"All things are photographable" thread

[Brian C. Miller]

OK, new rule. Only photograph things that have never been photographed before in ways that were never done before.......

So:
#1, that rules out using photosensitive material, since the chemicals react with light photons.
#2, we don't want light passing through a lens.

I'm guessing that we are left with computer-generated images based on scans of things under the ocean, under the crust, in space, and graphs of mathematical equations. But fractals are out, as those have been done before.

#3, the results must be viewed while tripping on acid.

[Scott Schroeder]

I knew this would happen...
It's why I put off creating the thread for weeks.
Let's don't go down the rabbit hole like the nudes thread...
How bout we just have some fun sharing photos of things we wondered what they looked like photographed?

[bob carnie]

I agree , lets see some more photo's

I knew this would happen...
It's why I put off creating the thread for weeks.
Let's don't go down the rabbit hole like the nudes thread...
How bout we just have some fun sharing photos of things we wondered what they looked like photographed?

[Brian C. Miller]

Jim, that's hyperbollic. I'm just finding it curious that in a thread about photographing things without the baggage of tradition and ideas about what/how to photograph, we get images that come from traditions firmly established a century ago. Winogrand was explaining his desire to unshackle himself from certain aspects of tradition in many of those famous lines of his. And of course he said those thing half a century ago. His style itself became a new tradition.

What's that quote about everything has been photographed before?

First off, we are using cameras. You know, those boxes with a lens at one end and something light sensitive at the other. That is the biggest "limitation" and chain-and-ball to tradition right there. If you want to leave tradition and limitations behind, then don't use a camera!

As far as I am concerned, Winogrand was a big freaking failure. Arthur Fellig (Weegee the Famous) did more than him, and did it as his everyday job. The same with Henri Cartier-Bresson and the other many thousands of press photographers. Winogrand used a camera and film, so he never unshackled himself! He simply found his little niche of OCD baloney.

Photograph something strangely. Print it in a distorted manner. Mix and match negatives. Lift the emulsion off, move it around, fold it over. Print on lots of different stuff. Add color. Remove color.

And call all of it "art."

That wasn't Winogrand. He photographed everything straight, and printed it straight. Right into a straightjacket of that which had come before, and what would follow. In a lockstep like ants on the move. And people even buy Leica cameras because that's what Winogrand used. But will they die with over 2,500 rolls of film undeveloped? If they don't, then they have failed to emulate even the basic things that Winogrand did. And really, is there something unique about a photograph Winogrand made that you would look at it and say, "Now that's a Winogrand!"

And so here, in this thread, are the photographs that we've made to see what things look like when they are photographed. It's not about breaking with tradition. Never was, never will be. It's about a photographer's curiosity. (And at times you may get things like my avatar picture, too! Reflections of clouds in old glass, 8x10 Ilford Delta 100, Wollensak 6-1/4" lens.)

[Scott Schroeder]

It was shiny so I had to.....

[Jim Galli]

Jim, that's hyperbollic. I'm just finding it curious that in a thread about photographing things without the baggage of tradition and ideas about what/how to photograph, we get images that come from traditions firmly established a century ago. Winogrand was explaining his desire to unshackle himself from certain aspects of tradition in many of those famous lines of his. And of course he said those thing half a century ago. His style itself became a new tradition.

I don't like Winogrand's pictures. He was just copying Henri Cartier-Bresson who was copying Atget, who may have been a true original, I don't know.

Yesterday I posted a bunch of stuff different than anyone else I can think of is doing. Didn't get much play because it's digital stuff and had to go in the lounge. In my for sale ad I was cheeky enough to say MOMA would be knocking at your door if you did these and printed them at 60X80 inches.

Truth is, they suck. Why is it so necessary to do something NEW in order to have value?

[Jim collum]

ok.. i'd bet that was the first time a 5 month old decomposed whale was photographed with a Betterlight scanning back and Ebony View.

And since it had fully 'gone' within the next 3 months.. no one else can photograph the same thing

OK, new rule. Only photograph things that have never been photographed before in ways that were never done before.......

. . . . uhmmmm . ?? . . anybody wanta buy an 8X10 Eastman and a bunch of old lenses?

[paulr]

I don't like Winogrand's pictures. He was just copying Henri Cartier-Bresson who was copying Atget, who may have been a true original, I don't know.

Not everyone likes Winogrand, but I can't imagine seeing him as a Cartier-Bresson copycat. I could write an essay on all the ways Winogrand's work went against the early modern formalism and family-of-man humanism of bresson, but fortunately many people have already done it, and done a better job than I would.

Winogrand certainly comes out of that tradition, but he extends it a long way into foreign territory. Not foreign to anyone now, of course. But it was a shock to a lot of people 50 years ago. Some people thought Szarkowski had gone off the deep end.

[paulr]

ok.. i'd bet that was the first time a 5 month old decomposed whale was photographed with a Betterlight scanning back and Ebony View.)

Ha. I think your picture fits my description less than the others. Although I'm talking about ways of putting a picture together, not the tools used. If I were writing in early 19th Century prose style right now, you'd probably notice. The fact that I'm typing at a computer wouldn't change this!

[Scott Schroeder]

These were shiny too.