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Anonymous
ITT: Your favorite photographer.

Pic related
>> Depressed Cheesecake !wFh1Fw9wBU
Is dat sum Ansel Adams there? Also one of my favs ..
>> Anonymous
It switches around between Koudelka, Cartier-Bresson, and David Alan Harvey.
>> fence !!POey2hdozCZ
eadweard muybridge. motherfucker was a genius, a hundred years ahead of his time.

invented motion pictures, western landscape photography, and he was a stone cold killer.
>> Anonymous
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its too hard to decide, but here's a nice alec soth photo.
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
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Phillipe Halsman.

He sent cats and world leaders flying through air.

Gotta admire that.
>> Anonymous
Never gave this much thought but I'd say Dean Karr and Perou and some others that I can't remember right now.
>> Anonymous
>>146692
Dali was a world leader?
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
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>>146697
No, but Nixon was. He had a whole series of famous, important people jumping.
>> Anonymous
>>146705
A better reply would have been "Yes. The art world." But your other point is just as valid.
>> Anonymous
almost anyone on tinyvices.com
>> Anonymous
beethy
>> Anonymous
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Chema Madoz.
>> Anonymous
PSKAUGHT
>> iProd !8x7lXo9zIQ
>>146829
agreed
>> Anonymous
me
>> Anonymous
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Michal Macku
>> Anonymous
>>146705
Never knew that. Not too familiar at all with Halsman; I'll have to look into him.

>>146718
Dali wasn't that good of an artist. Good painter, in terms of physical talent at laying down brushstrokes, but not really that strong of an artist for most of his career.

His (relatively) obscure later religious paintings are good. But most of his work and the early stuff he's famous for isn't too good at all.
>> Anonymous
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Camera-Specific Properties:Camera SoftwareAdobe Photoshop 7.0Image-Specific Properties:Image OrientationTop, Left-HandHorizontal Resolution72 dpiVertical Resolution72 dpiImage Created2005:05:10 18:50:48Color Space InformationUncalibratedImage Width600Image Height479
>> Jeremo !iKGMr61IHM
>>147045

hmmm here's someone of contention...

could you even call him a photographer? he has his own director of photography... doesn't process anything himself... doesn't even press the shutter button...

He's more a still film director...
>> Anonymous
>>147045
Who is this? Looks like DiCorcia, but I don't recognize it.
>> angrylittleboy !wrJcGUHncE
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>> Jeremo !iKGMr61IHM
>>147053

it's Gregory Crewdson.
>> Liquefied !!CF1+3tSFCce
>>147064
Crewdson is pretty epic. He had some nice stuff in the latest Aperture.
>> Anonymous
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>>147047

I think hes a photographer in the same way any film director is still considered a filmmaker. So what if he doesn't hold the camera or squeeze the shutter, he's just using his crew to convey his idea (which wouldn't exist if that crew were left without him).

I guess I just don't believe in that whole "a man, an idea, and a camera" bullshit about photography.

Camera-Specific Properties:Camera SoftwareAdobe Photoshop 7.0Image-Specific Properties:Image OrientationTop, Left-HandHorizontal Resolution72 dpiVertical Resolution72 dpiImage Created2005:05:10 18:54:34Color Space InformationUncalibratedImage Width600Image Height479
>> Liquefied !!CF1+3tSFCce
>>147079
I don't think there's any question that he's a photographer. He certainly works differently than others but they're his creations and his ideas. He took Cindy Sherman's concept of constructed realities to a whole new level (and budget).
>> Anonymous
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Winogrand
>> Anonymous
>>147083
and i also think he was banging sherman for a while. the more you know.
>> Jeremo !iKGMr61IHM
>>147070

I wish i was him, set up a shot with a production crew equal to a feature film... so what if that costs 40,000 dollarr? He then sells the prints in limited numbers for around 60,000 dollars...

Daaaaaamn
>> Anonymous
>>146813

Damn that's a tight ass website nigga.

Thanks anon
>> fence !!POey2hdozCZ
>>147087

FUCK YEAH NEW MEXICO WINOGRAND.

i did this little personal project a while back where i reshot photos made by famous photographers in albuquerque. ernst haas, lee friedkin and a few others. i've tried tracking down the neighborhood where winogrand shot this, but they all look the goddamned same.
>> Anonymous
>>147095
yeah, fuck man. "I think I'll make an edition of 6 five foot wide prints. now give me a shit-ton cash."

the time that goes into each single image, though, is insane. Until I read the Aperture online feature, i didn't realize how much time went into post, digitally stitching several nearly identical (different focuses and whatnot, so as not to "betray the fact that its a photograph" once youre inside the picture and looking around) 8x10 negatives together to make a seamless picture.
>> Jeremo !iKGMr61IHM
>>147079


>>I guess I just don't believe in that whole "a man, an idea, and a camera" bullshit about photography.

... why is it bullshit? because you don't believe in it? that's a fairly narrow perspective.

And i can't agree with you at all with the comparison between a film maker and a photographer.
>> Anonymous
>>146813

http://tinyvices.com/yu_ukai_12
>> Anonymous
A few things:

1. I sorta look down on film directors who detach themselves from the process who just give directions and approval to the cinematographer. It doesn't really matter, no, who presses the buttons, but there's a difference between a film where the cinematographer calls the shots on camera angles, lenses used, etc. and where the director does and the cinematographer plays a more minor role. In the former case, and on anything where the director isn't deeply involved in the cinematography, editing, etc., the film is just as much the cinematographer's and the editor's as the directors, even if the director gets the big credit. Same here.

Besides, is it really that hard for a director or photographer to work his own cameras? I can understand help building the set, and even arranging the lighting and having focus pullers on motion pictures, but why not do the camera work and the editing and, with still photography, development yourself? Like, Annie Liebowitz only works with some 6x7 Mamiya, but she has a team of assistants who do everything for her. It's just a medium format SLR, nothing even remotely involved like a view camera, but she has to have a team of assistants.

2. It isn't inherent, but most of the staged photography I've seen is sort of lifeless, low on content, lacking a human core, even if it's really technically well-done. DiCorcia is the epitomy of this; I'm not familiar with Crewdson, but from the two in this thread he seems the same way. I've seen good staged, film-like photography, but it's rare. Again, not inherently, but photographers who choose to do it seem to tend to be the type to privelege form over content way, way too much. Cinema probably avoids this because it has a longer, deeper tradition, and because it (usually) has to at least ostensibly have a plot.
>> Jeremo !iKGMr61IHM
>>147099

hmm that seems unneessarily aggressive.

For the record, i dont disagree that Crewdson IS a photographer... merely trying to bring discussion on what makes a photographer.
>> Anonymous
>>147099
I think that that, as an exclusive definition of "photography", is the narrow view on the subject, hence "bullshit". I'm the one who's broadening my scope here.

Why can't you agree with my comparison? It'd help me to understand if you possibly qualified that statement. I'm of the opinion that its all just storytelling, regardless of the medium (photography, filmmaking, what have you).
>> Anonymous
>>147103
I don't think it's form over content. There's definitely a certain type of super-realistic surrealism they're going for where it wouldn't make sense for it to be a mundane, believable scene.
>> Anonymous
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riveting discussion, but I'm off to bed.
>> Anonymous
>>147106
Let me rephrase that - it may be form over content but content is not ignored nor is it a small part of the production. Form is always important and there are plenty of traditional photographers who take that route.
>> Anonymous
>>147098
Oh, that's just ridiculous. "Betray the fact it's a photograph?" What the hell? Mediums have properties. People are used to grain in photographs, paragraphs in text, brushstrokes in paintings. Minimize them, sure, if that's what you want, but eliminate them entirely and it just looks wonky and distracts from the content because we're so used to them. Like these.

And the amount of money that gets thrown around art is ridiculous. If you really have something to say, why price it so only a faux-sophisticated CEO can secret it away in his office? I hate people who turn art into a commodity or a business. Kafka worked diligently at a bland office job every day for all of his adult life, and went home to write some of the most powerful literature in history.
>> Anonymous
>>147110
So art that is expensive to create is better off uncreated?
>> Anonymous
>>147106
Let me talk about DiCorcia, since I know him much better.

Those photographs where he got street prostitutes to pose? There's no real emotional core, or addressing anything real about the human condition, who these prostitutes are or how they live. It's just "Here's some prostitutes in cool lighting, and this is how much I paid them to pose." It's not the technical artifice that bothers me- DiCorcia does it well, this Crewdson fellow's seems distracting- it's the emotional artifice. Shakespeare wrote in metered verse quite often, but the #1 thing his plays are cited for and are great for is their psychological realism.

It's all concept and aesthetic, at its best a little mood (just like any advertisement), without anything real to say about the human condition or the subjects of his photographs.

Form has to serve to bring out the content. Some artists do it with directness, minimal form, others do it with artifice perfectly carrying the form. But absent a certain sort of humanism, a certain psychological realism- the real persons or characters in the painting or a photograph existing as more than just part of the form- it suffers greatly, and usually fails.
>> Anonymous
>>147111
No, it's better either funded out of altruism or the sort of impulse that has people buy their names on public buildings, or sold cheaply to a mass audience, as films or books are.
>> Anonymous
>>147123
*perfectly carrying the content.

Sorry for the typo.
>> Anonymous
Garry Winogrand.
>> Anonymous
>>147123
>it suffers greatly, and usually fails.

That depends on how one measures success.

Your opinion is valid but it's only an opinion. Since when are concept and aesthetic not valid aspects of art? I see nothing wrong with something that is pure concept, pure aesthetic or pure emotion - even if I do not personally like the peice. Obviously this kind of work does not speak to you on the level that it does for others.
>> Anonymous
>>147135
If it's pure concept and pure aesthetic, then it's decoration, not art. It's an empty vessel. Art *says* something.

All those other things are ways to carry and transmit the message. They're vital. Without it, the work is at best toungeless and at worst totally mute. But if it's empty if it doesn't have something to say, it doesn't matter how euphonous its voice is. It doesn't speak to anyone, because it has nothing to say.
>> Anonymous
>>147154
I suggest you look closer at Crewdson's work. You might say the human element in his photos are mute but the environments are not.
>> Anonymous
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Additionally, I happen to find the "human element" in crewdson's stuff the most appealing. There tend to be characters consumed by some obsession that even they don't understand, and there's almost a pitiful resignation in their generally stoic expressions.

But that brings me to this point: that's what I see when I look at Crewdson's photographs, and that is what some other people see. It might not be what other people see, because, if you'll remember that old adage, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". It's essentially pointless arguing about "what is art", because writing a few paragraphs dropping names to let everyone know youre "knowledgeable" on the subject isn't going to change any minds.
>> Anonymous
>>147247
This one is really, really good. The other two not so much; the first one seems like a 1950s-satirizing New Yorker cartoon and the second just doesn't quite come together, but this third one is great, and I really see what you're saying with it. I'll look into him. Even if I don't wind up esteeming any of his stuff besides that photograph, it's worth knowing about.
>> Anonymous
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>>147313
I'd recommend checking a library for some of his books, as these shitty jpegs really dont do them justice. Theres a retrospective book that's got an earlier series called "Hover", which is comprised of black and white shots of suburban oddities from high-up, almost omnicient perspectives (from a cherry picker). That's my favourite series of his, and I can only find a single image from it online, and it isn't even close to being the best.
>> Anonymous
>>147154

Art never has to say anything. Art is art because it is pleasing. You personally may enjoy it more if it's "saying" something, but to say that it MUST say something for it to be art is bullshit.

There's a great quote from an interview with John Cage (composer) that I think covers this quite well. He's talking about music, but I feel it works well any form of art:

"When I hear what we call music, it seems to me that someone is talking. And talking about his feelings, or about his ideas about relationships. But when I hear traffic, the sound of traffic, I don't feel that anyone is talking, I feel that sound is acting. And I love the activity of sound. What it does, is it gets louder and quieter, and it gets higher and lower, and it gets longer and shorter. It does all those things, and I'm completely satisfied with that. I don't need sound to talk to me. People expect listening to be more than listening, and so sometimes they speak of 'inner listening', or the meaning of sound. When I talk about music, it finally comes to people's minds that I'm talking about sound that doesn't mean anything, that is not inner, but is only outer. And the people who finally get what I mean in this say to me 'You mean it's just sounds?' thinking that for something to just be a sound is to be useless, whereas I love sounds just as they are, and I don't need for them to be anything more than what they are. Immanual Kant once said 'there are two things that don't have to mean anything. One is music, and the other is laughter.' Don't have to mean anything, that is in order to give us a deep pleasure.
>> elf_man !!DdAnyoDMfCe
>>147154
>>147339
Right. Even well-executed "decoration" can create enough emotional stimulus to be meaningful to the viewer. Art is always a two-way street, both for the artist and the viewer. It never is what it is in a vacuum, even art that has explicit meaning engages in a dialogue with the viewer. Even an empty signifier draws meaning from its' context.
>> Anonymous
I recently saw an exhibition of crewdson's work in rome, can't say I didn't walk away impressed. Does anybody have a link to Aperture's article someone quoted earlier? Looks interesting.
>> Anonymous
>>147339
Art isn't always pleasing. Is James Nachtwey's work pleasing? And plenty of stuff can be pleasing that isn't art. The traffic isn't art; a mountain isn't art.

And Kant was wrong on very, very many things, this being one of them. Laughter doesn't mean anything? It can mean amusement, delight, realization, nervousness, on and on. But no one ever laughs for no reason.

And I'm not familiar with Cage's work. I've heard of him, but never heard any of his works. So I can't comment on him specifically, but keep in mind artists are usually the least reliable people on their own work and mental working methods. Jack Kerouac famously claimed his writing was completely spontaneous, that he never revised anything. Which was 100% bullshit. But even when it's not overt and intentional bullshit... do you really think T.S. Eliot wrote his poems according to his formulaic "Objective correlative" theory?

And also, I don't see the difference between "sounds speaking" and "sounds acting." They're both ways of communication.s

>>147347
Right, art is a dialogue. And in a dialogue, both parties need to bring some content to the table. If the work doesn't do that, it fails.
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>147361
>And I'm not familiar with Cage's work. I've heard of him, but never heard any of his works.
1. Get a stopwatch
2. Start
3. Stop stopwatch at four minutes and 33 seconds

You have now heard John Cage's most famous work.
>> Anonymous
>>147358
check this shit, i used my mad skillz and googled "crewdson, aperture". I fucking rule.
http://www.aperture.org/crewdson/
>> Anonymous
>>147361
Realize, it's still dialogue even if you're rambling on at a mute. Merely by existing, it's bringing something to the exchange.
>> elf_man !!DdAnyoDMfCe
>>147394
I'd go so far as to say that something that's truly empty produces a lot of interaction. I'm thinking of good abstract art here, although for obvious reasons that's a lot more subjective than, say, a lot of photojournalism or whatever. It's the mediocre, tacky stuff in the middle that has no real effect. It has meaning, but it's so shallow as to be neutral, and no real interaction takes place.
>> Anonymous
>>147368
Yeah, I've heard *of* that, and I've heard no intentional sounds for that long, and see, I could take that as art- an insistance basically to pay attention to sound, I guess- but I wouldn't place it in the medium of music. General conceptual art, I guess.

>>147414
I'm not arguing against abstract art. It's got its winners and its clunkers, and out of the major figures, more of them are winners than clunkers.

What I'm arguing is that art, real art, carries some truth about the world and the human condition. That can be done through any medium, in any style. The rest is just empty boxes, hopefully stylistic experiments as a warm-up to something better. A lot of staged photography, while stylistically clever and technically good, despite all its creativity when it comes to form falls into that mediocre, tacky middle in terms of content. Seriously, more than anything else, what the first . DiCorcia's "Heads" series just depicts pretty stereotypical images- the cranky looking businessman shot comes to mind. It's very well done, but it's got the depth of an advertisting campaign. It's in that mediocre middle. "Hustlers" reduces the reality of prostitution down to a few glitzy images, a name, an age, a price, and a place. Again, not complete characters, but just the stereotype of a street hustler.

The idea behind abstract art (and art in general) is that the various forms and colors will impart some feeling and/or understanding to the viewer. DiCorcia doesn't; Crewdson seems to succeed at some points and fail at others. His flaw seems to be perhaps a need of a tighter editing (in the sense of selecting images, not in the Photoshop sense) of his work, something most photographers of all types need.

>>147394
No, that's a monologue. If I took a blank white piece of paper and stuck it in a gallery, that wouldn't make it say anything, wouldn't give it any content. Just saying something is art does not make it art.
>> elf_man !!DdAnyoDMfCe
>>147466
Fair enough. I think we're arguing the same thing at this point.