Tim just gave us some pretty macro flower pics. A lot of people will like them. I enjoy them as well and even really liked a couple. But as someone said a couple of weeks ago, the more seriously he takes his photography the less he shoots. The question is: How do we better our photography and get past cliche images? Can we take it more seriously without falling into either the trap of elitism or the trap of demanding a certain level of commitment from others? (That's the motivation behind my recent technical criticisms. We can do better without burning ourselves out.)
I think about the retirement home with little old ladies taking oil paint lessons so that they can do still life paintings of daisies. I wonder how many of us have nothing better in our imagination than warm fuzzies. And I think Tim senses some of this with the sarcasm in his title about beating us to a bloody pulp with these cliche images. In 2D art one can hardly get more cliche than pretty flowers. So the challenge is this: Make a picture say something. Make it say one word That is, other than Ahhhhh or Ooooooo. A real word. High. Long. Fast. Friend. Love. Charity. Cold. Hot. Soft. Hard. Tomorrow. Yesterday. Win. Lose. Amateur. Professional. Try. Succeed. Fail. Return. Leave. Strong. Weak. Majesty. Humility. Service. Nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs -- they all work. This can help you when you take pictures at kids baseball games or at a wedding. Capture more than just the people. Get their faces, their hands, their interactions with each other and the world around them, their full expressions. That's what makes the Ali(Wasn't he still C. Clay at the time) v Liston picture so special. http://www.sportsmemorabilia.com/sports-products/muhammad-ali-framed-8x10-photo---ali-over-sonny-liston.html Sorry about the rant, but cliche images bother me deeply. Sincerely, Collin Brendemuehl http://kerygmainstitute.org "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose" -- Jim Elliott -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
