What a photo SHOULD be...

mfogiel

mfogiel

Veteran
Local time
10:12 PM
Joined
May 8, 2007
Messages
4,669
Location
Monaco
View My Gallery
This is taken from "Online Photographer" by Mike Johnston.

"Quote o' the Day: Jeffrey Ladd

"A photograph should be more interesting than the subject and transcend its obviousness."

—Jeffrey Ladd
[Quoted on Conscientious, found by Stan Banos]"

Well, that would do away with The Rhine, the Old and New Topography, Dusseldorf School and 99.999% of all what is published online nowadays ...
Thoughts? Agree? Disagree?, Depends?
 
What if the subject is not so obvious?

I think a photograph becomes interesting by making the subject interesting. This can be by showing something that is not obvious, something unusual, or by somehow revealing something about a subject that was not previously obvious.
Photography that is only about photography to me is less interesting than photography that is about something else in the world. In the end it 'shouldn't' be anything, but it could be lots of things.
 
Ok, my quote of the day:

"Quotes containing the word 'should', should be taken with a grain of salt"


ps; Unless they contain the word twice of course.
 
mfogiel said:
"A photograph should be more interesting than the subject and transcend its obviousness."
Click to expand...

An almost meaningless statement. A photograph is something different to its subject, whether it's more interesting or not depends on the viewer. If you photograph my house, you may find the photograph more interesting than the house whereas the house is more interesting (and valuable) to me.

As far as 'transcending its obviousness' goes, this sort of talk has been going on in photography circles just about forever. Edward Weston photographed a pepper and it looks great. You might say the photograph 'transcends the obviousness of the pepper' but perhaps not for someone who's never seen or tasted a pepper before. I rest my case.
 
Interesting. Food for thought. I will share this with some of the photography students I know.

My initial thought, regarding Weston's peppers, is that the lush tonality and lighting, and the form of the pepper, does transcend the subject. Looking at any old pepper on your kitchen counter isn't quite the same, right? Similarly, any good landscape typically has amazing light and composition, which is why a snapshot at high-noon isn't quite the same. Again, transcending the "obvious" pretty landscape.

Seems apt in many situations. Of course I'm sure there are plenty of examples from the other side. Just making my own observations here. Regarding Rhine II - I feel like that image is a clear reaction or at least inspired by some of the minimalist paintings using lines of color. So it does transcend the obvious in a way, to be completely minimalist. I like minimalist music so maybe I am more "in tune" with that style...
 
I'd at least say that Ladd's measure is something to strive for. As to whether any of those bodies of work mentioned by the OP measure up to it is in the eye of the beholder. I'm only familiar with the New Topographics work and I'd say that they measured up. 🙂
 
mfogiel said:
This is taken from "Online Photographer" by Mike Johnston.

"Quote o' the Day: Jeffrey Ladd

"A photograph should be more interesting than the subject and transcend its obviousness."

—Jeffrey Ladd
[Quoted on Conscientious, found by Stan Banos]"

Well, that would do away with The Rhine, the Old and New Topography, Dusseldorf School and 99.999% of all what is published online nowadays ...
Thoughts? Agree? Disagree?, Depends?
Click to expand...

I've seen this expressed another way:

"To be considered interesting, a photograph transcends the literal nature of a subject."

99.999% of all that is published isn't very interesting. ;-)

G
 
mfogiel said:
This is taken from "Online Photographer" by Mike Johnston.

"Quote o' the Day: Jeffrey Ladd

"A photograph should be more interesting than the subject and transcend its obviousness."

—Jeffrey Ladd
[Quoted on Conscientious, found by Stan Banos]"

Well, that would do away with The Rhine, the Old and New Topography, Dusseldorf School and 99.999% of all what is published online nowadays ...
Thoughts? Agree? Disagree?, Depends?
Click to expand...

I disagree at an elemental level, although I'm not a philosopher or anything of the kind.

I like travel photography, nature, landscape, that sort of thing. The best nature photograph in the world cannot hope to come to close to the real thing. The photo cannot represent anything other than a 2D image of what you see, no smell, sound, feeling, taste, or anything else. To think that a 10x8" print out of a beautiful scene of nature can hope to be more interesting than the real thing, to me, is laughable.

It looks like one of those statements that people say without thinking about instantly disprovable it is.
 
Godfrey said:
"To be considered interesting, a photograph transcends the literal nature of a subject."
Click to expand...

More tautologous waffle, I think:

Q: Which photographs are considered to be interesting?
A: Those that transcend the nature of their subjects.

Q: So which photographs transcend the nature of their subjects?
A: Those that are interesting.
 
I'd qualify that quote by beginning with: One of the ways a photo can be successful is when ...

IMO, the pepper photos clearly are more interesting than a pepper from your kitchen, and transcends its obviousness. Even if one were hungry.
 
It depends on what you are taking the image for of course but assuming you want it to be art (not just a representational image of a product taken for business purposes,for example) I think a successful (artistic) photo is often like a successful poem. When you read a poem that "talks to you" it will "say" something that provokes an emotion in you. Its a bit ambiguous so you have to invest yourself in it and interpret it - and of course when you interpret it, it is most likely different for you than for everyone else.

I reckon its a bit the same with many of the most successful images. I don't know that I would use highfalutin language like "transcends its obviousness" which sounds distinctly wanky, but I would say that good images sometimes have more of a universal message when people look at them. In other words when you look at a picture of, say, Bill's father Fred, somehow that image of Fred reminds you of your father or reminds you of all fathers. That sort of thing may be what "transcends its obviousness" might mean. To me, an image that does that is probably going to be a better, more engaging and more interesting image.

To take a real example, when I look at Cartier Bresson's photo of a cyclist riding past at the foot of a stair case somewhere in a Parisian street, I get the feeling it is not just a photo of a specific cyclist but it says something more general about the time and place in which it as shot. What is more, to me, it makes me think about the relationship between time and space. I get that some people upon viewing it might just think its a blurry photo of a dude on a bike and that the stupid photographer must have used the wrong shutter speed. But of course that is HCB's genius. He deliberately used a slow shutter speed to emphasize the difference between the unchanging hard stone buildings and pavement and the fast moving bike. (And if it was not deliberate then it was serendipitous) In any event that is what works about the image - otherwise it would have been just an obvious and somewhat dull photo. To me, its a much more interesting image because of it.

http://tinyurl.com/kj7ra43

So forget the clunky "transcends its obviousness" language used and look deeper. Viewed this way there may be something it in (as much as I hate to say it). But as others have pointed out, the word "should" can be ditched as it assumes too many things.
 
mfogiel said:
"A photograph should be more interesting than the subject and transcend its obviousness."

—Jeffrey Ladd
Click to expand...

This reminds me of what Gary Winogrand said in one of the video of him in a dialog with university students, he said that (and I paraphrase) a photograph must be more dramatic than the real scene, otherwise, what would be the point.

Not taking it into meta-philosophical level, I agree with this in the simplest form.

Good photos for me takes a mundane subject or scene, and make it visually attractive and beautiful. Some times, we get something that goes beyond, into the realm of memorable and/or meaningful.

If the subject/scene is already beautiful, then we are to make it even more so. Otherwise, we're just recording the attractiveness in front of us, and that kind of photography is just not appealing to me at all.
 
lawrence said:
More tautologous waffle, I think:

Q: Which photographs are considered to be interesting?
A: Those that transcend the nature of their subjects.

Q: So which photographs transcend the nature of their subjects?
A: Those that are interesting.
Click to expand...

You can twaffle around with the meaning of any sentence which has multiple clauses like that, but the twaffling means nothing with respect to the original intent of the sentence.

It's a simple way to poke fun at something you disagree with or don't understand; not as honest as simply saying "I disagree."

G
 
I tend to agree with the idea, that photos that show " the thing itself" as Szarkowski put it, are not very interesting usually, unless you show something nobody notices and put it at the center of attention. So in this case, photographing telegraph wires could have its niche.
The other point is, most photographers believe the more "exclusive" or difficult to reach the subject, the better the photo, which is why everybody wants to takes portraits of the so called celebrities, rather than of the guy next door, or shoot "humanistic" photos in India rather than Birmingham or Alabama.
I am a big fan of Ralph Gibson, - or at least of his early production before he has become too commercial: he is famous to have said, that no matter where he travels, his photographs always look the same. He has been defined as a "subjectivist".
I like being photographically subjective, because the output tells more about me than about what is being photographed.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom