F arrives. That is a nice warm thing for me to carry with me today.

 

[robert blu]

Not sure an Holy Grail is around here, maybe it's but I do not know...just trying to keep in touch with my daily emotions and taking a few pictures...
robert
PS: I'll think about...

 

[dave lackey]

Ah, yes, I know the feeling, Robert. And knowing you, those emotions are the key to your art. Maybe the pursuit of art and expression is your grail. Sometimes, we find that our lives are a beautiful mosaic, or quit, with a pattern and texture made up of all that we do and we just need to complete the work. I see a lovely form of art in your life through your daily living. Photo grail? Maybe yours is the the whole body of work or maybe it is more simple in the form of a single photograph.

Whatever it is, it is beautiful.

 

[sanmich]

A selfie with the Kardashians?

 

[jsrockit]

A selfie with the Kardashians?

Sad, thing is... I would imagine that is the holy grail for some people.

 

[dee]

I don't ' do people ' except my grandaughters , however -

I wonder if photographing family has been downgraded by the perception of snapshots ?
I record the children because it helps me focus upon them and often I am the only one with a camera .

Also, looking for rare moments of light and unawareness which creates something magical for me .
Maybe I have less than 100 pictures over the years which achieve this goal , but I will not keep trying .

dee

 

[Lauffray]

Cool Question Dave. Great idea for a thread.

I suppose for me it's Family.
When I view old photographs of my Family from Switzerland(mom side) and Syria(dads side) going back to before WW1 , I realize how important these photos are.
The images I take or my other family members take today will have the same significants for our following generations.
It makes all those family snapshots feel very special. Because they are!

Here is my uncle Khalil. He was the first to come over from Syria in the early '50's.
He got his Doctorate and taught MBA's at Seattle U for 32 years. There is an endowed chair in his name from a succesful student (quite a story).
His G,G, Great Grandchildren will have this image.

Yes ! This is exactly what I meant (great picture btw)

I used to look at all these old BW pictures of my grandparents when they were young, my own parents as kids running around with their cousins, then as newly weds on vacation, young parents with my sister etc and found them great ! But, for some reason I haven't been shooting them regularly, especially my own parents growing older

 

[pyeh]

Dee, I'm a fan of snapshots. That's all I call my photos, mostly. Erwin Puts has a recent essay on his site about snapshots, and it resonates with me. Like some here, most of my photos are of family and friends, taken casually.
I don't have a holy grail photo or project, but I'd like to get better at composition and timing, which the snapshot mentality doesn't necessary lend itself to.

 

[lukitas]

If there is a holy grail, it is to lift the banal up to the sublime.
That is the one thing photography excels at : Atget, Hine, Lange, Kertesz, Sudek, the cigarette butts of Irving Penn, Bill Brandt, and so many others : Glorious photographs of banal, everyday, non-interesting subjects.

I'm not quite there yet, and I don't think I'll ever really get there, but that is what I want to do : to show how fabulous the boring old stupid same-o same-o really looks.



Cheers

 

[airfrogusmc]

If there is a holy grail, it is to lift the banal up to the sublime.
That is the one thing photography excels at : Atget, Hine, Lange, Kertesz, Sudek, the cigarette butts of Irving Penn, Bill Brandt, and so many others : Glorious photographs of banal, everyday, non-interesting subjects.

I'm not quite there yet, and I don't think I'll ever really get there, but that is what I want to do : to show how fabulous the boring old stupid same-o same-o really looks.



Cheers

Nicely put.

A great quote by Weston to this:
"Anything that excites me for any reason, I will photograph; not searching for unusual subject matter, but making the commonplace unusual." - Edward Weston

And Adams:
"Stieglitz would never say that certain objects of the world were more or less beautiful than others-telegraph poles, for instance, compared with oak trees. He would accept them for what they are, and use the most appropriate objects to express his thoughts and convey his vision." - Ansel Adams

 

[narsuitus]

The “holy grail” of a tennis photographer is to capture the player, the ball, and the racket in the same shot.

 

[jonmanjiro]

@Maiku "I would like to show the amount of carbon energy needed to produce nuclear power. Nuclear energy doesn't reduce carbon emissions. It is a myth that I would like to bust!"

Admittedly, I'm not a physicist, but assuming all power generation is done by nuclear plants, and all machines are electric, where would all this carbon come from? I think that in an all electric world, only the (organic) waste material has any carbon footprint. Please comment if I'm wrong.

Embodied energy

One part of the answer is the energy embodied in these nuclear power plants and electric machines. They aren't built/manufactured using electricity only. If you look at the total energy input that's required to build and maintain nuclear power plants and electric machines, the fossil fuel sourced energy component is huge.

 

[kuuan]

If there is a holy grail, it is to lift the banal up to the sublime...Cheers

that! or to show the depth of the ordinary, for me also trying to show and instigate respect for the foreign

 

[jsrockit]

If there is a holy grail, it is to lift the banal up to the sublime.
That is the one thing photography excels at :

I agree... this is what intrigues me about photography most.

 

[JP Owens]

In all honesty, it would be getting a real gallery to give me a solo show. I might actually begin to feel like an artist then. Up 'til now, I've really just been claiming the title while suppressing my own disbelief. But that's born out of being told no (or outright ignored) 500,000 times and failing at pretty much every attempt I've made to move forward.

Having done a solo show in a real gallery, it was, while gratifying, not really the peak experience I had imagined. It was a lot of fun; but, looking back on it, the process of preparing for the show was a lot more exciting than the show itself. Selecting and printing 50 photos of various sizes from 10 years of work was the most incredible part of the experience.

Keep working toward your goal of doing a show. They make you grow in a lot of ways.

 

[Lauffray]

If there is a holy grail, it is to lift the banal up to the sublime.

That too ! Now I have two grails, but which one is holier 😛😛

 

[giganova]

One picture that captures the place of human's in nature would be my holy grail.

 

[daveleo]

All of it, gaining acceptance and being recognized as an artist is the ultimate goal.

My (patronly) advice is "Don't depend on other people to appreciate your work or to label you an 'artist' ".
Somewhere out there are people who would really like what you are doing, even if many others think it's crap.
You may be long gone before the art community (is there an art community?) recognizes the quality of your work.
Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

 

[airfrogusmc]

In all honesty, it would be getting a real gallery to give me a solo show. I might actually begin to feel like an artist then. Up 'til now, I've really just been claiming the title while suppressing my own disbelief. But that's born out of being told no (or outright ignored) 500,000 times and failing at pretty much every attempt I've made to move forward.

George,

It's tough out there. I had a one man exhibit back in March of this year. I had a piece selected to be in a juried exhibit at the Soho gallery in July of 2014. 2600 entries and 40 selected pieces. And I had a really large one man show in April of 2013. I am working on something with a good friend for a show next year and have something lined up for 2018. I have had dozens of exhibits over the years, both one man (first one man exhibit was in 1986) and I have been selected to be in group shows. And there has been a ton of rejection in all of that.

Just keep submitting work to the galleries. Get help editing your portfolio (if you don't have that already) and your artist statement before submitting. Flow and how the images are relating is/can be very important as you probably already know. At times I can get to close to my work to look at it objectively so another set of trusted eyes can be extremely valuable.

I think that daveleo hit the nail on the head. I mean keep woking and be true to yourself and your vision.

Good luck and persistence is key.

Allen