That's not a photo?

ride5000 wrote in post #14929976
this whole thread is filled with out-of-hand dismissals by a bunch of guys with cameras who fancy themselves artists.

it's as if pointing an image-capture machine, twisting a few dials, and pushing a button is the pinnacle of the creative process...

I studied fine arts (painting, drawing and sculpture) and have spent my entire adult life making a living creating photorealistic imagery for some of the top film studios in the world.

But by all means, go ahead and dismiss people when you haven't even the faintest idea who any of us are or what skills or knowledge we may possess. For what it's worth, I think it's a little sad that you appear to be dismissing photography as an artform there. Perhaps you don't see it as one, but by doing so you're missing out on a world of creativity through the lens.

FlyingPhotog wrote in post #14924545
Seeing light and shadow is a skill that can be learned. The ability to reproduce it in specific media is a gift.

Noooooo, no. Just, no. The use of the word "gift" there implies that it's some magical ability that you're differentiating from your former sentence about skills that can be learned. The two are no different; mastering different art mediums is entirely a product of learning and practising, just like photography. Human beings are learning machines; one of our primary differences from other animals is our ability to master the use of tools, whether they're hammers, pens or cameras.

Very impressive. I very much admire artists who can draw, paint, etc.

Pablo Picasso really taught me the most important lesson about art.

For years I naively thought Picasso painted the way he did because he couldn't do "real" painting (as my mind imagined). It wasn't that I didn't like abstract art, but I was so ignorant.

Then I went to see his work one year, and noticed that his early stuff is dead-on realistic. As I traveled the exhibit of about a hundred paintings, I soon came to the cubism and other stuff he did. It was then that I realized how great he really was, and it change my whole perception of art.

I used to think the same about singers. I thought, "it's hard to learn drums, guitar, keyboard, etc., but anyone can grab a mic and sing. That's the easiest job in a band.

So naive. Only later did I learn that if you want to be a good singer (and I think it's within all of us) you have to literally feel the song and put your emotion into it, and then you are fully exposed for all to see. You let them in. Singing is extremely difficult.


Good find, Rick.

MikeFairbanks wrote in post #14940053
Pablo Picasso really taught me the most important lesson about art.

For years I naively thought Picasso painted the way he did because he couldn't do "real" painting (as my mind imagined). It wasn't that I didn't like abstract art, but I was so ignorant.

Then I went to see his work one year, and noticed that his early stuff is dead-on realistic. As I traveled the exhibit of about a hundred paintings, I soon came to the cubism and other stuff he did. It was then that I realized how great he really was, and it change my whole perception of art.

I rather imagine many people share your former view of Picasso. A common adage taught in art school is that you need to learn and master the rules before you can effectively break them, and Picasso is a great example of this. His early work is very conventional in the traditional sense, in that his paintings were quite realistic and followed trends of the time. He then went off entirely on his own tangent, founding and co-founding entirely new artistic styles - he's the classic case of the artist who learned the rules before breaking them.

And this is why many artists, including myself, associate obsession with photorealism with beginner artists or non-artists with only a superficial knowledge of art; because they're still unaware of the satisfaction of breaking with convention. For a great many artists, realism is their stepping stone into the world of art, from which they then branch off into various schools of stylisation, leaving realism behind.

onona wrote in post #14938396
I studied fine arts (painting, drawing and sculpture) and have spent my entire adult life making a living creating photorealistic imagery for some of the top film studios in the world.

well i guess we all know where the arrogance comes from then.

i believe the record will show who dismissed what first.

have a nice day!

Arrogance? What arrogance? There's been absolutely nothing even remotely arrogant about any of my posts - in fact, my posts have been the very opposite of arrogance, as instead of acting like I'm some special little snowflake with an unattainable magic skill, I've repeatedly emphasised the fact that anyone can learn to do what realistic reproductions if they simply persevere, because art skills, like any skill, can be learned. If I was arrogant, I'd certainly not have done this, would I?

And where did I "dismiss" anything? If you think I dismissed these drawings as worthless, then you haven't actually read my posts at all, and are instead acting like a big baby, because you can't handle the fact that your frankly stupid suggestion that anyone not utterly enamoured with the work is a talentless hack turned out to be incorrect. News flash: the guy who drew those ballpoint pen drawings doesn't need some self-appointed forum crusader defending his honour against imagined slights aimed at his work. If you can't discuss something without erroneously perceiving those with a different view as being arrogant, then I'd suggest avoiding discussions like this. For myself, I'm just going to go ahead and add you to my ignore list, because I can't be bothered to deal with your inferiority complex and passive aggression - if my posts provoke such ire in you, do the same and save yourself the high blood pressure.