Stop taking photographs.

Benster

Well, not quite "stop altogether", but have a read anyway...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5121856.stm


There's part of me agrees with the sentiment here. I've been to some really amazing places in the world and I have often immediately gone into a shooting frenzy while in a certain location. Recently, I've kinda thought I should put the camera away for a while and take in the surroundings, the feeling of a place, before maybe trying for a decent shot.

It has also been the case where, when we come back and are talking about our experiences, my gf has a very different perspective and view of a place, and I may have missed certain points - usually because I've been lying on the ground or standing on something with my Nikon stuck to my face :rolleyes:

B.

Alun

... or possibly just make it more difficult to take them in the first place I have a professional photographer friend in the US who bought an old plate camera which he carries around with him sometimes. Thing is, you don't take the decision to "just take a quick photo" lightly when you have to set that thing up Maybe the convenience of digital photography, auto-focus, auto-exposure etc, is just making us lazy?

Morlar

I think there is a balance there alright - you notice it at major tourist spots around the world where some people will photograph anything that they havent seen before for fear of missing something. Without any consideration whatsoever.

Part of taking a picture (not talking about sports/news photography here) is looking around to see if there is something worth photographing, figuring out how to compose the picture, use the light, wait a few minutes for (insert obstacle here) to move - etc. Then get the camera out/ready.

The other side of that coin is admire the view or scene and dont bother taking the picture - which I have done a few times.

Thinking back on a few of them now I wish I had taken the picture.

Probably going overboard on the pretentious meter here but this reminds me of a quote from bladerunner (which is in an a films thread right now . . .)

Rutger Hauer in Bladerunner :

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the darkness at Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die.

FinoBlad

I tend to disagree with this as the basic theory put forward is that a person interacts less with their environment when photographing it.

She is an accomplished photographer with a masters degree in photography but personally I find I interact even more with my environment when I've a loaded camera in my hands. So sorry Becca, I'm not with you on this one :cool:

elven

I gave my 2p (sorry, cents!!!) on this one already, I saw it on a flickr thread.

It's a quandary - when I go out with my camera I may miss things because I'm too busy looking through the viewfinder. But if I'm out without it, i miss things because I'm sitting there in the huff since I'm constantly seeing things I want to photograph and don't have the means to. It is worth considering whether you're so absorbed in the photography that your life passes you by. I find that more often than not I become more aware of the stuff that would have passed me by previously.

But surely we are beyond the stage of thinking that there's some black art behind photography, that it isn't simply focusing and capturing light on film/sensor, that we aren't actually taking the soul of something when we create a photo of it??!!! That sounds suspiciously like the thinking that got innocent people burned for witchcraft when they knew about herbs and healing, and similar atrocities that were committed over the ages. Maybe I'm taking that a bit far but you get the point

Anyway, fair enough, have your opinion, even try to share it with like minded people... but don't get annoyed at those who don't share it and try to make out you're doing it for the good of everyone. If that was the case, we'd be a dictatorship, of sorts, where you don't get to decide anything for yourself. She also mentions that "people really committed to the idea could join the "non-photography police" - a group who are telling people about the day when they see them taking pictures on the street. " Now that got me annoyed.

I think what we have here, at the end of the day, is the misperception of photography touted as zen thinking. It sounds like some westernised version of something that's ancient and probably beyond our sugar coated, commercialised, low carb society's understanding.

Uh oh, I'm getting far too involved in this one now. Take the keyboard away before I do something I may regret!

311

Thats a load of horse raddish.
What's she going to do ,lock up a kid for using a camera phone.:eek:
I think cameras are the one form of communication ,that doesn't lie.

Brian.

FinoBlad

If this is so important to her, why stop at one day, she should stick her gear on ebay and do the Zen "the whole is more important" and forget about it all.

dalk

I would heed her argument more if she was talking about video cameras. I watch people walk around with video cameras and they are experiencing the area through a small digital screen... Seems slightly pointless.

A still camera will spend more time away from your field of vision than in front of it.

elven

FinoBlad wrote:

If this is so important to her, why stop at one day, she should stick her gear on ebay and do the Zen "the whole is more important" and forget about it all.

Hahaha, fabulous idea.

The people who are too busy with a camera stuck to their face rather than enjoying 'the whole' of a place are the ones who are hardly going to appreciate a zen approach to life, are they? I think by their very nature photographers, as artists, are the ones who might appreciate places more than those who just wander round and look at the pretty trees, etc.

Fajitas!

My camera kit comes everywhere with me...I'm not gonna let go of one of those perfect shots. Because you never really know when it pops up.

masteroftherealm

I can at times become kinda detached when Im trying to get "that" photo at a gig, but Ill always end up crashing back down when the singer smiles or hits a high note or when a solo starts from nowhere, then I hit the shutter ans suddenly the shot I just took becomes the shot I love it.
Touristwise, why they all need DSLRS? Oooo I can shoot in program woo!!
On holidays the SLR comes but rarely gets taken out, Zorki 6 attached to me 24/7 tho!

DadaKopf

Yeah, I agree with the sentiment of the photo, too. I've been thinking about why photography has become such an obsession all over again. Marketing and the digital revolution - photography as a new way to build human relationships in an atomised world - is one thing. Part of this might be, then, a sense of tragedy at the centre of modern life where people have become obsessed with auto-consuming their own experiences in a way actually defers experience, meaning. Photos can never record because they always point to what is missing.

It's sort of why I've been thinking more and more about ditching photography and drawing things I like, that's a more direct form mediated through rudimentary technology.

I was on holidays in France there last month and took hardly any photos. It was great not to feel the compulsion.

masteroftherealm

DadaKopf wrote:

Photos can never record because they always point to what is missing.
.

Oh I totally disagree man.
A photo is like a snapshot in time. A memory preserved on film.
A good photogrpaher uses his photos like a journal.
A photo can bring back so many memorys.
Their the ultimate record.
Their a gateway into the world of the photogrpaher.
Their the eyes of someone else. A window into their own souls.

Digital for me strips some of this, a didital photo isnt the meeting of light and film, an age old tradition perfected over the years. Its a stream of 0/1's. Not the sam IMO.

DadaKopf

Nono, I totally disagree. Photos are signs that point both to things that are present in the frame at the time the scene was captured. They signify other things, but they aren't things present in the photos. Meaning always slips away from them, and their meaning is very, very subjective and dependent on all kinds of coherences and contexts.

I mean, one photo you take can mean the world to you because it reminds you of something (something not actually present in the photo) but to someone else it's just a mess, or reminds them of something completely different.

They can signify entire worlds, they can create a sense of intimacy, but they can never actually record the world because that's a creation of the flow of life.

elven

It might not recreate a scene, but for me some pictures can create a whole new one, and simply using dots on paper - or pixels on a screen, I think that's pretty amazing. How about the concept of creating art as something in it's own right, rather than trying to recreate a place you've been? there are so many ways to consider photography that you can't just narrow it down like that and say it's bad. Of course it's good to take a break if you're feeling frazzled, but that's a personal thing and it says nothing about photography itself.

masteroftherealm

DadaKopf wrote:

Nono, I totally disagree. Photos are signs that point both to things that are present in the frame at the time the scene was captured. They signify other things, but they aren't things present in the photos. Meaning always slips away from them, and their meaning is very, very subjective and dependent on all kinds of coherences and contexts.

I mean, one photo you take can mean the world to you because it reminds you of something (something not actually present in the photo) but to someone else it's just a mess, or reminds them of something completely different.

They can signify entire worlds, they can create a sense of intimacy, but they can never actually record the world because that's a creation of the flow of life.

But to look at anothers photo properly you muct feel the moment, its the meaning of a photo is that momentary snapshot of the world.
Its the very essence of a photo.

ender ender

DadaKopf wrote:

It's sort of why I've been thinking more and more about ditching photography and drawing things I like, that's a more direct form mediated through rudimentary technology.

I heard about this before, it was an idea thought up by an English philosopher or artist in the early 20th century I think. Is that where you got it from? I've been trying to remember his name for ages but I can't...

DadaKopf

masteroftherealm wrote:

But to look at anothers photo properly you muct feel the moment, its the meaning of a photo is that momentary snapshot of the world.
Its the very essence of a photo.

There *is* no essence. There's a contingent artefact that invokes a grammar whose signs refer to things, feelings etc. that are not captured by the image. Are you actually saying that a photo of a sad person *actually* records sadness? That's sort of like saying photos are dangerous because they steal your soul.

Photos aren't meaningless, but their meanings are complex and unfixed - constantly open to reinterpretation - in fact, only exist through reinterpretation. No essence, just the meanings people give to them.

As language mediated through technology, photographs are necessarily like this.

Ender ender: it probably comes much more from continental philosophers like Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, also Susan Sontag and writers referred to in the Routledge Critical Introduction to Photography.

masteroftherealm

DadaKopf wrote:

There *is* no essence. There's a contingent artefact that invokes a grammar whose signs refer to things, feelings etc. that are not captured by the image. Are you actually saying that a photo of a sad person *actually* records sadness? That's sort of like saying photos are dangerous because they steal your soul.

Photos aren't meaningless, but their meanings are complex and unfixed - constantly open to reinterpretation - in fact, only exist through reinterpretation. No essence, just the meanings people give to them.

As language mediated through technology, photographs are necessarily like this.

Ender ender: it probably comes much more from continental philosophers like Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, also Susan Sontag and writers referred to in the Routledge Critical Introduction to Photography.

Prewarning this will sound bad but I cant phrase it any otherway.


I think that there are 2 kinda of photogrpher.


One will take a photo and it will have an essence because the photogrpaher gives a small bit of himself to that photo. It becomes part of him, a moment of his life. and people see that in the photo. They connect with it because the photo has a soulof its own, it exists. Its not an accidental. It has reason and form and meaning. It has magic.
Yes I belive that a photo can capture sadness, and happyness and love and hate. A photo can capture that little slice of life and store it for eternity.
That is a real photo. A true work of amazing photogrpahy.

The second will try to do the above. But cannot bring themselves to let that little piece of themselvse go. They cannot do it. They make produce excellent photos. But they will be "empty" in ways. There will be no emotion in them. They are accidents without meaning life and substance.

elven

I think there's another kind... the kind who wants to create an image that is visually appealing. It might not be as noble as giving a part of yourself to the image, and trying to produce something with inherent emotion, but it's for a different purpose. I think you're narrowing the field an awful lot and excluding many other kind of photographers, and I think what you refer to generally mostly only applies to portraiture and landscapes.

masteroftherealm

elven wrote:

I think there's another kind... the kind who wants to create an image that is visually appealing. It might not be as noble as giving a part of yourself to the image, and trying to produce something with inherent emotion, but it's for a different purpose. I think you're narrowing the field an awful lot and excluding many other kind of photographers, and I think what you refer to generally mostly only applies to portraiture and landscapes.

Exactly the reason I said this was gonna sound bad ;p

Yes portraits of people and things.
I was trying to relate to the exact situations and I knew I coulnt do it without sounding like I was ,arginalising a huge amount of photogrpahers which I dont wanna do!!!!

elven

Heh. I must be an idiot, I didn't read that in the post.

I'm starting to get that 'oh, can't we all just get along' feeling...

masteroftherealm

Teehee!
We can!! Or at least I think we can!
Its not like I drop into philospohical mode when Im out shooting ;p
(Or at least I hope I dont ;p)

DadaKopf

Only *two* kinds of photographs/photographers? I'd say the scope is infinite.

But I'll put it this way: how many times on this board have people disagreed about how good photos are that members have posted up? How can this be? If a photo captures something 'true' and 'essential', then surely there can be no disagreement. If there is, meaning must come from interpretation, context etc.

I should say that taking a photograph is itself an act of interpretation, but so is looking.

Another important aspect is how the photograph is presented - in a newspaper, a standalone photo on a website, in a book, as an art installation, how it refers beyond its borders to text, whether they're presented in a series. Do the photographs/does the photographer rely on style, visual trickery; are the photos more about technological wankery, is the image driven by something else. For example, there could be a very powerful exhibition of photographs which tells a story and evokes sentiments, but the photos themselves could be crap. Not textbook 'good'. Whatever that is.

Of course it's the subject matter itself and how it's presented that evokes emotion, but the photos don't *contain* emotion, they *point towards* emotion while simultaneously providing confirmation of the physical existence of the photographer (usually invisible) and the physical objects recorded.

I think there's inevitably a lot of accident in photographs. A 'good' photograph to me is simply one that invites interpretation *but* where all the elements hang together for the *viewer* (in conspiracy with the photographer) to produce meaning.

****, it's late, I'm blathering sh1te now. Sorry bout this.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

masteroftherealm

Hehehe now were just getting philosphical ;p
Im stopping this now before I fry my head

Borderfox

FinoBlad wrote:

If this is so important to her, why stop at one day, she should stick her gear on ebay and do the Zen "the whole is more important" and forget about it all.

Does she have any good lenses for sale if she is getting rid of everything?