[HN Gopher] Photography technology has influenced what people co... ___________________________________________________________________ Photography technology has influenced what people consider a good picture Author : prismatic Score : 135 points Date : 2021-08-30 17:32 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.collectorsweekly.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.collectorsweekly.com) | chefandy wrote: | I don't think this is a good title for the article. It probably | generates more clicks than "how trends and technology influenced | our perception photographs." | dang wrote: | Ok, we've changed the title above to use representative | language from the article itself. | JALTU wrote: | I'm no art historian, but from one point of view, good | photography demonstrated qualities you'd find in good painting. | Then the medium took on its own aesthetic with camera angles or | color saturation of various films. Fast forward to today and | between "vertical" compositions (screen orientation) and live | photo (very short video) and let's face it, upvoting, our world | is less about bad photos than it is about popular photos. From | a collector's point of view, I'd think one would align with | that more than, say, a contest winner's photo. And, an element | of this has always been there, just not as amplified and | dominant as it is in this social media era. | | @chefandy suggested a better title, and I'd agree. I'd suggest | however that his/her title is too gentle. I'd say "How Mass | Popularity and Tech Influenced Perception of Photography" | because it speaks to the culturally aggregating effect of the | Internet. | nbzso wrote: | Photography as art was slightly popular in the age when regular | people had crappy cameras and had to learn how to create a | picture. In the process people learned to appreciate good | composition and artistic interpretation of true professionals. | | With advancements in digital photography and recently | computational exposure all of this is gone. Over-saturation, | Hyper contrast, HDRI corrections are the norm. People like things | that are easy to understand and reproduce. | | The next level of madness is GAS. There are thousands of | "photographers" who are actually Technographers. Who are part of | some "group" or brand tribe. And the taste of the tribe defines | success. | | The people who are learning composition, exposure or development | are minority. And in this age popularity contest photography is | measured in likes, so there is no place for good photography in a | classical sense. People have phones with AI and everybody is an | "artist'. So be it. | | But some of us don't care. Some of us shoot film for experience | and challenge. Some of us read Ansel Adams books and try to | create meaningful work. Some of us know who is Bresson, Robert | Capa, and countless other masters. | https://www.magnumphotos.com/shop/photographers/ And this is not | bad thing. | | Let people like what they can comprehend. | meowzero wrote: | Another recent example of how "bad photography" inspired "good | photos" is Juergen Teller's shoot with W magazine. | https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/best-performances-portfoli... | | The photos are typical of Juergen's style. But his style has been | evolving more into casual snapshot aesthetic, but in more ironic | way. | jbtbfkkfmfne wrote: | The same thing happened in fashion. | | High fashion is always copying what the regular unfashionable | people on the street are wearing, in the eternal search for | authenticity. | | Which is why things like bubble jackets, sweat pants, crocs and | dad sneakers evolved from being laughed at to being very | fashionable. | WalterBright wrote: | The low point for me is when people get on an airplane | wearing track shorts. Eech. | swiley wrote: | I must be out of touch, those aren't fashionable and I don't | think most people in their 20s would think they are (sure | they wear them all the time but that's because of a rejection | of fashion in favor of comfort.) | jbtbfkkfmfne wrote: | > _wear them all the time_ | | That's kind of what fashionable means. | | Oxford dict: | | Fashionable - characteristic of, influenced by, or | representing a current popular style | Spivak wrote: | Rejection of fashion in very specific trendy ways is | fashionable right now. It's more a rejection of "runway | inspired" trends than a rejection of fashion itself. | DoreenMichele wrote: | Haute couture is almost all nutty stuff that no normal | person wears anyway. It's like art for art's sake, not | clothes. | baliex wrote: | Is it not art to demonstrate the capability of the | designer? And what's expected to follow is that they can | put a great looking "regular" item together too | meowzero wrote: | In this current internet age, there's a lot of trends of | fashion. There was even a trend called normcore | (https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/what-is-normcore/) that | rejected typical fashion trends at that time. | kergonath wrote: | "These things are not fashionable, they just wear them all | the time". There is a kind of contradiction there. | WA wrote: | What's good about these pictures? If you released them on | Instagram on an anonymous account, nobody would give a shit. | cratermoon wrote: | There's nothing good about them. They have celebrities and | are ostensibly about "fashion", but they don't otherwise have | anything to recommend them. | magicalhippo wrote: | Well they were decently lit and in focus... | cratermoon wrote: | That used to take skill, before autofocus and digital | cameras able to shoot at ISO 6400+ with post-processing | to smooth out the noise. Now we're at a point where if | the picture our phone takes is out-of-focus and too dark, | we blame the phone. | meowzero wrote: | It's hard to say. But I've been a fan of Juregen Teller for a | while. He wants to break all the "rules" of fashion | photography and photography in general. | | You're right, if you post these anonymously to IG, no one | would bat an eye. But it's published in a prominent fashion | magazine, it's taken by the famous Juregen Teller, it | features celebrities posing in an unflattering way, they're | wearing the latest designer clothes, and it got a ton of | negative attention on Twitter and other social media (all | attention is good attention). | | A typical amateur won't be able to do that (they probably | think they can). I consider his style to be real and | "amateurish" in a deliberate way. In some ways, I feel he's | parodying amateur photos and putting famous celebrities in | situations that normal pros don't usually would or can. Here | is another site that tries to describe it: | https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/juergen-teller-w-magazine/ | WA wrote: | Thanks for clarifying this. The link is quite interesting. | matwood wrote: | I didn't find the photos necessarily bad or easy to | replicate at all. Taking pictures of people is intimate and | challenging thing to do, especially if you don't know them | well. | | I'm also not one to critique photos from a technical | perspective, and tend to go by feel in my own and others | photos. | meowzero wrote: | I'm similar. Critiquing a photo from a technical | perspective is the low-effort way to do it. Getting a | technically good photo is probably the easiest thing to | do. | | When I was more serious into photography back in the day, | getting a photo that can express what I wanted it to feel | or the story I wanted to convey was much harder. | falcrist wrote: | The only really interesting thing here that cameraphones have | sort of pushed photography to use shorter focal lengths more | often. Some photographers feel the shorter focal lengths feel | "more authentic" somehow. | | Other than that, this looks like someone with a smartphone | trying a little too hard to "do photography" yet not bothering | to travel to a nicer venue. | amelius wrote: | Worse, advertising photography has influenced what people | consider good looking people. | cm2012 wrote: | Movies and TV have a _much_ bigger impact on this than ads. | twic wrote: | Talking about what good and bad means in photography always | reminds me of Miroslav Tichy, who said "if you want to be famous, | you must do something more badly than anybody in the entire | world", and took terrible but strangely brilliant photos with | homemade cameras: | | https://flashbak.com/photographs-by-the-perverted-flaneur-mi... | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miroslav_Tich%C3%BD | soneca wrote: | Funny, without context (that I am unwilling to pursue atm, just | skipped the whole article for the photos) they just look | terrible pictures. Period. | staticautomatic wrote: | I think many of them are great and it has little to do with | the "quality" being bad. | CabSauce wrote: | It looks to me like the pictures may have been for his... | uhh... own self-gratification. | tyingq wrote: | Had that reaction too, and it's not just us :) | | _" Tichy was frequently arrested for hanging around the | local pool and snapping pictures of unsuspecting women."_ | | https://www.howardgreenberg.com/artists/miroslav-tich | | Though he seems to have made quite a lot of effort in the | handmade cameras and deliberate processing techniques. | falcrist wrote: | Adding context does little to change that, unfortunately. | | I could understand if they evoked some kind of emotions or | served as a deconstruction of photography technique, but most | of them just look like deliberately bad photographs to me. | | Then again, I'm only an amateur at photography. | Jensson wrote: | I'd guess they invoked nostalgia in other photographers at | the time about their old bad photos, so they thought it was | brilliant. Like an inside thing only they understood. | wavefunction wrote: | I like them and it's simply because they evoke an | intellectual and emotional reaction. That's art. | falcrist wrote: | I get nothing from them. Does that make them _not_ art? | caconym_ wrote: | I would guess GP was trying to explain what they enjoy | about these photographs in the context of their putative | classification as art, not offering a definition of art | itself. This would be in contrast with the comment they | replied to, which implied that this photographer and his | work are "famous" only thanks to an indulgent, | masturbatory sort of appreciation among critics, other | artists, and their general ilk. | wavefunction wrote: | For you, perhaps. I don't think there is an objective | truth of "this is art, this is not art." I shared my | experience of the pictures with you. Art is the | experience of Art imo. | jstrH wrote: | Having seen 100s of high def birds, mountains, weddings, even | pro photos are pretty repetitive. | | These say interpretive art to me more than every pixel of yet | another nature shot, or airbrushed person. They make my | imagination curious about the world within. | | When all the details are there just as they would be outside, | why not just go outside? | mdoms wrote: | Yup, you can't just take awful photos and say "these are good | actually". Well, in the art world you can get away with that | kind of nonsense. But to most people those are just terrible | photos. | kergonath wrote: | There are various philosophical and artistic movements for | which art should not look like art. Others are about art | being abstract, inaccessible and incomprehensible. Others | yet are about use of archaic techniques to blend a modern | eye with faux nostalgia (proto-hipsters, one could say). | | There is not one kind of art. | | Art does not need to be popular or broadly understood to be | art. | | You are not a majority anyway. | | Good taste, feeling, and emotions are personal. | dagw wrote: | There is no contradiction between something being both a | terrible photo (or painting or sculpture) from a technical | perspective and art. | pcrh wrote: | >without context | | That's an effect of perspective. Knowing the fact that the | "home made" appearance is deliberate changes the photos from | being random bad photos to being commentary. | markmark2021 wrote: | So this is the worlds most famous upskirt photographer? | deertick1 wrote: | Kind of taken aback by all the people saying these are just | shitty photos. I think they are gorgeous... Do y'all think Lo- | fi music is just shitty music too? | | I guess its a little unsurprising coming from the usual HN | crowd lmao. | skrtskrt wrote: | Agreed, they are really beautiful. The bike in motion and | dancing feet in particular | nsxwolf wrote: | Curious, is "more badly" here an intentional joke? Or did he | mean "want it badly" in the sense of really wanting something? | gowld wrote: | It's itentional. He starts with, "First of all, you have to | have a bad camera". | lmilcin wrote: | Well, I took a look, they are just bad photos to me. I could | not find any redeeming quality. | Broken_Hippo wrote: | From the wikipedia article: "...using homemade cameras | constructed of cardboard tubes, tin cans and other at-hand | materials" | | I mean... I don't know if I'd take perfect pictures with such | equipment, especially not if I'm trying to do it secretly. | lmilcin wrote: | This is not about technical quality. They just don't look | or have anything interesting in them. | chakalakasp wrote: | I'm a photographer and I'll be honest, I clicked on these | fully expecting to not like them (usually when people say | "look at these photos, they look like terrible photos taken | with a bad camera until you, like, _get it_ , man" what they | really mean is that the photographer knew the right | pretentious people at the right time in history)... | | ... but I actually like them. I wish I could explain why; | he's doing some clever stuff here. Some of it is kinda pervy | and it feels like TMI, but he's at least being clever. There | are a few photos that feel like you are voyeuristically | peeking through time, the defects in the photos are like | peeking through bushes to see something interesting. But | mostly I can't explain why I like it. I just do. | helloworld11 wrote: | I'm curious, show an example of what you consider to be good | photos, if you don't mind taking a moment. | [deleted] | lmilcin wrote: | I don't think I can explain to you by showing _an_ example. | Also, I type this on a phone and don 't have access to my | collection. | | A good photo looks interesting or has something interesting | in it or comes with some interesting context. | | These are more or less random photos taken with a bad | camera. That's it. | | Now, I don't say you need good camera for good photos. You | can make interesting photos with any camera. And you can | also use bad camera for interesting effect. | | But, again, these photos don't show any kind of plan, | thought, deliberation, interesting subject, context, | technique, nothing. | panta wrote: | A good photo does not need to be interesting, since it | doesn't need to appeal to intellect to be good. A photo | can be good just by provoking an emotional reaction in | the viewer. | caconym_ wrote: | > A good photo looks interesting or has something | interesting in it or comes with some interesting context. | | To my eye, these photos have all three of those things. | | You don't have to like them yourself, but it seems a bit | much to imply that they are objectively without value as | art. | kergonath wrote: | > You don't have to like them yourself, but it seems a | bit much to imply that they are objectively without value | as art. | | There is nothing objective about art anyway. | | I agree with you, though. There is something in these. | Some kind of motion. Some kind of primitive, wild | instincts as well. As if a bear had found a camera, and | he were more interested by ladies than about anything | else. | mslate wrote: | Back when "street photography" meant snooping on unsuspecting | women | kebman wrote: | The imperfections serve as a kind of verfremdungseffekt, making | the viewer aware that he's looking at a photograph, rather than | at a person. As such Rene Magritte comes to mind. It is | fascinating that he made his own camera, though. That certainly | adds to the quality of the images, though it's of course a kind | of non-diegetic contents. He said, with a wry smile. | stavros wrote: | Is it just me or has the quality of GPT-3 comments declined | recently? | glxxyz wrote: | I think I've used that 'homemade camera' Instagram filter. | yawaworht1978 wrote: | Yes the craft of photography has gone mainstream with digital. | Easier to use for the average person, with filters and effects, | but doesn't make the average users professionals. Mobile phone | images are the new throwaway polaroid. However, the professionals | with digital equipment do some incredible things. | ngokevin wrote: | The business of photography is more marketing than craft these | days. Even professional photography is a commodity. | | There are some people that stretch the art of photography, but | they are more digital artists than photographers. They take a | lot of the creativity into the post-processing and Photoshop | stage. Most professional photography these days is just right- | place-right-time and tweaking in Lightroom. | ScaleneTriangle wrote: | The example of a selfie is in fact, not a selfie. | poetaster wrote: | Statue selfies should become a genre ! I will contribute. | Panini_Jones wrote: | It's a picture of people taking a selfie. I think that | communicates what a selfie is better than an actual selfie. | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | The caption says, somewhat ambiguously, "Example of a | selfie". | | That could mean "this image is an example of a selfie" (which | is false). Alternatively it could mean "this image shows an | example of a selfie being taken" (which is true). | [deleted] | mc32 wrote: | Sure but they are showing someone who we can presume completed | taking a selfie. Though, arguably, the photographer we do not | see, being further away would have taken a better (less | distorted) picture, if the self photographer hadn't hogged up | the view. | | In any case, I'd be curious to have joerg colberg's take on | this. Looks like he touches upon it tangentially[1] but not | full on. | | [1]https://cphmag.com/real-world/ | function_seven wrote: | Ha. Now I want to see the photo of that one being taken. | | Something like this: | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/cmwov/_/c0tpyls/ | | EDIT: If you don't want to wade through that thread, here's a | single image strip of that OP descending into madness as he | shows how he took the "k-1" photo: | https://i.imgur.com/Z12CC.jpg | dheera wrote: | I frequently see people say online that they "took a selfie of" | something else these days. This language really bothers me. | VonGallifrey wrote: | I have heard that as well, but the selfie in those cases was | them with whatever they said. So it is more a short form of | "took a photo of me with..." which I think is OK. | coldtea wrote: | This points to a deep rooted problem. Probably OCD. | | (Ha, you expected me to write about a problem in how people | use language, got ya :-) | scubbo wrote: | Or, a deeply-rooted assumption that "conformance to some | arbitrary rules that have been adopted as signifiers of | intelligence and class" is in some way an admirable | quality, rather than the abilities to infer meaning in the | face of ambiguity and to update one's mental model in | response to new information (also known as "intelligence") | mc32 wrote: | I took a self-portrait of... It's people not thinking through | what they are saying and rather relying on stock phrases to | relay information. | cstrahan wrote: | > relying on stock phrases to relay information | | You can see this in other common phrases. | | Take "miles per hour" for example. I've met plenty of | people who can't figure out how long it would take to get | from A to B at X mph. They'll deliberate over how they know | from running on their treadmill that they run (on average) | at 8 mph, and they recall that it usually takes them Y | minutes to run Z miles, and then they factor in the | diameter of their car's wheels (because surely a car with | larger wheels gets there faster for the same mph vs a car | with smaller wheels), and finally sprinkle in a bit of | multiplication to arrive at their best guestimate. | | That is, plenty of people don't realize that "per" means | "for each", and that it's not some singular word | "milesperhour", but a phrase meaning "miles traveled for | every hour spent travelling". | | Other fun phrases thrown around without understanding (or | with similar words mistakenly swapped in): | | Miles per gallon. | | For all intensive purposes. | | Nip it in the butt. | | Bone apple tea. | Spivak wrote: | Maybe, but it's way more likely that they mean "I took a | picture of something with myself in the frame." | | A selfie can really be any picture where you're holding the | camera and in the frame. The subject of the photo can be | something other than you. | | "I took a selfie with..." means that I and the other thing | are the subjects. | | "I took a selfie of..." means that the other thing is the | subject I'm just in the picture. | dheera wrote: | No, I very often see people say things like "I took a | selfie of my dog" and only the dog is in the picture. | kubanczyk wrote: | In my native language we have a running joke that goes like | this: - I had a fie. - ??? | - Ah, it's just like selfie, but when someone else is making | it for you. | | (Originally: _jebka_ / _samojebka_ ) | mdoms wrote: | At a restaurant someone from a group of youngs once handed me | her phone and asked me to "take a selfie of us". | ZacharyPitts wrote: | My most upvoted reddit comment ever was when I posted a | "Sacagawea selfie"... by sticking my camera at the end of a | statue's arm: https://i.imgur.com/UXRUx8q.jpeg | majormajor wrote: | It's right under the paragraph about the "plandid," and it | seems to be a perfect example of that, though the caption makes | it ambiguous re: intent. | brudgers wrote: | That's the point. You accept it as a picture of someone taking | a selfie. Not just of someone taking a selfie but doing it | competently. | | It's how I am supposed to picture myself to make a good | selfie...and also how selfies are cast as shallow to make them | easy to dismiss. | | Even though Ansel Adams' self portraits will hang on gallery | walls as dearly priced artifacts. | [deleted] | aaronbrethorst wrote: | _But bromine, iodine, chlorine, and silver could not fix an even | greater failing of early photographs, their impermanence_ | | Good pun. | syncsynchalt wrote: | I have to guess a little at what you mean. My guess is the word | "fix", having only been tangentially involved with photography | are these the chemicals that we now call "fixer"? | aaronbrethorst wrote: | Fixer is a class of chemicals used in wet photography to | reduce impermanent, light-sensitive silver ions to permanent | metallic silver. | cryptoz wrote: | Related: Do iPhone or Android cameras have a smoothing filter | that is default-on and that cannot be turned off? Been wondering | about this. | cratermoon wrote: | All camera phones do heavy processing of the captured pixels. | This is known as "computational photography". The camera | software is the only thing that keeps the average camera phone | picture in the realm of "that's a picture of the thing I meant | to take a picture of". | sudosysgen wrote: | Yes, as noise removal. | knolan wrote: | Yes, but some phones give you raw files and some apps can | bypass the additional processing. | | iOS https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211965 | | Android https://www.androidbeat.com/2018/10/pixel-3-how-shoot- | raw-dn... | | Alternative iOS camera app: | | https://halide.cam/ | zimpenfish wrote: | As a bonus, Halide also gives you proper control over which | lens is being used in 2x mode - the iOS camera will flip | between the 1x lens and 2x lens for 2x depending on focal | distance - makes a right mess of things if you've got an | extension lens screwed into 2x... | brudgers wrote: | For whatever if anything it might be worth, I would recommend | Beil's book if you find the ideas in the article interesting. | | I mean the American Method is still running round in photographic | circles as obsession with corner sharpness as a marker of self | seriousness...and that's where the book starts. | | If I had an unmet need, it is the entirety American focus of the | book leaves me a bit blind to the bigger picture. What was it | like, I wonder, in Japan? | | But then again, good books should raise new questions because new | questions are the mark of learning. Beil's book certainly feels | like a potentially "important book" on US photographic history to | me. YMMV. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-08-30 23:00 UTC)