ULF Photography - No, really.

[jnantz]

i don't think it matters whether he will modify his camera or final product
or methodology (to please everyone), but will he be able to
bring it to slot canyon and shoot a (clichéd) nude against the rocks ...

[Steve M Hostetter]

i don't think it matters whether he will modify his camera or final product
or methodology (to please everyone), but will he be able to
bring it to slot canyon and shoot a (clichéd) nude against the rocks ...

and then you might ask yourself , why restrict myself to those (cliched) vista shots W/ blown out skys

I do admire the guy for his determination but it's not like he is the first guy to do this sort of thing..

[jnantz]

and then you might ask yourself , why restrict myself to those (cliched) vista shots W/ blown out skys

I do admire the guy for his determination but it's not like he is the first guy to do this sort of thing..

yup, someone was doing the same thing since about 1839
with dag, salt wet, dry, ortho ... everything is a cliché at this point ..
at least he is having fun ...

[Steve M Hostetter]

yes, so well said.. I would have to agree..

[cosmicexplosion]

Instead he is being an artist???????????? What are we chopped liver?

What i meant was that, he is not restricting himself to a graphic nature. To realism.

it wasn't a content or composition-based statement.

I suppose in my head, there is a difference between an artist per se and a photographer,

That is simply an approach and my bias/conditioning, coming from a painting background.

I said it without thinking, and it is both a true and false statement.

An art exhibition is not a photographic exhibition. They are subtly different. There approach is also generally different.

It would take me 10 years to paint one snap shot! So maybe the word artist is strictly reserved for what is created by the self, by hands?

Photographers dont call themselves artists even though they are. They say, hi, i am a photographer, first. Then explain what sort, fashion, landscape weddings, or go on to explain how they shoot landscapes but employ a unique printing process.

I understand I may be digging a grave here but hopefully not.

From an outsiders point of view a lot of photography seems to be capturing a moment in time, person building etc

A painter usually creates the image from scratch, so there is a certain freedom from the limitations of the real. The out side world.

It is more of an inner world thing, often purely imaginative.

But there is also limitations of skill, materials and imagination.

Photography has the advantage that the world already exists and is already amazing.

Seen from a certain angle and captured, with relative ease we can have an image.

Though 'being there' is not taken lightly.

Poor sculptors, they have to chip away for months on one work!

I have seen John Chiara's other work and it is very abstract. Not at all like the relatively tame landscapes in the doco, in fact quite wild.

But history is full of trail blazers and then people who walk on the trail.

Best to make sure you are exited about your own work, if not experiment.

I find an artist like this interesting and will keep an eye out to follow his career.

may you all have a wonderful and creative day : xx

[Paul Kierstead]

Photographers dont call themselves artists even though they are. They say, hi, i am a photographer, first. Then explain what sort, fashion, landscape weddings, or go on to explain how they shoot landscapes but employ a unique printing process.

...

From an outsiders point of view a lot of photography seems to be capturing a moment ...
Seen from a certain angle and captured, with relative ease we can have an image.

Although certainly a good amount of photography may fall into what you are saying (the majority for sure), there is also a very large swath of photography that is most definitely made, not taken. Photographers who work very very hard to produce one gallery worthy shot and only produce a few a year, photographers who control every aspect of the process, not just go find something to shoot and produce it with 'relative ease'. Sure they could produce a result with relative ease, but it would not be one they would call their ... art. This large swath of photography can be easily found in galleries (especially the non-commercial kind) and the like. I like this fellows work, but there are plenty of photographers going though other extremes to go beyond well beyond straight photography (which is basically what you are suggesting all other photography is). In fact, straight photography has been the minority (outside of commercial and personal use) for quite some time.

As soon as you step outside traditional boundaries of 'art', the terms get difficult (talk to bespoke or boutique furniture makers...) and, I think, probably obscure the real discussion.

[rdenney]

I suspect it is a commonly held perception that many photographers are wannabe artists who cannot draw well.

And I suspect it is a commonly held perception that many other photographers are playing with toys rather than ideas.

I don't think any of us would be prepared to insist, let alone prove, that these perceptions are without precedent.

That said, there are a lot of painters whose work suggests they would rather be a photographer, except that they preferred to be called an "artist".

Both painters and photographers aspire to say something. Their statement may be limited to their craft, which can reach amazing levels even if that's the limit of their expression. Their statement may be about the subject. It may be about the process used to make form and color. It may be some inner scene nearly inexplicable to the viewer without considerable effort. Often, though, it's just "look, my painting of a tree actually does look like a tree". Or, "look, my photograph was made at a time when a scene was really dramatic."

Not all painters are aritists, of course. That's why there used to be a commonly used term: Illustrator.

Making the expression obviously fills a need for the artist. Whether the expression is perceived as valuable by any given viewer is the viewer's decision, not the artist's. But if it does have clear expressive value at least to some viewers, then we have to call it art, it seems to me, even if we are unmoved by it.

But if it seems to communicate only to the artist and to nobody else, well, at least the artist is pleasing one person.

Rick "who can't draw trees for shit" Denney

[cosmicexplosion]

[quote] paul kenny: (which is basically what you are suggesting all other photography is). In fact, straight photography has been the minority (outside of commercial and personal use) for quite some time.

yeah look, As i said, i am conditioned one way, but it is just habit.
my whole life

i have said hello i am an artist

now i say i am getting into photography

clearly photography (and i wish it was a shorter word)

is for people who cant draw trees for shit.

A lot of photographers are very clean neat mathmatical types who tuck there shirts in.

When i grew up, my father role model, as my father was not around, was a photog named richard eastwood. he is from tasmainia.

he made a living from it, but he was the funniest person and the wittiest.

possibly a genius? but any way, i dont have bad things to say about photographers, exept this one tucked his shirt in to. His house was very very clean, and he was a spartan/minimalist.

I am the oposite yet i try and keep things clean. i think painting makes you messy. or at least you start to love mess, a messy studio is a productive one, paint every where 6 feet deep of paint paper wood canvass paint and more paint. dont worry about dust, and infact we want heaps of light.
not to be kept in the dark.
so in conclusion,
painters are superior.
just kidding. But i would like to hear about some interesting artist who use cameras and think out side the square.

thanks


i

[rdenney]

Actually, I was just being funny. I can draw trees, heh.

As you attempt to make worthwhile art using photography, you might gain more appreciation for how difficult it really is. My choice of medium affects technical quality but not the artistic idea of what I do. And I have as much trouble expressing that idea using photography as I ever did with painting. I certainly didn't take up photography because I was a lousy painter--I took it up because it gives me access to language more useful for saying what I have to say. My paintings and my photographs achieve lousiness through the banality of that idea or message, not through lack of technique at either medium.

But some people, in finding they have little to really say, attempt abstract techniques as a means of hiding their vacuity (or, they go the other way and come to revere hyper-technique). Maybe building a trailer-sized camera is a way to hide something--maybe it's a tool for expression. We can't assume either one just because of how the guy goes about what he does. The work has to stand on its own.

Rick "for whom realistic clarity is a favorite language, often used to say nothing" Denney

[cosmicexplosion]

the more i know, the more i know i dont know.

please excuse my ignorance, its not as bad as i make out. my tongue firmly in cheek.

and any way, nothing wrong with saying nothing, some times better, as beauty can say every thing, whatever form it comes in.