Reminiscing About View Camera's Past.

[Mark Sampson]

When I worked at the Phillips Collection I had plenty of time to study their four Van Goghs, along with a larger number of his works that traveled through. He was indeed a great and complex artist; to attribute the quality of his work solely to mental illness or physical maladies (as the legend goes) is far from the whole story. I'm not a scholar of his, but did not think there is a consensus on what his illnesses were, or how caused. A talented, driven (indeed tormented) soul who created work of the greatest power and resonance. A shame that he did not live to see any of his success.
This thread drift has now reached continental proportions. To bring it back a ways, I'll suggest that while "photography is not art", it's also true that "art is not photography".
And that I wish I still had my back issues of 'View Camera' from 1989-2011; they were twice impractical to move, so remain in Rochester- for anyone who wants them to collect.

[John Kasaian]

Back to photography.
An inspiring print that ignites the senses is something to be cherished, or at least respected.
No, it's not a painting but it shares much of the same elements as paintings.
Like in paintings, there is a kind of order that is conscious and deliberate.
In a lot of current photographs, what is deliberate seems to be dependent on overly saturated colors.
Or maybe all they are is overly saturated colors.
My 2 cents anyway.

[Drew Wiley]

Well, there are certainly plenty of toxic heavy metals in digital devices, if that was the source of Van Gogh's inspiration; but it wasn't. He was a master of choreographing color by exporting complementary hues into one another to create poise, even as he intensely felt every single brush stroke. I've spent hours looking at single paintings of his. Most color photographers are just looking for a set of Krylon fluorescent spray paint cans. Effective color is about hue relationships, not sheer decibels. Hues saturate best in relation to neutrals and judicious use of complementaries. If noise is everywhere, nobody can hear a thing.
Painters figured that out centuries ago.

[Bernice Loui]

Define "Normal"?

Van Gogh was considered a non-conformist and sold very few paintings during his lifetime. IMO, there is nothing other than un-appreciated artistic brilliance and creativity during Van Gogh's lifetime due to the art worlds expectation of conformity and what is considered Normal.

Or would Normal be Orthodoxy that is a result of individuals (Priesthood) who were allowed to define what any given art form or other human expression could be. This would include lens design to clothes design to ship design to architecture to circuit design to software design to ....

As for color, Morely Baer published a book titled Wilder Shore. There are color images in this book that were made using Tungsten Ektachrome with a daylight conversion filter. The Ektachrome T was over exposed then under developed. This combination resulted in warmer colors (Ektachrome from that era tended to be bluish-green cold) and lower contrast-color saturation. Adding to this was Morely's lens choices which were Goerz Artar or Dagor. Point being, the current fashion of high contrast, overly saturated colors does poke the view's eyes to attention (Consider the market need for Fuji Velvia), but it tends to lack subtleties of color range-hue-tonality. It is nearly identical to highly compressed pop "music" with the same three note chords played over and over and over to a repetitive monotonous beat at beyond absurd levels of loudness.

Since the Kodak Brownie, there has been mass images produced daily. What has changed is the near instant world wide distribution of electronic images created by a vast array of e-Devices. This effectively drowns those who are electronically connected with this vastness of electronic images. Now consider how this immersion of images can affect any viewers emotional reaction to all images?


Bernice

[LabRat]

Numbness... One of the young photo techs at a former job would stare for hours at websites showing edgy pix of mulitated bodies, starved or obese people, etc, clicking one image a second, but would pause for 3 or 4 seconds if interested... Pathetic. ..

Steve K

[faberryman]

Define "Normal"?

Van Gogh was considered a non-conformist and sold very few paintings during his lifetime. IMO, there is nothing other than un-appreciated artistic brilliance and creativity during Van Gogh's lifetime due to the art worlds expectation of conformity and what is considered Normal.

Or would Normal be Orthodoxy that is a result of individuals (Priesthood) who were allowed to define what any given art form or other human expression could be. This would include lens design to clothes design to ship design to architecture to circuit design to software design to ....

As for color, Morely Baer published a book titled Wilder Shore. There are color images in this book that were made using Tungsten Ektachrome with a daylight conversion filter. The Ektachrome T was over exposed then under developed. This combination resulted in warmer colors (Ektachrome from that era tended to be bluish-green cold) and lower contrast-color saturation. Adding to this was Morely's lens choices which were Goerz Artar or Dagor. Point being, the current fashion of high contrast, overly saturated colors does poke the view's eyes to attention (Consider the market need for Fuji Velvia), but it tends to lack subtleties of color range-hue-tonality. It is nearly identical to highly compressed pop "music" with the same three note chords played over and over and over to a repetitive monotonous beat at beyond absurd levels of loudness.

Since the Kodak Brownie, there has been mass images produced daily. What has changed is the near instant world wide distribution of electronic images created by a vast array of e-Devices. This effectively drowns those who are electronically connected with this vastness of electronic images. Now consider how this immersion of images can affect any viewers emotional reaction to all images?

Except that no one sees billions of images so I can't see how they are drowning. They just see their own Instagram (or other social media) feed. What would be good would be a curated photography feed, as done by actual photo editors. Of course, then people would complain about the curation.

[faberryman]

This effectively drowns those who are electronically connected with this vastness of electronic images. Now consider how this immersion of images can affect any viewers emotional reaction to all images?

Except that no one sees billions of images so I can't see how they are drowning. They just see their own Instagram (or other social media) feed. What would be good would be a curated photography feed, as done by actual photo editors, perhaps even one dedicated to LF. Of course, then people would complain about the curation.

[faberryman]

This effectively drowns those who are electronically connected with this vastness of electronic images. Now consider how this immersion of images can affect any viewers emotional reaction to all images?

Except that no one sees billions of images so I can't see how they are drowning. They just see their own Instagram (or other social media) feed. This is just standard issue hand wringing. What would be good would be a curated photography feed, as done by actual photo editors, perhaps even one dedicated to LF. Of course, then people would take issue with the curation, complaining it wasn't inclusive enough, perpetuating the issue. My view is to accept the new reality and deal with it.

[Andrew Tymon]

I miss the typos.

[Bernice Loui]

Go to most any web page ('puter, e-Device or similar), social media, market page and countless others... There will be images on them, no?
Now, ponder how these images affect any viewer?


Bernice

Except that no one sees billions of images so I can't see how they are drowning. They just see their own Instagram (or other social media) feed. This is just standard issue hand wringing. What would be good would be a curated photography feed, as done by actual photo editors, perhaps even one dedicated to LF. Of course, then people would take issue with the curation, complaining it wasn't inclusive enough, perpetuating the issue.