I was thinking about the relationship of technology to the rest of what's involved in making photographic art, and I happened upon this paragraph from Ted and David's Art and Fear.
It's written in such a way as to apply to painting, drawing, sculpture, etc, as well as to photography. In photography, the work "materials" can cover the camera, lens, lighting equipment, film, paper, image editing programs, printers, and the like.
Anyone have thoughts on this?
I don't separate art and technology, largely because to me technology/engineering/science is art, requiring imagination, creativity, intuition, as well as other qualities often ascribed to artists.
More formally, techno- has the meaning of "art, craft, skill".
My brain is full !
The left side or the right side?
My thoughts
Art is the product, the progeny of marriage between our imaginings and materials (to use their term). Skills are required to use the materials and also to imagine the product. Both are always subject to improvement. However, of the two, the imagining is the more important. If my camera is broken I can use my phone or my pastels or my grandson's crayons. A fine camera operated with no imagination will likely have a sad product.
The introductory sentence of that chapter is "The materials of art, like the thumbnail sketch, seduce us with their potential." The materials will not act of their own accord. When I'm in a slump, the same camera that has given me pictures I value sits idly on the shelf, doing nothing. And it is not my camera's fault when I lack ideas and leave it sitting. A new one would not be of help. That has to come from me and my muse who sometimes takes long vacations without telling me in advance.
It seems to me that skill with photography can be summarized by a Venn diagram.
One circle, usually the first we try to master, are the camera/technical skills. Modern cameras are great and a lot can be accomplished with just the "P" mode. To really progress and move well beyond the snapshot level, typically is going to require a lot more advanced skill, the right gear and the ability to use it.
The next circle of the Venn diagram I loosely call composition. I use that in a very broad sense to include all of the elements within the image, how they relate to each other, the balance, the rhythm. Perhaps visual communication would be a better descriptor.
I should also mention, that only a small, very small, proportion of those who do photography have an interest in making art. For many the goal is to be able to make technically good photographs.
The final circle includes the artist elements, our vision, our style, how we see our world, and how we communicate that visually to others. Hard to describe and much harder to achieve.
Back to the Venn diagram, we are looking for that sweet spot where technology, composition and artistic intent overlap.
Seems like you are attempting a scientific approach.
Skill with photography can't be summarized.
Nope - I don't like that original statement.
My circumstance:
I've been listening to music all my life - I love certain genres. In my head, I can create new music. But I have no way of getting it out of my head and onto a reproducable medium. That is why I started to learn to play the piano.
So it's not about the fit between the contents of my head (my music) and the "Quality" of my materials. It's about me finding a medium where I can do the transfer.
And so, my interpretation would be that an artist has the ability to transfer the contents of his/her head onto a reproducable medium - and the quality of the materials doesn't come into it.
I think the context of the quote was relating to working artists, not people who would like to create art, but don't have the skills to create something real from what's in their head.
If you have great tunes in your head and can't get them instantiated in the world, why not sing the parts into transcription software?
As I said, hard to describe and much harder to achieve.
That does not mean we don't try.
I would put it slightly differently. Creativity occurs in all human activity, be it science, literature, visual arts, performance arts. Not everything labelled 'art' has much creativity to it, and engineering and science is not always simply following procedures without imagination.
I worked in an art school for six years as the tame techy. What was interesting was watching the attempts to formalise 'art', under pressure form the educationists. The outcome was that the survivors were the ones who were very good at rationalising why what they did was 'art', but not always the most creative artists, who often weren't vey good at rationalising anything at all.
I can relate to that outside of photography Jim. It probably comes more down to what you take and how with photography.
I can spend lets say, 300-400 hours on a project with marquetry, in photography with what I take, it's around 1/2000 - 1/4000 of a second. There's a massive line there time wise. Yes some will spend a lot more time and it will get close to being art or what others call art, but I have a hard time time seeing that (head thing). I often get asked, how come you spend more time on the bottom of a chessboard than you do on the top. The answer is a simple one, I have to, because to me it's just as important as the top and people are paying for it anyway. You have to have the tools, the materials and the ability to see outside of those restrictions. Sometimes it simply starts as a line and it goes from there and could well end up as anything compared to what you first thought of and yet other times it stays on track.
So I can relate to that in some areas, but not others. In what I take with a camera it's very simple, it's a bird in flight or it's motorsports and lets face it, it's hard to get artyfied with those subjects generally, I did say generally. I don't really see photography as art, but I see some now and again something that I will call art in photography, but not normally.
Maybe it's more of a subject type thing Jim, one type of photographic subject compared to another. I'm still not sure.
Danny.
Technology of digital cameras and computers and software is what enables me to take photographs. I would never be able to do what I do with a film camera and a darkroom. I would not even have bothered to buy a camera.There would be neither art or non-art if not for the technology. The technology is what came first for me. It's not the technology that responded to me, it is me who responded to the technology. Completely the opposite of the quote in the OP. I am operating a machine, but ultimately the photographs are product of a machine, not a product of mine.
I'm of the camp that, in order to produce art, I want to master the medium. So that for every composition, exposure, or focus decision I make in the field, I understand its effect and consequences. My favorite subject, steam locomotives, are not that fast but they can do harm if contacted, so I want my decisions to be pre-determined to an extent so I can concentrate on composition without compromising my safety.
It's called using a tele lens and having telephoto compression (Don't let Tom see that bit) Also, wear high vis gear, not that they would bother anyway Glenn 😂 Just move man.
Do not try that shot with a 12mm lens! Put it that way.
Danny.
Ted and David have said similar things to me. They were both fortunate enough to study under Jack Welpott and Don Worth at SF State.
When the centipede was asked to explain how it walks, it stumbled and fell.
Not as bad as it looks, late autumn and the air is cold, and the steam is prodigious. He's just getting going here, and I'm standing past a curve he's heading into. A lot of folk think you need blur to convey motion, but with these beasts a good head of steam works wonders. I think it helps the hostler is leaning into the Johnson bar...
My example of "composition is king..."
