Photography theory

Ranchu said:
You complain I give you no reason for my view, and go on to present a critique that I should read and "should be able to think why dislike it". Simply because it exists? Why am I expected to pay attention and respond to anyone who harks up a strawman? I appreciate you posting it, because I appreciate you taking the time, but also because I think it makes my case.
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Strawman? The article on Salgado that I linked in post #37 does not make your case at all: it offers an understandable critique of Salgado that can be considered and evaluated in one's own thinking about the issues around Salgado's work, on which anyone can reach a conclusion, whether it's "for" or "against." My point was that, if the OP wishes to see how one can look at and critique photography, the Ingrid Sischy article in the New Yorker can be a good starting point, considering the issues it discusses.

MITCH ALLAND/Potomac, MD
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malland said:
Try Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin.
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Dear Mitch,

I find it very hard to believe that I have thus far remained unaware of the work of Walter Benjamin -- but I have. Thank you very much indeed for drawing my attention to him. Likewise I was unaware of Baudelaire's comments in this field. Again, I am extremely grateful.

Perhaps a large part of my distaste for specifically photographic art theory is that so many people immediately adduce post-war critics, especially Barthes and Sontag, as evidence of their intellectual bona fides, in the absence of actually possessing such bona fides. I shall now start rooting about a lot more in pre-WW2 essays, including George Bernard Shaw's: I have not read them recently, or in some cases at all, despite the fact that we both wrote (and in my case, still write) for the same magazine. Yes, that's irrelevant showing off, but I can never resist it anyway!

Thanks again,

R.
 
In other words, what he's suggesting is a framework for thought and action.
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Quite right. However, that sort of framework has been in use for a long time, particularly in conflict.

Think about Hanibal and his Carthaginians crossing the Alps, Henry deploying his archers at Agincourt or Stalin's generals trapping the Wermacht at Kursk. In each case, they seem to have decided what their opponents were least likely to expect (a long tail event) and then brought that situation about.

Then again, there are numerous examples of the use of intelligence to anticipate and defuse long tail events and even more examples where the anticipation of such events was ignored, particularly blatant examples being the attack on Pearl Harbour and the invasion of Singapore, both correctly identified by intelligence officers, whose warnings were then ignored by their "superiors".

I don't deny that he has identified an organisational defect but am not sure if it all adds up to much more than "listen to the warnings of those whose job it is to identify threats".
 
Sejanus.Aelianus said:
. . . not sure if it all adds up to much more than "listen to the warnings of those whose job it is to identify threats".
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Well, that and "be prepared for the genuinely unexpected" (antibiotics, computers); and always ask whether an explanation is plausible only because it was made after the event; and perhaps above all they are a very congenial read.

Fooled by Randomness directly addresses your concerns. Hannibal, Agincourt and Kursk are famous primarily because they worked: this is "survivor bias". The battles where people made similar "long tail" judgements and lost are pretty much automatically edited out of history.

Cheers,

R.
 
Hi,

Um, could I add that the question was about, amongst other things, theories and I have always seen a theory as an idea or opinion based on known facts that leads to an idea that is as yet untested. F'instance there was a theory that iron or steel ships wouldn't float and that machines would never fly and also theories that they were both rubbish. Nowadays neither are theories any more.

And that makes me wonder what the current photographic theories are and how we can point the OP to them.

OTOH, he might just be interested in the history of photography which is mainly the history of theories and how they were tried, tested and so on.

So my 2d worth is to suggest a few popular books on photography, like the Kodak series on taking good photo's and so on and arranging the editions in date order and reading them. Plus a few of the same from, say, Contax, meaning Freytag's "The Contax" Way", "My Leica and I" and so on. They all deal with what was current then and put it into its historic context.

That's not a reading list, btw, but a suggestion about how the problem should be tackled. There's just one suggest about a generalised book and that's Graham and Bolton's "Focus on Photography" - ISBN 0 340 487070.

BTW, "My Leica and I" is a lovely book. It was published in the mid 30's and edited by K P Karfeld. It's a collection of photographs and essays by amateurs and professionals and covers the impact the camera made at the time. So you get a lot of useful background about all sorts of things you'd not get elsewhere.

Regards, David

PS Of course, one of life's problems is that Magicthighs and Vroomfondel write a lot of books, not under their own names of course, as that would give the game away but there you are as we Stotics say.
 
Ms. Ashton is an art historian. Maybe a critic by chance in that she reviews art. Her book traces the beginnings of modern art to the first contemporary source. Together with Balzac's story, which is referred to in her book, makes for an interesting read.

My only complaint, her book should have included Balzac's short story. It took me awhile at the time to track it down. None of Balzac's books I could find included it. I finally got a photocopy from a distant library.

Roger, many actors don't even watch themselves in their own movies.
 
kbg32 said:
Ms. Ashton is an art historian. Maybe a critic by chance in that she reviews art. Her book traces the beginnings of modern art to the first contemporary source. Together with Balzac's story, which is referred to in her book, makes for an interesting read.

My only complaint, her book should have included Balzac's short story. It took me awhile at the time to track it down. None of Balzac's books I could find included it. I finally got a photocopy from a distant library.

Roger, many actors don't even watch themselves in their own movies.
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Sorry, I didn't mean to be dismissive. Yes, I (now) know she's an art historian, from the link I gave. I just thought it an amusing quote.

Cheers,

R.
 
Hi,

Switched the computer off and realised I'd left out Brian Coe's "Colour Photography" which doesn't sound that exciting until you read the sub title "The First Hundred Years 1840 to 1940". It was published in the late 70's so long out of print; I suspect.

Then glancing through it again I noticed that Maxwell showed the first colour photo on the 17th May 1861, so there's an anniversary coming this Saturday...

Regards, David
 
David Hughes said:
Hi,

Switched the computer off and realised I'd left out Brian Coe's "Colour Photography" which doesn't sound that exciting until you read the sub title "The First Hundred Years 1840 to 1940". It was published in the late 70's so long out of print; I suspect.

Then glancing through it again I noticed that Maxwell showed the first colour photo on the 17th May 1861, so there's an anniversary coming this Saturday...

Regards, David
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Dear David,

Even more fascinating when you consider it shouldn't have worked at all, as the plates were neither green nor red sensitive. The answer, apparently, is differential UV transmission in the taking filters. Thanks for the anniversary reminder!

Cheers,

R.
 
... I'm reminded by this of Albert Kane, and saddened by how little he is regarded by intellectuals ... as for anniversaries, this photo is in its centenary year should anyone care

Albert_Kahn_(1860-1940)_US.jpg
 
Roger Hicks said:
Dear David,

Even more fascinating when you consider it shouldn't have worked at all, as the plates were neither green nor red sensitive. The answer, apparently, is differential UV transmission in the taking filters. Thanks for the anniversary reminder!

Cheers,

R.
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Hi,

Yes, I can remember wondering about it years ago, because when I started I used what I could afford and didn't graduate to panchromatic until later on. So how did he do the reds?

BTW, for everyone else, if you get the book "My Leica and I" you'll need Brian Coe's book to date things because some of the Leica essays were/are about the trials and tribulations of colour film. Discovering RFF-like rants about the colour film available in the 20's is fascinating, and then he moves on to Dufay-Color, Agfa and then new Agfa and Kodachrome. It's quite an eye-opener reading about the cameras when they were cutting edge, like the film..

Regards, David
 
David Hughes said:
Hi,

Yes, I can remember wondering about it years ago, because when I started I used what I could afford and didn't graduate to panchromatic until later on. So how did he do the reds?

BTW, for everyone else, if you get the book "My Leica and I" you'll need Brian Coe's book to date things because some of the Leica essays were/are about the trials and tribulations of colour film. Discovering RFF-like rants about the colour film available in the 20's is fascinating, and then he moves on to Dufay-Color, Agfa and then new Agfa and Kodachrome. It's quite an eye-opener reading about the cameras when they were cutting edge, like the film..

Regards, David
Click to expand...
Dear David,

The "reds" weren't. Nor were the "greens". The colours reflected, and the filters passed, different wavelengths of UV, as well as being different colours visually. When the colours were "reconstructed", by a happy accident it all came out right. I thought that was in Coe, but I may be misremembering.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Dear David,

The "reds" weren't. Nor were the "greens". The colours reflected, and the filters passed, different wavelengths of UV, as well as being different colours visually. When the colours were "reconstructed", by a happy accident it all came out right. I thought that was in Coe, but I may be misremembering.

Cheers,

R.
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Hi,

Yes, it was in Coe's book. I looked it up last night and ticked off another item on the loose ends list.

In many ways it was a good thing even though it was "wrong" as it kick started a lot, imo. A lot of pioneer's who got nowhere at the time were important for helping show the way to go and not go; although a lot only remember the winners and forget how much they relied on others' work.

Regards, David
 
n many ways it was a good thing even though it was "wrong" as it kick started a lot, imo. A lot of pioneer's who got nowhere at the time were important for helping show the way to go and not go; although a lot only remember the winners and forget how much they relied on others' work.
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Very wise words.

We're stuck in a culture where a few people get hailed as "geniuses", because those doing the hailing "conveniently" forget Newton's words: "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

All of us owe a debt to those who have gone before.
 
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