Why is it that we care so much how other “famous” photographers shoot? Everyone needs to find their own vision and their own way of shooting. FACT…there is no right or wrong way…just different ways…even if some famous photographer shoots from his hip…who gives a damn…find your own way and stop idealizing someone else.
chez wrote:
Why is it that we care so much how other “famous” photographers shoot? Everyone needs to find their own vision and their own way of shooting. FACT…there is no right or wrong way…just different ways…even if some famous photographer shoots from his hip…who gives a damn…find your own way and stop idealizing someone else.
Learning from looking at other people's pictures isn't idealization. It's learning. The better the other's pictures, the more one can learn.
chez wrote:
Why is it that we care so much how other “famous” photographers shoot? Everyone needs to find their own vision and their own way of shooting. FACT…there is no right or wrong way…just different ways…even if some famous photographer shoots from his hip…who gives a damn…find your own way and stop idealizing someone else.
I for one find it interesting to see what others do, esp. if I’m questioning what I’m doing or what the mainstream is. Leiter, for example, appealed to me because I was having my own doubts about always shooting street with a wide angle.
chiron wrote:
I don't mind that his street work is from the hip--the manner of making the image doesn't bother me. It is more the sense of chaos and disorder in the street photographs that he is currently featuring. Also, the disorder seems artificial to me in that it is based on a very chancy if not quite random methodology of shooting while walking. I do like Sarah's street photographs.
I think the reason I don't like Jeff Ascough's current street photos, nor those of William Klein or Gary Winogrand, is because of the sense of disorder and chaos they convey, which I consider to be an almost philosophical failing by the photographer. (Obviously, many, many people disagree with me.)
Robert Adams writes about how photographs that have a classical component of beauty and order to them convey a belief in a potentially ordered and beautiful world, that they contain an affirmative view of reality. I think that I like the street photography of Henri Cartier Bresson or Saul Leiter or Robert Frank, or Sarah Ascough or Vivan Maier or Sam Abell and the wedding photography and the landscapes by Jeff Ascough in significant part because they contain and convey that belief in an underlying order and even goodness in the world, even when they are portraying something that is wrong in the world....Show more →
I just have doubts about any style that focuses on one narrow slice of reality. Streets can be quiet and chaotic. Even riots have a quiet side, just on the edges of the action. We do injustice to our collective understanding of reality by always focusing on a tiny part of it. I firmly believe that many of the prejudices in the world aren’t caused by ill-meant disinformation but by a well-meant focus on a too-narrow segment of life or society. Maybe that’s why I have a hard time narrowing down my own focus.
chiron wrote:
Learning from looking at other people's pictures isn't idealization. It's learning. The better the other's pictures, the more one can learn.
Sure learning from others is good, but some here throw around these names as if they were baseball heroes.
chiron wrote:
Learning from looking at other people's pictures isn't idealization. It's learning. The better the other's pictures, the more one can learn.
chez wrote:
Sure learning from others is good, but some here throw around these names as if they were baseball heroes.
Having influences and knowing history doesn't mean one doesn't pursue or have their own vision. It just means they have knowledge and respect for others whose work they admire and have come before. I don't know about you but I truly love art and photography. All of the greats in any art form had others whose work they admired and were influenced by.
chiron wrote:
Yes, there is always a degree of disorder in the streets, though I think you overstate it. If it were really chaos, no one could be there. Steet behavior is highly choreographed. But some photographers, like William Klein or Jeff in his current street photography, seek to portray disorder rather than see the underlying choreography, virtually a denial of the underlying order and choreography; while other photographers, like Sarah Ascough or Webb or Manos or HCB or Leiter, or Sam Abell or William Allard seek to portray the meaning and beauty that underly otherwise ordinary scenes, revealing the beautiful order and balletic dance that is human interaction. I find Jeff Ascough's wedding photography and his landscapes both meaningful and beautiful. I find his current, from-the-hip-while-walking much less meaningful or beautiful. But it certainly could be the case that I am missing something in his street work.
But we don't need to agree, and we are far off the topic of the thread. To rejoin that topic, I think Sarah and Jeff Ascough for their personal work both confine themselves to one Leica body at a time and one lens at a time. I think they both favor a 28mm. But if they are still doing weddings, I would bet they take much more than that with them on those occasions. ...Show more →
Agree that they probably have more than one F/L for their wedding work. I take at least two bodies and several F/Ls when working professionally. Like I said before when working for a client ultimately the work is for them and needs to exceed their expectations. A lot of times I am working with art directors, marketing directors and others that have a vision that i need to be able to capture.
My personal work is all mine and my vision. And what helps me express that vision drives my choice of tools, the way I compose and the way I print and display my work.
chez wrote:
Sure learning from others is good, but some here throw around these names as if they were baseball heroes.
Well, for me, I’d much rather have dinner with Gary Winograd, Capa or Leibovitz (or a dozen others) than ( a dug up) Babe Ruth. I don’t get the deification of sports people at all. Most of them are just thugs with some lucky genetics, IMHO. In September, at great expense, K and I are spending a day with Steve McCurry. Very excited to actually talk shop with the man. For me some photographers are the Rembrandt’s of our time. In 300 years we’ll still be looking at a black and white photo of a *pepper* and arguing over it.
I have always been more interested in the arts and sciences than sports. YMMV, of course. I have nothing against sports. I’d just rather play than watch.
flash wrote:
Well, for me, I’d much rather have dinner with Gary Winograd, Capa or Leibovitz (or a dozen others) than ( a dug up) Babe Ruth. I don’t get the deification of sports people at all. Most of them are just thugs with some lucky genetics, IMHO. In September, at great expense, K and I are spending a day with Steve McCurry. Very excited to actually talk shop with the man. For me some photographers are the Rembrandt’s of our time. In 300 years we’ll still be looking at a black and white photo of a *pepper* and arguing over it.
I have always been more interested in the arts and sciences than sports. YMMV, of course. I have nothing against sports. I’d just rather play than watch.
I have always been more interested in the sciences and engineering than sports.
I'd much rather have dinner with the optical engineer that designed a lens or the team that designed the BSI stacked sensor than a famous photographer.
As for digging up the past, Kodachrome was an amazing achievement, so I'd like to talk to those folks too.
chiron wrote:
Learning from looking at other people's pictures isn't idealization. It's learning. The better the other's pictures, the more one can learn.
A photograph alone may be interesting to look at but I've learned more from the accompanying text in a book or article than the actual photography in many cases.
Deification happens with all sorts of "professions" to be fair. Many people would wonder why some worship at the alter of Beyonce (I do - don't get the attraction). Photography, art, music, sports, etc, are all in the same boat.
I am more in the science and technology camp when it comes to idols, but I do also appreciate a fine car, watch, camera, and firearm (not the controversial stuff - I admire fine walnut and blued steel stuff).
I have sort of weird taste in photography - l love landscape scenes with unusual lighting and "feel". Less enthralled with street stuff. Travel photography is what I enjoy most. That's also why, I suppose, I don't subscribe to the zen mindset on one camera, one lens, zoom with your feet, etc, etc. I am squarely in the camp of use the setup that gets what I want to see.
In summary, it's great to have options and people like what they like.
With current photographers who shoot mainly B&W, I look at what they show us to mainly see how black are their blacks and white are their whites and what they do with the composition in that regard. I am a high contrast person so that is my vision.
In the end I believe most of us could be considered great or good if we had the right circumstances and marketing hype behind us with a complete inventory of images. Hey, If we don't admire our own work then what does it all matter.
I have my own vision and approach my captures to reflect that. I began in the Tri-X days, so B&W is mainly my vision. That said, at some of the places I go, seem so full of color I never get own my Mono cameras. In the early 70's I shot lots of Kodachrome for example in Kenya and Brasil or scuba diving with a Nikonos.
stgrove wrote:
With current photographers who shoot mainly B&W, I look at what they show us to mainly see how black are their blacks and white are their whites and what they do with the composition in that regard. I am a high contrast person so that is my vision.
In the end I believe most of us could be considered great or good if we had the right circumstances and marketing hype behind us with a complete inventory of images. Hey, If we don't admire our own work then what does it all matter.
I have my own vision and approach my captures to reflect that. I began in the Tri-X days, so B&W is mainly my vision. That said, at some of the places I go, seem so full of color I never get own my Mono cameras. In the early 70's I shot lots of Kodachrome for example in Kenya and Brasil or scuba diving with a Nikonos....Show more →
I’m going through Salgado’s Genesis with more attention than before. He was asked why it’s all B&W and answered “because it’s the only thing I know.” I’m not sure whether it makes the book stronger or weaker than if it were in color. Same goes for the heavy grain. In parts of the book, it’s because of the film he used, but he switched to digital while shooting for the book, and added the grain to have consistency. Now, his black and his whites are perfect, exactly what he’s known for. Then again, he neither developed his own film nor did his own printing. His look was a collaborative effort.
Think of it like this almost every great film director has done a film in B&W. And B&W is such a different esthetic and takes a different way of seeing than it does for color. I tend to see in tones and shapes though I do work almost exclusively in color for my pro work. So I can do both well. But B&W is where my personal vision is.
When I was in college color was considered as a barbaric process because creatively one didn't have the control one has with B&W film. With B&W film you can control contrast through things like dev times, agitation and temperature. You start drastically changing those things when processing color film the color shifts become uncontrollable.
Plus the only color film that was considered archival was Kodachrome. And the only color prints that have been shown to be archival are die transfer. That is important because many galleries and museums wouldn't handle or in the case of museums add the work to their collections unless the work was archival.
All of that changed in the digital world.
B&W is something that should be approached differently than one would approach color. It should all start with the vision. Some folks see in color really well and others in B&W. Some do both. It can take some time to find the right path but like all photographic journeys it can be fun and rewarding.
I’m a shapes and textures shooter. I shoot in both b&w and colour but 90% of the work I sell is in colour. I like shooting both equally though.
After decades of wedding, portraits and corporate, I’m actually not that into photographing strangers, unless they make up the texture I’m looking for. I know I like minimalism and either super strong colour or super strong contrast (b&w). I kind of like shooting architecture, but really more parts of architecture rather than the whole. The more I go on the more abstract I seem to get.
I do really appreciate photography genres I don’t shoot much. Two of my favourites are McCurry and Leibovitz but I do little that looks like anything they’d shoot. And I’m not really interested either. Same for classic street work. Honestly I think most street photography posted on line is crap. But the good stuff is wow. Here I definitely lean into my preferences for contrast and shapes over recognisable faces. The version of street where the photographer just walks and shoots randomly at people walking across the street baffles me entirely.
For a long time I really didn’t think I had a *style*. I shot so much stuff while working full time I really considered myself a generalist. But over the last 5 years or so a few friends and colleagues have pointed out that I actually do have a distinct bias in the way. see. They actually saw it before I did. And that really helped me focus a bit more over the last few years where I moved to selling prints.
And I never liked Kodachrome or TriX. I know. Blasphemy.
I've never been a minimalist in what I own or carry. I tend to pack mission-focused unless I'm in my home stomping grounds, where I tend to be more limited in what I carry because I'm trying to force myself to get a different perspective on the world I see most days. Outside of my more specialized interests, video and wildlife, and the gear I maintain for them, my kit, generously, resembles a small museum of tech long past, or, more accurately, someone's photographic junk drawer. I can pull a, for me, satisfying kit for any occasion from that junk drawer.
I do think comfort with your gear is generally more important than total coverage. Knowing how a lens and camera will behave in any given situation allows you to quickly and confidently make composition-based decisions that will give you the best capture with what you have available. And it means fewer missed moments when it doesn't matter what you brought, because all you have time for is the camera in your hand and lens mounted on it. You either get the shot with that or the moment passes you by.
As for the idols, I am an unabashed fan of Salgado's work. The world often makes more sense to me in mono, so I could spend hours pouring over his books of gorgeous photos. I don't have a shrine erected to him nor do I worship him to the point of wanting to emulate him. I couldn't if I tried. His perspective was unique. If it weren't, I wouldn't be a fan.
flash wrote:
And I never liked Kodachrome or TriX. I know. Blasphemy.
Gordon
I'm with you on Kodachrome (but will always love the Paul Simon song). Tri-X isn't popular because people love it. I think it does well if you're willing to use the appropriate and dense color filter necessary to get sharp contrast out of it, but I'm pretty sure it's popular because it's less expensive than most and widely available.
airfrogusmc wrote:
Think of it like this almost every great film director has done a film in B&W. And B&W is such a different esthetic and takes a different way of seeing than it does for color. I tend to see in tones and shapes though I do work almost exclusively in color for my pro work. So I can do both well. But B&W is where my personal vision is.
When I was in college color was considered as a barbaric process because creatively one didn't have the control one has with B&W film. With B&W film you can control contrast through things like dev times, agitation and temperature. You start drastically changing those things when processing color film the color shifts become uncontrollable.
Plus the only color film that was considered archival was Kodachrome. And the only color prints that have been shown to be archival are die transfer. That is important because many galleries and museums wouldn't handle or in the case of museums add the work to their collections unless the work was archival.
All of that changed in the digital world.
B&W is something that should be approached differently than one would approach color. It should all start with the vision. Some folks see in color really well and others in B&W. Some do both. It can take some time to find the right path but like all photographic journeys it can be fun and rewarding. ...Show more →
Unless there is a medical problem like color vision deficiency, humans don't see in B&W, though in very low light the rods are more sensitive. B&W is mostly an artifact of 19th and 20th century technology and costs. Sure, art is sometimes about removing info to distort reality, regardless of method, but it's annoying that some have an attitude like B&W is somehow magically better than color. We were taught some of that in school so maybe I'm still rebeling against it.
