What's the best ...?

Great thread with some excellent points. Much of this is covered in the book "Art & Fear" by David Bayles & Ted Orland. I picked up a copy after seeing it mentioned somewhere here on RFF. A very worthwhile read.
 
To illustrate my point, I'm thinking of artists like van Gogh who did not sell a painting while he was alive (I guess no one liked his work) but then became famous after his death.
 
that's not completely true, Frank, he did have people who liked his work, and he worked for people through his brother Theo... anyway, of course there are examplkes who prove your point, as there are counterexamples too.
 
Well okay Pherdinand, you go ahead and make pictures to please other people and encourage others to do the same, and I'll go ahead and make pictures that please myself and encourage others to do so. That seems to be our disagreement. I'm okay with agreeing to disagree with you.
 
FrankS said:
Well okay Pherdinand, you go ahead and make pictures to please other people and encourage others to do the same, and I'll go ahead and make pictures that please myself and encourage others to do so. That seems to be our disagreement. I'm okay with agreeing to disagree with you.
Click to expand...

me too🙂Life would be terrible if we'd all agree.
 
Pherdinand said:
he did have people who liked his work, and he worked for people through his brother Theo... anyway, of course there are examplkes who prove your point, as there are counterexamples too.
Click to expand...
tsk tsk tsk. You mean to say something can't be summed up in a bumpersticker sentence? Unpossible! 😉

There are always exceptions to the rule, of course. It's just scary for some people to get out of their box, and outside of the box things are scary. And you know what the innate reaction to fear is: anger.

Just nod, Pherdinand!
 
Gabriel M.A. said:
tsk tsk tsk. You mean to say something can't be summed up in a bumpersticker sentence? Unpossible! 😉

There are always exceptions to the rule, of course. It's just scary for some people to get out of their box, and outside of the box things are scary. And you know what the innate reaction to fear is: anger.

Just nod, Pherdinand!
Click to expand...


Gabriel I'm guessing you are referring to me in your quote.

I find that great truths can often be summed up in "bumpersticker sentences": Treat others the way you wish to be treated, for example.

Scary for me to come out of my box, I'm afraid so I react with anger? Are you in an altered state of consciousness or something? That's just a bizzare statement to make.

Pherdinand and I had a disagreement where he suggested that being true to yourself as a photographer was like masterbation and a bad idea. He felt it was more important to please others. See post #46. I tried to explain my view.

Have you got anything to add?
 
Last edited:
George Bonanno said:
I agree with Ira... "Shoot shoot shoot".

Keep in mind photography is a craft... not an art. If one gets into the mindset "photography is art"... then you are doomed.

Best,
George
Click to expand...

The original question has been:
What's the best way to become a better photographer?

If photography is art or not might be another discussion. Not for me tho.
Because there is no art. There are artists only. No matter what tool they use.

bertram
 
"where he suggested that being true to yourself as a photographer was like masterbation and a bad idea"
no no no
my bad; i guess i did not express myself clearly
I have nothing against being true to yourself (whatever that might mean). I just don't see the conflict between pleasing yourself and pleasing others too. Or, considering the oppinion of others about your work. I don't see why trying to please tohers would be less important than pleasing you. And completely ignoring it, i don't think it is a good idea.
That's what i was referring to.
 
Art has no utility. If a thing has utility, then its not art. Therefore, a chair or a vase is not art, but it can be considered beautiful, displayed and not used, but its not art. If you make a portrait of someone (painting or photography) who wants the portrait as a memory for themselves, friends, family etc then that is not art. If you hire a model and shoot/paint portraits of someone who is not "known" and display it without reference to the individual, then that is art. (a probelm arises when you use such a painting or photograph to hide a rip in the wallpaper for then it has utility and can no longer be considered art 🙂 )

Pondering the distinction between art and craft is an unnecessary diversion from the achievement of one's photographic goals :bang:
 
Gid said:
Art has no utility. If a thing has utility, then its not art.

<snip>

Pondering the distinction between art and craft is an unnecessary diversion from the achievement of one's photographic goals :bang:
Click to expand...
That's also not true. All art has a use. The "Ancient Greeks" didn't just have art for art's sake, but to exhalt those ideals which they thought were "worthy" of exhaltation.

*All* art has had a use, be it to decorate, worship, or simply to be.

All art, by definition, is an expression from the human being. It's just that some are better than most at their chosen "area", and that focus tends to muddy the view of what "Art" is.

Photography is not an art in of itself, but is an art medium. Anything can be an art medium. But just because of that, not all photography can be art. And because you can point to photography that isn't art, it doesn't hold true that Photography isn't Art.

The square root of 4 is 2, and the square of -2 is 4. Applying the same logic for -2 in a linear fashion just leads to confusion and bitter students staring blankly at the blackboard.

Yes, yet another (dumb) analogy. 😱
 
Gabriel M.A. said:
That was clear to me, Pherdinand. Only thing I have to add is I was addressing you, nobody else.
Click to expand...

Gabriel,
It would be more honourable IMO, to address statements about someone, to them directly, not publically addressed to someone else.

If you have anything to say about me, please do so directly. Snide, sideways comments are cowardly.

"tsk tsk tsk. You mean to say something can't be summed up in a bumpersticker sentence? Unpossible!
There are always exceptions to the rule, of course. It's just scary for some people to get out of their box, and outside of the box things are scary. And you know what the innate reaction to fear is: anger.
Just nod, Pherdinand!"
 
Gid said:
Art has no utility. If a thing has utility, then its not art.
Click to expand...

Like Gabriel, I believe this is absolutely wrong. The "art for art's sake" argument has never borne scruitiny. If we concentrate only on so-called "fine art" we find that it has always served a didactic, spiritual or social purpose, even if simply to exalt the mind and senses. Art is profoundly useful, hence it exists at the earliest stages of human culture: as someone once observed "without vision the people perish".

Cheers, Ian
 
I want to know more about this "vision" thing.

Modern society reveres characters like Van Gogh, who pursued a vision of painting without much regard to his career or health. His near contemporary, Picasso, was equally visionary and is revered as perhaps the greatest western artist of the 20th C. He died a multi-millionaire celebrity but never lost his drive to create.

Joshua Reynolds, today regarded as one of the finest English painters of society portraits, ran his studio like a factory. Assitants painted the backgrounds, trees and anatomy of the sitter. Reynolds nipped in at the last moment and completed the painting and was famous for being able to knock off a picture in a few minutes.

He said, at a Royal Academy lecture that "invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory."

These three men are all regarded as artists. Were all three the same? Did they all have the same drive and purpose? If you have a vision as a photographer, is that enough to make you an artist? Can you be an artist without an inner vision?

Does the artist control the meaning and interpetation of his or her work?
 
Last edited:
Of the 3 men that you mention, I know which 2 I respect more as artists! This is the point I've been trying to make. It is the visionaries that create art, not those who create to please others to become wealthy. Art should not be done for profit, it should be done because that is what is exploding in your head that needs to be released.

Dramatic, but trying to make my point.
 
Hi Frank and all - I should say (as I do to my students, I work in adult education) that I'm asking questions out of curiosity. I don't know the answers.

I would vote for Picasso and Van Gogh too. I take pictures because they knock on the inside of my head and demand to be let out. There's not many greater pleasures than when someone looks at one of mine and sees the same thing I do. Like Jocko implied, its a moment when all the existential angst melts away and I know I can communicate. If I just had the vision on its own but didn't know how to communicate or couldn't communicate it I might go a bit mad.
 
Last edited:
lushd said:
I want to know more about this "vision" thing. Can you be an artist without an inner vision?
Click to expand...

That is the question! I think we are broadly faced with two different ideas of "the vision thing" - personal vision as either a unique expression of the individual ego or as a stream from a higher, common source. Both - I believe - are ways of understanding the same reality.

It's intriguing that William Blake - an absolutely unique talent - whom Wyndham Lewis (I think rightly) dubbed "THE English Artist", hated Reynolds for exactly the reasons you outline. Yet surely Reynold's achievement was to communicate his vision to others: We say Wren built St Pauls. We know he didn't lay a single brick, but he built it all the same. Blake was incomparably more profound, Reynold's more accessible - but both were genuine artists. In my completely irrational opinion, "inner vision" - Imagination - is part of the intrinsic potential of human nature, like the heartbeat or digestion. It is both universal and individuated. It is the essence of the self and thus of art - so the answer would have to be no, you could not - but nor could you be human🙂

Cheers, Ian
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom