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Wow! Is this essay on point!

John Maio

pro member
While browsing Luminous Landscape this morning, I came upon this new essay by Pete Myers on today's brutal criticism of photographic art - especially by anonymous internet critics. I think he's on point and wonder about other's views. I have to admit that, for the most part, and on certain forums, I find that photographers are indeed "wet blankets" and would never post my work on those places.

What do you think?

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/From-the-Big-House.shtml
 

Ben Lifson

New member
John Maio, Pete Myers and Criticism

Dear John Maio,

While much of what Peter Myers says about hostile criticism and its ill effects (and I'd say the ill effects on the critics as well) he doesn't name any of the critics about whom he writes or the venues where he finds their critiques. So the warnings are general. Good but general.

However, since he's talking about the Internet, I assume he's also talking about amateur critics, readers and/or members of photography discussion groups.

Remember that there are also professional critics, some of whom are very good and very useful, even when their critiques are negative. Negative but not hostile. "Negative critique" is not a synonym for "hostile critique."

See John Berger's essay about Picasso in his book "Toward Reality" in which he talks about the "tragedy of Picasso."

So please don't take Peter Myers' statements as an all inclusive warning against negative criticsm, only against hostile criticism, or criticism that's meant to puff up the hostile critic's sense of himself, of his superiority over others.

Unfortunately, I can't recommend any really good recent professional critics of photography who might guide you through the maze of all the bad criticism that's out there. . I haven't been reading much professional photography criticism lately.

However, for good guidelines as to how to identify good professional critics (for yourself) I recommend the first 20-30 pages of Ezra Pound's little book ABC of Reading. Sure, it's about poetry, but it begins by establishing some guidelines for criticism.

And criticism is criticism no matter what art it's about, music, photography, poetry, decorative art, etc.

Pound tells us that "critic," "criticize" "criticism" "critique" all come from an ancient Greek verb meaning "I choose" in the sense of "I sift" -- good from bad, obviously.

His basic point is that if you want to find out about something -- in this case, what makes good photography good -- you probably should talk to or read something by somebody who knows something about the subject.

Just as if you were buying a car you'd rather talk to somebody who knew something about cars than read car manufacturer's specification sheets and among people who know something about cars you'd probably rather talk to someone who had a) built them b) repaired them and c) driven them professionally than to someone who only sold them and drove them privately.

Right?

Pete Meyer is dead right when he says

TWO: Stop competing against others and yourself.

Don't compete against yourself. Instead, improvise on yourself.

As for competing against others, yes, Peter Myers is absolutely right if he means competing against other contemporaries. It's always a mistake to compete against your contemporaries unless you really want to wipe them off the map and for very good esthetic reasons. But in this case it isn't competition so much as it is defense of the realm, not yours but art's.

However, artists always compete; there's something about making art that makes competing necessary., I don't know what it is and don't have time to think about it right now.

So I'll just remind you of what Ernest Hemingway said: That the artist's only competition is with the dead.

Hemingway was right.

Lord Byron was wrong when he wrote this of his contemporaries

Thou shalt believe in Miilton, Dryden, Pope,
Shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey,
Because the first is craz'd beyond all hope,
The second drunk, the third so quaint and mouthey...

Before you read Pound and then, with the aid of his guidelines, begin to identify the professional critics who will help you along to your goal of making better pictures -- which goal is often more quickly achieved by learning how to criticize both one's own pictures and those of others -- and identify the great dead photographers against whom you must compete, here's a small bit about what it is to be an artist, taken from the American novelist William S. Burroughs' *** last novel, The Western Lands.

The "Western Lands" of the title is the ancient Egyptian term for the Land of the Soul's Immortality after Death.

"Look at their Western Lands. What do they look like? The houses and gardens of a rich man. Is this all the Gods can offer? Well, I say then it is time for new Gods who do not offer such paltry bribes. It is dangerous even to think such things. It is very dangerous to live, my friend, and few survive it. And one does not survive by shunning danger, when we have a universe to win and nothing to lose. It is already lost. After what we know, there can be no forgiveness. Remember, to them we are a nightmare. Can you trust the peace offers, the treaties and agreements of an adversary who considers you in the dark? Of course not.
"We can make our own Western Lands.
"We know that the Western Lands are made solid by fellaheen blood and energy, siphoned off by vampire mummies, just as water is siphoned off to create an oasis. Such an oasis lasts only so long as the water lasts, and the technology for its diversion. However, an oasis that is self-sustaining, recreated by the inhabitants, does not need such an inglorious vampiric life-line.
"'We can create a land of dreams.'
"'But how can we make it solid?'
"'We don't. That is precisely the error of the mummies. They made spirit solid. When you do this, it ceases to be spirit. We will make ourselves less solid.'
"Well, that's what art is all about, isn't it? All creative thought, actually. A bid for immortality. So long as sloppy, stupid, so-called democracies live, the ghosts of various boringpeople who escape my mind still stalk about in the mess they have made.
"We poets and writers are tidier, fade out in firefly evenings, a Prom and a distant train whistle, we live in a maid opening a boiled egg for a long-ago convalescent, we live in the snow on Michael's grave falling softly like the last descent of their last end on all the living and the dead, we live in the green light at the end of Daisy's dock, in the last and greatest of human dreams..."

For Burroughs' "We poets and writers" I would substitute "We artists" which includes photographers, which includes yourself.

Best wishes on your road to the western lands of art.

yrs

ben

www.benlifson.com

***In the 1960s the very good American writer Norman Mailer wrote that William S. Burroughs, a late romantic writer who lived to be a rather old romantic writer, might be the "only contemporary American writer possessed of genius." So far, Burroughs' production between then and his death in the 1980s seems to have borne Mailer out.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
John,

Pete Myers' essay reaffirms my own repeatedly enunciated postulate, the "Arc of intent. I like his writings, but I always have.

Here's again the "Arc of Intent", my current formulation that works for me and is easy to follow. The are three steps by the artist in the arc I postulate:

1. Vision: The artist has a vision,
2. Work: The artist works to implement form to the best of their innate talent, training, skills, insight, knowledge, character, humor and more. No art is ever merely decorative, even when the artist cannot enunciate embedded meanings.
3. Completion by experiencing: The arc completed when the created form invokes feelings, thoughts, significance and even new intents the initial vision was wrapped in. It may be felt as joy alone.


The arc is thus completed, first by the artist. It is thus anointed as art.

After that, we get it or we don't. Suspect all critics.

Just report your feelings and reactions with empathy and consideration. All this is can be so valuable to the artist. Don't wander beyond that without experience!

Asher
 

John Maio

pro member
Dear Ben,

You've managed to write (and rather quickly, I might add), an interesting critique of Myer's critique of the "brutal" critics.

First, allow me to establish that, at my stage in life, I have no desire or interest in becoming a photographic artist, whatever that means. I retired from a modestly successful corporate career which was about as far removed from photography as you can imagine, but like many here, had a passion for photography over many years. I currently own a micro-business, some might say a nano-business, concentrating on a subset of portraiture - actor's headshots. I do no advertising. All my clients have been referred to me by fellow actors, agents, or casting people. They are my critics and I get great satisfaction when I learn that one of my headshots helped them find work in a film, or a play, or even a TV commercial. I get even more satisfaction when they return several times to update or extend their portfolios. So one could say that my "art" enables other artists to succeed.

Having said that, I also enjoy "street photography" for my own pleasure, and to sharpen my photographic vision. On occasion, I like to share what I "see" by posting examples on the web. Some are on this forum. It is in this context that I resonated with some of Myers' views.

I think he had two themes; the "brutality" of anonymous, uninformed, and cynical "critics" on most web forums. (DPR, to name one), and the monetization of art in that rarefied atmosphere of "the art world".

They are separate themes, and in my mind, barely related.

As to the first, I agree with Myer's and your view that the web is a terrible and dangerous place for the beginning photographer, who might aspire to build a creative style and vision which could be called "art". I've watched people clearly say they were posting for the first time only to have some boorish person insult their effort behind a convenient pseudonym with no mention of credentials. Most never come back and try again. What's even worse is to see an image posted, have the web site disclose that its been viewed 20 - 30 - 50 times, with not one comment, helpful or not.

It doesn't have to be that way. I'm afraid that most of those forums (especially the unmoderated ones) have turned into hangouts for "gearheads" and "pixel peepers", rather that a community where we can learn to improve our vision and make better images through interchange and helpful criticisms. I have hopes that OPF will be different.

As to Meyers' second theme, the older I get (and I'm pretty old), it seems that there is only one truth in western culture; everything is all about money. I live about 60 miles south of one of the top tier art markets in the western world - Santa Fe. Myer's story about an agent telling him about creating the illusion that his body of work needs to be packaged and marketed in order to convince wealthy collectors that it will only go up in value is alive and well in "the city different". His inference that he "threw the agent out" is to be respected. I almost never visit Santa Fe, although many of my clients live there.
 

Aaron Strasburg

New member
As someone who does not really consider myself an artist but is looking for a creative outlet to satisfy myself and hopefully not torture friends and family too much, I must say I disagree with much of what Pete says in his essay. Here is an excerpt, though the full text is worth reading:

Art is a metaphor for expressing an artist’s feelings. As long as an artist is true to his or her feelings and makes an attempt to express them in a genuine fashion, then it is not up to any viewer to judge that artist’s works. If we as viewers do not respond to the content, perhaps we are out of step with what the artist is attempting to express, or perhaps the artist has fallen short in his or her visual metaphor or technique in expressing it. If the latter is true, it is none of our business. It is up to the artist to discover his or her own path to self-expression. (my emphasis added)

Take the bolded statement above for example. Were I to take this at face value why would I possibly want to participate in a forum such as this? I do try to contribute "criticisms" when others are looking for that as well as putting some of my own attempts out there for feedback. There may be artists out there who are fully self-contained and need no interaction with the rest of the world. The rest of the world cannot judge their success nor reward them for it. If art itself is the goal, then perhaps they may be successful. If, as I believe Asher asserts, communication is the goal of art then we must use that standard for judging the creator's success.

I suspect that artists need to learn to ignore the "bad" critics and learn from the good ones just like the rest of us. To categorically state that critics have no purpose in art is wrong just like it is in the rest of life. You just have to recognize which voices to ignore.
 
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Ben Lifson

New member
Asher, 3-Step Arc and Charles Olson

Asher,

Given your three-step arc, I wonder if you mightn't be interested, perhaps very much interested in the American poet Charles Olson's image of poetry, from vision to writing to reading of the poem-- and it goes for any work of art, I think...Of the work of art from its conception through its creation to its completion, then existence in the world (its joining the world, if you will, in some way or other, without which it can't be seen, heard, etc.) and, finally, to its reception by a viewer, reader, etc. as an "energy transfer system".

The essay is in Olson's (rightly) celebrated 1950s essay "Projective Verse", easily found in many post-1960s anthologies of essays on poetry and, I should think, in his complete works. (If there is a complete works... I've never seen one but I should think that by this time, for such an important poet, there'd be one.)

yrs

ben

www.benlifson.com
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Aaron Strasburg said:
Art is a metaphor for expressing an artist’s feelings. As long as an artist is true to his or her feelings and makes an attempt to express them in a genuine fashion, then it is not up to any viewer to judge that artist’s works. If we as viewers do not respond to the content, perhaps we are out of step with what the artist is attempting to express, or perhaps the artist has fallen short in his or her visual metaphor or technique in expressing it. If the latter is true, it is none of our business. It is up to the artist to discover his or her own path to self-expression. (my emphasis added)

.........If, as I believe Asher asserts, communication is the goal of art then we must use that standard for judging the creator's success.

I suspect that artists need to learn to ignore the "bad" critics and learn from the good ones just like the rest of us. To categorically state that critics have no purpose in art is wrong just like it is in the rest of life. You just have to recognize which voices to ignore.

Aaron,

Where does this indented paragraph come from? Is it a quote or you just wrote it? Indents are often quotes, so I wasn't sure!

In any case, let me revisit the first sentence.

"Art is a metaphor** for expressing an artist’s feelings."

I'd rather say art is a form of creative work for storing, transporting and hopefully reinvoking the artist's vision and the consequent feelings, thoughts and more.

Asher

**While metaphors can and often are be trans-cultural and enduring, art appears to be more than just metaphor. Further, I wonder which is more primordial. Perhaps art predates metaphor.
 

Aaron Strasburg

New member
That's quoted from Pete's essay at LL. Sorry, I thought that would be clear. I'll go edit the post to make it so.

I also prefer your interpretation. The word metaphor seems poorly chosen in the first sentence but fits better in the bolded sentence. But we're straying into critiquing Pete's essay, which as we know is dangerous territory. :)
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Aaron,

My thoughts have been written for some time. I use my "central dogma" of the "Arc of Intent" for my own art. I am no authority on art. I designed it to be practical for me. It's a set of postulates that are useful to me which guide and inform my own work and my experience of the work of others.

Asher
 

Eric Hiss

Member
Like this discussion...

Hi Asher, Aaron, Ben, John, and all,
I think this is a really interesting thread, and one of many on OPF that I've found so far. I do agree that an essential part of art is communication of ideas or ways of seeing. But I'm not sure that everyone that makes art does so to share with others. Many enjoy the act of creating something beautiful or interesting. Certainly with the art that is shared there must be a little more magic to the good art because it has to invoke the willingness of the viewer to see it or capture their attention in some way at least long enough for the message or feeling to come across. I think a lot of 'artists' abuse shock value to get their audience - sex or violence - but skipped the message if they had one. Then there are other artists that get caught up in the technical aspects of photography and simply overlook including a message since they see the technical bits as beautiful in their own right. In repsonse to the original post of the thread, I think the author of the article is somewhat biased and the tone is not necessarily relective of the common sharing experience. I'm an artist primarily and have been sharing my images on the net since 2001 and not once had a wet blanket experience. Nearly once a week someone will e-mail me out of the blue with some nice comment about my work, what they liked, etc. (Now if they would only buy something that would of course be better still)

Why I have taken down the bulk of my images is that they have been appropriated and used without credit or in the wrong way (fine art nudes turned into porn). So not because of the fear of being squished as in the article. I think if one were to post images (or articles) on to a site that is devoted nearly 100% to the fine critique of camera or lens performance, basically all technical review and critique that he or she should expect to be thoroughly critiqued.

Eric
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Eric Hiss said:
Hi Asher, Aaron, Ben, John, and all,
Why I have taken down the bulk of my images is that they have been appropriated and used without credit or in the wrong way (fine art nudes turned into porn). So not because of the fear of being squished as in the article. I think if one were to post images (or articles) on to a site that is devoted nearly 100% to the fine critique of camera or lens performance, basically all technical review and critique that he or she should expect to be thoroughly critiqued.

Eric
One of the issues I have with completing plans for galleries here, is the need to prevent abuse and degrading of the intent of the site and images.

I know of an executive who's website access is governed by password that changes with time. I'm not sure how it works.

We can discuss that further in another thread if you like.

Back to Peter's article!

We have to talk about our reactions and show consideration.
It's easy to insult someone. I've done that by error, never by intent.

Asher
 

Eric Hiss

Member
Feedback is usually valuable so long as you know the source

Hi Asher,

First I'd be interested to hear more about your plans/ideas for galleries and will look for posts about that elsewhere.

I should perhaps qualify my previous post related to the original thread...I believe that feedback is always valuable but one has to qualify and perhaps weigh the source. There is a great line in the book Crime and Punishment that I wish I could recall but it goes to the effect, when people tell you negative things about yourself you tend to believe it 100%, but when they flatter you, you tend to discount it. That may be true to some extent and gets to part of what Mr. Myers was talking about, but when your peers are saying something positive you can accept it since you know where they are coming from. The internet is such a great way to bring people together but can also link to anonymous/faceless individuals for brief moments. Validation is a real problem. You used to be able to believe a large portion of what you read in print, but on the internet we must come to realize that a large amount is neither validated nor accurate. Why should we take critiques especially those without a face as being valid? I don't believe that people go out of their way to insult people but yes sometimes on accident that happens partly because the internet only shows the text and not the smile on the face. The solution is to build a virtual community where through experience people learn about each other and can read a little between the lines.

So if we are all active in OPF then we will get to know each other's work and what each individual is trying to achive with their work and at that point we can provide really helpful critique. I like it btw that the discussions on OPF are quite broad because that adds depth of perspective.

Just one more anecdote... I had a sculpture teacher at UC Berkeley that at least once a semester would literally kick over a student's work and say in his Brittish accent, "That's the worst piece of sh*t I've seen". It was hilarious and embarrasing at the same time for all especially the students who didn't know what he was up to. He only did it to students that never came to class or didn't work hard. He never did it to students that actually tried regardless of how good or bad their work was.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Eric Hiss said:
Hi Asher,

First I'd be interested to hear more about your plans/ideas for galleries and will look for posts about that elsewhere.

Validation is a real problem. You used to be able to believe a large portion of what you read in print, but on the internet we must come to realize that a large amount is neither validated nor accurate. Why should we take critiques especially those without a face as being valid?

The solution is to build a virtual community where through experience people learn about each other and can read a little between the lines.

So if we are all active in OPF then we will get to know each other's work and what each individual is trying to achive with their work and at that point we can provide really helpful critique. I like it btw that the discussions on OPF are quite broad because that adds depth of perspective.

I had a sculpture teacher at UC Berkeley that at least once a semester would literally kick over a student's work and say in his Brittish accent, "That's the worst piece of sh*t I've seen".
First Eric, the British Accent! Well, that's me O.K.! It's a paradox that in some movies that nasal "upper crust British accent" may designate a smart crook whereas on the radio, the same voice is used as a mark of trust, character and wisdom. Dastardly it is!

Validation is impertant. We have it all the time. Here, however, by giving pour real name we get to validate each other a real people with a stake in a group. With a reputaion at risk, we all function at a more useful level.

We come here to realax but also to share experiences and to learn from each others good ideas and mistakes. This way, one person only need make the mistake, and everyone can learn from agood idea.
That is the fundamental benefit of a place like this.

We can learn in many levels: conceptualization, skill sets, resources tools and then applying all this to make an image. We this is done we need to get it out there.

At every level, every stage, we need validation that what we are doing is what we need and want and what will deliver our goal and intent.

If we can't rely on others around us, it doesn't work.

I have made it by goal to visit as many website of members as I can to enjoy and learn from the galleries of all their hard work. My belief is that we set a standard by how we treat each other. New members then sense an ambience and either belong or not. Other sites are successful like that and this model seems to work for us and we'll build on that.

So it's natural to think of galleries. This is one of our goals but it can be tricky to deal with the nuances of having an uncensored photography gallery which yet is not a magnet for those with entirely different purposes.

Ultimately we'll be pretty self-contained yet open to new ideas and people. Once we have a significent size, we hopefully develop a group culture that everyone assimilates to when they join. We don't want to have a bland blend of ideas. On the contrary, they should compete.

Under these circumstances, critique might be harsh, but is from people you know and will be already validated by the work everyone has done within the group.

Still, we can't be over-civilized and P.C. or everything will be considered "O.K." That is the end of art!

I hope we can discover and describe what is indeed better photography, but not upset people in the process.

Asher
 

John Maio

pro member
Asher Kelman said:
<snip>
Ultimately we'll be pretty self-contained yet open to new ideas and people. Once we have a significant size, we hopefully develop a group culture that everyone assimilates to when they join. We don't want to have a bland blend of ideas. On the contrary, they should compete.

Under these circumstances, critique might be harsh, but is from people you know and will be already validated by the work everyone has done within the group.

Still, we can't be over-civilized and P.C. or everything will be considered "O.K." That is the end of art!

I hope we can discover and describe what is indeed better photography, but not upset people in the process.

Asher

I've often read about "art communities" "artists circles", discussion groups, and so on, when looking into some of the greats like, say, Robert Cappa, Ansel Adams, and so on. Often these conclaves were in great cities like Paris, New York (especially the Village) , San Francisco and even Santa Fe. There was a recent PBS documentary on Andy Warhol with photos of his "circle" in his apartment back in the early days.

Perhaps I'm a romanticist, but I've always envisioned these settings as places where people could openly and freely discuss their art; give and receive constructive criticism from well qualified and respected friends, and even freely discussed the "business" of art.

Could the internet facilitate such a place? Could OPF become this?
 

Eric Hiss

Member
circles and groups

"I've often read about "art communities" "artists circles", discussion groups, and so on, when looking into some of the greats like, say, Robert Cappa, Ansel Adams, and so on. Often these conclaves were in great cities like Paris, New York (especially the Village) , San Francisco and even Santa Fe. There was a recent PBS documentary on Andy Warhol with photos of his "circle" in his apartment back in the early days. Perhaps I'm a romanticist, but I've always envisioned these settings as places where people could openly and freely discuss their art; give and receive constructive criticism from well qualified and respected friends, and even freely discussed the "business" of art. "


I've been looking for this too...That's one of the reasons I got into co-founding the Crucible years ago when I was more into sculpture than photography <http"//www.thecrucible.org> but I realized that it takes more than bringing people together... and too much adminstration kills the art. I wonder how it worked in those days you mention...
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Eric, John and everyone else,

It's about stimulation and nurturing of creative sprit. That's what validation does. That's what OPF is about. Every time you respond, even briefly to someone's art you help this process.

Asher
 
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