The photo critique!
Maybe it's just a way of saying 'if I was you, I would have done this.'
It's a chance for someone to pretend they are you behind the lens, a way for the 'critic' to fault your work!
The photo critique is a strange practice, one I have never been fond of engaging in. It's one thing if a person specifically ASKS for suggestions on improving his/her work. I am NOT that person. It's not that I think my shit don't stink, butt that I really don't care. I got my image the way I want it and that's that. Would 'you' go to a live music performance and tell the band after a piece how they could have improved their performance.
Somehow THE CRITIQUE has become part of the whole photo experience.
Hell, why don't those critics get off their asses and get their eyeballs behind the lens more often and learn about photography through self discovery?
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Eastern Thinking
Now that I've decided to take a break from Detroit, I am realizing a few things, mostly that sweeping through Detroit felt more like a dare than working on a photo project.
I've always felt an oddness to the east side of the area (Detroit) where I live, that it is another world, a place that I can't totally relate to. It really is different. I'm more interested in books, art, gourmet coffee and foods, art films, world music, art rock, alt. rock, etc. The east side ain't like that at all.
The east side is more hard working class people (or it used to be...before the erosion of the middle class in Amerika), lots of flat one story ranch homes lined up in a row, churches, party stores, big screen televisions for sports, etc. That is not me.
The west side is not all artsie, mind you, but there are (or were, before the corporatism of Amerika through monopoly capitalism eradicated so many small businesses)or were more bookstores, alt rock music shops, ethnic restaurants, art galleries, and a wider diversity of houses and buildings.
It's to the 'burbs I go now. I want to capture my feeling of this strangeness I sense in the east. I most want to capture documentation of how people create space in their personal space that exemplifies or displays their personal belief systems. Religious statuary is more common in the east (side of Metro Detroit) and I love the challenge of finding some compelling photos/images of what I find in this land that makes me feel like a stranger in a strange land.
Detroit isn't going anywhere, so a diversion will be nice.
I've always felt an oddness to the east side of the area (Detroit) where I live, that it is another world, a place that I can't totally relate to. It really is different. I'm more interested in books, art, gourmet coffee and foods, art films, world music, art rock, alt. rock, etc. The east side ain't like that at all.
The east side is more hard working class people (or it used to be...before the erosion of the middle class in Amerika), lots of flat one story ranch homes lined up in a row, churches, party stores, big screen televisions for sports, etc. That is not me.
The west side is not all artsie, mind you, but there are (or were, before the corporatism of Amerika through monopoly capitalism eradicated so many small businesses)or were more bookstores, alt rock music shops, ethnic restaurants, art galleries, and a wider diversity of houses and buildings.
It's to the 'burbs I go now. I want to capture my feeling of this strangeness I sense in the east. I most want to capture documentation of how people create space in their personal space that exemplifies or displays their personal belief systems. Religious statuary is more common in the east (side of Metro Detroit) and I love the challenge of finding some compelling photos/images of what I find in this land that makes me feel like a stranger in a strange land.
Detroit isn't going anywhere, so a diversion will be nice.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Photographic Kinship
A few photographers really capture my attention/imagination, incl. Winogrand, Friedlander, Kertesz, Frank, Mark, and Arbus. I am doing a life study of Arbus right now, first watching a warped movie that really distorts her life quite a bit ("Fur") and then I went to read the biography from which the movie was inspired, even though the script writers took HUGE liberties. I've known of Arbus for years and even have a the famous Aperture monograph of her work, plus the monstrous Revelations, a book of unpublished Arbus photos, text, and even some of her own writing, a book for the real Arbus aficionados. That comes next, as soon as I finish her biography, which is coming to its tragic conclusion.
I don't care to take portraits and that is really want Arbus was all about. But I find a certain kinship with her fascination with offbeat subject matter. When I started reading the book, I thought perhaps that her fascination with freaks was manufactured, but now I am pondering the possibility that she was really a freak herself, something I can relate to a bit, a person who just doesn't quite fit in with the rest of 'you.' And on that plane, I totally identify with this woman. She talked to her subjects quite a bit before snapping photos, and probably let her subjects in a bit to her secret world.
She is such a complex person that I am finding her biography quite intriguing.
Besides that, I am trying to make sense of 'art' and photography. My tastes are rapidly changing, or rather I am allowing them to surface after more or less allowing my watchers to determine what I shoot. I am not happy going into Detroit for photos because I am expected to, in the sense that if I don't post such photos, people won't stop by and look at my stuff. They aren't and I'm growing apathetic. The idea of dropping off from Flickr is more appealing each day I look at some of the photos I've shot that I really liked getting just a few page views.
I'm looking.
I don't care to take portraits and that is really want Arbus was all about. But I find a certain kinship with her fascination with offbeat subject matter. When I started reading the book, I thought perhaps that her fascination with freaks was manufactured, but now I am pondering the possibility that she was really a freak herself, something I can relate to a bit, a person who just doesn't quite fit in with the rest of 'you.' And on that plane, I totally identify with this woman. She talked to her subjects quite a bit before snapping photos, and probably let her subjects in a bit to her secret world.
She is such a complex person that I am finding her biography quite intriguing.
Besides that, I am trying to make sense of 'art' and photography. My tastes are rapidly changing, or rather I am allowing them to surface after more or less allowing my watchers to determine what I shoot. I am not happy going into Detroit for photos because I am expected to, in the sense that if I don't post such photos, people won't stop by and look at my stuff. They aren't and I'm growing apathetic. The idea of dropping off from Flickr is more appealing each day I look at some of the photos I've shot that I really liked getting just a few page views.
I'm looking.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Rethinking Things
My Flickr Pro account is up for renewal and quite frankly, I am not pleased with where it is going. I seem to be interested in a totally different style of photography than the people who view my stuff. I was hoping my twisted way of seeing things would interest people, but what 'sells' (page views) are sex-related and Detroit.
Ah...Detroit. The city of my birth. And where I grew up. Well, sort of.
I know I'm in quite a spot, that I have an opportunity to photograph subject matter that others would love to document, the streets of a deeply wounded city. And I have the courage/stupidity to drive through areas I probably should avoid. I've been doing that since 1 January 2004. That's when I made my first serious plunge into the city. And what a shocking scene I found!
We want different things.
Flickr is not my first choice of places to show my work. I don't have a first choice. I've tried a few but they do not appeal. My first choice WAS DeviantArt. My type of crowd hung out there and I really enjoyed putting up new work, all kinds of new work, not just Detroit. Then I learned that DA sneaked in some fine print in the user agreement that they have the right to sell our work. That really doesn't lay right with me. I don't want my photos, as bad as they are, showing up on stock photo sites. I may not be a big shot artist, but I am what I am and my work is mine.
I still stop in at DA to see the work. A new tread there is the presence of viruses and other malware which a subscriber can have, free of charge! What's up with THAT?
Photonet. The almighty CRITIQUE! Screw that.
So here I am, feeling very discombobulated, not really having the audience (and community) for my work. It's not that I want to be adored for my strange photos, but that I want to be in a community of like beings. Early DA was SO MUCH FUN. It was like blazing a way in uncharted territory. Flickr is cold to my touch.
So...I'll probably renew my Flickr account just to have some social networking. And I'll still post photos, but I'm on the prowl for something new, something different. I have a few photo projects going on, things I don't waste my time exposing on Flickr. Why? Unless there is destruction in my shots, many do not bother to look. I will subscribe to a community-fueled zine called SHOTS. Subscribers get four issues a year plus they can submit a few photos of their own. That might open a few doors if a few of my photos are accepted. I also may erect my own site so I can show my work the way I want.
If anybody knows of some good opportunities for photo communities, offbeat places with fringe people, contact me through my Flickr account.
Ah...Detroit. The city of my birth. And where I grew up. Well, sort of.
I know I'm in quite a spot, that I have an opportunity to photograph subject matter that others would love to document, the streets of a deeply wounded city. And I have the courage/stupidity to drive through areas I probably should avoid. I've been doing that since 1 January 2004. That's when I made my first serious plunge into the city. And what a shocking scene I found!
We want different things.
Flickr is not my first choice of places to show my work. I don't have a first choice. I've tried a few but they do not appeal. My first choice WAS DeviantArt. My type of crowd hung out there and I really enjoyed putting up new work, all kinds of new work, not just Detroit. Then I learned that DA sneaked in some fine print in the user agreement that they have the right to sell our work. That really doesn't lay right with me. I don't want my photos, as bad as they are, showing up on stock photo sites. I may not be a big shot artist, but I am what I am and my work is mine.
I still stop in at DA to see the work. A new tread there is the presence of viruses and other malware which a subscriber can have, free of charge! What's up with THAT?
Photonet. The almighty CRITIQUE! Screw that.
So here I am, feeling very discombobulated, not really having the audience (and community) for my work. It's not that I want to be adored for my strange photos, but that I want to be in a community of like beings. Early DA was SO MUCH FUN. It was like blazing a way in uncharted territory. Flickr is cold to my touch.
So...I'll probably renew my Flickr account just to have some social networking. And I'll still post photos, but I'm on the prowl for something new, something different. I have a few photo projects going on, things I don't waste my time exposing on Flickr. Why? Unless there is destruction in my shots, many do not bother to look. I will subscribe to a community-fueled zine called SHOTS. Subscribers get four issues a year plus they can submit a few photos of their own. That might open a few doors if a few of my photos are accepted. I also may erect my own site so I can show my work the way I want.
If anybody knows of some good opportunities for photo communities, offbeat places with fringe people, contact me through my Flickr account.
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