Self Censorship: Our Worst Enemy

FallisPhoto said:
I've had "art" teachers (abstract expressionists who didn't really seem to grasp their subject, mostly) get so mad at me that the papers were literally rattling in their hands. One art teacher once told me that if I thought I could do better to "get up here and try it."

I did. The class I taught was mostly on the subject of geometric formulae involving repeating forms and vanishing points in art (tile floors, bridge spans, fence posts, and etcetera). The formulae are used to achieve a convincing illusion of perspective, and to keep everything in proportion (I like realism). I think I did a better job of it too.
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Your subject is the basis or renaissance Art and is totally scientific.

You've done a good job only if you gave due credit to Filippo Brunelleschi.
 
NB23 said:
Your subject is the basis or renaissance Art and is totally scientific.

You've done a good job only if you gave due credit to Filippo Brunelleschi.
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Yeah, he's the guy who invented linear perspective. Isn't he also the guy who did some painting or other that had to be viewed in a mirror?
 
ruben said:
Hi Fallis,
I have carefully read your piece, and already started to apply its contents. I have reviewed by now some 10 images. Some pictures I have something to say about, beyond the hurrah, and in one case I couldn't, the image was overwhelming:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=73830&cat=4903

Perhaps you can do better there.:)

Cheers,
Ruben
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Well, the "milky" appearance shows that the exposure was a little off, and the shallow depth of field shows that it was probably taken with a camera set on on automatic. If you are using an automatic camera, and you're shooting at night, in an urban environment, that can be a pretty common problem. The background lights play hell with your metering and autoexposure. If it was a manual camera, then it could be a case of the complicated lighting and that he just hasn't quite mastered his meter. I wish the lens had been a little brighter, and that he'd taken a slightly longer exposure with it stopped down one more notch too. Still, overall, it is a rather powerful photo. Compositionally, it is a very interesting photo -- and that is about the best thing you can ever say about ANY photo (that it makes you look, captures your interest, and actually has a message that you can try to figure out).
 
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kevin m said:
This, to me, seems an appeal to pure sentiment and an attempt to lionize mediocrity.
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Whoa, hold'up rite there, mister. This is the Internet, big round words don't make the cut. How about "you dissin substance?" :angel:

kevin m said:
Sure, we're all mortal, so in that sense we're all equal.
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Well, lots of Peter Pan Generation members would like to think otherwise ;)

kevin m said:
Between the mortal bookends of birth and death the man got a lot done with a camera. Whether you're a professional photographer or a hobbyist, you have to tip your cap to that.
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There you go again; this is the sort of talk that got HCB so many sources of misquotation. I wonder if you'll be translated to another language as saying "the man got a bunch of things done with a mortal bookend camera". :eek:
 
I was an admirer of H. C-B's work long before I knew which cameras he used. Later, after I had seen much good work by other photographers, I felt uneasy that one man should have been turned into a sort of demi-god.
 
HCB is interesting, especially when you are first starting out.
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So he's like a bildungsroman for young photographers? What claptrap. If his work is not to your taste, then say that. Or point out whose work is more to your taste and champion that. But don't come here and make a cheap shot at a man whose work is, honestly, far above your poor power to add or detract, or imply that anyone who admires it is somehow immature in their taste.
 
After the WTC collapsed, I went back to my apartment and made sure everything was OK. I took some money, valuables, ID and put it in a bag for escape. People were streaming over the Brooklyn Bridge.

My girlfriend (now wife) had still not gotten dressed, she's Japanese and even though she was watching on TV, was still not really comprehending the enormity of what had happened.

I took her outside and showed her. This is my most bizarre photo of the day. (Her face deliberately obliterated for posting)




 
Ah Kevin what a pleasant way to start out the day... what a kind way you have of expressing yourself.
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My "kindness" is a reaction to your condescension. If you meant to say that HCB is someone you outgrow when your tastes become "sophisticated," then I stand by what I said. If you meant to say something different, then I apologize for over-reacting....;)
 
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The next day, in normally bustling Chinatown, the electric power was erratic and the streets looked grim and dead.

People stood in line to buy food off the shelves, newspapers, and many tried to empty their bank accounts and walk away with their cash in bags.



Memorial under Confucious:





Is this the sort of thing that thrills you so much and what you want to see, Ruben?

 
I think HCB was OK. He had a lot of good photos and a lot of so-so photos. That's one of the side benefits of shooting hundreds of thousands of photos.....some are going to be masterpieces (except for a few "photographers" I know who will NEVER shoot anything interesting with their $40,000 worth of equipment). But there is no doubt HCB had a good eye.

If you like him, good for you. I don't see any reason to get all steamed up about it. It's not like making fun of someone with a cartoon or something like that, is it?
 
You did use "claptrap" improperly
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You seemed to be playing to the gallery with your first comment, too, espousing a view that, I'm guessing, might currently be popular in academic or critical circles: That HCB is a lightweight. Fads and whims whip thru the academic world, too, dressed up in obfuscating language, and perhaps this is one of them.

HCB does not offer a lot of insight into his own work, either from looking at the work, or from interviews or what he has written.
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Why should he have to? Shouldn't the work -any work- stand on its own? FWIW, he's not my favorite, either. I find him a bit too cool and detached. But the work is what it is, and it's up to me, to a large degree, to find a way to connect to it. And not a word of what is written about the man has any bearing on that, whether written by him or not.
 
Good fries at Odeon.

Honestly, I really do not like to see any 9/11 imagery. If they show it on TV, I change the channel.

I have no interest in seeing anything about it, the impact on me is visceral.

For a year after 9/11, I would get enraged when they kept showing the planes hit the Towers over and over and over and over and over........

Infuriated me.

Like I said, I have had enough. I only wish they would have built them back already, exactly the same, but 10 stories higher and hardened construction, with a state of the art missile array on the roof.
 
We've gone from a nation of free, inventive people who could do anything to a country full of frightened snitches, religious nuts, dull-witted sheep, martinets and obese ignoramuses.
 
We've gone from a nation of free, inventive people who could do anything to a country full of frightened snitches, religious nuts, dull-witted sheep, martinets and obese ignoramuses.
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True, but you forgot we're dope addicts, too. We need help from the pharmaceutical industry to get an erection and keep a permanent smile glued to our faces while we shop our way to armageddon. But try bringing that up at the Thanksgiving table.
 
Where can I get some of those pills to put a permanent smile on my face?

Somebody already knows I should be using Viagra, they keep emailing me every day.
 
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