The perfection of imperfect photos

Jonathan R said:
So, do you think we should aim for imperfection, or just embrace it when it happens? I suspect, given your taste for pictirialism, you will say the former?
Click to expand...
Both really.

But yes when I discovered Saul Leiter I realized he pretty much was an exemplar of "imperfect" photography and sought it out and embraced it. His photos are all full of blur, reflections, are often soft(ish) and indistinct as to detail, and yet are amongst the most wonderful images I have seen anywhere because they appeal directly to the artist's eye. But it depends also on the photographer's personal style and sense of aesthetics too. Some people just cannot relate to this style of work precisely because it is a little "poetic" in its aspirations or because they rebel against its inherent imperfections.


Here is an example of Leiter's work in which I feel sure he has deliberately used a slow shutter speed and focused at a closer point rather than on the subject person in it to convey a sense of movement and contrapose it to the static nature of the stilled traffic as he crosses at the intersection with the opposing traffic which is also blurred by movement. Simple but genius. I don't know if I would have thought of this specific shot and the technique that produced it unless I had first seen it in his image.


The article from which the above came. ‘An enigma, an artist who walked to his own beat’: the everyday sublime of photographer Saul Leiter
 
mdarnton said:
There are still great photographers doing great work. They are just buried to invisibility under millions of technically-perfect superficial ones raised to prominence by people of superficial taste. The recognition of the genuinely good things is not a common skill, though in this era it's common to believe that everyone is an expert at everything. Supposedly Georg Solti once told the Chicago Symphony in rehearsal that 95% of their audience had no idea what they were hearing and that the musicians should therefore be giving their best effort for their own gratification.

We now live in a materialist world where the superficial is valued whereas underlying spiritual meanings are intentionally spit on. Thus happens our situation. But you can still have imperfection devoid of meaning; imperfection is just another (contrarian) materialist value in much of this thread--perfect imperfection for the sake of itself, still with no important statement.

peterm1 will probably think I also missed the point, but I don't think so.

@Ko.Fe. , thanks for the Bocharova . That's the real thing!
Click to expand...
I agree with some of what you say - particularly about the invisibility of millions of technically perfect photos. So I am not sure I would say you missed the point. I am not sure I have a specific point other than that maybe photographers should cease chasing technical perfection and instead recognize that photography communicates through the eye and they should instead seek to create images that communicate through visual poetry if I can call it that. (At least occasionally). Perhaps it's "over egging the pudding" to call it eye candy but to some extent that is what good photography is about.

Thinking about it further I suppose I did have a personal point which is inherent in this post. Do great pieces of classical music need an "important statement"? I think not - at least not necessarily. Such music appeals to many simply because the music is by its nature some how appealing (OK that's a tautology but of course it is never the less so). I seriously doubt I will ever achieve this degree of success in my photography but it's enough to aspire to - and this keeps me trying.

As for me, I almost never shoot images because they have an "important statement". To my way of thinking that is the domain of reportage photography and I am not one of those types of photographer - most of us are not. Fine, perhaps if you aspire to be the next Sebastiao Salgado, for example. But it is not what I am referring to particularly. Speaking personally, I feel no aspiration to populate my photos with social critique or messaging and no desire to change the world - the present world is too full of too many people who have been told they must aspire to change the world by making meaningful statements". When perhaps it is far more impactful to simply create something beautiful if they can. In other words when making images, its simply enough if those images speak to the "aesthetic eye" and are appealing. Who knows, if a few of them work well enough they may occasionally even stir the soul be emotionally moving for some viewers. And in a small way that does change the world.

If I really wanted to be high-faluting I would cite part of a poem by John Keats. If it's good enough for Keats, then its certainly good enough for me.
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
 
Last edited:
Ko.Fe. said:
Do I put lipstick on the pig a.k.a. overprocessing? Of course I do.

Taken with digital Leica, applied similar to filters you have used for headshot.


Elora Mill Inn... by Kostya Fedot, on Flickr

Contact print from digital Leica via negative printed on regular paper.


Untitled by Kostya Fedot, on Flickr

The layers of imperfection are not limited.

The entry layer is to apply imperfection filters on digital images. Don't make false assumptions. This method examples are on my public Flickr.
It means I do like it.

As person who has grown on visual art from Impressionists it is just natural to have something with "missed focus".

My point is, the entry level approach prevails on photogaphy forums, where most are not into the art, but gearheads approach.
And if picture is not in focus, not framed under primitive rules, not technically right WB, crooked horizon and so on - it is called as imperfection.

To me, as person who has grown on impressionism this is way too simplified approach.

Back to Anna Bocharova photography. She is one of the few making living by photogaphy.
For money, she takes technically perfect product photos with DSLR. After work, she goes on the streets and it takes hours to tune in.
It is not about been in focus, framing and such. It is about starting to feel something inside and starting to react to it.
And she doesn't use digital. Only film and mostly Leica with some slow, old lenses.

I have same thing, I can't go out and shot instantly (I mean I could only do technically fine pictures right away), it takes times and walking distances to start to react on something not too obvious.

Photos often doesn't come anywhere technically perfect. The moment of feel is very short and not predictable.
So, it is always a struggle. Start taking technically fine photos or continue to find something you won't even expect.

Actually, it is one of the Lomography principals. But this days it is gone and replaced by Abu Dhabi style of consumerism.
Well, some are trying to re-live Lomography (originated on cheap film cameras) and using old digital P&S.
Polaroid, Instax is same thing, just more expensive, artsy and original form on technical imperfection :) .
Click to expand...
You have just served up a four-course meal of thoughts. It will take me a while to digest them. :D

But until I do, may I simply say at this point that I particularly like the first of the two photos in your post. It works - I think because it has a dreamlike quality in which the filters / textures applied (or maybe they are reflections in a window through which it was shot) to it are noticeable and yet do not over-power the main subject, but rather add to it by drawing attention to that subject. I like such photos, and this one in particular, because you have avoided the obvious which would have been a straightforward but less impactful shot of a building and the forest beyond. You have elevated it from a photo that is documentary in nature to being art.
 
helen.HH said:
For some 'Imperfection' is painful to view... a muddled mess

For others a door into the Imagination...
More Emotive, atmospheric beckoning the viewer to pause
be drawn in

Like Attraction
It's more complex than many people can communicate,

It's something you can’t really control.
it just happens
& takes one over
More so when You least expect it

so much of life is all about
what's unsaid ~
Click to expand...
Yes, absolutely. You are a poet at heart, Helen.
When photos like this work they speak directly to the unconscious mind.
 
This was, I must confess, a deliberate triple exposure (made in camera) of a colleague performing Iaido sword training in a dojo. An experiment in deliberate imperfection as a way of telling "bigger" story about the practice of Iaido and the movements of its practitioners. I particularly like the way in which the only distinct part is the face. This aspect of the photo was entirely unintended but serendipitous. 27132528858_37515701a8_h.jpg
 
Last edited:
Technically perfect images have their own attraction, whether by lighting, focus, composition, or other. The imperfect speaks to emotion and the sense of perception/memory, which we've discussed a number of times. There are times and places for both, and as you say, the desire for technical perfection should not come at the expense of communicating emotion and 'sense of scene' or 'sense of place'.

Tonight, I'll be shooting an event with something I haven't used for over three years - Voigtlander m43 primes. The f0.95 primes have distinctive glow wide open, they are high quality character lenses made in the modern age. I haven't used them for a few years because I bought the Olympus f1.2 primes, which have terrific sharpness and autofocus, but I just want to get that sense of deliberate manual focus shooting outside of the Leica M system tonight. Of course, I'll have my usual Panasonic S5 with 24-105, but tonight I'm allowing myself to experiment and see what happens. I'm hoping for some imperfect and characterful images with the 25 and 17.5.
 
This search for imperfection reminds me of the impressionists (Monet, Renoir etc.), who chose corse hair brushes, palettes and a way of working which clashed with the perfection demanded by the Paris salons.

I feel that the work of Trent Parke in Minutes to midnight, fits in this thread.
caa75326f3caac25f7ffa2c202f0acda.jpg
 
I think the process of shooting film is beneficial in recognising when a mistake is a successful one. With digital; you have a vision, you press the shutter, immediately see the mistake and maybe delete the picture. With film, because of the delay, there is more of a disconnect between what you wanted to capture and the result. And you are more likely to see the image for what it is, decoupled from your original intent.
 
Rikard said:
I think the process of shooting film is beneficial in recognising when a mistake is a successful one. With digital; you have a vision, you press the shutter, immediately see the mistake and maybe delete the picture. With film, because of the delay, there is more of a disconnect between what you wanted to capture and the result. And you are more likely to see the image for what it is, decoupled from your original intent.
Click to expand...

Very possibly and I think it also depends on your personal workflow, for me, I never look at pictures on my DSLRs whilst using them, I treat/use them as film Cameras and always have, and only see the pics at home when transfered to the computer.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom