further considerations in regard to the frame

The photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson, used to be very strict about composing within the frame; the image was not to be cropped since it was composed within a particular framework of exact proportions. To ignore this might be to ruin the original conception of the photograph.

There was however, an ulterior motive here. While the frame did constitute a means of ensuring consistency in his working method, it also meant that editors would have to respect his compositions and not make their own interpretations as this might alter the meaning of the photograph from its' original intent.

I do not adhere to the method of "framing" photographs when trying to capture images because often, in wildlife, one is just trying to get an image and may not have the option of framing in regards to the proportions of the image. This is probably going to be something one can do better at a later stage.

vertical or horizontal

When presenting one's work, it is natural to think in terms of the horizontal frame as this is more or less the way we see the world (through two eyes with one eye horizontal to the other); cameras furthermore, are designed to photograph horizontally although one is able to move the camera into the vertical position and make photographs with no technical impediment. The vertical frame is a little more unusual yet since vertical is often the preferred format for media such as magazines and books, vertically designed images are worthwhile making. It is something of a luxury to be able to contribute to a book where images are printed horizontally across the page.

When designing for the vertical or horizontal format, it is worth considering the way the commonly used proportions relate to each other; the diagram below shows different sizes and proportions together ...

In the diagram, blue is A4 while red is 10by8, the traditional portrait size.

The green frames are the 2by3 camera proportions shown in relation to both A4 and 10by8 sizes of paper; they fit quite well but if the page needed to be filled, part of the image would be lost along the top and the bottom.

If printed full frame then there would be some space between the photograph and the edge of the frame, along the sides but unlikely to be enough for a body of text in the vertical format.

on being inventive

Both of the assessment reports for the OCA modules I have done, mention that I lack inventiveness ... was not sure how to understand this remark. Read the following from Osho ...

‎"You will be surprised to know that all that you see has been invented by playful people, not by the serious people. The serious people are too much past-oriented — they go on repeating the past, because they know it works.
They are never inventive." Osho


Does this apply to me?!


Subjects like natural history and the Taj Mahal suggest it does!!

Woman's Hour : taking a great photograph !?

Can you learn how to take a great photo … how to pose someone!

AJ - looking for the book she came to write; could not find it so choose some photographers she liked to feature 

Anna - from fine art background likes Thomas Demand

can art be taught? good question! can't really teach someone to take a good photograph but can help student to become aware of what a good photograph is and the various ways it can be done

need for gut reaction

AJ - litle stories, odd photos; subject sometimes comes up with best idea of way to photograph !!

need for technical efficiency?! varies from photographer to photographer .. need for for some technical knowledge as per one's approach … pinhole!! … 

does a photographer need a philosophy? what is that extra quality how one sees the world .. who you are that creates the pictures!

advice to amateur .. experiment do not worry too much about the technicalities! 

catching people off guard

comment on choice of Photography Books by the OCA December 2010

Gareth
I am intrigued by your choice of book partly because I attended the Tate Modern seminar on the representation of violence that followed in the wake of the EXPOSED exhibition. Is Sontag really saying that we have become inured to photographs of suffering? In her book, In Regarding the Pain of Others, she actually writes … “our capacity to respond to our experiences with emotional freshness and ethical pertinence is being sapped by the relentless diffusion of vulgar and appalling images – might be called the conservative critique of the diffusion of such images. I call this argument conservative because it is the sense of reality that is eroded. There is still a reality that exists independent of the attempts to weaken its’ authority.” (p.97 Penguin Edition 2004) which I consider is a vital statement of her outlook. Elsewhere, she admits that “There are hundreds of millions of television watchers who are far from inured to what they see on television. They do not have the luxury of patronising reality.” (page 99).
Sontag is however tends to be regarded as gospel and I do not think she is; her statements are rather sweeping!
Jose
What a wonderful book you have come across! such books are a bit of a luxury and although Amazon offer it at a reasonable price, it is a matter of whether I’ll have room for it. Maybe … these days I am my own Santa so its’ possible! The Antarctic may not be there much longer so these are poignant landscapes.
As for my own choice, it is rather personal. The Indians by Raghu Rai does not seem to be available through Amazon and the cost in Delhi of £80 seemed too exorbitant. Nevertheless, I was shown a copy. It starts with a collection of Rai’s old portrait photographs, images from a bygone era when Britain ran the country; these show something of an India that is no more. This is followed by Raghu’s own photographs and features portraits of famous Indians such as Mother Teresa (actually a European) and Indira Gandhi as well as some of the great musicians (Hariprasad Chaurasia for instance). My favourite portrait is that of Jiddu Krsnamurti, a teacher who is still recognised worldwide; he is portrayed in a triptych that suggests both agony and ecstasy. The one that made me laugh is of Moraji Desai, a former prime minister who seems to be glaring defiantly down Rai’s lens; Desai was also famous for drinking his own urine, a nature cure!
I would also like to mention Michael Freeman’s Photographer’s Mind. What I like about his books is the way they bridge the gap between critic and photographer.

THE DEBATE: Photography is a lesser medium than paint

Phillips de Pury is an auctioneer's establishment a short walk from Victoria station. The debate on november 1'st 2010 at which about 300 people were present took place in a hall while other smaller adjoining rooms showed a collection of framed photographs, hung on the walls, awaiting auction the following week. There were many by David Bailey yet the one that interested me most was number 2 of a 25 print collection by a deceased photographer called Ian MacMillan who made the famous image of the Beatles walking across a zebra crossing in St.John's Wood that was the cover of their Abbey Road album. It was estimated as having a value of between 3 and 4,00 GBP yet would probably go for more.

The debate saw the 6 speakers sitting behind a long desk facing the audience and flanking the chairman of the discussion, John Gordon, a co-founder of Intelligence Squared, the group responsible for organising the event. What I write is from notes made at the time which miss some points and may construe others yet hopefully relate the substance of the debate.

The first speaker, Michael Mack, a publisher and literary agent, described the evening as little more than intellectual exercise with as much value as the Turner Prize. Photography has credibility but tends to be overdone while there is a kind of guilt attached to its' inherent simplicity. Painters construct, photographers disclose. Digital mediation means photographs don't represent reality. Slipshod snapshots. Photography fulfils the surrealist notion (as proposed by Andre Breton) of elevating the ordinary to the status of art. Artis concerned with intention. Photography elevated painting so much so that painting now owes its' status to photography. Painting will continue to benefit from photography. The interest in images and ideas.

A.A.Gill, who trained in art and worked as an artist, agrees with everything the previous speaker has said, even though he is against the motion rather than for it. The topic is under discussion is both redundant and ridiculous. The subtext for the evening is whether photography is a lesser medium that art and indeed, many use the word art rather than painting which has more complex meanings. Art is about exclusivity, who can and who can't. Photography is everything that art is about, a contemporary form of cave painting. The crux of the argument is, what constitutes art? Who these days has the time to do a large Pre-Raphaelite painting? What about craft? Art is not a craft but singular, not repetitive. Take the skill out of art and you have Photography! The "Decisive Moment" is what Cartier-Bresson referred to the moment in time that marks a photograph. H.C-B liked to draw and paint but was not good at it apparently; his art expressed itself through photography.

Jose Maria Cano, a songwriter and painter, mentions Frieze, an early form of art likened to painting. Came a point when painting no longer represented reality. The art of ideas is conceptual art. Van Gogh not a smart artist unlike Salvador Dali. Art is about intelligence which is difficult to define. 95% of artists today are students! The art of intelligence, intrinsic value. The 1970's American Minimalist artists said "Painting is Dead!" but painting now seeing a revival. Art is whatever you want it to be, shifting definition. Art as expression! Photographers talented but painters put their life into their paintings. Don't look at the Mona Lisa as art but stand 80cm away as Leonardo did! An artist puts himself into the painting.

This was a passionately argued case but I wondered if the speaker was aware of how long a photographer might spend over an image in Photoshop or even setting up a shoot!

Discussion: Photography is inferior to paint

I thought it would be good to know a little more about the old argument concerning the differences between photography and art, here referred to as paint; nowadays, photography is widely accepted as art yet the question hangs around the apparent mechanicality of photography and the skill involved in painting a picture. My interest is not so much in whether one is superior and the other inferior rather the differences in the two mediums and their strengths and weaknesses. It seems to me they exercise different parts of the brain and can not really be measured up against each other. Painting has been going on for thousands of years while photography is about 170 years old possibly more if one accepts the light impressions of Niepce and the Dageurotype, processes that did not however lend themselves to infinite multiplication.

As I see it, photography is much more complex than people generally understand it and the skill lies with the ability to make images according to one's vision which is what paint does in a more simple and direct way. It does seem to me rather typical of painters to consider themselves, or at least their work, superior and a reason why it took me some time to like painting. Photography is younger and not so presumptous.

Here is what the Intelligence2 website about the debate says ...

In the beginning was the challenge: how to use eye, hand and brain to represent the significance of the world to our fellow humans. There followed the sinuous cave paintings of Perigord; the rigid, sparkling mosaics of Ravenna; the stunning Renaissance discovery of perspective. And the fellow humans marvelled at the dexterity of hand and the conceptual ingenuity of eye and brain behind such visions, and glorified them as art. 

But how do we feel now that the machine has interposed itself between ourselves and the world? Now that the dexterity of hand has been replaced by the finger’s click on the camera shutter? Now that the imagination of eye and brain has been confined within the rectangle of the viewfinder? If there is great art here, doesn't it lie in the creation of the camera itself rather than the pictures it takes? Is it not the genius of the scientists who devised the camera’s intricate mechanisms and powerful lenses that we should now marvel at, rather than the output of the adepts who operate the machine? 

Or are we still too much in thrall to the notion of art held by our pre-industrial forbears? Shouldn't we just accept that art has been freed of its ancient constraints, and acknowledge that the finest photographers offer us an interpretation of the world quite as original as that of the great painters; that in the digital age, photography is now the medium that matters?

Henri Cartier-Bresson writes in The Mind's Eye that the argument about art/paint versus photography is an academic one and I concur yet the nature of the photographic medium concerns me and seeing it outlined against that of paint might be quite helpful in developing a better understanding of this nature.