"Taking flash-on-camera head shots isn't necessarily high art you know..."
(Email from Peter-Andy)
Seeing all these great books, all this wonderfully creative photography makes me want so much to get off my duff and make something important myself. So much of the photography I am around everyday, is the same same BS. I think that has been the negative influence of the club world on me, as well as the average Joe photographers everywhere who sort of all see the wold the same way and say the same things with their cameras. The people who do the same boring landscapes (zone system mountains, old buildings and blurry moving water), typical portraits (smiling children), still life's (bottles and shadows, eye glasses and open books) and light painting over and over and over yet again. So many folks seem afraid to step out of the box that peer pressure and lack of imagination places on them.
I am also guilty of this rather limited narrowed minded approach to photography. To often my photography follows what is expected by my peers instead of what I should be reaching for from my heart and soul. There can be and and should be so much more to photography than following and doing what everyone else has already done to death. I need to delve more into the worlds of photographers like Anders Peteren, Vanessa Winship and this new guy Sobol. I need to think beyond what is expected, what is accepted and what the Edmonton photo people cliques feel is important.
I recently received an email from a well intentioned but rather artistically naive person who told me that direct flash was not really high art technique. That kind of rigid limited thinking is extremely destructive to creativity. We should all be open to everything, no rules makes for better art. As to direct flash, some of the greatest fine art photos ever made, some of highest selling works of all time were done with direct flash by photographers Weegee, Diane Arbus, Nan Goldin and Moriyama Daido. High art is not about the technique, it is about what the artist is saying and how effectively he/she is communicating their message. No rules, no rules, no rules!!
I would tell a person like Peter-Andy if they were my student to forget the rules, to instead open their minds to all possibilities when they create photographs, write prose etc. Whatever works works no need to be to anal when it comes to following trivial rules.
I was a bit blown away by the flash-on-camera headshot photo below, it was made by Anders Petersen. He does not follow any rules of what is high art and what is not, he simply makes pics that slap you ( the viewer) into another reality. I have yet to order this last book as it costs $47 CAD but will probably buy it eventually.
http://www.amazon.ca/Anders-Petersen-Hasse-Persson/dp/9171262830/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417776577&sr=8-1&keywords=anders+petersen
(Email from Peter-Andy)
Seeing all these great books, all this wonderfully creative photography makes me want so much to get off my duff and make something important myself. So much of the photography I am around everyday, is the same same BS. I think that has been the negative influence of the club world on me, as well as the average Joe photographers everywhere who sort of all see the wold the same way and say the same things with their cameras. The people who do the same boring landscapes (zone system mountains, old buildings and blurry moving water), typical portraits (smiling children), still life's (bottles and shadows, eye glasses and open books) and light painting over and over and over yet again. So many folks seem afraid to step out of the box that peer pressure and lack of imagination places on them.
I am also guilty of this rather limited narrowed minded approach to photography. To often my photography follows what is expected by my peers instead of what I should be reaching for from my heart and soul. There can be and and should be so much more to photography than following and doing what everyone else has already done to death. I need to delve more into the worlds of photographers like Anders Peteren, Vanessa Winship and this new guy Sobol. I need to think beyond what is expected, what is accepted and what the Edmonton photo people cliques feel is important.
I recently received an email from a well intentioned but rather artistically naive person who told me that direct flash was not really high art technique. That kind of rigid limited thinking is extremely destructive to creativity. We should all be open to everything, no rules makes for better art. As to direct flash, some of the greatest fine art photos ever made, some of highest selling works of all time were done with direct flash by photographers Weegee, Diane Arbus, Nan Goldin and Moriyama Daido. High art is not about the technique, it is about what the artist is saying and how effectively he/she is communicating their message. No rules, no rules, no rules!!
I would tell a person like Peter-Andy if they were my student to forget the rules, to instead open their minds to all possibilities when they create photographs, write prose etc. Whatever works works no need to be to anal when it comes to following trivial rules.
I was a bit blown away by the flash-on-camera headshot photo below, it was made by Anders Petersen. He does not follow any rules of what is high art and what is not, he simply makes pics that slap you ( the viewer) into another reality. I have yet to order this last book as it costs $47 CAD but will probably buy it eventually.
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| Direct flash photo by Anders Petersen fom his book "Anders Petersen" |
