10 photographers you should ignore.

Pick on 10 famous photographers and slag off their work? It's been a lazy form of journalism over many subjects for years.
 
Byker28i said:
Pick on 10 famous photographers and slag off their work? It's been a lazy form of journalism over many subjects for years.
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It's criticising the pale imitators.

A friend who teaches creative writing said the same thing about how you can always spot the exact moment a student has read Raymond Carver and how long it takes them to start writing properly again. Carver was a genius and could write spare, empty prose and make it mean something -- his imitators are just writing blank text that goes nowhere.

Martin Parr is an interesting one in that as a rule I don't think he's been imitated overly much except maybe by himself.
 
Ansel Adams: Yet on the whole he’s probably done more harm than good for photography

HCB: He probably did more to narrow the path of street photography than anyone else.

(actually I more problems than that with HCB. Some of his images I find fascinating, some I don't get at all and if I took would discard)

Stephen shore: Stephen Shore was the ultimate Nothing photographer

Alec Soth: And really, do you have to be so bloody sardonic about contemporary photography? Photographers don’t need any help becoming grumpy and skeptical about photography.

Maybe I didn't get the dry humour? I understand the point of the article but it's the underlying edge that stood out to me.
 
gingerjon said:
It's criticising the pale imitators.

A friend who teaches creative writing said the same thing about how you can always spot the exact moment a student has read Raymond Carver and how long it takes them to start writing properly again. Carver was a genius and could write spare, empty prose and make it mean something -- his imitators are just writing blank text that goes nowhere.
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One of the issues I have with doing my current course is that it gets to be obvious who's copied previous ideas by students. You can almost identify the exercise they started, so I've almost become obsessed with trying to be original.
 
Worth reading alongside the link posted earlier in the week to the article, Helsinki Bus Station Theory.

Oops.. someone's posted that already..
 
Byker28i said:
HCB: He probably did more to narrow the path of street photography than anyone else.
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I must admit I don't think HCB is all that, and I don't think I am alone (eg. that incident of someone posting one of his for crit). Maybe I just don't get street photography?

edit:
Infact I found most those photos on that boring, am I missing something?
 
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Byker28i said:
Pick on 10 famous photographers and slag off their work? It's been a lazy form of journalism over many subjects for years.
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Have to adgreed with you,been done so many times before,:shake:

Maybe make a list of journalism,he would come top to ignore
 
Good stuff.

Bitter Sweet kind of inspiration....

"he did it better than you ever will, so move on......."
 
Byker28i said:
Ansel Adams: Yet on the whole he’s probably done more harm than good for photography

HCB: He probably did more to narrow the path of street photography than anyone else.

(actually I more problems than that with HCB. Some of his images I find fascinating, some I don't get at all and if I took would discard)

Stephen shore: Stephen Shore was the ultimate Nothing photographer

Alec Soth: And really, do you have to be so bloody sardonic about contemporary photography? Photographers don’t need any help becoming grumpy and skeptical about photography.
Click to expand...
Byker28i said:
Quoting out of context, it's easy to make anything sound bad (something they teach in Lazy Journalism 101 ;)).

Byker28i said:
Maybe I didn't get the dry humour?
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I think so.

dinners said:
Good stuff.

Bitter Sweet kind of inspiration....

"he did it better than you ever will, so move on......."
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I think it's more, do your own thing, similar to the bus station article. It doesn't matter if they're better than you or not. Even if you shot street as well as Bresson, if you shoot it the same way, what's the point?
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Photographers you should ignore? Could be interesting...

*opens link*

First person is Ansel Adams? I stopped reading there. What is this? That man is a god.
 
Superewza said:
Photographers you should ignore? Could be interesting...

*opens link*

First person is Ansel Adams? I stopped reading there. What is this? That man is a god.
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I think you should read this thread or read the article properly. :)
 
Superewza said:
Photographers you should ignore? Could be interesting...

*opens link*

First person is Ansel Adams? I stopped reading there. What is this? That man is a god.
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Haha. The effort you put into posting here and asking "what is this?" would've been much better put towards reading past line one of the article. :D
 
Superewza said:
First person is Ansel Adams? I stopped reading there. What is this? That man is a god.
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It's not the first article I've read saying that the slavish devotion Adams inspires - especially when people try to copy his metering and processing systems - is often to the detriment of original photography or the photographer's own development.

He may be a god. (Personally he bores the arse off me.) But that doesn't mean you should be wandering round Yosemite with a copy of one of Adams' guides to zone metering expecting greatness to follow.
 
dzidek said:
A nice read, thanks for the link
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This thread is getting the love that should be coming my way, if you check out who first linked to Helsinki Bus Station Theory!

It's all good, I can take it, I'm not bitter....:'(:lol:
 
lofcuk said:
This thread is getting the love that should be coming my way, if you check out who first linked to Helsinki Bus Station Theory!

It's all good, I can take it, I'm not bitter....:'(:lol:
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I linked to your thread rather than direct to the article - credit where it's due. :)
 
Ed Sutton said:
I linked to your thread rather than direct to the article - credit where it's due. :)
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Yes, it's no problem, the main thing is the message in the article, not who posted it. I was suprised it has not been posted before, I could not find it, if it has anyway.
 
Just maybe it would not be a bad idear,to try a copy some of the greats,instead of.

I took this photo its not very good but i pp the hell out of it,what do you think :(
 
gingerjon said:
It's not the first article I've read saying that the slavish devotion Adams inspires - especially when people try to copy his metering and processing systems - is often to the detriment of original photography or the photographer's own development.

He may be a god. (Personally he bores the arse off me.) But that doesn't mean you should be wandering round Yosemite with a copy of one of Adams' guides to zone metering expecting greatness to follow.
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Not copying from=/=ignoring. There's still a ton to be learned from people like Ansel, and just throwing that possibility out of the window by not even looking at his work is nothing short of a crime. It's a pointless article who's sole purpose is to make that site more popular by insulting people, and it's working.

And there's something to the post above mine as well, i can't stand doing PP on digital work. At most i'll play with brightness and contrast, but it really bores the hell out of me.
 
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Superewza said:
not even looking at his work is nothing short of a crime
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You don't think you might be over-reacting a tad?

And I'm assuming that Adams himself was something of a post-processor so I'm not entirely sure there's much moral high ground to be had by dicking about in the darkroom as opposed to salivating over pixel-perfection in photoshop.
 
gingerjon said:
You don't think you might be over-reacting a tad?

And I'm assuming that Adams himself was something of a post-processor so I'm not entirely sure there's much moral high ground to be had by dicking about in the darkroom as opposed to salivating over pixel-perfection in photoshop.
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Reacting at all is overreacting - it's a whiny article that tries to say "Oh hey, look at me, i'm popular because i'm controversial." and fails. The best thing to do with such a thing is to ignore it.

Darkroom work is a world away from digital editing. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, i'm saying it's not at all for me :)
 
Pray tell, how is the article meant to be interpreted then? Please, whoever wrote it suggested that nature is boring. Do you need any more proof that they're an idiot? :p
 
Superewza said:
Pray tell, how is the article meant to be interpreted then? Please, whoever wrote it suggested that nature is boring. Do you need any more proof that they're an idiot? :p
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Nope, they said that slavishly following Ansel Adams when taking photos of nature is boring. That you'll miss great shots because you're fixed into following someone who can't be followed. That it's better to find your own way of capturing the world around you. Otherwise all you'll be is a pretty neat copyist.

Which is a little bit different.
 
gingerjon said:
Nope, they said that slavishly following Ansel Adams when taking photos of nature is boring. That you'll miss great shots because you're fixed into following someone who can't be followed. That it's better to find your own way of capturing the world around you. Otherwise all you'll be is a pretty neat copyist.

Which is a little bit different.
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I dout many photography theses day would know how to used an 10x8 camera,let alone slavishly follow Ansel Adams,by taking the gear half way up a mountain,to take a photo.

Also saying that photographer,have better thing to do than spend any time looking for a good photo,like HCB, to me that's the problem today,just point your camera in any direction,don't matter how bad the photo is,their good old pp.

A photo taken with out any care is still a crap photo,no matter what pp you do to it :p
 
Great link - thought the feature was a good take on the reality of how some photographers are perceived. Yes, it's tongue-in-cheek and at times, a bit close to the bone, but it's not hard to see that this isn't a serious article that should be read as gospel.....

Some of the reactions so far have been way out of proportion.... this is what free press is all about :)
 
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