> From: PDML [mailto:pdml-boun...@pdml.net] On Behalf Of Bill > Sent: 11 August 2013 04:58 > To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List > Subject: Re: A thought-provoking conversation on the death of > "snapshots" > > On 10/08/2013 12:44 PM, John wrote: > > I don't think snapshots have anything to do with "best work". > Cartier-Bresson, as brilliant a photographer as he was, was > little more than a snapshooter. If I am not mistaken, his > printing was done by a lab. >
that doesn't make someone a snapshooter, and HCB was far from that. His photos are rigorous in their timing and composition. His sense of geometry is superb and his nose for the event was exceptional. He was trained in composition and spent his life among great artists, and indeed is one of them, so that it was part of his character and being. He was the very antithesis of the snapshooter, at least as I understand the term, even if he did take pictures quickly, and even if he was very self-deprecating, not to say disparaging of photography at times. > just sayin. > > > > They're memories we want (need?) to keep. The important > images aren't > > even on the paper. > > > Good photographs evoke some sort of memory in us. None of the > shit that is passed of as "the rules", be it compositional or > technical, matter a whit if the image doesn't tap into an > emotional response of some sort. > What matters is does the image grab some part of you and hold > on to it. > Good, effective photography (or indeed any of the visual arts) are no different from writing in that they depend for their effectiveness on some sort of grammar. Good writing is not, by and large, just a random scattering of words on a page, presented to the world without any kind of selection process. It's a process of trying out different arrangements, then selecting the ones you think have something to offer. Even someone like Pollock, who relied to some extent on chance and randomness to produce his work, selected what he showed to the world. Analysis after the fact will tend to show that the most successful have certain properties in common, and these properties tend to cluster around the so-called rules. It follows from this that if you want to be successful in whatever it is you're trying to do with your photos, or your writing, or watercolours or elephant dung, you are more likely to be so if you use the available grammar, or perhaps deliberately abuse it with malice aforethought, depending on what you and your public thinks success is. Otherwise any success you may have is an accident and not something you can hope to repeat except by chance. B -- 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.
