Topic: This is such a good essay

[hookstrapped]

Makes me think about what I'm trying to do with my photography

http://nytimes.com/2016/04/03/magazine/a-too-perfect-picture.html

[imagesfrugales]

I didn't read the whole thing, but i did read the linked "Afgahan girl" article and am touched deep in my heart. I wished all mighty man on this planet would read this article with open hearts and draw the right conclusions.

all we are sayin' is: give peace a chance (John Lennon)

[Francois]

Peace is one of the things this world definitely needs more of.
But I guess it also takes a lot of courage, something it seems more and more people lack.


As for the photos, I always tend to see photos not as a piece of paper but as boxes. The photographer needs to curate what he puts in the box and once the shutter is pressed, the content of the box is sealed forever.

[hookstrapped]

I kinda don't understand either reply, but that's cool peace and love brothers

I take from it the long and entrenched history of crowd-pleasing unchallenging pretty pictures, exoticism/colonialism, and "good composition" dulling the senses through confirming expectations swimming in ignorance. As opposed to photography that doesn't adhere to all that.

[02Pilot]

I found the author's tone a bit condescending. While I never found McCurry's work particularly to my tastes, and indeed perhaps rather boring, I don't agree with the sort of wholesale dismissal in the article. If people want to see pretty pictures that confirm their predispositions, they will find them; if they want to challenge the conventional wisdom, they will seek out photos that break with tradition. Each photographer presents their version of reality, and each will find its audience. I'm really only concerned with refining my own vision and what it means to me - everything else is secondary.

[Sandeha Lynch]

I kinda don't understand either reply, but that's cool peace and love brothers

I take from it the long and entrenched history of crowd-pleasing unchallenging pretty pictures, exoticism/colonialism, and "good composition" dulling the senses through confirming expectations swimming in ignorance. As opposed to photography that doesn't adhere to all that.

Agreed with the basic premise of the article, but less on his analysis.  I think the question is far simpler, McCurry being only an exemplar:  Would Steve McCurry be the photographer he became if National Geographic did not exist?

[Flippy]

I actually think it was a pretty weak article.  The author makes several mistakes, the most elementary being that they think Steve McCurry's photographs need to be made for an audience consisting of the people in the countries he's photographing. The second error being that they think Steve McCurry and other western photographers don't photograph authentic experiences. This error is tied to the first. They do. They photograph their own experiences as all photographers do. One can't attempt to photograph somebody else's experience. Who is holding the camera? Whoever is holding the camera, literally, and figuratively, is giving you their perspective.

Finally, quoting "I know it when I see it." in an article about art, is akin to quoting Stalin on the matter of human rights.

That's not to say I disagree with the general theme of the article. I think they're hitting on a good point, they've just gotten it across in a very clumsy way.

[Late Developer]

I think Sandeha has provided a path to the truth on this one.  Steve McCurry's work is, in my opinion, has been influenced heavily by his "employer" (National Geographic) and its audience.  What would be the use of shooting different subjects in a style that is contra to what's required and will sell?

As for the patronising diatribe the article contains about adherence to compositional rules, the colours and "pretty pictures", I have to disagree.  I am, as you might have guessed, a big fan of McCurry's work and have been so since I first spotted his name in National Geographic - years before he shot "Afghan Girl".  His photos, again in my opinion, demonstrate a broad range of style from straightforward photojournalism (as with his work in Afghanistan before the Gulf Wars), through travel and pictorial to some of the most stunning portraits I've ever witnessed.

I really don't know how Steve McCurry's work can be referred to as "boring" - other than if that is the author's own personal view of it.  The article is interesting, in many respects but, yet again in my opinion, proves that (to paraphrase) "Those who can, do.  Those who can't, preach".

[charles binns]

This article has a fundamental problem in that it has too many words.  Far too many in fact.

[02Pilot]

Both Charles and Sandeha raise the issue of editorial influence, which certainly must be taken into account, whether evaluating words or photos in publication.

[jharr]

Both Charles and Sandeha raise the issue of editorial influence, which certainly must be taken into account, whether evaluating words or photos in publication.

Yes, the thing to keep in mind about journalists (and I use that in the broadest possible sense) is that they create for a living. That is to say, their creation, whether it be photo essay, article copy, glamour/fashion studio work, etc. is done with the primary driver of "Will it sell?" Without National Geographic, Steve McCurry would have used his talent and skill to make photos that another magazine would buy. If he were selling to the NY Times crime beat, I am guessing that his photos would have looked very different indeed. So the Nat. Geo. look isn't the author's thing. That's okay, it doesn't have to be. He wrote an opinion piece and sold it to the Times. Good for him. I'll bet McCurry is getting paid more for a shot of a beautiful Indian street scene than he did for his article.

I'm glad I'm a hobbyist. 

[hookstrapped]

All good points, which I think are implicit in the article. The criticism laid out is less directed at McCurry than at his audience (the editors and readers of National Geographic and his Instagram followers), and McCurry is being held up to illustrate larger points about that audience.

[Late Developer]

All good points, which I think are implicit in the article. The criticism laid out is less directed at McCurry than at his audience (the editors and readers of National Geographic and his Instagram followers), and McCurry is being held up to illustrate larger points about that audience.

I'm not sure which is more irritating; the writer calling McCurry's work "boring" or him criticising the people who commission it and those who find his published work both interesting and beautiful. This fella's opinion is interesting and he has a perfect right to have it.  However, on reflection, it's worth less than zero to me.

[Flippy]

A pretty good article could be written about the problems with romanticizing a certain era or aspect of a particular culture or society. This one however seems a little silly, because the author is criticizing decades old photographs for presenting a romantic depiction of past eras. It should be obvious that we cannot fault old photos for being old. We might fault an audience for being nostalgic or wistful when viewing them, but to criticize a photographer for romanticizing the past by taking pictures in the past is kind of pointless. And to criticize a foreigner for photographing things from the perspective of a foreigner, particularly to imply their perspective is inauthentic because of it, seems a little out of touch.

I think it is obvious that the author simply prefers candid photographs to decisive moments and posed portraits. And that is fine too, but they're trying to tie it into the deeper issue of romanticizing or over-indexing on a particular aspect of a culture when trying to represent it in work.

How do we know when a photographer caters to life and not to some previous prejudice? One clue is when the picture evades compositional cliché.

If you think about that - it doesn't really make much sense. But I guess just saying one prefers candid photos because they're candid isn't as interesting a premise for an article.

[hookstrapped]

I see most people disagree with me 

I appreciate Cole's body of writing on photography, where his perspective as a man born and raised in Nigeria now living in the US brings a different light to how photographs can be viewed. And a lot of his writing takes to task the exoticizing of non-western peoples so prevalent in western photography. He does that by featuring stories on African photographers, for example, showing the similar aspirations of middle-class Nigerians to middle-class Americans through their studio portraits; and by criticizing the propagation of intellectually un-challenging views of non-westerners, by and for westerners, through the photographs of someone like McCurry.

He links intellectually un-challenging and bias-confirming with artistically traditional. I don't think he makes such a strong case for that as a general rule, but I thought the distinctions he presents with the two photographers are interesting and provocative. That's what got me thinking about my own photography, the desire to fit things in a traditionally well-composed frame rather than, perhaps, taking in scenes more as they truly are.   

[Flippy]

Which doesn't actually make much sense. I'm sorry if that seems abrasive, it's not meant to be. But one has to keep in mind that photography is inherently subjective. A photograph captures an arbitrary scene of space and time, and just outside of the frame is entire rest of the world and all of history. It cannot be objective. No matter how far the photographer tries to remove themselves from control of the photo, the moment they've decided to make a go of it, it ceases to be objective. Even if they put the camera on time lapse, walk away, and tell themselves they're not going to interfere, it doesn't change that they decided to do that in the first place. Deciding to shoot candid and searching to depict scenes as they "truly are" is simply replacing one set of arbitrary values with another.

A photograph may be presented in a deceptive way, but that again does not change the authenticity of the photograph or the reality of what it depicts.

This is a real photograph of a real event in a real place. But it was presented as something else. It is still as objective a record of the event that actually occurred as any photograph can be. Whether it had been better composed or printed would have no real bearing on this, other than making the image perhaps more aesthetically pleasing.

Art is always difficult, but it is especially difficult when it comes to telling other people’s stories.

I'll maintain that a photograph never tell a story which is not the photographer's own. A photograph may be used to illustrate a point in somebody else's story, and it may be misrepresented to tell a story that is untrue, but the photograph itself is inherently always of photographer's perspective.

[hookstrapped]

I shouldn't have used the phrase "truly are", after all a main point Cole is making is about different subjective perspectives and questioning those that make us comfortable and serve to confirm our biases.

But what I'm getting at is trying to get away from traditional framing and traditional balancing of elements and instead capturing the spirit of scenes as they present themselves to our eyes, before we focus down. So much of photography is isolating elements in the frame from those outside the frame -- and that's so much the beauty and surreal nature of photography -- but there are sometimes these simultaneous disparate threads of action going on in front of our eyes where I usually wait for one or another to pass so I (and the photo's eventual viewers) can focus on something. Instead, I'm thinking of how they can all leave their mark.  Alex Webb manages to put these disparate threads all in a traditional beautifully composed frame, but I'm wondering if there might be another way to approach this without being a genius like Alex Webb.

[hookstrapped]

More thoughts and perspectives here...

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2016/04/the-mccurry-takedown.html#comments

[jamesaz]

jharr, all art is commercial. if it doesn't sell then it becomes fine art.







Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[jharr]

jharr, all art is commercial. if it doesn't sell then it becomes fine art.

Hey everyone!! I'm a fine artist!! 

[Flippy]

You know I thought about this for a moment while I was in Japan, and it sort of hit me why such ideas are just so much hot air. If you're somebody with a romantic vision, it doesn't matter if you photograph a foreign location the exact same way you photograph your own home town. People are going to complain that you're trying "too hard" to make it pretty or present an idealized image of a location. You would be of course, but not out of any particular idea about the place - but just because that's how you see when you take photos.. But that's not your problem, it's the viewers.

Which reminds me of this:


Ultimately, one should not make art how other people say they should make art. You make art for yourself, and if other people sympathize with it, and it's popular, okay, that's a thing. And if they don't? Who cares. They can fuck off, you're an artist.   

(and indeed if you don't agree, that's ok, do what you want to do, don't listen to me  )
(PPS: granted when your work is being tied into something that's supposed to be factual reporting and is read by millions around the globe, you're dealing with different standards and potential issues regarding representation of this or that. But so far as simply making art goes...)

[hookstrapped]

As I mentioned earlier, I think Cole in this essay is less calling out McCurry for his photographic style and approach and more calling out the people who like his photos, who like them uncritically in terms of what ideas the photos perpetuate. So it's not about criticizing art for its aesthetics, but criticizing the consumption of art for its ideas. And I think that's legitimate. You can disagree with his point but many of the comments here seem to be saying his critique isn't legitimate because they view it as a subjective assessment of style and aesthetics. But that's just the launching point of his critique that penetrates much deeper. And maybe that's why the piece has caused such an emotional response, because the piece is criticizing the vast public for the possible implications of liking McCurry's photos, which are not nearly as pretty as the photos themselves. And that makes people uncomfortable, especially photographers who thought they were just admiring a talented and highly skilled photographer who made some very memorable images.

[jharr]

So it's not about criticizing art for its aesthetics, but criticizing the consumption of art for its ideas. <snip>  ...the piece is criticizing the vast public for the possible implications of liking McCurry's photos, which are not nearly as pretty as the photos themselves.

I see what you are saying and I agree that this may have been the point the author was trying to make. However, it still comes down to "You have bad taste." or "You are a bad person." for liking McCurry's photos. Either he is a hack and the viewing public has low standards, or he is an evil genius perpetuating harmful stereotypes. The bottom line is that the author has an opinion and he has a platform to put it out to the public. But so does McCurry. So here we have two differing opinions and most people are going to come down close to one or the other after reading the article. Since the author is sort of going on the offensive here, he will generally be viewed as an "aggressor" and as such, many will find his opinion offensive (even if they secretly agree with it). I like some of McCurry's work, but not all of it. But far be it from me to argue with success. I wish I could make a living taking photographs.

[Flippy]

Personally, I don't like McCurry's work. But I still find the article insidious in how it attempts to present a subjective question of taste as though it were an objective yardstick by which to judge work. I'm kind of tired of this brand of criticism made by people who are too self absorbed, but never quite self aware.