File :-(, x, )
Anonymous
One of the flaws of /p/ is how discussion of photography here tends to center on the technical side. Which is fine and important, but it's like a bunch of writers sitting around making sentence diagrams.

So let's start discussing and analyzing the work of classic photographers, photograph by photograph, and try to learn from them.

First up: Alex Majoli, from his project on the Leros mental hospital:

http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/C.aspx?VP=Mod_ViewBox.ViewBoxZoom_VPage&VBID=2K1HZOQHPMFX7&a
mp;IT=ImageZoom01&PN=4&STM=T&DTTM=Image&SP=Album&IID=2S5RYDDOBI5&SAKL=T&
SGBT=T&DT=Image

Intelligent discussion go go go!

(Attached pic is Majoli himself.)
>> Anonymous
No.
>> Anonymous
Talk about old guys?
Save that useless knowledge for school.
>> Anonymous
>>80131
gb2 FredMiranda, you git
>> Anonymous
>>80131
>Intelligent discussion go go go!
This was your second mistake.

(Your first mistake was assuming that anyone on /p/ actually gives a damn about learning to improve their photography rather than just arguing Nikon D40 vs. Canon Rebel XTi)
>> Anonymous
>>80138
What, wanting intelligent discussion or invoking the /b/ "go go go" meme?
>> Anonymous
>>80139
yes
>> elf_man !fBgo7jDjms
When we get intelligent conversation on here, it shows up spontaneously. Trying to force it just isn't going to work.
>> Anonymous
photo sucks, its just a snapshot.
>> Anonymous
     File :-(, x)
Woo this pic rocks, But the rest I'm not really a fan of, Sure they are nice and grainy / contrasty, But they are like,
HEY People who's lives suck, lets take a pic so the rich people can feel bad for a second, then realize their life is soo much better.
>> Anonymous
>>80175
I have to disagree. It's simple and straightforward, but most of the best portraits are. The thing that sets the Majolis apart from us is their ability to use the camera, the medium of photography, to draw out some spiritual and emotional essence from a situation.

The caption helps, too. Especially with the caption, there's this sort of dignified joy on the man's face. The scene is pathetic, the circumstances are pathetic- but the man's face isn't. The contrast between the man's view of it and our view of it, as outsiders who've never been in a dirty mental hospital and shaved with shears, makes the shot.

>>80192
That's the artist's problem, I think: talented people keep making heartrending works with great truths inside, comfortable people see them in some neutralizing setting (a swanky gallery showing, an expensive photobook, TIME or National Geographic), and forget about them. The same goes for movies, books, music, everything. Try getting shook up by a film when a pretty girl has her arm around you, or being immensely moved by some piece of a music when you're stuck in traffic, fifteen minutes late for work. But that's what people try to do.

I don't know the way around it, really, so long as most people look at art as they do now.

With regard to that particular photo, I actually thought it was one of the lesser ones.

I actually think these two are the strongest:

http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/C.aspx?VP=Mod_ViewBox.ViewBoxZoom_VPage&VBID=2K1HZOQHC2TWF&a
mp;IT=ImageZoom01&PN=9&STM=T&DTTM=Image&SP=Album&IID=2S5RYDZ1X30&SAKL=T&
SGBT=T&DT=Image
http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/C.aspx?VP=Mod_ViewBox.ViewBoxZoom_VPage&VBID=2K1HZOQHC2TWF&a
mp;IT=ImageZoom01&PN=12&STM=T&DTTM=Image&SP=Album&IID=29YL53ZI70MD&SAKL=T&am
p;SGBT=T&DT=Image
>> Anonymous
>>80226
shouldnt need a caption. if you look at it without looking at the caption you just see some guy getting shaved. also, how can you say the scene/circumstances are pathetic? you cant see anything else other than a blanket or something on the floor behind him.
>> Anonymous
>>80236
I said the caption helped. It clarifies what's going on, but the image itself could stand on its own. A caption is like a lengthy title, and just as much a part of a work as a title, too.

It's an almost-naked man being shaved by someone else. It's either mild sub-dom porn or something like what we know is happening.
>> Anonymous
>>80236
Lol professional "photographers" on the Artist side of photography anyway, know that its all marketing yourself and your shots. And in fact has a lot less to do with the pic than you would hope.

A fantastic pic for example floating around on pbase or flickr, isn't going to draw much attention.

But a mediocre pic that is marketed well and put up in prestiguous gallery's or magazines etc, Will be much more "Succesfull"
>> Anonymous
>>80242
>But a mediocre pic that is marketed well and put up in prestiguous gallery's or magazines etc, Will be much more "Succesfull"

Well, yeah, but it takes good photographs to get there. David Alan Harvey's new book on hip-hop culture ("Living Proof") isn't nearly as good as any of his past ones, even the first one he did when he was only nineteen. A lot of them are just outright mediocre. That doesn't change that he's one of the greatest photographers living today. He had to shoot those other books in order to get a flop like this new one promoted. All artists make bad works from time to time.

And do I really sound like someone who's a fan of the whole way the "art world" works? I'm totally nonplussed by DiCorcia and Winogrand turned out twice as much mediocre or worse works than he did ones like that one of the legless guy outside the American Legion convention.

But to act like all the artists that get famous are just "marketed" well is just as silly as the sycophants. Some people without talent get famous, yeah; some people get fame that outweighs their talent. Most of the top echelon of photographers (or any type of artist), though, deserve to be there. That's not to say there aren't others deserving who don't get noticed, but that's not an attack on the ones who do.

Photographers at the Magnum agency, like Majoli, get scrutinized by photographers who were scrutinized by Cartier-Bresson, Capa, and people like them. You don't get into Magnum or anything like it if you don't have talent; the people running it are too good themselves to let also-rans on board.
>> Anonymous
>>80131One of the flaws of /p/ is how discussion of photography here tends to center on the technical side

no, the flaw here is that idiots who don't understand the first thing about the tools they're attempting to opperate post crap