Criticising Famous Photographers

[Eric Leppanen]

If there were no practical repercussions from these printing faux pas, it is easy to argue that you should stick to your own knitting. It sounds like your professional association with this person has been on-going for awhile, so if he/she was interested in your opinion of their work, you would have been asked by now. And since this person is an arrogant, self-absorbed, narcissistic putz whom you could personally care less about, there is no personal motive to risk destabilizing an otherwise successful professional association.

Kirk, I'm sure all of this is self-evident to you, yet you apparently are still uneasy about the situation. Are you concerned that such sloppy printing will reduce sales, or worse, by association reflect badly upon your own work or professional reputation? If so, you have a damn strong professional justification for discussing your concerns with this individual. Better to nip such problems in the bud, rather than risk losing orders. And by discussing these issues within a narrow commercial context (rather than your personal artistry versus theirs), your associate may react less badly to your feedback.

Frankly, I would question a professional association with someone I can' t talk to. Often no good comes of this, and life is too short to put up with this type of crap.

[Duane Polcou]

A friend of mine in the music business once told me in his experience that the most talented, gifted people were often the most insecure, even questioning of their abilities, and the arrogant ones were largely mediocre. If this example translates to photography, even the most accomplished among us should realize that everything is a work in progress, subject to judgement, and a criticism given in earnest, although it may briefly sting, can serve to help perfect craft. But, hey, photographers are an egotistical, self-aggrandizing group of elitist snobs who think their pictures change the world. I know mine do. They really do. No, really. They really really do. Don't criticize me. I took a workshop with Ansel once and handed him a sandwich.
Ansel Blaumstein. No relation.

[robc]

What is your motivation behind alerting your close acquaintance to your observations?

As has been discussed here recently, it is quite possible for scanning to introduce artifacts into an image. Particularly as you go thru the downsizing and conversion to jpeg format. Have you ascertained this is not the case before criticising the prints or are you merely concerned about the quality of the web images and not the real prints? Have you seen the real prints in question?

[Brian Ellis]

I'm very critical of technical flaws in my own work. No matter how minor they are, once I become aware of them they're all I can see in the photograph. But assuming an aesthetcially excellent photograph, minor technical flaws in someone else's work only bother me if they're so obvious that they interfere with appreciation of the image. Flaws that can be seen only with nose to print, especially those that wouldn't be apparent to anyone except another photographer, aren't a big deal to me and I wouldn't say anything about them unless I was asked to critique the print. Look at all the vignetting in many of Atget's prints. I'd consider them a horrible flaw in my own work but they don't seem to bother people looking at his prints today.

[Robert A. Zeichner]

I've faced a similar dilemma, but in my experience, the photographer whose work was in question pointed to his newest masterpiece hanging on his wall and "asked" me "isn't this great"? I really had a hard time saying yes and fumbled around for some innocuous response. I have thought about that incident many times since and wish I had said something like "the important thing is what do you think about it"? It's so difficult to make a living in this business as is the case in many other fields that there is what amounts to an unwritten rule to not criticize the work of other artists. You just never know what trouble might come back your way as a result.

That said, I recall a very scathing critique of Kenny G. by guitarist Pat Metheny. At first I thought, holy crap, Pat's shooting himself in the foot. But I read the whole article and it was an extremely thoughtful and justifyiable statement and one I agree with. It hasn't seemed to affect Metheny's career in any negative way and in some respects it demonstrates the high calibre of artist he truly is. I can't imagine it has hurt Kenny G. either as it's unlikely fans of his would have any understanding of Metheny's work or care.

So, I'll be watching this thread closely as I anticipate another encounter with the mystery photographer very soon and I'm not beneath borrowing some clever ideas from this group.

A Happy Holiday to the LF community and my apologies to any Kenny G. fans.

[Walt Calahan]

As a senior in college, we had a "world famous" photographer give a lecture. As was the tradition, our professors tapped two senior students to show their work to the lecturer. I was very honored to be one of the chosen.

After the lecture, we all gathered for the portfolio review. My worked was looked at without a comment. At the last image the photographer looked up and said "Next."

One of the other students said "Hey wait a minute, you didn't say anything."

Our visitor blinked his eyes, shook his head, and said "Right." Then started with my portfolio once again. He came to a landscape I had shot a year before while a student in England. It was of a row of pine trees in the fog in Wales. I made the image on 35-mm while hiking in the woods.

The vecturer stopped at this image, looked up and said "Ansel Adams is a friend of mine. He does this better."

I don't remember anything more he said. Just sat there thinking "What an a**hole." I learned a lot from that person, and never tried to be like him when looking at other's work. No matter how bad an image is, I always try to respond to the good I see.

Kirk, I know you don't want to hurt this photographer's feelings because you won't want someone to do the same thing to you. I likes your diplomacy about the reading glasses, and the internet is a terrible venue for judging someone's work.

[paulr]

i'm curious to know why this is coming up for you. it sounds like it's a struggle in some of these cases to hold back from giving uninvited criticism. why does it bother you so much that someone else has made an imperfect print?

the world is full of flawed prints. including some brilliant work that's brilliant in spite of (or sometimes partly because of) its imperfections.

personally i'm more likely to be biting my tongue when i see technically perfect, but otherwise empty work. it drives me crazy to see someone putting so much work into highly polished nothing.

on another note, i think that's a good policy to give criticism only when asked. it's also a good policy to make all criticism forwarding ... work to help the person come closer to their vision; don't just sit back and point out flaws. i also ask what KIND of criticism someone wants. there are so many ways to look at work. they might have a specific question they're trying to figure out ... find out what it is before launching into your theories about Taosim or the One True Toner.

[Frank Petronio]

Just smile and move on. All you'll do is piss the guy off and make it hard to deal with him later. If his work really sucks, don't be associated with him.

I used to criticize everything and all it did was make me a crank.

You won't change the pretentious and pompous art world by pointing out technical flaws. Go see a Starn Twins show and relax.

Merry Christmas to all, even the uneven sky developers!

[Philippe Debeerst]

What Rob is saying about web immages is verry imoprtant now days.
But can someone tell me what to do about that?
I am working on a website and this problem accured and this is why my website is still under construction.
Monitor callibration is not allways the answer... No colour, no grey scale is acceptabel on the web, what to do?
We all know that we will be judged by the look on the web, and 'mistakes' are unavoidebel.

I stoped judging photo's printed in books to. As a mather of fact, I do no more judge ar all, I look, I listen and I schut up and try to learn what NOT to do.
My oppinion became verry, verry personal, this is perhaps why I am considered as solempsistic...
Who cares?

[Ken Lee]

There is an old story in the Jewish tradition: A man asked Rabbi Shamai to teach him all of Judaism, while standing on one foot. Shamai chased the man away.

The man went to Hillel and made the same request. While standing on one foot, Hillel said: "Do unto to others what you would have them do unto you. That is the whole teaching: all the rest, is just commentary."