Thank you very much Kirk for bringing up one of my favourite bugbears. I've always thought the ideal viewing distance idea to be a defensive attempt to rationalise shortcomings.
I walk back and forth when I'm looking at a photograph on a wall just as I would do a painting ( or to be honest when I'm really looking at anything at all!). Of course one wants an overall view, to see it as a whole, but then if anything in it at all interests you, naturally you want to look more closely. It's just part of the process of being engaged by something ( I also like to stand right back from it so that I can see how it interacts with the other work around it). I would stick my neck out and say people who don't go back and forth aren't really looking properly (for whatever reason, maybe they're just not interested by it enough?).
Further I don't think it's just a question of detail, though seeing beautifully rendered detail is a real pleasure. One also has to remember that a printed photograph isn't just an image of something, it's also a material object and its nice to experience it as an object; what kind of paper is it printed on?What is it's sheen like? Etc.
As to people who aren't really interested in photography, is what they think that important? If you spent your life making cheese for instance, would you really care what people who didn't really like cheese thought of your product?
Bookmarks