making or taking pictures...

elven

I just happened upon this blog post and I thought it was an interesting read - couldn't wait until Friday to unleash it on you lot though

Eirebear

ugh....im too hungover and only got halfway through this....

But i do think i heard that unmistakable sound of the ring-pull being cracked on a rather large can of worms....

amcinroy

Interesting read Elven,

This is another old debate, the snapshot versus art.

There's a lot of grey area in between and the snapshots of artists can be very good indeed.

I have to say that I agree with most of the points made. There is a difference between making and taking. It does require something a little extra of a photographer to take an image into the realms of the creative.

DaireQuinlan

Hmm. I'm going to cry foul on this one. Its just an opinion piece obviously, Its just that I hate when those sort of pieces are written as absolutes.

It is the making of photographs into illustrative art which proves that photographers have the same license to brand their creation as any other artist.

Balderdash ! It doesn't help that the EXAMPLE he posts of this 'making into illustrative art' is a piece of over-processed garbage by any criteria you care to measure it.

I've taken more than my fair share of snapshots in my time. I've also taken the odd carefully composed and thought out shot that according to some subjective notion is of more "artistic credibility" than my snapshots whatever that means in the first place. It has nothing to do with 'processing' or lack of thereof, or making your shot into 'illustrative art'

D

DadaKopf

Having read a 300 page critical introduction to photography, taking in the whole history and many theoretical ponderings by the 'greats', I've come to the conclusion that there is no conclusion. Each generation creates its own dilemmas and problems, and it is unhelpful and, simply, unrealistic, to make any categorical judgements about photographs one way or the other.

Like the plastic arts, photography is infinitely mutable, and infinitely problematic.

Another way to ask the same question is: does photography have a 'truth value'? Does any kind of photography, say, documentary, or a technology, say film, have a special relationship to 'truth' more than another?

You can break down photographs analytically and uncover puzzles, but I feel answers have a sell-by date. However the photos continue to exist.

My own personal opinion is that photographs are necessarily 'constructions', in that they undergo so many mediations in their creation, display and interpretation to such an extent that an answer to whether they're 'made' or 'taken' is unanswerable, and therefore the attempt shouldn't be made in the first place. Instead, you look at the complex conjunctures of elements to 'read' photographs, whether inside or outside the frames, text, social context, size, colour, technology etc. It never ends and transforms from generation to generation.

This is liberating because it means you can do literally anything. Photographs only have power when they resonate with deeper cultural elements through the putting together of signs within a semiotic regime. This is where being free to do anything is tempered by actual context.

Sorry for the waffle, but I've been thinking about this a lot.

peasant

In my opinion, only the person behind the camera knows (or at least should know) if they are "taking" or "making" a picture with their current shot.

The result could be glorious or desasterous in either case ..."it's the taking part (or rather the effort) that counts"

DadaKopf

Your comment reminds me...

There's an ideological aspect to the taking/making debate. It assumes that the photographer is an individual, intelligent being in command of his/her gaze and the technology he/she commands. Therefore, the whole construction rests on the enlightenment idea of rationality controlling nature. And so taking or making is transformed into an act of power over that which is viewed through and captured by the camera. This makes sense when you think about the origins of the industrial revolution lying in the 'discovery' of humanism and rationalism, and the origins of the camera in the industrial revolution. It means that acts of seeing, the gaze, is never neutral.

Looking at the history of photography, you see this discourse in operation from the beginning.

I think when you interrogate these assumptions by looking and reading photographs in different, and wider, ways, you learn to see this ideology operating.

The take/make debate continues to serve to preserve this fake 'order of things'. Some of the greatest contemporary photography (1970s-Present) tries to expose exactly that.

peasant

Interesting angle, but I wasn't thinking about that (dominating nature) at all.

The same way you can use a pen to either just note down what someone else is telling you or write a poem or a novel, you can use the camera to just "make a note" of your current visual surroundings or try and express yourself / interpret what you see.


The viewer of the end result of course is left in the dark most of the time as to the photographers intentions (or not, as it were), so a whole other level of "taken vs made" comes into the discussion.

sheesh

Logically he is wrong. When you take a picture of St Peters you are not claiming that you are responsible for the beauty of St peters you are claiming the responsibility for the Image of St Peters even on full auto mode you are still framing the picture. It does not take a huge amount of skill
but it is not the same as photocopying Shakespeare and saying you wrote it.
It IS the same as quoting an appropriate passage of shakespeare at an appropriate moment.

Does he feel it would be different if he had taken it with Film and developed it himself? and if so why? he is still removed from the complicated process of capturing photons on some sort of media. By making a tryptograph he has not done a whole lot more than when he first framed the picture in the camera

We can't all be great artists, we can't all have fantastic vision as to what would be a stirring photo but with a bit of care we can take a picture that when we look at it, we get a small feeling pleasure and maybe pride.
Is that so wrong? we are amateurs and there is nothing wrong with that. For me photography is a simple (but expensive!) hobby that allows me to see something good in myself something that might be creative or indeed sensitive to world around me.

Photography for the most of us (I think) is not High Art, but it is satisfying.

I spend way too much time on these answers!!! Damn you elven:D

nilhg

sheesh wrote: »

We can't all be great artists, we can't all have fantastic vision as to what would be a stirring photo but with a bit of care we can take a picture that when we look at it, we get a small feeling pleasure and maybe pride.
Is that so wrong? we are amateurs and there is nothing wrong with that. For me photography is a simple (but expensive!) hobby that allows me to see something good in myself something that might be creative or indeed sensitive to world around me.

Photography for the most of us (I think) is not High Art, but it is satisfying.

I spend way too much time on these answers!!! Damn you elven:D

Somebody buy sheesh a drink, well said.

Calina

It's 11pm and I spent 5 hours freezing my guts off on Dollymount finding the limits of what a Canon 40D can do in the dark with a Sigma 50-500E so I could be just a little short right now.

This guy is going for low hanging fruit. Technically the photograph of Saint Peters is poor of several fronts, given that it's off angle, the horizon is askew, the main subject of the photograph is flat in the background ahd the lighting is decidedly flat. I'm inclined to wonder if he had taken a technically perfect and vibrant shot of the cathedral such as you can see in almost any guidebook would he be so fast to disown it as something which Canon took. The camera can only record what you point it at; that decisions remains with you and it's a copout to give credit to or blame the camera for the final result.

He pointed the camera; he made the decision about the subject so he took the photograph. Whether he made it or not is a slightly different angle but he cannot claim that Canon and their army of engineers took it. He cannot abdicate any responsibility for the shot as it exists. In any case, it still remains a record of a unique moment in time.

So from the off I have trouble.

After that - and I really must be tired - I see a load of self-indulgent navel gazing rubbish. Maybe I need to re-read it tomorrow.

unreggd

sheesh wrote: »

We can't all be great artists, we can't all have fantastic vision as to what would be a stirring photo but with a bit of care we can take a picture that when we look at it, we get a small feeling pleasure and maybe pride.
Is that so wrong? we are amateurs and there is nothing wrong with that. For me photography is a simple (but expensive!) hobby that allows me to see something good in myself something that might be creative or indeed sensitive to world around me.

Photography for the most of us (I think) is not High Art, but it is satisfying.

+1


the OP in that blog seems like a right sap anyways

Yes, a camera is a tool that does the actual capture, but a spanner is a tool too, so if we get our cars fixed, should we pay Woodies, and not the mechanic?

RCNPhotos

"For me to sign it would be actually vulgar. Who am I to claim any credit for St. Peter’s Basilica?"

Absolute rubbish. I cannot stand this sort of nonsense.

Reading that (the whole thing) just really annoyed me, ugh.

Overdraft

DadaKopf wrote: »

....Therefore, the whole construction rests on the enlightenment idea of rationality controlling nature. And so taking or making is transformed into an act of power over that which is viewed through and captured by the camera. This makes sense when you think about the origins of the industrial revolution lying in the 'discovery' of humanism and rationalism, and the origins of the camera in the industrial revolution.

And there was me thinking we were just taking nice pictures.

elven

oh look, there appear to be worms everywhere!!

Hehe.

My original intention was to use the general gist of the article - about maybe trying to think about what you're actually showing, rather than lifting the camera and clicking almost mindlessly - to encourage some though as to whether you do that or not. I'm not saying it's the only way to enjoy photography, or even the 'right' way since there is no such thing - but given the amount of stuff I see posted here for c&c that looks like it hasn't been given a lot of thought (comments about being able to tell that from the final image taken into account of course) I thought it may spur a couple of people on to trying to put a little more of their own view into their photography. My thoughts were also unrelated to post-processing, and I think that's beside the point really, It's more about what you do in actually taking the shot.

As for being able to tell whether someone put in the effort or not... at this point in time I'm past caring. I think it would do a lot of people a lot of good to consider photography as a process in itself, regardless of a final image, because let's face it, how many of us are going to create something that will matter, in any way, in the grand scheme of things? I think most of us are in this for the joy of actually getting out and shooting more than having something to hang on a wall.

Calina

elven wrote: »

... I'm not saying it's the only way to enjoy photography, or even the 'right' way since there is no such thing - but given the amount of stuff I see posted here for c&c that looks like it hasn't been given a lot of thought (comments about being able to tell that from the final image taken into account of course) I thought it may spur a couple of people on to trying to put a little more of their own view into their photography. ...

I'd nearly prefer it if people put a little more thought into communicating why they posted such and such a picture for C&C as it would give an insight into why exactly they took the picture as they did.

I suspect the process is there; it's just not communicated.

DadaKopf

It's a very strange thing, how well a photo is received versus how it was made.

This photo I took is my most 'successful' on Flickr in that it's received by far the most views, comments and favourites. I took it with a Lomo LC-A, had the film scanned rather than printed, didn't crop it, and didn't really alter the colours much (a little tone change in Aperture).

I remember what went through my mind when taking it, I saw a scene, I made a quick judgement about what to leave in and leave out, stopped down, clicked the shutter and moved on. I was walking the whole time. The camera wouldn't even let me control anything.

I didn't describe it. Something about it makes a description unnecessary. Other photos demand it, more 'thinky' ones. This one I'm very happy with, but it demands lots of explanation, or at least being part of a series with a description of the subject.

It's a weird thing. Very complex.

DaireQuinlan

That first picture is much more immediately accessible than the second one however. I'd venture to say that without the context, the second picture is actually quite nondescript, and photography IS primarily a visual medium

Of course, it begs the question of whether or not it would actually be possible to get a purely visual representation of that scene that would have the impact of the combination of words & image. If not, then maybe its not a suitable photographic subject.

DadaKopf

It's an interesting question, and I suppose it depends on what the photographer's inspiration is, or the viewer's reference points. To me, I'm very fond of the intimacy and bizarrness of snapshot photography (personal photography, I suppose), but particularly the photographer Raymond Depardon. And I'm influencd by the matter-of-factness and sense of presence/absence in the photographs of people like Candida Hoefer, Thomas Ruff and Stephen Shore, and also the constructivist approaches of Andreas Gursky and Jeff Wall. Their photos don't explain anything instantly, but the provoke reflection.

Interestingly, this provokation of reflection about the whole practice of photography (as art) depends on their photography having initially been displayed in galleries. If they're in a gallery, they're important, right? This would have been tough in the 1970s when people thought photography was what brightened up magazines and sold detergent. Their photos are huge, Wall's staged photos (collages really) deliberately emulate compositions and scenes in paintings by the 'great masters'. Their size plays around with expectations in Western art traditions that large paintings are important and public, small paintings are intimate and personal. But also the photograph as the 'thing' in the same way paintings are the 'thing'.

That photo of Berlin I took, knowing its failures, I still feel it's very well composed and creates a space and an atmosphere, to my mind, that does what I wanted it to do. If only I could blow it up to A0 size. It's a step along the way for me.

Of course, it begs the question of whether or not it would actually be possible to get a purely visual representation of that scene that would have the impact of the combination of words & image. If not, then maybe its not a suitable photographic subject.

Sure, but are photography ever purely visual? I think so much goes on in a photograph at so many levels that they 'work' or don't due to factors as much outside as inside the frame. Then again, Thomas Ruff says photographs can only capture 'the surface of things', which is as much an admission of defeat as it is an acknowledgement that much deeper things influence how people judge a photograph, or a series of photographs.

DadaKopf

Here, lad's, sorry about the waffle, but, well, I spend far too much time thinking about photos that I have to let it out sometimes.

elven

Did I click the wrong thing? Is this really boards.ie? Where's the questions about lenses, lads?



I think the time factor can easily be ignored when thinking about this stuff though - I don't think it is related to the amount of time you spend creating an image whether before, during or after the shoot - some amazing stuff can be, has been, and is almost inherently captured in fractions of a second. It almost goes against my recent thinking about using your instinct and intuition (see blog linky in sig if you really care to read it) to suggest that you should spend x amount of time to result in a decent image.

The whole image plus x or y got me thinking a while ago - some photos work better with an explanation, with a bit of background, with music, within a series of other pictures, or just from knowing more about the photographer and what they were trying to achieve. I don't think this takes away from their strength as images - as you said in your first post DK, there's no real purpose in setting down rules of what photography should or shouldn't be (making 'categorical judgements'), and I find I'm less bothered as time goes on about images standing on their own, singularly.

There also seems to be a bit of a crossover into intention and motivation here that I'm going to stay well clear of. It makes my head hurt.

DaireQuinlan

Gregory Crewdson ... Definately Made, and not just Taken:

http://jpgmag.com/stories/1194
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1887082,00.html

But ... is it really photography ??

peasant

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Gregory Crewdson ... Definately Made, and not just Taken:

http://jpgmag.com/stories/1194
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1887082,00.html

But ... is it really photography ??

Naaaah ..that's photopropsery :D:D