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Photography, Art and Writing (a thinking thread)

Maggie O

Active member
Is anyone else besides me here more inclined to agree with negative assessments of their output? (Though the voice saying "I'm a damn fine photographer, you idjit!" is louder than the agreement with the guy this time.)

I have to say that the thing I hate most about my photography is my obsessive pet snapping. But then, I shoot what I can shoot.
 
M

Mitch Alland

Guest
Maggie, a French photojournalist friend total me that in France more photography books on cats are published than on any other subjects, but, then, at the time he was editing a book called Tous les matins du monde, which showed morning in countries around the globe, a subject with no less kitsch than cats. Hey I got that word in again!

—Mitch/Bangkok
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10268776@N00/
 

johnastovall

Deceased, but remembered fondly here...
Is anyone else besides me here more inclined to agree with negative assessments of their output? (Though the voice saying "I'm a damn fine photographer, you idjit!" is louder than the agreement with the guy this time.)

I have to say that the thing I hate most about my photography is my obsessive pet snapping. But then, I shoot what I can shoot.
Hey, Maggie pet snapping is easier to explain than my shooting Roadkills. :D

When I get negative assessments I assume, I must be doing some thing good because it at least got their attention. I would rather have 10 people call some thing terrible than a 100 call it pretty. Terrible I might learn from but pretty is incurable. I was once told the worst thing to tell an artist is , "You have good technique."
 

Maggie O

Active member
I think the most amusing thing about that guy's comments were they eventually turned into "give up this stupid photography thing and go back to your 'day job' as a musician."

I've made more money as a photographer than I have as a musician.

Man, this has been a head-spinning couple of weeks. (for all sorts of reasons, not all related to photography)
 

johnastovall

Deceased, but remembered fondly here...
Below your avatar it's says "Dublin, Texas", not "Paris, Texas"! Seriously, where are you? I'll be in Paris from mid-April for a few weeks.

—Mitch/Bangkok
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10268776@N00/
I'm in Dublin,Texas but I used to get to France every few years. Love Paris and love the south even more. I was last there in 1999 to attend Camerone in Aubagne with the Legion. Then the dot coms went bust 2000 and I went back to academia. I got an invite from them to it due to book I've been researching for 20 years on Augustus Carl Buchel. I will unfortunately be in Texas in mid-April and see no travel in the near future due to my wife's health.
 

Maggie O

Active member
I got to thinking about that guy's comments and how he's mostly seen my snapshots of cats and it got me thinking about the Callahan comment, about how he shot thousands of exposures and got something like five photographs that he felt were worth showing and it makes me wonder if posting pics to Flickr and forums is actually a very bad thing for a photographer to do.

If a big part of photography is editing and one's critical reputation lies with the percentage of quality in one's public work, then maybe we need to be more private and more guarded and much, much, much more self-critical of the photos we choose to share online? Have I dragged myself permanently below the artistic Mendoza Line by making my snapshots public? If the only photos of mine anyone ever saw were, for instance, the best ten or twenty shots from my EuroRedux set, would my critic have even had a moment's pause in condemning me to incompetence?
 

Cindy Flood

Super Moderator
Maggie,
I don't put very many of my shots on the internet. I used to do "picture a day" on Pbase a couple of years ago. I thought that making myself post a picture a day would be good for me. I found out that there were little "clicks" of people who said "great photo", "beautiful", etc. to others in their click. Very seldom did a photo get any kind of criticism, even constructive criticism.
I've also noticed that a lot of people don't react positively to pet photos. On some forums they can bring on down right nasty responses. BTW, this is a safe forum where people like me who don't even own a pet (can one own a pet???:ROTFL::ROTFL:) can enjoy pet photos.
There also is a lot of negativity to M8's. I'm not sure if it is jealousy or what. One such thread is running right now on RFF if you want to read what I mean. It started out as a poll asking how many M8's people had. Some of the responses from those who never even used an M8 are bizarre to me.
I am so thankful that Guy and Jack have made this a safe place for us to post and help each other. I hope you don't quit posting your photos here. BTW, your Euro photos are beautiful. My favorite is the Eiffel tower from below.
 

Cindy Flood

Super Moderator
I'm the RFF antichrist! I take photos of pets with an M8! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! :ROTFL:

:ROTFL::ROTFL::ROTFL::ROTFL:That's why we love you!!!!

Seriously, though, it would be nice if we could all start using the critique forum here and give and take each other's opinions.
 

Maggie O

Active member
Ben Lifson has an opinion on shooting every day:

Our busy, time-consuming and important careers and our important family commitments often make us photograph only intermittently, when we can find time and as subject matter either comes our way or, as is often the case, we travel to it, sometimes quite far. But this is not the best road to good pictures and our growth as picture makers. With a few word changes [mine in square brackets], what the English novelist and short story writer W. Somerset Maugham once said about writing holds true if for photography: “Writing [photographing] every day,” Maugham said, “is no guarantee that you will make a masterpiece [good pictures]. But you will never [consistently] make a masterpiece [good pictures] if you don’t write [photograph] every day.”
This idea has kept me photographing, day in and day out, through many frames of crap.
 

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
I'm a bit jet lagged after flying cross-country today, so this might not be the best time to comment. But I can't help but be reminded of how I managed to talk myself out of photography way back when. As a young man I was semi-obsessed with photography and horribly self conscious. It was a bad mixture. Ultimately, I managed to drain the joy of photography completely out until I ended up hating it.

I've grown up (a little anyway) and it's easier now to smile while I'm doing it, and smile at the results sometimes. But even the ones that stink manage to provide some little step forward. Most of the time I just shoot anything that I feel like. My dog, snow (lots of that up here), anything. Occasionally something else happens and the muse finds me and then it feels... like something else. But so far, I haven't been able to actually dial her (the muse) direct.

As far as posting pictures on the net, this is a pretty safe place. I personally learn something from almost every photo that's posted here. Is it the most rigorous critique? Probably not, but right now it's a very valuable resource for me.

So show us your kitty! ;)
 

Maggie O

Active member
OK, you asked for it!

Scooter doesn't like that guy's comments:



CV 50/2, wide open, ISO 320, 1/1000sec.
 
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