Analog Photography Makes a Comeback
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The closest I've ever come to owning a Canon was the Canon EOS Rebel Ti that I bought for my wife. Maybe a year after I bought it for her, she decided she wanted a digital P&S so, I got her a digital P&S. She never touched the EOS again - so, I got to use it now and then. It was nice but I much prefer the Nikons. Oddly, she got the Canon EOS in the divorce too.
I get shooting film. I have been doing it for a long time. I like shooting film. I like processing film. I like making prints from film in my darkroom. I just dislike all the bullshit that has been layered on shooting film in recent years. Sometimes, I can't decide which is worse: Leica owners or film enthusiasts. So much bullshit. Digital shooters are probably worse.
I ran a high-end audio website for quite a few years. I went to trade shows, and wrote about new equipment and industry trends, and I evaluated equipment and wrote product reviews. It was the same thing, only the vinyl enthusiasts and the digital enthusiasts would bicker about which was best. It was mostly whether their $50,000 turntable was better than your $50,000 CD player. But, you'd hear all the same rationalizations. Then you'd ask them which was their favorite LP or CD, and you'd get that deer in the headlights look. Of course, there were exceptions. But for most, it was simply a religion. Like film versus digital imaging.
Who is your favorite photographer and why? Try to answer without using the words film or digital.
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How true!
Welcome to Pure Photography group https://www.photrio.com/forum/groups/pure-photography.159/group
- I've sometimes thought seriously to set up a PHOTOGRAPHY forum. Seems all forums are camera/digital/film forums
Well said! I'm right there with you. The mindless and cult-like regurgitation of mythological bullshit makes me ill.
I've many favorite photographers but just to name a few...
Stephen Shore, Jim Marshall, Frank Hurley, Elliot Erwitt, Bill Owens, Leo Holub, Carleton Watkins, Alec Soth...
I also love John Szarkowski's writting about photography...
edit: oh, and why? That's a pretty big topic....but, I could go in to it...maybe it deserves it's own thread ? Like, how are Alec Soth and Frank Hurley (and obviously, Watkins) alike?
hey, that was original, first hand bullshit - not something I read somewhere on the internet and regurgitated.
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im not really sure who my favorite photographer is, it might be NADAR or ATGET. not because they used some arcane useless image making process but because
I love looking at images made a long time ago, people were so expressive or at least as expressive as they could be holding a pose for 20 seconds LOL. and old buildings and streets
speak volumes to me. I can almost smell the refuse in the gutter.
thanks for your depiction of now.. I think we live in a strange time period where everyone needs to feel like they need a participation trophy or need to be part of some club or want people to notice them or tell them they made the right purchase/investment.. everyone is a mess and I don't think COVID helped much with mental states
I like a few of Alec Soth's images, but most of them generate a meh. Is this something that you think is a great photograph? I'd be embarrassed to post that on my website, if I still had my website. I guess that explains why my phone is not ringing off the wall with New York galleries on fire to give me a show.
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You know she's 71 years old...
Alec Soth...what can I say, where do I start? My appreciation of his work, of him as a human being, is complex.
I became interested in his work, indeed, I was introduced to him by someone who, knowing my appreciation of Stephen Shore's early work (in particular, American Surfaces and Uncommon Places and his postcards), suggested that I might also take a look at Soth's work. In a way, Soth picks up where Shore left off. The two of them are very much related in my mind. They're similar in some ways and yet, quite distinct. Like Shore, Soth seems to start with a question and then does a project to examine that question....but it is so much more than that. They both travel, they both deal with the vernacular (but treat it differently). And to your question specifically, I think one needs to look at more than just one photo in isolation. This is true with both of these photographers. They produced projects. Their work is always(?) presented as a group of related photos curated from a particular project that spanned a very specific time period...and so, the group of pictures becomes the object of consideration - not the individual photo. Having said that, I can sometimes take an individual photo from either of these two photographers and make up a (highly romanticized?) back story for what I see. These stories always, for me, speak to the human experience in that moment of time when the shutter was open and the film was exposed. (see, for example, the last paragraph of this post https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/is-this-a-good-photo.20744/page-4#post-287796 ).
but, in summary, it not about the aesthetics of an individual photograph. For me, one must consider the group of photos selected to represent a project and, I confess, some background knowledge of the individual also comes into the mix.
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Alec Soth isn't aiming for a single great photograph. He is a storyteller that uses photographs as medium. He is even saying himself that some of his photos aren't that special but together with other photos they write the story.
I have looked a bit deeper into Alec Soths life and I have to say he has really deep knowledge of photography. Just look at his videos where he is going through his book collection alone. I mean he is a book geek. He is so deep into photo books and photography as art form. No wonder he is member of Magnum.
He has made many really deep videos on his youtube-channel, if you want a deep dive into photography as art, check his videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHIxfgu7HE9_Tok9OGNrQ_g
He isn't my favorite photographer either and I'm probably never going to buy any of his books - just not that kind of work I'm interested in (currently). But I bought his Magnum course and I have been watching his youtube videos quite a bit.
Was this image a stand-alone, or from a body of work? I'm familiar with Soth's work but this one isn't ringing a bell.
I'd guess it comes from, "Sleeping by the Mississippi" but am not sure.
Ironically in this discussion of analog making a comeback, Alec Soth also shoots digital.
You are correct. I have the book here and don't know why I didn't recognize it. The title of the image is Luxora, Arkansas.
The end of the book has a section called "selected notes to the photographs", but this particular photo has no notes.
To answer faberryman's question, "Is this something that you think is a great photograph?" I would say that this photograph contributes to a photographic masterpiece.
Most of my work in the past decade has been projects consisting of 20-30 related images. Within each project, some of the images are better than others. If you don't think image number seven in the series is as strong as some of the others, you won't get any pushback from me saying that you can't say that and the images have to be considered as a whole. I might even agree with you and the next time I show the series I might leave it out. Maybe removing that image makes the sequence stronger. But what do I know.
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Well by itself it's a quirky photo and one that makes me want to ask questions and find out more about the where and why but by itself I seen many just as good in the Photrio Gallery. However if it is one part of a complete work then I agree, it can only be judged as one part of a whole and you need to see the whole to make a judgement
pentaxuser
I completely agree with that of course. There are incredible images in the Photrio gallery by a few preternaturally gifted photographers that really ought to be published in book form just like Soth.
The brilliance of Sleeping by the Mississippi is not of the single image variety, but a few of the images in his book have become classics as stand-alone images.
Same here. I find him and Dawoud Bey as amongst of the most interesting American photographers active today.
That's a good way to put it, and I agree about both photographers.
Now I know where to find film photography these days. On the dumpster a.k.a. iG.
I wonder how many of them out where are able to see difference between film and FujiNoFilm film preset.
I wonder how many of them out where are able to see difference between film and FujiNoFilm film preset.
They can see the difference with the hashtag of course! Nobody buys DSLRs these days.
Based on your statement Fuji's presets seem to be pretty good if most of IG users cannot see the difference between real film and FujiFilm preset
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