Sickly out of focus backgrounds

[Gabriel M.A.]

Straw man fallacy is a little too crude for me to even feel slightly inclined to indulge it.

Maybe you should stripe down the fluff and 'cuteness factor' from your posts and make a concise point of what exactly you're trying to say, only then I should be able to offer a relevant answer.

In other words if you're asked to join Magnum, it means your work is serious.

Hmm.

Well, I often see "straw man" used as a response when there really is no response.

Please point out the straw men and the cuteness factor fluff so that I can strip it off and give you a more serious response. Perhaps one that could move, too.

 

[GSNfan]

Hmm.

Well, I often see "straw man" used as a response when there really is no response.

Please point out the straw men and the cuteness factor fluff so that I can strip it off and give you a more serious response. Perhaps one that could move, too.

To the cut the story short, and bring this discussion back in track what is your idea of serious photography?

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

To the cut the story short, and bring this discussion back in track what is your idea of serious photography?

I thought "serious photography" (or anything else that's "serious" in a discipline) became "serious" due to some sort of agreement between the intent of the photographer and the perception of the viewer. Just like in "Art".

A few posts back.

 

[Sparrow]

Please don't bring perception back into the discussion, that's where it went wrong in the first place .... dogma is much more predictable, so best we stick to dogma I believe 😉

 

[GSNfan]

Originally Posted by Gabriel M.A.
I thought "serious photography" (or anything else that's "serious" in a discipline) became "serious" due to some sort of agreement between the intent of the photographer and the perception of the viewer. Just like in "Art".

The problem is that abstract and verbose sentences which lack any true premise(s) and leads to no conclusion does not pertin itself to critical scrutiny.

You "thought", serious photography became serious by "some sort of agreement" between the intent of the photographer and the viewer.

The problem is that "I thought" does not make for a compelling premise and "some sort of agreement" is not a conclusion, hence for someone like me who's incapable of reading minds, its very difficult to understand what you're trying to say. Even more so when in the end you speak of "photographer intent" which is another minefield because how do we ever know what someone intends.

Maybe, by taking the simple route of giving a few example of 'serious work' according to you and writing it without any pretensions, we might not have had to engage in this juvenile "you said that and I said this" back and forth.

 

[hipsterdufus]

Asking "What is serious photography?" is a bit like asking "What is the meaning of life?" No one knows the answer; a lot of us have some guesses. I don't really understand the bickering.

 

[Sparrow]

It's a lot easier to disagree with someone than it is to think for oneself ... probably

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

The problem is that abstract and verbose sentences which lack any true premise(s) and leads to no conclusion does not pertin itself to critical scrutiny.

You "thought", serious photography became serious by "some sort of agreement" between the intent of the photographer and the viewer.

The problem is that "I thought" does not make for a compelling premise and "some sort of agreement" is not a conclusion.

If "serious photography" were an exact science (or a religion I strongly adhered to) I'm most positively unequivocally certain that I would either posit conclusive evidence with references and footnotes (or deeply-rooted dichotomies in case of it being a religion), perhaps --sorry, I wavered off the compelling path--, I'm absolutely certain follow with pie charts.

Had I known this was a scientific and academic debate I would have done my research.

I'm sure this will be seen as a double-blind straw man.

But since I believe "serious photography" is not an exact science, I did not engage in presenting opinion as fact.

 

[tlitody]

This is sickly out of focus thread.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Asking "What is serious photography?" is a bit like asking "What is the meaning of life?" No one knows the answer; a lot of us have some guesses. I don't really understand the bickering.

Have you read the word of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? All your answers will be there. 😉


And if you don't agree...shall we say, pistols at dawn?

 

[Roger Hicks]

It's a lot easier to disagree with someone than it is to think for oneself ... probably

Dear Stewart,

On the bright side, sometimes (though far from always), disagreement is provoked by thinking about the subject under discussion. Rather more often, I suppose, it's more a case of "My mind is made up. Do not confuse me with the facts." And, of course, there is always "I don't like him, so I will disagree with everything he says."

Cheers,

R.

 

[jsrockit]

The answer is not as tricky as you thought. In fact its very simple.

Serious photography deals with issues that affect people's lives and their way of thinking.

In case you're still unsure then have look at The Americans by Robert Frank, Sahel by Salgado and works of someone like Eugene Richards...

I used to think this way when I was younger and in art school. Now I've learned to be more open minded. Believe me, I am very familiar with many "serious" photographers work (and own many photo books). However, I tend to be more of an Eggleston fan than Salgado fan (for example) ... it speaks to me more. I love The Americans. However, I've learned to respect many type of photography (from the past to the present)... even the lighter stuff, the purely aesthetic, and, gulp, even fashion / commercial photography... 🙂

 

[Sparrow]

Dear Stewart,

On the bright side, sometimes (though far from always), disagreement is provoked by thinking about the subject under discussion. Rather more often, I suppose, it's more a case of "My mind is made up. Do not confuse me with the facts." And, of course, there is always "I don't like him, so I will disagree with everything he says."

Cheers,

R.

Espousing an argument as part of a debate is, as you observed, often a positive thing, however it is hard to see how arguing as a tenant of some dogma is of any value.

It's possible to respect and sometimes be convinced by the former, whereas the latter? where is the value in that ...

 

[GSNfan]

Gabriel M.A. and jsrockit, I think we've very different ideas of what makes something serious, so we should agree to disagree.


I also think Roger Hicks needs to clarify as to what's wrong with a photograph making one feel sickly (even if he used the word metaphorically -not to sound 'academic'), after all, all sickly feelings are not bad, like getting drunk is sort of sickly, so first we need to clear this word 'sickly' and only then we might have a chance of finding out if serious is actually serious or its us who take it seriously.

 

[jsrockit]

I can agree to disagree. We all have our own thing and photography encompasses so many genres, styles, moods, and techniques that we could never all like the same thing. Especially in a forum that caters to the world.

 

[semilog]

Photography is not painting, its factual...

That's a sort-of-true statement but it is only true for certain values of the word "factual."

Still photography is at its core an exercise in data reduction and transformation.

The world is three dimensional, hyperspectral, has huge dynamic range, and is temporally continuous.

Still photography is two dimensional, encompasses a limited field of view (and excludes the rest), always includes geometric and optical distortion, captures very limited spectral bandwidth, has constrained dynamic range, and records smeared, integrated information about finite intervals of time.

Thus, by its very nature, a still photo excludes almost every fact about a scene. The technical limitations of photography, and the selective choices that these limitations force the photographer to make, mean that still photography is an inherently subjective medium.

 

[jsrockit]

The technical limitations of photography, and the selective choices that these limitations force the photographer to make, mean that still photography is an inherently subjective medium.

Which is what makes it so damn wonderful to me. 😀

 

[Spyro]

Which is what makes it so damn wonderful to me. 😀

same here.

 

[GSNfan]

That's a sort-of-true statement but it is only true for certain values of the word "factual."

Still photography is at its core an exercise in data reduction and transformation.

The world is three dimensional, hyperspectral, has huge dynamic range, and is temporally continuous.

Still photography is two dimensional, encompasses a limited field of view (and excludes the rest), always includes geometric and optical distortion, captures very limited spectral bandwidth, has constrained dynamic range, and records smeared, integrated information about finite intervals of time.

Thus, by its very nature, a still photo excludes almost every fact about a scene. The technical limitations of photography, and the selective choices that these limitations force the photographer to make, mean that still photography is an inherently subjective medium.

Despite everything that you listed, still it is a photograph that is in your passport and not a painting or something else to 'show' what you look like.

You're comparing a photograph to real time and space. This is something that is always done as if for a photograph to be really objective it must replicate real time and space, that is not only misguided but simply wrong... The job of a photograph is to 'describe' time and space within its limitation, that description is good enough in the court of law, passports, insurance etc.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

So...Passport Photography is Serious Photography? Or do you mean that objective photography is serious photography?

I think the target keeps on moving and that's why nobody's getting anybody's point(s).