I am asking myself a question all the time:
A few decades ago (and even still) it was not possible to obtain cameras with good optic or even other features to deliver a photo with good quality, objectively speaking, without distortion, blur, colour infringement, etc. Many people had to shoot with Polaroids, holgas, lomos, etc. Fascinatingly pictures came out that had bad quality but were regarded as art.
In our days, what are many people doing? I am shooting with an excellent camera and excellent lens and then distort the pictures to make them look old, blurry, vignetted, scartched, crossprocessed etc. Why are we doing this and not leaving pictures as they are?
I am converting my latest pictures into Polaroid like pictures with all possible distortions. In a way this appeals to me and in other ways I do not understand why I am doing this. Do you know why? Why are making pictures with cameras of poor quality, crosprocess them, scratch them although we have far "better" ones?
Creativity: what is this? Wikipedia says: "is a mental and social process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts. An alternative conception of creativeness is that it is simply the act of making something new.". If we take this definition for valid leads me to conclude that using a toy camera, plastic lens or expired film is not an act of creativity itself. To my understanding creativity are acts based on ideas created in your mind. A random outcome of such lens or film is not creative. It is simply a random product. Now, you would say, but you know what such a lens or film like that would yield more or less as a result and you use these, to me tools, to achieve such a result. Here, I would say that the tool doe not matter as far as the picture expresses that what you had in mind that it should express. So, I am agreeing with Aref, it is a tool. There is also nothing that is better or less better in achieving such a result.
Art: Looking at Wikipedia once more it says that “Art is the process or product of deliberately and creatively arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions. In its narrow sense, the word art most often refers specifically to the visual arts...”. By the way, it is interesting that this definition (if you continue reading it at Wikipedia) does not include photography! OK, this is one of thousand definitions of art. Assuming its correctness if a a blurred and vignetted picture is regarded as art then it does not matter how this art has been made, with a bad lens or a few photohsop layers. The act of creating these by the way per PS does not necessarily mean that everything is made using a macro. The photographer can process each picture individually. So what about Uniqueness? Perhaps it is important if you want to give that particular piece of work a value and values depend on quantity. Are Warhol's popart prints art? They are also a reproduction using silk screen at the “factory”. Anyway, many people do not agree on calling photography an art including a some photographers. I read once the retrospective of Jean Loup Sieff “40 years of photography” about his feelings about his work and photography he says in (page 67, the 60s, translated from the French text): “In these good old days very photography books were published and there were no galleries that exhibited photographs. At least photography concerned only photographers and it was not yet granted the gift of empoisened official recognition. It was not yet invaded by the theoritising gurus, the chatty apparatchiks and all sort of losers. We were among each other and we did not talk about art but we were talking about lenses, trips and hopes. We did not put on white gloves to look at our pictures that were still not “vintage” and we only wanted to work with pleasure.”. So, I regard him as a master photography and he does not seem roregard photography as an art. I agree with him. I only want to make pictures and enjoy doing this with any means or tools. And no, I am not making art. I only don't understand why I am looking forward to change the pictures and give them another dimension.
And Aref, you are presumin that the “artist” or let us say the photographer here is doing things by design I.e. he exactly knows how things should look while shooting them. Well, there might be some photographers doing so. Still, I tend to think that most people discover the potential of the picture afterward and emphasise certain features in it or discover its potential while processing it. Perhaps professionals work by design and most others not. I am one of the latter sort. I tend to explore the picture not only while shooting it as it certainly appealed to me then and I took it with a certain light and composition but also during the post-processing. Perhaps this is not serious work but this is how I am making my pictures and hope that I (and you) keep on enjoying that no matter which means are used.
Probably by citing Jeanloup I am putting myself and the friends discussing with me here under the definition of theoritising gurus or chatty apparatchiks. It is not my intention to offend anyone. I am simply looking forward to make some pictures, sometimes understand what I am doing and see your beautiful pictures through this marvellous medium, Ipernity.
I have my personal problem with the word "art" as I am not able anymore to distinguish what is art and what isn't. I thought that art is about (as Wikipedia above said):".... elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions". As many of the works of modern so called art do not have anything with the above mentioned aspects in my opinion I ceased to know what art is. I have the impression that it is now more about public relations and "selling ideas". So, as I cannot distinguish what art is and what isn't then I prefer to step back from it. Maybe the word art also induces high expectations in me that I cannot fulfil. So I prefer not to get near it.
Therefore, I am making images (often only pictures) that I enjoyed making them and looking at the result and I hope that somebody else enjoys looking at them too. I am also happy to have the chance to look at your images too, enjoy their beauty when they appeal to me and also learn a new way of looking at things.
Sign-in to write a comment.