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- Thread starter fahim mohammed
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Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Every sop often, someone submits a less well known photograph in an art competition or online and the results are hilarious. However, the suggestions made might still have some validity.
The dilemma is to know the rules that one beaks or just smash through them!
Asher
The dilemma is to know the rules that one beaks or just smash through them!
Asher
Helene Anderson
New member
I thought it was great. I know of people for whom there are only two ways to take a photo, their way . . . . and the wrong way !
Tracy Lebenzon
New member
The only typical comment missing from those offered above is regarding color captures where inevitably someone states only: “It would look better in B&W.”
I think the broader issue isn’t necessarily one of the validity of a critique; rather it is one of the critique-r having any vision at all other than negative. Many who critique would find flaw where it doesn’t exist or doesn’t merit more than a passing comment. More to the point, many make the perceived flaw(s) the only and exclusive comment they make. I think the expression is: he would comment on nothing but flaws of a bride on her wedding day, while silently wondering why his own marriage is a failure.
Cem_Usakligil
Well-known member
Don't forget to read the sequel here. Hilarious!
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
We might think that we know the rules of composition and have a sense of esthetics and a background in fine art. Still, this in no way prepares us to automatically distinguish famous photographs from billions of pictures that have been made, unless some feature of style, content and circumstance allows one to deduce the authorship.
The pictures that TOP uses to demonstrate that we all know nothing about pictures, could be missed by a lot of bright and talented photographers and art historians if that artist's work was off his/her radar. It doesn't mean the critique is utterly foolish and naive, as TOP implies, rather that we do not know the body of work of famous photographer's well enough.
Of course, some of the pictures are iconic and it's amusing that silly comments can be made about a war photographer being too close to his subjects. However, it was indeed true as Robert Capa, the founder of Magnum, was killed, just because of that. He got off the truck and headed to the action and was blown up by a mine May 25th 1954 in "an obscure battlefield in Indochina".
Had he used a telephoto lens, as the silly critique suggests, he might have survived a little longer and his work would be no less dramatic or important. It just happens that he made such impressive war photographs, embedding himself fearlessly in the thick of battle. That's his legacy, to view from the position of the men at risk, not the generals peering through telescopes from a bunker on a hilltop.
Still, there's validity, even, terrible irony in the joking and hilarious criticism.
Asher
The pictures that TOP uses to demonstrate that we all know nothing about pictures, could be missed by a lot of bright and talented photographers and art historians if that artist's work was off his/her radar. It doesn't mean the critique is utterly foolish and naive, as TOP implies, rather that we do not know the body of work of famous photographer's well enough.
Of course, some of the pictures are iconic and it's amusing that silly comments can be made about a war photographer being too close to his subjects. However, it was indeed true as Robert Capa, the founder of Magnum, was killed, just because of that. He got off the truck and headed to the action and was blown up by a mine May 25th 1954 in "an obscure battlefield in Indochina".
Had he used a telephoto lens, as the silly critique suggests, he might have survived a little longer and his work would be no less dramatic or important. It just happens that he made such impressive war photographs, embedding himself fearlessly in the thick of battle. That's his legacy, to view from the position of the men at risk, not the generals peering through telescopes from a bunker on a hilltop.
Still, there's validity, even, terrible irony in the joking and hilarious criticism.
Asher
Helene Anderson
New member
Re the Robert Capa comment, oh how true that rang for me. I know of two people who think a tripod should be used for everything, well, everything photographic and are horrified that anyone would not use a tripod. I thought of them reading the comment.
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Same as condoms. When they should be used, they're absolutely necessary and when they shouldn't they absolutely shouldn't. Likewise, Robert Capa would have nothing separate his pictures from the juncture of life and death.
Asher