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Thread: My work vs Atget's

  1. #11
    Photo Dilettante Donald Brewster's Avatar
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    My work vs Atget's

    You shouldn't have much problem avoiding the dark corners -- those that sometimes appear in Atget's work were the result of vignetting. Try to find some joy in your work. I suspect you are thinking too much. If certain aspects of your fundamentals are weak, work on those. I believe it was Louis Armstrong who advised practicing your scales, and when you have those down cold to "just blow, baby."

  2. #12

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    My work vs Atget's

    Yikes, Aaron, you're kinda hard on yourself, don't you think? Couldn't you chose an easier target to measure yourself by, like Ansel, for instance? Atget may very well be the greatest photographer who ever lived! It's like trying to compare your drawings to Leonardo's. That said, many of Atget's 10,000 pictures were really just ordinary. We only get to see the best. If you want to measure up to the old French guy, pick a narrow range of subjects that you truely love, and spend every waking moment making 10,000 pictures. Forget about the rest of the world and let everyone think you are an eccentric old fool. BTW, Sally Mann's recentlandscapes rely heavily on dark corner vignettes and the use of too-small image circles for her format. They are beautiful, but they are obviously contrived to the max.

  3. #13
    Kevin Kolosky
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    My work vs Atget's

    lots of good answers here. I think also that there is a time factor involved. Today we marvel at Atget's photographs because we marvel at that period of time in which he made those photographs. There is always a certain sense of "charm" about the past. Moreover, it is not Atget's craft, but rather his subjects that are so intersting. What you are shooting today may seem ordinary today, but marvelous 100 years from now. The same with the great scenics done by Ansel and others. Today many of those places have apartment buildings and factories in the foreground, and part of the value of those photographs is to see the subject as it once was. to make great photographs you have to find great things to photograph. Keep looking. Kevin

  4. #14

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    My work vs Atget's

    What a wonderful collection of heart felt comments. I believe this forum really shines when questions like this pop up.

    My wife, a painter, turned me on to the book "Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking" by David Bayles and Ted Orland. This wonderful, readable, funny and very pertinent to photography book explores all the issues that have been addressed so far. As I have spoken with other artists on this book they have almost universally said that this is on their short list of "must read" books. I highly recommend it to the poster and to the followers of our forum!

    Scott

  5. #15

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    My work vs Atget's

    I think the emotion is a familiar one to anyone who gets deeply involved with any medium/anything. Things seem to follow a certain pattern. There is an initial hurdle as one learns whatever medium one has chosen to work with (learning chords, learning color theory, learning to use tilts and swings etc). Then comes a period when a certain level of expertise/competence is achieved. I believe this is also the period when doing this particular thing (playing music, painting, shooting LF etc)is the most fun in the normal sense of the word - its got almost the same sense of the sheer pleasure a child gets from movement or running around. That is, the sheer act of painting or playing music is fun.

    Beyond this seems to lie a long road of see-saw oscillations. It also seems a road where one is quite literally alone (but not necessarily lonely). Part of the oscillations comes from the fact that technique and vision are often not in sync. First technique gets better and allows one to sense new ways to do/perceive things - so one feels that one is not seeing well enough. Then vision/imagination gets better and deeper and technique seems unable to capture what is seen/felt. For what it is worth, in general things do seem to catch up and work does get better if one keeps at it, but that doesn't necessarily make the process any easier. The rewards are less easy to articulate (personal growth is probably the closest one could come up with). The answers seem to come less easily also (probably because we have a stock of answers in memory that obviously do not work - unlearning is devilishly hard). I guess what I'm saying is that maybe this is the nature of the beast (the one on our backs, that is). The only thing is that its likely to be that way with whatever we choose to do - give up LF and take up pottery and one will reach this pass again. So, it seems to lie inside us. I guess that's enough rambling.

    Good luck, DJ.

  6. #16

    My work vs Atget's

    I agree, that book is terrific and so are Robert Adams's books, "Beauty in Photography"and "Why People Photograph."

    Ellis Vener is right again. Photograph what you love, follow that obsession to the ends of the earth. Subject matter is neutral; the artist invests the neutral subject with meaning. If it means little to him, it will never happen.

    If a visual effect that another artist has created has a powerful influence on you (Atget's romantic air, sense of time having passed, and quiet light), you should pay close attention to that, because it has connected to your own true vision in some way.

  7. #17

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    My work vs Atget's

    This is a true story and not a joke, but I hope it will make you laugh anyway. When I was going to City College, some folks gave a monkey some paintbrushes and canvas and the monkey started to paint. After a while the monkeys paintings were getting quite a bit of money, and the painting were called by some as 'brash' and 'innovative'.

    The guys that were pulling off this hoax, started to get scared that they would go to jail, so they let the 'cat out of the bag', along with contrite promises to pay back all involved. One of the folks who had purchased the paintings said something to the effect of, 'I don't give a shit who painted it, I like it, I'm keeping it'.

    The critics who praised the paintings before the hoax was exposed had nothing to say after everything came out.

    As anybody who looks at a series of inkblots knows, it's all in the mind. I cannot figure out the artistry in dipping a paintbrush in a bucket of paint and flicking the paint onto a canvas laid out on the floor. That's not art to me, but it is to someone else, so be it.

    The story is absolutely true, and I mentioned it here because although we're all serious about our craft, it shouldn't be taken to life and death extremes.

    Life isn't fair, so what? There are great photographers out there who may never get the recognition they deserve. Their are folks out there like Kertez, Eugene Smith, Scavullo and others who put the 'G' in great. There are some other photographers who have work in magazines and galleries which makes me want to scratch my head(if it misframed, it's misframed).

    I tell you one thing I don't do anymore that you ought to consider. I always been afraid of making snap judgements about my work immediately after a shoot, for fear of missing a killer shot. Unless it for a job, I like to look at it then put it away for awhile, so that I can look at it later as if somebody else had done it. You might have a masterpiece in that pile you didn't like initially, but is nontheless a 'killer'.

    Why don't you find somebody you respect and let them look at your stuff, and find out what they think. Maybe you've just got some fine tuning to do. Trashing yourself won't be as beneficial as getting some 'nut and bolts' specifics from somebody else.

    All you can do is perfect your technique in order to focus people on your vision, after that it is up to the Gods as to how great it is and how many people recognize your work.
    Jonathan Brewer

    www.imageandartifact.bz

  8. #18

    My work vs Atget's

    Aaron, you may also benefit from having someone whose opinion you respect have a look at your work - we are often our harshest critics.

  9. #19
    multiplex
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    My work vs Atget's

    aaron sometimes we are too close to our own work and it is hard to step far enough back to gain perspective ... it is good to show an innocent your work .. maybe you will gain helpful insights ... but whatever you do, don't stop taking photographs.

    13 years ago, i was advised to show aaron siskind some of my work. he was not very kind with his words ... he told me that i was "wasting my time" and to "throw away my camera" ... i never stopped exposing film ... or doing camera-less work .. who knows if he were still alive and i showed him more work, he would probably be just as harsh ... but i know i would not have been able to critique my work as he did ... good luck - john

  10. #20

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    My work vs Atget's

    A blind man could make beautiful pictures of Paris -- Atget was a hack (IMO).

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