JohnWolf
Well-known
I like your analysis, Bill, but can't help but think there's a category in between. Something like simply engaging for it's own sake.
Moriyama's dog, for example, mentioned above. Not important. Not fitting typical notions of beauty. But certainly engaging.
BTW, I feel that press photographers should strive to not only capture the important moment, but to do so in a beautiful way. I'm a fan of the NYT photography and so often find their images important, engaging, and beautiful.
John
Moriyama's dog, for example, mentioned above. Not important. Not fitting typical notions of beauty. But certainly engaging.
BTW, I feel that press photographers should strive to not only capture the important moment, but to do so in a beautiful way. I'm a fan of the NYT photography and so often find their images important, engaging, and beautiful.
John
rhl-oregon
Cameras Guitars Wonders
Among the plenitude of concepts that may be associated with the tangible materials of life, beauty and truth are two constantly revisited by critics as well as artists in the traditions traceable back to Greek sculpture and polychromes, narrative and lyric and dramatic verse, philosophy and math. They are ideas, given forms in idealizations that, in turn and over millennia, get codified, redefined, expanded, destroyed, reassembled. We know what happens when mere fragments of their invisible essence are converted into competing orthodoxies—on a small personal scale, friendships may be damaged; at larger scales, millions of beings lose the life that was precious for reasons reason did not need to know.
Everybody loves beauty, but once they start discussing what is or is not important about it, slings and arrows are likely to follow. By then they may really be arguing about what is true or what truth is, using all sorts of conceptual and emotional proxies.
Our visions and beliefs of what constitutes Cosmos may differ not only from the assumptions of our neighbors and colleagues, but from earlier versions of what we believed ourselves to be and to value. Why shouldn’t a rational being evolve their vision of which forms of matter represent beauty and which experiences are more and less important?
Cosmos at a personal level is perceiving durable truths about what beauty is, was, and may yet be within a mortal lifespan. The same applies to Chaos. Robert Frank was, in a notable sense, driven to depict the sorrows and pities of people who could not stop moving until they were wrecked on a homeless roadside. Ansel Adams depicts landscapes in the same country as though no human has ruined it and no genocides have occurred there. And while those are two acknowledged masters of photography, consider how many more photographic visions might be required to truly compile a Godseye view of what is beautiful, in feeling and structure, and what may be both important and true, however heartbreaking or indifferent.
In a piece I published decades ago—originally as a piece of criticism about an artist using dioramas to depict social chaos—, I portrayed hell as a place where the dead stand face to face, unable to stop talking about their mistakes and unable to listen to anyone else’s babble. For this topic, I’d extend the definition to include photographers whose thoughts keep revolving around the premise “I’m important,” and the ways in which that blinds and deafens them to using the camera to learn how to see more deeply and broadly beyond themselves.
Everybody loves beauty, but once they start discussing what is or is not important about it, slings and arrows are likely to follow. By then they may really be arguing about what is true or what truth is, using all sorts of conceptual and emotional proxies.
Our visions and beliefs of what constitutes Cosmos may differ not only from the assumptions of our neighbors and colleagues, but from earlier versions of what we believed ourselves to be and to value. Why shouldn’t a rational being evolve their vision of which forms of matter represent beauty and which experiences are more and less important?
Cosmos at a personal level is perceiving durable truths about what beauty is, was, and may yet be within a mortal lifespan. The same applies to Chaos. Robert Frank was, in a notable sense, driven to depict the sorrows and pities of people who could not stop moving until they were wrecked on a homeless roadside. Ansel Adams depicts landscapes in the same country as though no human has ruined it and no genocides have occurred there. And while those are two acknowledged masters of photography, consider how many more photographic visions might be required to truly compile a Godseye view of what is beautiful, in feeling and structure, and what may be both important and true, however heartbreaking or indifferent.
In a piece I published decades ago—originally as a piece of criticism about an artist using dioramas to depict social chaos—, I portrayed hell as a place where the dead stand face to face, unable to stop talking about their mistakes and unable to listen to anyone else’s babble. For this topic, I’d extend the definition to include photographers whose thoughts keep revolving around the premise “I’m important,” and the ways in which that blinds and deafens them to using the camera to learn how to see more deeply and broadly beyond themselves.
So, who are some of these photographers that think they are important when they aren’t?
bluesun267
Well-known
At this point in history a selfie has become the antithesis of "important" since everyone is doing it. I surmise that many takers of selfies haven't thought about the big picture though
markjwyatt
Well-known
I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them.
- Diane Arbus
- Diane Arbus
markjwyatt
Well-known
A "selfie" on "Instagram (or Snapchat, etc.)" is the ultimate expression of narcissism.
Right but the main purpose of a selfie is not photography.
raydm6
Yay! Cameras! 🙈🙉🙊┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘ [◉"]
I like that.
And, I think I fall into this category for the most part:
Archiver
Veteran
Tell that to my Dad who insists on forwarding photos of people's newborn kids. Like come on, Dad. :bang:
peterm1
Veteran
Oscuro
He's French, I'm Italian.
Maybe. Or maybe this is precisely what makes it important, anthropologically. Which may be one function of photography.
You may. But, equally, many "takers" are very careful and exacting in their pursuit of the selfie.
Mme. O.
Oscuro
He's French, I'm Italian.
Is the main purpose of a news photograph "photography"? Or a portrait? Or documentary work? Or any work with a camera where content is more important than form? Is a photograph made for purpose of "photography" a meta-photograph?
One could argue that the purpose of photography is not photography at all. It is to document, observe, transmit, convey, question, investigate, illuminate, obfuscate, confuse, deceive, subjugate, etc...........
Mme. O
mapgraphs
Established
This is it.
Rob-F
Likes Leicas
"This made me want to photograph it; I may or may not know why."
I agree... I think those are all uses of photography. I'm not getting into the "meta" stuff but, I do prefer that style of photograph i.e. photography for photography. Obviously context is important here.
True as well... photography as art is complicated when you want it to be. I enjoy thinking about those complications even if my photography doesn't show it always.