peterm1
Veteran
I was watching the following link today - a new video recently put up on You tube.
The video is titled " Why does photography feel so different now?" but when you drill down, the real thread running through it is why are so many old photos from the relative early days still so impactful when compared with many made using modern photography which have the benefit of modern technology and can often more or less efortlessly produce technically "perfect" images.
This happens to be a bit of a hobby horse of mine as I frequently make imperfect images - either by design or more often in my case, by accident. 😛 My theory is that the potential impact of such "imperfect" photos is because they force the viewer to "engage" with such images (or not engage at all - which is also an option) and when someone does choose to engage it can produce something of a more emotional bond with the image. In this respects, I liken them a bit to poetry as opposed to ordinary prose. I have never been a huge fan of poetry, funnily enough but I do sometimes stumble on a poem that goes straight to my heart and for that reason such poems are memorable. The point I guess is that for use who are not doing this for a living and who want to make something artistic, many images do not necessarily (despite what the advertisers for cameras and lenses say) have to be technically perfect - they just have to work as art and be capable of triggering a positive emotional reaction in the viewer.
This idea is also embraced in the Japanese philosophy of "Wabi Sabi". The idea that there can be beauty in imperfect, and even broken things. Serendipity sometimes comes into play and by pure chance as I wrote this post the following video popped up in my You tube feed. (I had not even been searching for anything associated with this topic - which is the usual reason for such "coincidences" when online.) So - thank you Carl Jung and synchronicity.
In any event, here is a small sample of technically very imperfect photos some by accident and some by design and some by manipulation which I never the less think work. Can't say they are perfect in any sense but I think they do appeal to a similar aesthetic sense to that referred to by the narrator in the video.
I am sure we all have such images in our portfolio - images we like despite their imperfections. If so, please post them here.
1) Blue Chairs - accidental camera movement.
2) The waiting game - accidental camera movement emphasized in post.
3) Image a little soft and partially obscured by reflections and flare.
The video is titled " Why does photography feel so different now?" but when you drill down, the real thread running through it is why are so many old photos from the relative early days still so impactful when compared with many made using modern photography which have the benefit of modern technology and can often more or less efortlessly produce technically "perfect" images.
This happens to be a bit of a hobby horse of mine as I frequently make imperfect images - either by design or more often in my case, by accident. 😛 My theory is that the potential impact of such "imperfect" photos is because they force the viewer to "engage" with such images (or not engage at all - which is also an option) and when someone does choose to engage it can produce something of a more emotional bond with the image. In this respects, I liken them a bit to poetry as opposed to ordinary prose. I have never been a huge fan of poetry, funnily enough but I do sometimes stumble on a poem that goes straight to my heart and for that reason such poems are memorable. The point I guess is that for use who are not doing this for a living and who want to make something artistic, many images do not necessarily (despite what the advertisers for cameras and lenses say) have to be technically perfect - they just have to work as art and be capable of triggering a positive emotional reaction in the viewer.
This idea is also embraced in the Japanese philosophy of "Wabi Sabi". The idea that there can be beauty in imperfect, and even broken things. Serendipity sometimes comes into play and by pure chance as I wrote this post the following video popped up in my You tube feed. (I had not even been searching for anything associated with this topic - which is the usual reason for such "coincidences" when online.) So - thank you Carl Jung and synchronicity.
In any event, here is a small sample of technically very imperfect photos some by accident and some by design and some by manipulation which I never the less think work. Can't say they are perfect in any sense but I think they do appeal to a similar aesthetic sense to that referred to by the narrator in the video.
I am sure we all have such images in our portfolio - images we like despite their imperfections. If so, please post them here.
1) Blue Chairs - accidental camera movement.
2) The waiting game - accidental camera movement emphasized in post.
3) Image a little soft and partially obscured by reflections and flare.
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