Photography News August 9, 2021

Photography News August 9, 2021

Quote: “The three elements I look for to make a photo: Light, Layers, Subject” – Deanne Fitzmaurice

Articles: 
Symbolism in Fine Art – Brooke Shaden – 9m 14s
Creating Artist Books and Portfolios – Harold Davis – 1h 18m
How to Make the Best of a Bad Location
‘My Camera’s Not Good Enough’ and 7 Other Stupid Things Photographers Say
Shot on iPhone 12 – Everyday Experiments: Full Bloom – Apple – 3m
Photographing the Heart of an Active Volcano – 20m

Thought for the day: What is a Great (Photographer/Photograph/etc)?

I was struck by a comment by someone commenting on an article who was complaining as to why a well know art photographer should be called “Great” (1).

The person complaining wasn’t someone I had heard of, but his comment made me think, “what is great?”. The Mona Lisa? We know that is great because all the art (critics/art-books/travel-guides) say it is great. A person who received an MFA in painting could probably talk for hours on why the Mona Lisa is great.

But think of the audience and the presentation. Instagrammers may get millions of likes, but how many of their images could scale in size to a mural? The Masters in a camera club got there by competition with their peers, but are they as good as someone with an MFA (in our club, someone who did have an MFA in painting, wasn’t rated a Master but rather an Advanced photographer)?

The complainer may have been confused as to who the audience was. He may not have been interested in or viewed many classical black and white landscapes or he might not have had the “training” to understand what he was seeing. Or he may have been irate that his wonderful pictures were ignored by the world (2)

(1) The photographer who was called “great” is Roman Loranc. And yes I think he is great.

A different article but on topic: Is Ansel Adams Still Relevant? – Fstoppers

(2) If you want to be “great” or “well recognized” in a field you need to understand your audience and market your work to that audience. And that includes the viewing skill and preferences of that audience.

(3) Many successful professional photographers spend up to 90% of their time marketing, not making images. I’m not interested in doing that.

Artist of the Week/Portfolio: Renée Jacobs – Conversation

The content of this blog post done in collaboration with one of our members, Greg Edwards: http://gregoryedwards.slickpic.site