Familiar Faces and Places

Fajitas!

I was thinking about this today while wallowing in a hangover (And Julie helped make me think about it again a few mins ago) and processing shots from last night. I take a lot of photos of myself and friends... Our exploits and adventures, and whatnot, we enjoy our social lives.

Anyways, sometimes I put these up on Flickr, most of the time, I put them on my own galleries and just show my friends. When people look at these on Flickr, is it just seen as another way of social networking, or can these be proper 'photographs'?

Are these people just another blokes friends, or are they the same people you'd see in one of Nan Goldin, or Bresson, or Weegee's photos, that are known, and considered Art? Even if conceived from social photographs?

The same goes for places - I mean, I love obscure places, especially run down or deserted ones (and I know there's a lot of other people that like this). I do go looking on Flickr, etc for these places. But can this been seen the same way as portraits? Are they just 'another photograph of a something'?

I'm rambling, and not 100% sober, sleep'd help too.

Any ideas? Thoughts? Suggestions?

Oh no, not an Elvenesque thread!

elven

First installment:

surely, it shouldn't matter what people are in them, and i'm not toooo sure if it matters the context you're taking them in... but i always get uncomfortable questioning whether something is art - i'm more ineterested in whether it means something, to the audience. But then at other times i say, screw the audience because you can't go shooting for them...

Fajitas!

elven wrote: »

i'm more ineterested in whether it means something, to the audience. But then at other times i say, screw the audience because you can't go shooting for them...

Similarly, I think the primary audience would be the people in the photos, and secondarily, other people that might come across them on my Flickr.

Fenster

It's 4am...

Fajitas!

Correction, 3:15

elven

And they are likely to mean more - in a social context - to the people who were there, or who know the subjects.

But what about other contexts? What is it about the other examples that makes them such masters - surely it can't be the people in them, more the way it's shot? Garry Winogrand talks about visual problems that he tries to solve in the frame, i get that, because it feels like i'm trying to solve a visual problem when i shoot anything - but i don't relate it to his stuff as a viewer, only as a photographer. And i don't get anything from pictures of people as characters as such, only in shots where they are generally a 'figure' filling in a space in the frame, a place in the story, or balancing up a composition. Anonymous.

elven

3:44 and counting...

Fajitas!

elven wrote: »

And they are likely to mean more - in a social context - to the people who were there, or who know the subjects.

But what about other contexts? What is it about the other examples that makes them such masters - surely it can't be the people in them, more the way it's shot? Garry Winogrand talks about visual problems that he tries to solve in the frame, i get that, because it feels like i'm trying to solve a visual problem when i shoot anything - but i don't relate it to his stuff as a viewer, only as a photographer. And i don't get anything from pictures of people as characters as such, only in shots where they are generally a 'figure' filling in a space in the frame, a place in the story, or balancing up a composition. Anonymous.

Is it the way they were shot though? Surely the content is more important than the process, at the end of it all. Well, to the primary audience, the people in them, the content is all that matters, most of them just see good photo or bad photo. But to the secondary audience, the content is of less importance, but it's why the image is shot. So does one skip over these shots?

Does a character have to be posed, or in a set up scene to be interesting, on the whole? I mean, anyone can fit into a composition, at any time. I would think there can be as much, if not sometimes more information about the character in some of these shots, than if I brought them into the studio - because it's them where they belong, not me where I belong. Hmmm. Rambling again.

3:57

elven

Fajitas! wrote: »

considered Art? Even if conceived from social photographs?

Ah, but were they considered art at the time, or were they as you say conceived from social photographs and have become art over time because they are documenting something that has changed or maybe no longer exists? Photos from the sixties with sixties cars/clothes/shop signs in them look cool now but that's because they are from the sixties - then they were just snapshots of the ordinary and humdrum. Does the photographer take credit for the passing of time and our interest in the past?

Fajitas!

elven wrote: »

then they were just snapshots of the ordinary and humdrum. Does the photographer take credit for the passing of time and our interest in the past?

Is that not what a lot of photographs are. Will people scour photos on Bebo and Myspace in 60 years time for examples of culture in 2000 and something? Obviously there are a lot more images availible now - photographs from 'back then' weren't as common as they are now, everyone has a camera. So what effect does that have on the idea of these photographs becoming interesting in the future? Or is that where the processing matters? Will people look at a photograph and say "that's no good, it's in black and white, and is heavily vignetted, and has a lot of background blur, whereas this photograph is flashed, colour, and your stereotypical photograph on somebody's Myspace fits the purpose of documentary photograph much better"?

Fajitas!

5:54

mikeanywhere

Fajitas! wrote: »

5:54

So HARDCORE!!!!!!!!!!! *bows down*

nilhg

I think you folks should stay up and have a conversation like this every night, its nice to have something interesting to read over breakfast.;)

rymus

poor Al... that really was the mother of all hangovers

Fajitas!

And awake.

It was indeed.

Calina

Bebo and MySpace will be long gone in sixty years time. People will be using modern technology to scan the RFID chips in our brains to find out who got trashed last night and who is with whom, to put it mildly. We won't even have tot alk.

I think people tend to scan what survives. Interestingly enough I strongly suspect this will still be prints rather than soft copies for various reasons. I also think that stuff that survives stands a better chance of being interesting to someone than stuff that might be considered great now but that doesn't survive. I'm basing this on the fact that Pride and Prejudice is considered to be one of the greatest pieces of English language literature and yet all it is - at depth - is a piece of what we now call chicklit. A bit better written perhaps than Cecilia Ahern's bits and bobs (so I hear - the only chicklit I read at the moment is Jane Austen having died from a surfeit of Marian Keyes in the late 1990s).

Anyway, back with pictures of people; I hope this doesn't sound too wishy washy, but I strongly suspect that in terms of giving a photograph some sort of longevity, the content is, in some respects, less important than the photographer's style. There must be one billion photographs of Yosemite National Park in existance at this stage, between all the people who have carted cameras in there and yet, Ansel Adams, he the man.

As to whether Flickr = photographs or Flickr = social networking, I strongly suspect the answer lies in the great words of Talk Talk, misappropriated. Flickr is what you make it. It can be a showcase or it can be a noticeboard for your friends. I often wonder about setting up a second account, the "good" account, remember that's what pix.ie was for and then have a heart attack because I've photos in so many places.

anyway, here's some panadol.

ThOnda

Social networking? Yes, of course. You are taking pictures of people when you are with them, sharing time and joy together. And sharing your pictures is just another part. Like talking about the party next week or so. It doesn't matter if you use flickr, prints or just words.

And talking about art - it is the intention of the creator. If you want to do something properly, innovatively and constructively, some could call it "art". The most important is if it is what you want to do, if it is reflection of your soul, ideas, mood and personality.

Bresson did almost only "his" photography. And even later, when he got contracts for some themes, he still did the same - what he liked. He did his photography, his view on this world and people living here. What about the photo of the prostitute looking through the hole in her door, who was his neighbour? He took the picture, because he wanted to take that picture. For him, for the joy of taking pictures, maybe for her to give her a friendly gift. I don't think that he took that picture to "create arty photo for exhibitions".

Sou if you take some pictures and if you want to show them, it's only your decision. If the pictures say something to the viewers, it's different question and depends only on the viewers. Would somebody call those pictures like art? Why not? Why yes? :-)

I hope that you are ready for another evening now. Enjoy!

Hugh_C

elven wrote: »

the passing of time

Jesus do the pair of ye never go to bed? I thought I was bad as a serial insomniac but there's a time and place for these maudlin exchanges and 5 am on a Friday night isn't it. You should either be in the warm nearness of a loved one or dreaming of it.

Go. To. Bed.

elven

I was in bed! Ah, a laptop, an electric blanket and a packet of chocolate covered digestives... now that's a friday night.

Eh, did I just say that? Ahem.

Calina

Laptop, hot water bottle and cup of hot chocolate, that was me...

but I didn't say anything and having just come in from the beach with a soaking wet camera and a soaking wet Calina, I'll be filling that hot water bottle again very, very shortly. oh I'm cold.

guess that makes flickr "social networking then" if you're discussing its merits at 4am.