'If there is a lesson in waterfalls for newbies, it ought to be to try and capture what they see or capture something other people DON'T, not make more cheese, and call the admission of failure 'art'.'
That looks familiar.... & significantly out of context...
I have been commenting on a thread that another guy started about the use of filters etc, and I fear it may be getting slightly derailed.'
Not really.. Sweety's question was "How do I get my waterfalls to milk" And he already knew the answer... long shutter speed.. it didn't need answering..
I merely asked WHY would he want to make yet another milky waterfall! And suggested he keep in sight what it was that he picked up a camera to do in the first place, rather than blindly chase other peoples ideas of 'art', And rather revealing that he dismissed the suggestion, of either questioning why he wanted to make more cheese, or how he might actually achieve that cheese with the gear he had, wishing only for confirmation he was 'right' and buying a variable density filter would get him the cheese he wanted.. suggestion he merely wait until dusk and lower, probably more flattering, raking light to help avoid over exposure at a long shutter? NOT really what he wanted to hear.
'One of the points I tried to make was that by doing the 'usual/cliche' shots, we learn how to compose an image, set the camera, use equipment and take certain types of photos. From here, we can then try other things and gradually progress our skill set and find what and how we each individually like to take photos of. '
And the counter-point I offered... "WHY?"
Analogy I offered was cars, and if you learn to drive so that you can get to and from work every day without getting wet at the bus-stop, why feel you have to learn all the techniques of a rally-driver and try making your little hatch-back into a racing car? Will it help you get to work? Is being able to do a hand-brake turn a 'useful' skill in the daily commuter grind? Might be fun thing to do on a dull Sunday afternoon, it may be an interesting 'hobby'to peruse for its own sake; but just because you have seen a car enthusiast with a Focus ST drift round a round-about on You-Tube, doesn't mean you ought feel the need to learn how to do that in a Nissan Micra, OR that it will make you any 'better' a driver! And least of all, should you stop driving to work, because, well? "I can do so much more with the car!"
Learning NEW things, may be very laudable, but it is not necessarily the same as learning to do what you set out to any 'better' or even helpful to that.
As for 'Art'.. it has a place, and there is scope within the 'medium' of photography to apply artistic interpretation. However, it is NOT inherently an artistic medium. It is is primarily a recording medium.
If I wander down to my local, there is more than likely a tribute band playing, and they quite probably have a 'Demo-CD' I could buy. They are probably banging out a lot of old standards.. well, currently, probably originally written and recorded by David Bowie or maybe the Eagles.. who is the artist? Glen Frey or David Bowie, who originally compose that music, the Tribute band up on the stage emulating either, or the groupie who thought to plug an MP3 player into the mixing desk to record it?
My other thought on this, and was also mentioned but not discussed, is that if a photo is just a picture of something that is already there and therefore not art, then surely the Mona Lisa, or Sunflowers, or The Hay Wain are also not art.'
Interesting you should mention this one in-particular....
I was actually discussing it with some-one just last week, when I commented on the weather out the window and described it as a 'Constable-sky' and had to explain that it was a lovely classic 'winter' sky with lots of lovely fluffy clouds in it. an interesting sky, of the type that Constable was particularly fond of. So if he painted a scene he thought had a 'boring' sky, he would often leave them blank, and then return to them, later and paint in a more interesting sky later. Consequently most of his landscapes aren't 'real' scenes, they are 'montages' of elements that individually may have existed which he sketched separately at different times, but never co-existed together in the composition depicted in his 'works', in reality.
The Mona Lisa is almost certainly constructed in a similar manner, and its even believed that the subject herself was probably a 'Body-Double' who would sit for an artist to construct the basic portrait before the client 'sat' just for details. The panting itself, showing on modern analysis, to have probably been partially completed and over-painted perhaps a dozen times in different areas before 'completion'.
If you wish to contemplate the artistic intentions, again, Interesting pair to ponder. Davinci as an artist, followed renaissance trends of 'Realism' in his art, his intent was to create a faithful 'likeness'.. yet he still employed artistic licence and interpretation, as well as the 'tricks of the trade' such as montaging likenesses of paid models, rather than demanding his client sit for hours themselves.large parts of his works, as others were also probably only ever 'roughed out' by the 'artist', who let a apprentice fill in large areas, while the 'master' concerned himself with only the overall arrangement and the significant details.
Constable? Followed the Romantic movement, and while he too strove for a a 'photo-realism' at the time his paintings were often criticised for being ;sloppy' in technique, where pre-dating the 'impressionists' by almost fifty years , he was more concerned with 'mood' and 'impression' as much, if not more than ''reality', often de-emphasising elements within his compositions... significantly in the haywain, here, you might note the workers in the field behind are mere 'dabs' whilst he treated the reflection of the cart in the water, very carefully, with deliberately small brush-strokes to de-emphasise the form and render a more 'soft focus' romantic 'impression'.
I don't think, that the suggestion that the artist deliberately aimed to produce an 'realistic' image, and has succeeded, particularly threatens the artistic creativity that conceived them!
If that scene depicted in the haywain DID ever actually exist in reality, and Constable had simply pointed a camera at it and pressed the button to obtain it would it be 'art' or merely a 'recording'?
Now what if he used selective focus to de-emphasise those workers in the field? Tricky.. might have maintained the fore-ground, but he'd have lost the tree-line and sky... maybe if he had used a soft focus filter? Or maybe a Vaseline filter in 'just' the right spot? OR, Hmmm.... what if he did a bit of dodging in the dark-room when he made the print? Or OK, going digital, he uses the blur tool to soften them up a bit? What about the water? Again, the scope is there to apply artistic licence, and manipulate the image for 'effect', to stimulate an emotive response.... ooooh....
Emotive response? That's starting to get a bit deep and pretentious? Milked out waterfalls give me an emotive response. They make me irritated. Is THAT enough to make them 'art'?.. and so the layers build and the subject becomes more involved.
But, regardless of how much artistic influence you might have over a photograph.. the camera remains primarily merely a recording instrument, that scavenges scenes placed before it.
And there is no shame, in simply being a 'Recordist', exploiting the medium at it's strongest to capture 'reality'. There is an honesty in a candid photograph. A certain purity. And lack of pretension. Which is seen in the 'snap-shot', where, most often, technical dexterity might be utterly lacking, artistic interpretation utterly absent, BUT there is INTEREST, whatever it was in the scene that made the photographer interested enough to point the camera at it. And in that, usually an emotive response, as the image has some relevance, some purpose.
Academic exercises in 'effect', more milked out waterfalls, are just that, an academic exercise in effect, and a fairly futile one, that isn't really offering insight into all that much technique. especially if you look no further than what you can diddle with in the camera or bolt to the camera to 'make' that effect for you. There is a whole lifetimes worth of 'photographic study' in a single waterfall and all the scope for artistic input to capturing one, and almost all of it is outside the camera and most of it in the photographers mind.
Slapping a big-stoppa on the front, looking at the milk and going "Oooh! Yup got that nailed" even as a academic exercise is a pretty poor lesson! Approach that waterfall, and trying NOT to get the cliché, there-in lies the lesson, there in lies the start of 'art' if any is to be found, and its not to be found in the gadget bag!
But, that is where, so many chasing 'artistic pretensions' are lead, misguided in the perception that its all about the camera and what can be done with the camera, and failing on so many counts to make either worthwhile 'recordings' or 'Art' failing to gain the empathy and understanding of either, carried away by 'style' and 'effect'.
An its ALWAYS worth a step back to ask WHY? and What am I doing? And in photography, the most important questions, Why am I taking this photo? Who is going to look at it WHY are they going to look at it, and what is the 'purpose' of them looking at it? What is is supposed to do for them? entertain? amuse? inform? what? How does the photo enrich their being? THEN when a photo enriches a viewer, might we start to consider 'art' within it.
