Stands photography on it's head here ?

[Bertram2]

Hi to all,

I read this in an interview of a featured member at APUG, a member which uses a 8X10 mostly for contact printing:

APUG:
What are your favorite types of subjects to photograph?

Member:
I tend not to think in terms of subject matter. My goal when making a photograph is to create something new and beautiful, the final print itself. In that way I view objects as tools in the process of making a picture more than subjects of the picture....

Objects as tools in the process of making a picture more than subjects of the picture 😕
In other words he says it's not THAT important what he shoots, it's getting beautiful anyway by the way he PRINTS it !?

I think that this is a widespread attitude among the Apug photogs, especially among the LG photogs and so I am not interested to start a discussion there., I know what most of the response will be like.

I'd be interested tho to hear some opinions here, in this much more pluralistic community.

For me this is sorry to say so, a kind of perverted photography , which stands on it's head . If subject does not matter why should I photograph it then ?? I mean if printing is the fun for somebody he should call himself a printer, but not a photographer.
Or is that a too simple minded POV ?

bertram
confused 😕

 

[Todd.Hanz]

Photography is not about the thing photographed. It is about how that thing looks photographed. -Garry Winogrand

I agree to an extent, not everyone will. I lke to photograph textures like peeling paint, rusted metal, and the such. When doing so I could care less about what it's connected too, I become engrosed in the movement and composition of the texture. When printing the photo I want the end result to bring out the texture, what I saw in my mind.
The feeling though is different when shooting people, I try and bring out a certain attitude or look/expression. I think it depends more on the subject matter.

Todd

 

[JMP]

Hi to all,

I read this in an interview of a featured member at APUG, a member which uses a 8X10 mostly for contact printing:

APUG:
What are your favorite types of subjects to photograph?

Member:
I tend not to think in terms of subject matter. My goal when making a photograph is to create something new and beautiful, the final print itself. In that way I view objects as tools in the process of making a picture more than subjects of the picture....

Objects as tools in the process of making a picture more than subjects of the picture 😕
In other words he says it's not THAT important what he shoots, it's getting beautiful anyway by the way he PRINTS it !?

I think that this is a widespread attitude among the Apug photogs, especially among the LG photogs and so I am not interested to start a discussion there., I know what most of the response will be like.

I'd be interested tho to hear some opinions here, in this much more pluralistic community.

For me this is sorry to say so, a kind of perverted photography , which stands on it's head . If subject does not matter why should I photograph it then ?? I mean if printing is the fun for somebody he should call himself a printer, but not a photographer.
Or is that a too simple minded POV ?

bertram
confused 😕

With only this one quote from the photographer it's difficult to pin down the intention. The way you are interpreting it seems to be far to one side of this argument, that he really means the subject is more or less totally unimportant.

I suppose that I interpret it a little more to the middle of the road. Photography is necessarily "of" something, and the magic occurs when that something is shown to the viewer (of the photo) through the viewpoint of the specific photographer in a way we are not used to seeing, with a certain integrity, etc. If this was not true, then shots of the most exotic places, most beautiful people and whatnot would have by far the greatest number of views on this site whether they are "interesting" photos or not. To me what the photographer is saying is that he believes anything can be made beautiful/interesting, depending on how it is shown, and therefore, subject matter is less important than vision.

Since rangefinder cameras are especially well adapted to capturing moments (portable, fast) and less ideal for perfect composing (since one's not seeing exactly what the lens sees), it makes sense that those who use rangefinders would be more interested in subject matter.

 

[Todd.Hanz]

great post JMP, well worded.

 

[Bertram2]

Photography is not about the thing photographed. It is about how that thing looks photographed. -Garry Winogrand
Todd

Hi Todd,
I know the version " I started photographing because I wanted to see how things looked photographed", he explains what brought him to photography.
If this was the driving thing for him , o.k., that's trivial, don't we all look forward to the point when we see what we have done ?

Whatever he has said and whatever he has meant , it is HIS opinion and I don't think it contributes to answer my question. because he said "how it looked photgraphed", he did not say "how it looked printed ". this is a different thing. And exactly this was what made me feel concerned.

And you, Todd, you shoot patterns because you do really like them, subject does matter indeed for you, right ? That's not what the statement above says, it says subject does NOT matter. It says more or less "I can photograph anything and make it worthful by my art of printing ". I can't see this kinda attitude in your photos. 🙂

Best,
bertram

 

[Kin Lau]

Textures, still-life, abstracts tend to fall in that category. In some/many cases, you cannot tell what the object in the print is, but the print is still quite beautiful to look at.

That's my best guess on what he may have been trying to get at.

 

[Bertram2]

To me what the photographer is saying is that he believes anything can be made beautiful/interesting, depending on how it is shown, and therefore, subject matter is less important than vision.
.

Yes, if shown = printed for you then that's what I meant with "perverted", a harsh word but it describes my emotion best. "Beautiful" is not "interesting" for me btw, two very different things IMO we should not mix up. We also should not mix up "trivial" and "does not matter". I other words you can shoot trivial things and make a good photo of it, no question. If you have a vision ! 🙂

But if something does not matter to you, if it is an arbitrary item, chosen by chance, just to prove your craft ?
My question is what kinda "vision" can you have of a thing that does not matter for you ?

As it was said by the photog there is not much tolerance left to put it a bit more in the middle of the road, I found it to be pretty radical.
bertram

 

[jlw]

It's possible that all the photographer is saying is that he doesn't concentrate or specialize on one type of subject matter, he just looks for subjects that will offer him the opportunity to make beautiful photographs. I think all of us do that to one extent or another1

 

[FrankS]

As mentioned before, this difference could be explained by the difference between RF cameras and LF view cameras. With RF cameras, we typically go out and FIND an image, while a LF photographer (often indoors) creates or builds an image.

Simplistic opinion to be sure. Reality is always more complex.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

With only this one quote from the photographer it's difficult to pin down the intention. The way you are interpreting it seems to be far to one side of this argument, that he really means the subject is more or less totally unimportant.

Short of reproducing the whole photographer's quotable life, I think it would be rather detracting to do so in this thread. Perhaps a link to it may help.

The point is that there is an objectivization and hyperrationalization being done to a degree which casts light on photography the same way as a poet may be quoted to saying "I don't think about the words that are being written nor its subject matter, but about how beautiful they sound and how many syllables each line has so that they conform to a very specific literary form; it's not about what you're reading, but about how beautiful it all looks and reads together".

And that is disturbing to me. That would rob the artistic value of poetry as a projection and creation of the artist's alma. I think the same can be deduced from this "view" of photography pertaining to its subject matter. Yes, from this one quote.

 

[Bertram2]

It's possible that all the photographer is saying is that he doesn't concentrate or specialize on one type of subject matter, he just looks for subjects that will offer him the opportunity to make beautiful photographs. I think all of us do that to one extent or another1

What he says is:
In that way I view objects as tools in the process of making a picture more than subjects of the picture....

For me this means " give me ANY item, I need it only to make my process run".

bertram

 

[Todd.Hanz]

No offense bertram, there is a really good chance you are speaking way above my level, so please help me understand the difference between how something would look "photographed" and look "printed"? How would someone see the results of taking the photo if not to print it, in Winogrands case there were not scanners and computers available for use, at least not as today.

I looked at APUG and read the interview, if you look at his posted images he appears to look for design and patterns in his images, he has a creative eye for the unseen patterns in everyday things. Maybe he mis-spoke, I guess you could email him and ask for clarification without the other APUG forumers getting on your case.

regards,
Todd

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Maybe he mis-spoke, I guess you could email him and ask for clarification without the other APUG forumers getting on your case.

That is a possibility. People misspeak and get misunderestimated all the time. I do it more oftener than not.

 

[Finder]

Who cares what he said? If that is what blows his hair back, how can you say he is wrong? Or are you saying there is one one correct way to think about the creative process? Besides, I would pay less attention to what he says and more to the pictures he makes. Artists are notorious of saying silly things about their work. (Or can you explain the difference between "visualize" and "previsualize"?)

There is nothing wrong with intellectualizing art, but it is not science nor definitive. Comments by artists are simply word games. They only make sense in reference to implied assumptions. However, the assumptions are not founded on any "reality." So if you enjoy the word games and they help inspire you, then great. Go for it. But to hold them up as some sort of absolute truth is misguided. These statements are no better than to say the prettiest color is blue, or black and white photography is deeper than color; statements that cannot be proven nor falsified.

 

[XAos]

Realists have a hard time in the paint and ink world. In photography it's much worse. I can identify much more with the photojournalism school than I can the art side of it. That said - I still try to compose nice pictures. I still seek out unusual angles. I still look for creative phrasing, but it's never for the sake of ink blots. Every once in a blue moon I actually succeed.

 

[celluloidprop]

Whether in this case or not, there are some photographers you encounter for whom the process of obtaining the perfect negative and the perfect contrast curve on the print is paramount - the subject is irrelevant, as long as the tonal range is there. (Which is what Bertram's talking about, right?)

That's different from someone like Winogrand, who photographed to see what things looked like - he was never obsessive about the level of base+fog+blah blah blah in his chosen papers.

 

[RML]

It's possible that all the photographer is saying is that he doesn't concentrate or specialize on one type of subject matter, he just looks for subjects that will offer him the opportunity to make beautiful photographs. I think all of us do that to one extent or another1

This is what I understood it to mean.

I don't have that much of "the eye" so I don't always find the beauty or the interesting bits in a scene or object but I can imagine that really anything can be used to make art from. People did that with faeces of all things! So, when this photog says he uses objects (and I would assume subjects too) as a tool to create his art, I can understand that. Is a shot of a red pepper a shot of a red pepper or is it something else? How about a shot of the curves of the female body? To me this seems like using an object (red pepper. female body) as a tool to make art.

 

[RML]

That's different from someone like Winogrand, who photographed to see what things looked like - he was never obsessive about the level of base+fog+blah blah blah in his chosen papers.

He couldn't be. He was too obsessed with taking shots. Remember the 300.000 undeveloped negs he left behind? 🙂

 

[Gid]

I think that JLW has hit the nail on the head. There are times when the subject is important - think family shots, paparazzi, documentary photog. However, I imagine that we all go out sometimes and take indisciminate shots - I don't mean that we don't think about what we are taking, just that the particular subject is less important than what it will convey in the finished image. It is the finished image - the print (real or virtual) that is (for most of us) the objective and I'd be surprised if we didn't all try to make that the best we can. The process is of course most enjoyable and I can enjoy just being there taking shots even if I don't get any keepers. I don't have any issues with the quote and I don't think it is contrary to "acceptable photographic practice" whatever that is. Ultimately, I think we should worry less about what motivates others and just go enjoy.

Gid

 

[Bertram2]

No offense bertram, there is a really good chance you are speaking way above my level, so please help me understand the difference between how something would look "photographed" and look "printed"?
regards,
Todd

This difference was directly related to the statement in the interview, and for me exactly this difference is the prob.

To make it shorter and hopefully more precise : There is a certain basic attitude behind his statement which says " give me ANY item, I need it only to make my process run and at the end it will look beautiful ".
That implies that the whole act of taking the photo is not more than the unavoidable condition for printing out something beautiful.

Of course everybody can do what "blows his hair back", no question .
But if the act of shooting is just a preparation for his darkroom process,
then I think the whole process of photography has gotten completely outta balance.

If you and I shoot patterns we do it because we find it nice or interesting or beautiful and we shoot it to keep it and take it home. We don't shoot it tho SOLELY (!) because we suppose it to be one of such items suited to make an artwork from later in the printing process.

It's not about shooting patterns, it's about the reason one has for shooting them. The item does matter, it's not just a weight you train the muscles of your craftsmanship with.
You CAN do that of course, i would not critizise that ever, but I keep "Photography" the wrong name for that. And THAT was the decisive point for me.

Hope I was clearer this time , it's not easy to discuss such issues in a foreign language 🙄

Best,
bertram