We all should read this.....

lawrie29

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Taken from the BBC website,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-13133461

Makes you think about shots, and what makes one.



Extract:

Some photographs change the way we look at the world, some change the way we look at photography, and some do both. For me Roundabout, Andersonstown, Belfast, 1984, by photographer Paul Graham (above) is one such picture.

In a wider context it cemented Graham's position in the photographic hierarchy as a leading British photographer, one of the few then challenging the perceived wisdom that all serious photography was in black and white, and on a personal level, when first seen in the 80s, it revealed to me that photographs can be subtle and need to be read, not just glanced at. They deserve respect.

The picture is part of Graham's 1984-86 series entitled Troubled Land and depicts the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Standing in front of the picture with Paul Graham at The Whitechapel Gallery in London where a collection of his work from the past 30 years opens to the public today, I was interested to hear how this photograph had been such an important one for him.

Unionist Posters on Tree, County Tyrone, 1985, from the series Troubled Land, Pigment ink print Graham told me that on returning from his first trips to Northern Ireland he felt depressed with the results. His pictures were of the gabled ends of buildings displaying huge murals in support of one group or another, the sort of pictures used widely in the press at the time. Yet they tell us little of the story itself, they are but illustrations.

Despite having no press card or indeed legitimate reason for being there he continued to work on the project and it was this photograph that set the tone for what was to come. Whilst standing by the roadside with his medium format camera in hand, a British Army patrol approached him and asked what he was doing, whilst making it clear he should take no more pictures. But his instincts took over and he made this frame as the patrol left the scene. You can see the soldiers running off down the road on the right, with one still on the roundabout.

At the time he didn't realise its significance. It was only when he was looking through his negatives that he realised this was his breakthrough picture, one which offered a gateway to the story. His style was now set, it would be anti-surveillance, turning the camera from a device that focuses in on the most important part of the frame, to one that captures the wider view and pushes the viewer to seek out the significance of the picture
 
To be honest, these pictures, or the article do nothing for me. They look like well taken snapshots, not great photographs and I fail to see any great significance in them.
 
His style was now set, it would be anti-surveillance, turning the camera from a device that focuses in on the most important part of the frame, to one that captures the wider view and pushes the viewer to seek out the significance of the picture

Kind of the opposite of what a photo should then. If a picture is worth 1000 words, then his pictures are worth 5 and you have to find the other 995 yourself?

Sorry, but having read the article and having seen the roundabout picture it does nothing for me. Looks like any old council estate with someone running across the roundabout, and they are too small to really make out if its a soldier.

Perhaps I am just biased from having grown up seeing my uncles photos from Northern Ireland when he was stationed there. The after effects of bombs, the bombers head lying 100 yards down the road. I wish I had copies of his work now!

Perhaps it means something as part of the series, but on its own we'd tell anyone here to bin it. As for the explanations of why its brilliant, i like to class it as "art farty mumbo jumbo!" :D
 
Certianly not what I would call great photography, not one means anything without an explanation. There's nothing in them that grabs you and makes you want to know what the meaning of the picture is. Once they have been explained though they do fit, but without that message hitting you without having to be told, it doesn't work.

And I know what the artsy folk are goin gto say "It makes you think, have to delve deep into the photo to get it's meaning" , Sorry, don't buy it - that's the art of imagination and speculation, not the art of photography.
 
But this guy has an exibition, and is work is on the BBC website. Surely that alone says that his pictures are provoking a reactionamd are speaking thousands of words......
 
But this guy has an exibition, and is work is on the BBC website. Surely that alone says that his pictures are provoking a reactionamd are speaking thousands of words......

It says to me that someone is bigging him up for some reason. If he put that photo up on here, he would have his balloon burst in no time. There are many photo's put on here every day that "speak".
 
It says to me that someone is bigging him up for some reason. If he put that photo up on here, he would have his balloon burst in no time. There are many photo's put on here every day that "speak".

But if his work if provoking thought in people, and is asking questions about what photography is, and what a "good" photo is, then surely the photos are of value, and should be promoted as such.
 
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But if his work if provoking thought is people, and is asking questions about what photography is, and what a "good" photo is, then surely the photos are of value, and should be promoted as such.

So you're saying that the BBC is putting these photographs up in order that people can appreciate a good photograph?
 
Of course photography as art should generate opinions. That said I don't see anything in the images on the BBC site that move me in any way. The comments on the site suggest the same as well.

Having an exhibition and a mention on a website does not mean that much!!!
 
As a complete noobie to photography my opinoin may not be wanted, but those pictures do absolutely nothing for me. Browsing these forums I see loads of photos each day that make me think about them. They make me ask questions. Those photos in the BBC link do neither to me.
 
As a complete noobie to photography my opinoin may not be wanted, but those pictures do absolutely nothing for me. Browsing these forums I see loads of photos each day that make me think about them. They make me ask questions. Those photos in the BBC link do neither to me.

Good point. The worry that comes from that is, if people who are not photographers see this picture and believe what the BBC tells them, i.e this is a good photograph, they are hardly going to be inspired to take up photography.
 
Good point. The worry that comes from that is, if people who are not photographers see this picture and believe what the BBC tells them, i.e this is a good photograph, they are hardly going to be inspired to take up photography.


Or the complete opposite. They may see the shot and think "I culd do that" and take it up.


I'm not saying I disagree with anything that has been said about the shots, however what is wrong with having a photo that someone has to look at for a few minutes, and maybe understand the context that it was taken in to fully appreciate the moment it was taken???

Surely a photo like this provokes more thought than a more visually obvious one?
 
Or the complete opposite. They may see the shot and think "I culd do that" and take it up.


I'm not saying I disagree with anything that has been said about the shots, however what is wrong with having a photo that someone has to look at for a few minutes, and maybe understand the context that it was taken in to fully appreciate the moment it was taken???

Surely a photo like this provokes more thought than a more visually obvious one?

"we should all read this".......... because??????

I completely fail to see the relevance of this, If the picture has to have a detailed monologue to express its meaning, then it's just a snapshot of the story, a stock image would have done just as well. Those images, for me, don't draw me into the story nor convey the punch they should deliver with the story they tell.

Your text in red, needs to describe the atmosphere of the image, which means the image is lacking in providing any details whatsoever.

Phil.
 
I'm afraid there images don't show me the "troubles" as it was then called, check out pics by people like. Frankie Quinn, Paul Crispin, Eamon Melaugh among others if you want a better idea of how it was.
 
But this guy has an exibition, and is work is on the BBC website. Surely that alone says that his pictures are provoking a reactionamd are speaking thousands of words......

Have you seen some of the ***** the BBC champions as thought-provoking "art"? :lol:


It's more likely that someone connected to him either works for the BBC, or knows someone that does....
 
Oh dear! There isn't a single image in that set that makes me want to look at it again :shrug:
 
Have you seen some of the ***** the BBC champions as thought-provoking "art"? :lol:


It's more likely that someone connected to him either works for the BBC, or knows someone that does....

I know:lol:

My point is that there is someone out there who is prepared to spend money on showing the photos that this guy has taken. Just because we don't "get them" (and I don't "get them" but I like a good discussion) doesn't mean that there aren't people who do, and seeing as he has an exhibition, and most (all?) of us on here don't, maybe we are missing something?
 
I know:lol:

My point is that there is someone out there who is prepared to spend money on showing the photos that this guy has taken. Just because we don't "get them" (and I don't "get them" but I like a good discussion) doesn't mean that there aren't people who do, and seeing as he has an exhibition, and most (all?) of us on here don't, maybe we are missing something?

The wages the BBC pays for half rate performers? And you think the BBC gives a rats arse for the money the pay for an exhibition for some no hope tog?

You're having a larf :(
 
Some art exhibitions suffer from the same problem, accompanying blurb that waffles trying to big up the painting, that doesn't stand on it's own merit.
 
It says to me that someone is bigging him up for some reason. If he put that photo up on here, he would have his balloon burst in no time. There are many photo's put on here every day that "speak".

I agree. I was over there during the troubles visiting relatives, and any imaginative, creative photographer with a heart, could have taken images in B & W or colour, which would have brought home the dire situation which existed there.
These images fall short of the mark.
 
The wages the BBC pays for half rate performers? And you think the BBC gives a rats arse for the money the pay for an exhibition for some no hope tog?

You're having a larf :(

But the BBC aren't paying for the exhibition, it is being held in a private gallery, which makes my point - someone out there feels that the work has artistic merit, and deserves an exhibition, so why are we all slating these shots - they are worthy of an exhibition!
 
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I know that in the art world, people will buy anything, good example posted, but so is tracey Emins Unmade bed. The pile of bricks as well springs to mind.

However, in all of these instances there is someone who will defend the Art, and actually gets it. Out of everyone on here, I just think that there should be someone who has the same opinion as the owner of the art gallery and also the BBC picture editor, as well as many other people who have given this guy a career. Which makes me think that maybe, just maybe, we are all missing something.
 
I know that in the art world, people will buy anything, good example posted, but so is tracey Emins Unmade bed. The pile of bricks as well springs to mind.

However, in all of these instances there is someone who will defend the Art, and actually gets it. Out of everyone on here, I just think that there should be someone who has the same opinion as the owner of the art gallery and also the BBC picture editor, as well as many other people who have given this guy a career. Which makes me think that maybe, just maybe, we are all missing something.

Nope! don't think so ;)

If it smells like a turd? Looks like a turd and tastes like a turd? ...... It's probably a duck!

Edit: .... Sorry, thinking about the quacking and walking thing :D
 
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Seemingly in 2009 he won the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize which is, and I quote, "a prize that annually rewards a photographer who has made the most significant contribution to the photographic medium in Europe, during the past year"

So what do we know? :shrug:
 
Going back to my arty farty comment, I could take a dump on a pillow and call it modern art and chances are someone fool would buy it!

Stay out of classifieds....:cuckoo:

Don't like any of the pictures. I've been torn apart on here for better pictures than those.
 
Seemingly in 2009 he won the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize which is, and I quote, "a prize that annually rewards a photographer who has made the most significant contribution to the photographic medium in Europe, during the past year"

So what do we know? :shrug:

Blimey just looked it up. £30k prize plus the series of 12 books are available for £750.
http://www.steidlville.com/books/600-a-shimmer-of-possibility.html

There's a good point made by Lawrie, which is I really don't understand 'art' like this that seems to me to be 5 secs to produce the 'art' then 2 hours writing the intellectual bull to accompany it. Filmic haitus? I should have concentrated more on English Literature at school.

“Perhaps instead of standing by the river bank scooping out water, it’s better to immerse yourself in the current, and watch how the river comes up, flows smoothly around your presence, and gently reforms the other side like you were never there.” Paul Graham

Inspired by Chekhov’s short stories, Paul Graham’s a shimmer of possibility comprises 12 individual books, each volume a photographic short story of everyday life in today’s America.

Most of these books contain small sequences of images, such as a man smoking a cigarette while he waits for a bus in Las Vegas, or a walk down a street in Boston on an autumn afternoon. Often two, three or four sequences intertwine in a single book, like separate but related lives co-existing in suburban America.

Sometimes the quiet narrative breaks unexpectedly into a sublime moment – while a couple carry their shopping home in Texas a small child dances with a plastic bag in a garden; as a man cuts the grass in Pittsburgh it begins to rain and the low sun breaks through to illuminate every raindrop.

These filmic haikus avoid the forceful summation we usually find in photography, shunning any tidy packaging of the world into perfect images. Instead, life simply flows around and past us while we stand and stare, quietly astonished by its beauty and grace.

Whilst the twelve books are all an identical size, they vary in length from just a single photograph, to 60 pages of images made at one street intersection. The radical form of this multi volume book embraces the unique nature of Graham’s work, giving the flow of life precedence over conclusiveness, where nothing much happens, but nothing is foreclosed either, where everything shimmers with possibility.
 
the pictures that are in the article do nothing for me either, but i wonder how they fit in, if you saw them in context with the rest of the exhibition, the photos in the article are all from different sets
 
I'm afraid I just don't get it either.:shrug:

I've also found some images from his prize winning book (published in 2007 but rewarded in 2009 for that year's award:shrug:) and I can't see how they won either.....Maybe it's all in the blurb:rules:
 
Filmic haitus?

:lol: Not "hiatus": haikus.

Over here in pseuds' corner, I occasionally use a haiku to inspire a shot, or for a title. Most don't rhyme, so the Pam Ayres' Appreciation Society wouldn't approve.
 
But the photos are supposed to cause an emotional reaction in the viewer... and he's succeeded - everyone here is angry that the BBC have wasted time on this.

Win? :D
 
This is the story of the King's new clothes:
Now there was once a king who was absolutely insane about new clothes and one day, two swindlers came to sell him what they said was a magic suit of clothes. Now, they held up this particular garment and they said, "Your Majesty, this is a magic suit." Well, the truth of the matter is, there was no suit there at all. But the swindlers were very smart, and they said, "Your Majesty, to a wise man this is a beautiful raiment but to a fool it is absolutely invisible." Naturally, the King not wanting to appear a fool, said,

"Isn't it grand! Isn't it fine! Look at the cut, the style, the line!
The suit of clothes is all together
But all together it's all together
The most remarkable suit of clothes that I have ever seen.
These eyes of mine at once determined
The sleeves are velvet, the cape is ermine
The hose are blue and the doublet is a lovely shade of green.
Somebody send for the Queen."

We all know how the story pans out. How anyone can say that the roundabout shot changed they way they look at pictures (for the better anyway) just defeats me.
 
This reminds me of the article the BBC did on a student photographer a year or so ago.
Photography is an art form and therefore, subjective.
However, the photos need to be something special but I don't get it and most of them just look like snapshots.
As others have said, I've seen far better on here.
 
Do you think the shots, particularly the roundabout shot, need to be viewed on amassive size to appreciate it more? It was shot on MF, so being displayed in a large size would increase the detail and enable you to get more out of the soldiers?
 
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