What / Who influences your photography?

Chriscrawfordphoto said:
He's saying that a person with a wide ranging knowledge and understanding of the world (history, literature, art, religion, other cultures, philosophy, etc.) will be better equipped to see the world and to tell a story through photography.
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Well, I understood what he meant, but wanted to have a longer conversation regarding his point, because I see too many disregard looking at other's photography because they feel it'll seep into their own. It's almost impossible to shield yourself from outside influences (whether photography or something else)... and I doubt anyone has ever been influenced only by photography. However, to ignore the history of the genre you work in isn't really condusive to learning either.
 
jsrockit said:
Well, I understood what he meant, but wanted to have a longer conversation regarding his point, because I see too many disregard looking at other's photography because they feel it'll seep into their own. It's almost impossible to shield yourself from outside influences (whether photography or something else)... and I doubt anyone has ever been influenced only by photography. However, to ignore the history of the genre you work in isn't really condusive to learning either.
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I agree with you. There are a lot of members who claim that looking at photographs will ruin their creativity, and I disagree with them. It is one of the many things you should study.
 
redisburning said:
all excellent choices. I think you would like Masaki Kobayashi, you should find The Human Condition or better yet Harakiri.

Harakiri is my favorite live action movie of all time and is not to be missed by a fan of black and white films. One of the best shot movies of all time, easily IMO. Skip Miike's remake though.
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'Seppku' '切腹', (Harakiri is 腹切り) indeed is a great great movie by Masaki Kobayashi/ 小林正樹
I haven't seen the remake by Takashi Miike 三池崇史 yet,
I saw his 'Audition' 'オーディション', this guy Mr. Mi-ike, is, very very good...

New 'Seppuku'
http://youtu.be/xjs3UBzq1Lo
 
jsrockit said:
1) So, what or who influences your photography (past and present)?
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Coming from rock music (playing and listening), I did my first serious photographs in the '70s, shooting at that time big groups like UFO or ELP. Just as a fan, for fun. The equipment was likely crap (120 film P&S) but I have a few keepers (only prints, the negatives are lost, sadly). Back then it wasn't difficult to gain access very close.

Later on, during family holiday, having better equipment, I made some good urban and rural landscape shots. My interest for architecture, also in yards of cathedrals, castles and museums, began raising.
All of this still happens today.

I have no specific VIP photographers who influenced me, but I visit regularly galleries and expositions: This is ingests some ideas, of course.

jsrockit said:
2) Why do you do it?
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It started just for fun and it sill is.
In the beginning only the image (result) was interesting. Later on I discovered the beauty of cameras with good ergonomic manual controls: This is now at least 50 % of the fun.

jsrockit said:
3) Who / what are you looking at photography wise right now (new or old)?
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Just looking at good forums (like this one) and expositions.
 
Currently, Chris Crawford. I'm constantly amazed at his ability to capture beauty and emotion in the things we see every day.

I still admire Andrej Kertesz, who seemed to see through God's own eyes.
 
jsrockit said:
Well, I understood what he meant, but wanted to have a longer conversation regarding his point, because I see too many disregard looking at other's photography because they feel it'll seep into their own.
Click to expand...

I fully agree with you.
This (the bolded statement above) is a misunderstanding of how our mind works. Our mind creates by synthesis, using pre-stored imagery (can be voice, sound, mood, texture, smell, anything that our sensory perception can record and store in memory) and combining it with the scenes in front of us.

The more we look at other people's pictures, the richer our memory banks become, and thus it'll make us more effective when creating a new photographs with the surrounding that is available to us.
 
shadowfox said:
I fully agree with you.
This (the bolded statement above) is a misunderstanding of how our mind works. Our mind creates by synthesis, using pre-stored imagery (can be voice, sound, mood, texture, smell, anything that our sensory perception can record and store in memory) and combining it with the scenes in front of us.

The more we look at other people's pictures, the richer our memory banks become, and thus it'll make us more effective when creating a new photographs with the surrounding that is available to us.
Click to expand...

I think what people may mean by disregarding other people's photography is that they don't want to dilute their own identity, opinions, especially at a particular point in time. I mean, we can't put our head in the sand. We must learn to communicate our photography with contemporary viewers, but at the same time, especially in this social media age, we can lose sight of what we can expect from ourselves as photographers.

We have our own way of balancing ourselves.
 
jsrockit said:
...
1) So, what or who influences your photography (past and present)?
2) Why do you do it?
3) Who / what are you looking at photography wise right now (new or old)?
...
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1) Robert Heinlein. I liked his bit about filing off serial numbers.

2) An idea gets into my head, then I make pictures of it. Like in Close Encounters.

3) One of my favorite pictures of all time is Hockney's Pear Blossom Highway. I just watched him recreate the picture for Huell Howser. Every month, I read Juxtapoz. And I was looking very closely at Gregory Crewdson's pieces at PAM recently.
 
a) The Photographers:

Simon Roberts
Jan Kempenaers
Chloe Dewe Mathews
Wouter Van de Voorde
George Voulgaropoulos
Matthew Connors

b) General Classification: (cycling term😀)

'Contract Killers' flickr group
Skateboarding photography
Concrete Architecture
Contre Jour
Travel pictures

c) Music:

Roots / Reggae / Dub / Dancehall
 
jsrockit said:
1) So, what or who influences your photography (past and present)?
2) Why do you do it?
3) Who / what are you looking at photography wise right now (new or old
Click to expand...

1)WHAT: maybe it sounds trite but life and living.

WHO: Every photographer who's work I've studied or seen. I have favorites and ones I dislike but they all influence me one way or another.
Trite agin but true....the people and things around me.

2) WHY: I love creating and using my hands and eye....tying flies, using period hand tools, glues and finishes to build 18th Century furniture, painting (poorly but I don't care), photography. I love the feel and mechanics of cameras, fine fly reels, tools etc.

3)WHO right now: currently George Tice, HCB, Richard Steinheimer, Christopher Thomas, Steve Gross & Susan Daley, and for the first time seriously Ansel Adams. In a week who knows, I have a good sized library.

WHAT: looking at color photography while browsing in book stores and online (Magnum's website mostly). I don't do that much of it except for train photography but am curious. I don't "see" well in color outside of isolated vignette's.

cheers, Bob
 
There are plenty of photographers I admire and whose work I like-Duncan, Adams-Ansel and Eddie, Paul Strand, Jim Marshall, many others.
I worked as a TV cameraman for a while and my biggest influence was the director screaming in my ear.
I see a picture and then I take it. I don't think, Oh, how would Paul Strand take this picture?
 
Who?
Gary Winogrand, Lee Friedlander, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Richard Avedon (portraits), Eugene Smith, Dianne Arbus, Walker Evans, Stephen Shore, HCB, William Eggleston,...the list goes on and on.

Why?
No reason. Just doin' it.

Who right now?
Me.
 
shadowfox said:
. . . . Our mind creates by synthesis, using pre-stored imagery (can be voice, sound, mood, texture, smell, anything that our sensory perception can record and store in memory) and combining it with the scenes in front of us.

The more we look at other people's pictures, the richer our memory banks become, and thus it'll make us more effective when creating a new photographs with the surrounding that is available to us.
Click to expand...

This is so true. It is an extremely rare event that someone creates something utterly new. We synthesize "new" things from all the stuff we have embedded in the back of our minds, hearts and souls.

Who or what influences my (your) photography ? - you answered it - everything In our histories. Maybe you recognize that at the conscious level, maybe you don't, but it's true.
 
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