bad photography

thebaz

as a few of you might now , my hero for photography would be Cartier , i was just wondering do you think the best ever took any bad shots , that they displayed ?

I've yet to see a bad Cartier photograph - i guess its like golf, the truly great Woods etc. rarely have a bad shot !

Paulw

Everyone is human. Even Woods has bad days/weeks/months.

But, photographers don't show all their work, only what they believe is good. It's up to others to decide if they like it too.

There are some photos considered great that I personally don't like. But that's the joy of photography, it's totally subjective and pure personal taste.

ThOnda

Quality of photographer is done also by his self-criticism and objectivity. Lots of documentary photographers take pictures, develop films, make contact and put all that into the drawer. After some time (even one year) they look at the pcitures againg and make first selection. That helps to free yourself from personal experience/feelings to the photographed subject.

Jindrich Streit (one of the best Czech documentary photograhpers (e.g. here) tolde me, that he is happy when he has one good picture to be used in exhibiton/book from seven films. SEVEN = "7"!!!.

Opinions of other people could also help you, however it is you in the end, who is going to choose the pictures. Well, your publisher or agent could have some rights too...

sineadw

I think maybe the greats get away with stuff because they're the greats, if you know what I mean?

ThOnda

Only if they are not realistic anymore. If you are not ready to accept criticism, you are going to do something, but not good art. Maybe good commercial product for trading, but not art.
Wonderful example is the photographer who takes shoots of kids in flower pots. It was good idea once, but it is just a business now. And talking about some "arty" photographers, there is one from my homeland - Jan Saudek. He made break through with colorised BW photographs with very nice mood and tonality. However he does the same for already 40 years. You can't see any progress, it is just what made him famous and what makes money.
What about Picasso? He crossed that line also few times. He made lots of great paintings, but some of them were just "pictures in his style to be sold". That's how I see that.

Who can say that is the best not producing bad pictures? Only very selfish and self-centered person. And me, because I have only perfect pictures! ;-)

thebaz

ThOnda wrote:

What about Picasso? He crossed that line also few times. He made lots of great paintings, but some of them were just "pictures in his style to be sold". That's how I see that.

-)

Now picasso was the genius of the Art world for me , when i saw his stuff in Paris , i was stunned , Cartier for me is similar in photography - geniuses

ThOnda

Oh my god!!! Not Picasso, DALI!!!

I am very sorry for misplacing those two names. Picasso was genius, that's without a question. DALI was commercial expert :-)

Muineach

I got the Steve Bloom book, my mother and sister were flicking through it and said "look this photo is all blurry", totally subjective, it all down to the viewer. It's like me looking at "urban" photo's, I can appreciate them technically/aesthetically but they're just not for me, others would be the same with nature photo's.

dalk

thebaz wrote:

I've yet to see a bad Cartier photograph - i guess its like golf, the truly great Woods etc. rarely have a bad shot !

I love his work but we don't get to see his contact sheets! The 'decisive moment' is when he chose the pictures he liked best... Like all photographers you can be sure that his ordinary/unsuccessful pictures greatly out-number his classic shots.

Muineach

dalk wrote:

Like all photographers you can be sure that his ordinary/unsuccessful pictures greatly out-number his classic shots.

speak for yourself lol

elven

Look at Garry Winogrand - he shot rolls and rolls of film, and then chose his decisive moment from the negatives...

sheesh

Yeah from what I read (on the internet) the miss rate for these things is pretty high part of the skill is also picking which picture is nice from groups of similar pictures.

I have 5 gigs of pics and there all rubbish