This is....

Bill Pierce

Bill Pierce

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I think there are two major reasons that we take photographs. (1) This is important. (2) This is beautiful. I made my living as a news photographer. To some degree, what I was sent to photograph was considered important by my editors. The Nixon shot that is referred to in the introduction to this forum is not in any way an outstanding photograph outside of the important event it records. If you look through my files you are going to see a huge number of pictures of my family and friends - important to me.

Even when you look at “art,” the subject of that art is often important to the artist whether it be the unspoiled land photographed by Adams or the human idiosynchrocies photographed by Winogrand. There is one importance I’m not so fond of. That’s the photographer who says, “I’m important.” No, what’s important was what was in front of you, not you.

Maybe #2, “This is beautiful.” is just a very complicated subdivision of “This is important.” What do you think?
 
my one exception might be "this is interesting", not necessarly importaint nor beautiful... of the original two, "this is beautiful" might be my main theme.
 
I’m more selfish I guess. I really just like trying to find new and interesting combinations of things, many very insignificant, and ways to put a viewfinder frame around them. From there, I try to contextualize them with other images in order to make sense of them in some way, but never as photojournalism. Then I hope someone cares… However, mostly I do it because I just like photography as art, it works as a photograph and i can’t help but do it. So, yeah it’s kind of a selfish fulfillment for me.
 
I think "interesting" falls under important, at lease it does for me. If I find something interesting enough that I want to photograph it, I'm saying, to myself at least, this is important enough that I want to share it.

Best,
-Tim
 
That's a very fair simplification. Importance is subjective, as is beauty, with regards to the photographer. A friend once proudly showed me an aps film photo he had taken of his then-girlfriend in bed, and crooned about how adorable she was. Let's say that the photo didn't convey this. But to him, there was beauty, so he took that image. I take photos of my desk at regular intervals as a quick documentation of how things were at that time. Completely pointless to anyone else, but important to me.
 
For Me shooting, capturing has nothing to do with Importance
it’s all about
Atmosphere & the Emotive quality
that pulls the Viewer in
 
Bill Pierce said:
I think there are two major reasons that we take photographs. (1) This is important. (2) This is beautiful. I made my living as a news photographer. To some degree, what I was sent to photograph was considered important by my editors. The Nixon shot that is referred to in the introduction to this forum is not in any way an outstanding photograph outside of the important event it records. If you look through my files you are going to see a huge number of pictures of my family and friends - important to me.

Even when you look at “art,” the subject of that art is often important to the artist whether it be the unspoiled land photographed by Adams or the human idiosynchrocies photographed by Winogrand. There is one importance I’m not so fond of. That’s the photographer who says, “I’m important.” No, what’s important was what was in front of you, not you.

Maybe #2, “This is beautiful.” is just a very complicated subdivision of “This is important.” What do think?
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I think I like "This can be beautiful [or interesting or scary or in some way impactful]".
 
Bill Pierce said:
I think there are two major reasons that we take photographs. (1) This is important. (2) This is beautiful. ... What do you think?
Click to expand...
Having it narrowed down in such simple terms, in my case I suppose it's both. It's "life on planet earth" (1) and an artistic outlet (2).

Simpler yet - I take pictures because I can't draw very well.
 
"Beautiful" can take on many identities and forms. Some are downright ugly but they can be photographed beautifully. Penn's cigarette butts for instance. Robert Adams used Daido Moriyama's "Stray Dog" photo as an example in his book "Beauty In Photography". These are the types of beauty I prefer to photograph. Also, they're interesting and important...to me. I can only hope others feel the same.
 
Doug said:
How would this be expressed photographically?
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Good question; I feel I sometimes see it (the photographer getting out of the way that is) in Vivian Maier and also Eggleston (those are two that immediately come to mind). Artists in other mediums have spoken of this: something along the lines of letting the camera (paint, clay, instrument, etc) tell you what it wants to be and where it wants to go
 
I am an unabashed member of the "this is beautiful" school - or of something like it. Or at least that is what I aim for. To be adherent of the "this is important" school of thought then maybe if I were lucky I would take one meaningful "important" photo per year - more likely one in my lifetime. So it would all be a bit of a washout and not worth the effort (well not for me as I am not a pro being paid to chase that particular dragon).

To be even more forthright I do believe that good photographers understand that a photo needs "eye appeal" even if they are aiming for a photo that is important rather than one that is beautiful per se. In this respect a photographer needs to be something like a writer. A writer can write about important issues - but if his or her writing is plodding, tiresome, tedious, badly written, boring and difficult to comprehend then it is not going to really reach many people. They will just turn off and stop reading it Both writing and photography are about communicating. If you cannot communicate effectively to your audience then the game is up. You might as well take up tiddlywinks. And what makes people look, then look again then engage in photos - is "eye appeal".

In short my view is that in photography this means that the image should have that "eye appeal" I mentioned. Does that mean it should be beautiful? Probably not, or at least not necessarily. I do not think the two things - eye appeal and beauty are the same. But if the photo does not make the viewer engage with the image and then think about what is being communicated then it has failed - no matter how "important" it is. So on reflection perhaps what I am saying is not that images must but beautiful but that they should have whatever it takes - "eye appeal" I am calling it - to communicate something to the viewer. Besides in this narcissistic social media age every wanker with a smart phone wants to be a social commentator and make an image that is "important" -i.e. aggrandizes themselves. I say just take pictures that you like and hopefully others like and let history decide if some of them are "important".

As to Bill's final question: "This is beautiful.” is just a very complicated subdivision of “This is important.” What do you think?"
I would not agree exactly as I do not think they are necessarily the same. But I would agree to the extent that I have tried to explain above - if an otherwise important picture lacks eye appeal then it will ultimately fail in whole or part. To this extent they are complimentary, perhaps rather than being the same thing.

There is one final point that I suppose is worth making. Some photos that are beautiful become important more or less just because they have "eye appeal" and capture people's imagination. Steve McCurry's Afghan Girl is one such picture. At one level it was just a well executed candid portrait of a young woman. But it became emblematic of a whole time and people. It started out as a beautiful image but became iconic because it spoke to people about something deeper - people read something into it which made the picture more important than a million other "beautiful" images had the power to do. This also touches on another related topic which I will not go into in depth here - that really great photos are like poetry. Reading poetry forces people to interpret what the author is saying (even more-so than prose). They relate to it through their own experiences of life. And because of this they form a bond with it. This is one reason I like ambiguous photos - that ambiguity forces people to think and interpret. And that, when it works creates a bond with the image. Some never get it of course but that's and entire other story.
 
Third Point

Third Point

I think you may have missed one other reason, and that's photos that leave the viewer questioning "What happened next?". If you add beauty to that via juxtaposition, tonality, lighting, shadow you end up with a winner.

Besson's "Behind the Gare St. Lazare, Paris 1932" comes to mind.

Did he make it? How wet did he get? Who's outside the frame?
 
This is (some attribute of the subject.. important, beautiful, interesting etc)
This is (some concept I'm using photography to express)
 
Archiver said:
It could be said that capturing atmosphere and emotive quality is important to you. ;)
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haha on Me...Yes there is that possibility
but my Life no more caters to Importance of anything
Just Kindness and Love
and on occasion shooting a photo that captures an Eye & moves the Spirit,
wink, wink
 
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