Photographs and thoughts on photography and camera collecting
I was walking the dog along the lake when I saw absolutely wonderful light falling on this birch tree in a neighboring garden. I liked the rich green of the grass and the small splash of the magenta flowers. Unfortunately I was happy with the way the wonderful light was captured. I couldn’t seem to do it justice.
I came across this man with a metal detector early one morning in 2011 on the Connecticut shore. Apart from myself I think he was the only person on the beach.
I liked the primarily horizontal bands of tone: the darker tone in the foreground; then the lighter tone of the sand; the brighter tones of the sea; the darker tones of the Long Island shore; and the bright tone of the sky. Then there’s the man – the only vertical element in the scene.
I liked the subdued blues set against the creamy white of the church exterior and the way the dappled shadows fall across the building. I don’t recall what I was feeling at the time (2013), but looking at the picture now I feel a sense of calm and tranquility. This might be because blue has always been my favorite color though.
I came across this post (An Illustrated Case of the Misguided Photographer Believing his Work is Art) the other day and I can’t say that I agree with it.
The authors main point seems to be that art has to be created from nothing. You start with a “blank canvas” and you make something:
For a photographer to be an artist, the photographer will have to create something. Photographing something that is already in existence, whether landscape, still life, or even street candid photography is not creating something. It’s documentation.
According to him only certain types of photography qualify as art: i.e. staged photography. Anything else is just documentation. Not surprisingly his photographic works of art have been created by photographers famous for staging their photographs:
You see, I’ve seen works of art in photography. It’s usually rather elaborate. It’s not one of those things that happen with a quick snap. Of the works I’ve seen, the most memorable piece is by David LaChappelle, titled “Jesus is my Homeboy.” I remember absolutely loving it, when I first saw it many years ago. Though now being more mature, I find the connection to Leonardo Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” to be rather unoriginal.
In recent years, I’ve moved on to Gregory Crewdson. And believe me, his photographs didn’t just happen overnight (in the figurative sense, though literally, it was taken overnight). I especially love the surreal in his hyperrealistic photographs of Middle America. There’s always something just not quite right, that makes you take a second longer look at details of his work.
So once you’ve seen art in photography, you will never mistaken photographic documentation as art.
To me art is something that moves me; something that makes me come back again and again to re-consider it; something that arouses my passions; something that makes me think. It’s got nothing to do with whether or not it was created from nothing. Shakespeare is a great artist, not because he created something from nothing, but because even 400 years after his death he makes us laugh; makes us cry; makes us feel joy; makes us feel sad; makes us come back again and again to his plays. Also remember that when Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa he wasn’t gazing at a blank wall. He had model. So it must be “documentation” then. Can’t possibly be art.
I particularly disliked the condescending tone:
To be fair to this blogger. I too am not an artist. I am a content creator. What I have over him is an education in fine art, and career experience as a designer. So I have a better understanding of what art is.
Presumably the pictures the author presents are his own (and I quite like them) so I can’t comment on the pictures he refers to, but one would think that the curators of such prestigious institutions as the NY Museum of Modern Art would have a decent “understanding of what art is” yet they still insist of having exhibitions of “documentation”. The Met Breuer presently has a exhibition of works by Diane Arbus. She took pictures of freaks, outcasts, prostitutes, carnival people. Clearly “documentation” right? So why does the Met Breuer exhibit such stuff?
I thought the discussion about whether or not photography was, or was not, art ended some time ago. Apparently not.
A nearby plaque reads: “In memory of Benjamin F. DeFrancesco 1898-1993. As the flag flies freely, so do I.”
I took this with a Sony NEX 5N and 16mm f2.8 lens and its matched ultra wide angle converter. I recall that I used this combination, but it’s hard to be sure as the metadata provides only the focal length of 16mm with or without the converter. The converter makes the lens focal length 12mm (18mm 35mm equivalent), which is pretty wide. It distorts quite a bit and is pretty soft in the corners. It’s an inexpensive alternative if you have only an occasional use for an ultra wide lens, particularly if you already have the 16mm (otherwise you would have to buy it as this converter is designed to work only with this lens).
