What do photographs tell us about the photographer?

Bike Tourist said:
The only thing a photograph reveals about the photographer is . . . . . where the photographer was located at the instant the exposure was made.

Maybe.
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That, I will agree with. A recent effort was undertaken to retrace Ansel Adam's more famous shots and determine exactly where he might have been standing, etc. Worked in many cases, through landmark line up and so on. Funny, in some cases erosion had become a visible difference in the resulting reshoots.

Myself, I carry a GPS. Does a pretty good job of embedded where I was on the photo Exif data, so it can be later seen if desired.
 
bmattock said:
Let me be more clear. Do you look at a photograph and see that the photographer is kind? Tall? Has hair or is bald? Goes to church regularly? Beats his wife? Is sympathetic towards his subject or dislikes same? Leans one way or another politically?
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No, not from one image but I guess that if you showed a dozen or twenty of your favorite shots to a half decent shrink they'd be able to tell quite a bit about your personality.



(This would be for "natural" or "personal" photos, not anything you may have shot professionally.)
 
Roger Hicks said:
Dear Bill,

I rate it no higher than that.

It may tell us what he wants to know, if he is any good. He may decide to 'bare his soul' (I use the term very loosely -- I'd say that the Minamata series probably came close) or he may decide to dissemble, which he can probably do.

If he is not any good, it will probably tell us that about him as a photographer; my original formulation in the latter case was hopelessly lax.

Cheers,

R.
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Now I understand what you were saying. Thanks for the clarification, and I completely agree with you.
 
Micky D said:
No, not from one image but I guess that if you showed a dozen or twenty of your favorite shots to a half decent shrink they'd be able to tell quite a bit about your personality.

(This would be for "natural" or "personal" photos, not anything you may have shot professionally.)
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I am not a professional photographer, though I have shot weddings and have been paid to shoot events part time (I no longer do so).

Have at it - tell me about me:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wigwam/sets/

I realize you may not be a psychologist or psychiatrist, but let's play pretend.
 
The real variable in this discussion is the viewer. The relationship between X and Y is being evaluated by z who cannot leave him/herself out of the equasion. Regardless of which the viewer is judging, technical or personal, he is judging through a third set of eyes and therefore adding a variable that will differ from viewers A thru W.
My head hurts.
 
Bill,

Of course, no, obviously you cannot surmise whether they are nice, bald or like chinese food (is that what you want to know?).

But you cannot pretend that the description is not also about the one doing the describing, can you?

Cheers,
Gary
 
Oooo, I wanna play.

Bill, I think those pictures say that you get a dose of voyeuristic vitality by hanging out with youngsters who fancy themselves undead. This is a fundamental thing to say about a person, and indeed, there may be nothing more revealing you could have possibly revealed.

Unless you had shot them all with a Leica, in which case the glow would have given away that these are just people, not real zombies (zombies don't have souls, so they don't show up in the Leica glow).

I have a dozen or so photos, none pro, none staged, almost all "snapshots" and "natural" at http://fed-2.org. What can any of you tell about me that you didn't already know from this comment?
 
An equally important way of looking at this might be what looking at photographs tells about the viewer. We all see different things, minor details perhaps, that color our reaction to the photo. They evoke memories that you might not even be concious of but things like the way the wind blows a girl's hair, her stance, a tree limb in the background, might trigger good feelings or disturbing thoughts.

For anybody who read my earlier post in this thread, I shot a few frames through my truck's open window as I drove past the high school. Police cars and the rescue squad blocked trucks half of the four lane road and several hundred students were milling about outside. The TV crews hadn't arrived yet. I have no idea what was going on.
 
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gns said:
Bill,

Of course, no, obviously you cannot surmise whether they are nice, bald or like chinese food (is that what you want to know?).
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No, I don't want to know that. I ask (tongue in cheek in some sense) because I agree - I cannot surmise those things, nor do I think anyone can. I also doubt they can extract other information about the photographer by looking his or her work.

But you cannot pretend that the description is not also about the one doing the describing, can you?
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Of course not. A writer writes from their own perspective, a painter paints what they see as filtered through their own reality, and so on. What I ponder is whether it is possible to divine what that filter or perspective is. I suspect one cannot.

Therefore, I would tend to reject the commonly-stated aphorism that photographs tell us a lot about the photographer. No one has yet conjectured what they tell us, but rather, what they cannot tell us about him or her.
 
Perhaps it's not always the case, but do you think the selection process - that of selecting the photo to be taken and then editing or selecting the photos that you'll display or publish says something about us through the photos that make the cut?

After all, would we take photos at all if we knew that no one would ever see them but ourselves?
 
Roger Hicks said:
Dear Fred,

Does it matter whose opinion it is?

Can you not judge it as an opinion? Can you not present, perhaps, a rebuttal?

Or do you have to have it validated by someone else whom you do know?

Cheers,

Roger
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When someone is offering an opinion in a very specific context, you must know something about them to know how to interpret it and what regard to give it. At the most extreme: if this guy is some businessman who never had any contact with the art world until a week ago when on a whim he decided to buy a gallery, then nobody with a single shred of functioning brains would think his opinion on this particular matter was worth snot.

I'm not saying that's the case, but it's perfectly self-evident that yes, of course, who's saying it matters.
 
"...a painter paints what they see as filtered through their own reality, and so on. What I ponder is whether it is possible to divine what that filter or perspective is. I suspect one cannot."

I don't think you have to divine it. That is precisely what the work is. As clearly as the artist can muster. This reminds me a little of a quote from Robert Frost (as related by Robert Adams in one of his essays). Someone asked Frost to explain one of his poems and his response was, "What, you want me to say it worse"?

Cheers,
Gary
 
gns said:
"...a painter paints what they see as filtered through their own reality, and so on. What I ponder is whether it is possible to divine what that filter or perspective is. I suspect one cannot."

I don't think you have to divine it. That is precisely what the work is. As clearly as the artist can muster. This reminds me a little of a quote from Robert Frost (as related by Robert Adams in one of his essays). Someone asked Frost to explain one of his poems and his response was, "What, you want me to say it worse"?

Cheers,
Gary
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Again - the original question. What does a photograph say about the photographer.

You avoided the question entirely, using an example of Frost asked to explain the poem rather than himself. I agree that a photograph says a lot about its subject, which is what you just said. What do Frost's poems say about Frost?
 
bmattock said:
I would be skewing the sample.
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Okay, you have a hell of a lot of photos there, but after about ten minutes I would guess:

You're a very organised type of guy, everything in it's right place.
This probably comes from a military career or police work, maybe both, very proud to be a vet'.

You're a trained observer, you don't miss much.
You're very disciplined and upright.

Outwardly you're very strong and severe, but inside you're a big softy, a very likeable nice guy.
You have no problems getting up real close to people (physically) and are quite happy in a big crowd, though you like to get away from it all sometimes. You'd probably like to get out into the wilderness more often for some nature photography.

You're not a gear-head, though I suspect you do have quite a bit of gear, eclectic, RFs, SLRs.

You're no longer in the military/law enforcement, I can't say what you do now but most likely something technical. You're well read, very well read even.

You're probably an "Artist" but just don't know it yet.🙂
 
Micky D said:
Okay, you have a hell of a lot of photos there, but after about ten minutes I would guess:

You're a very organised type of guy, everything in it's right place.
This probably comes from a military career or police work, maybe both, very proud to be a vet'.

You're a trained observer, you don't miss much.
You're very disciplined and upright.

Outwardly you're very strong and severe, but inside you're a big softy, a very likeable nice guy.
You have no problems getting up real close to people (physically) and are quite happy in a big crowd, though you like to get away from it all sometimes. You'd probably like to get out into the wilderness more often for some nature photography.

You're not a gear-head, though I suspect you do have quite a bit of gear, eclectic, RFs, SLRs.

You're no longer in the military/law enforcement, I can't say what you do now but most likely something technical. You're well read, very well read even.

You're probably an "Artist" but just don't know it yet.🙂
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OK, I give up!

Except I am not very organized. A bit of a mess, actually.

Dang.
 
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