Renowned Photographer Jeff Mitchum's Masterpiece "Third Day" Sells For $1.8 Million

airfrogusmc wrote in post #16840891
Did ya see all the repeating shapes? Can you find the arrow? The beautiful composition? It's not a portrait and the guy is only part of the entire image. clue (look hard in the background) and then ask yourself how difficult it is to see all of the that in a moment and then have the reflexes to capture it. Did you watch the Meyerowitz piece that I posted?

I would argue that the light was perfect for that moment and that image....

try this...
http://erickimphotogra​phy.com …about-street-photography/

That's all part of the composition, and part of what makes it so dramatic.

It's an inherent part of any decent photo - any photographer would have seen it as a dramatic way of presenting the subject.

Shadowblade wrote in post #16840894
So? There are repeating shapes and geometry - so what? If the work doesn't beautify, or if it doesn't instantly speak to a lay viewer, what's the point of it?

The point of it is to speak to those of us who have taken the time to appreciate more than what is immediately obvious.

This is a brilliant image. I'm sorry you don't appreciate why that is, but it truly is your loss.

edge100 wrote in post #16840907
The point of it is to speak to those of us who have taken the time to appreciate more than what is immediately obvious.

This is a brilliant image. I'm sorry you don't appreciate why that is, but it truly is your loss.

In other words, it's preaching to the choir.

Shadow, so you are basically saying so what if those elements are the basics of visual language and the key to what visual art is about Not to be confused with rules...2000 + year of two dimensional art to help define the language and maybe a little work on a personal level to start becoming fluent and that will free you from all rules.

yes Bressons vision was brilliant if only because he saw the world differently and helped re-define an art form..You can hate his work all you want but to not recognize the significance I find sad....

art is a very personal thing and you can't force someone to like something if they have zero interest on the subject, likewise if you don't like something, it doesn't mean it's junk

photography is still a very young art compared to sculpture, painting, music, etc and IMO one of the main reason why a lot of people doesn't appreciate it yet, it hasn't had the time to mature yet and looks very similar to what our eyes are seeing.
btw HCB was mostly interested on painting, hence why his photos reflects that (lines, geometry, patterns), these are perfect examples imo
here and here

to me, why I love photography, film specifically is because of what it is, snippets of time, often missed or overlooked, forever preserved on a small piece of film or paper thanks to keen photographers.

i love looking at photos from the 20s-70s as I wasn't born yet on those time and to me, it's like looking at a different world

Shadowblade wrote in post #16840908
In other words, it's preaching to the choir.

History has shown that his work is extremely significant.
A great exhibit from a few years go. You should have seen it. Knowledge of even things that you don't understand or like will only make you a better photographer. I say step out of that cave...

One of the truly great exhibits from the last few years.
http://www.artic.edu …/Cartier-Bresson/overview

And look at all of the influence he has had on photography.

Look at who he has influenced.

Frank, Winogrand, Meyerowitz, Friedlander, Gilden, Davidson, Lyon to only name a few and so many other great photographers.

airfrogusmc wrote in post #16840919
Shadow, so you are basically saying so what if those elements are the basics of visual language and the key to what visual art is about Not to be confused with rules...2000 + year of two dimensional art to help define the language and maybe a little work on a personal level to start becoming fluent and that will free you from all rules.

yes Bressons vision was brilliant if only because he saw the world differently and helped re-define an form..You can hate his work all you want but to not recognize the significance I find sad....

In the same way that words are the building blocks of written language. Most books contain words. But just containing the basics of the language doesn't make a book any good.

I don't get the significance of his photos at all. They just look like old, badly-taken and unprocessed photos.

Edge a great quote by Ralph Gibson which I'm sure that you know but in support of your statement
"A good photograph, like a good painting, speaks with a loud voice and demands time and attention if it is to be fully perceived. An art lover is perfectly willing to hang a painting on a wall for years on end, but ask him to study a single photograph for ten unbroken minutes and he’ll think it’s a waste of time. Staying power is difficult to build into a photograph. Mostly, it takes content. A good photograph can penetrate the subconscious – but only if it is allowed to speak for however much time it needs to get there." - Ralph Gibson

Most great work are ones you rarely get immediate gratifaction from. They are the ones that are built on strong use of language and the more you look the more you see on repeat viewing. THe ones that give on immediate gratifaction are seen gotten move on no need to keep looking for more. It's all so apparent. The great work is work that keeps you coming back nd seeing more in it. That creates staying power.

Most here on POTN think in terms of the one great photo. That will no more make you a great photographer than one great at bat makes an MVP. Getting to real personal expression and to help develop a style it is usually bodies of work that lead to that. It's wrk that is much more than one good photograph but many good photographs that work together to form a larger more important whole. Like pieces of a puzzle working together and supporting something more important.

Seeing some of the artist in the work is so important. It's one thing that separates those that have it from those that don't. The easiest thing to do as an artist is tp make work that looks like everyone else's. It takes courage and vision to find your own path.

Shadowblade wrote in post #16840944
In the same way that words are the building blocks of written language. Most books contain words. But just containing the basics of the language doesn't make a book any good.

I don't get the significance of his photos at all. They just look like old, badly-taken and unprocessed photos.

You don't have to appreciate or understand it, but that doesn't make it bad or meaningless to others who do. It also doesn't make it any less a piece of art, and even the best works of art do not have to be appreciated by all viewers.

airfrogusmc wrote in post #16840933
History has shown that his work is extremely significant.

Really?

How has his work advanced humanity, or changed its direction? Has it started/ended a war? Helped send man to the moon? Cured a disease? Laid the groundwork for future work that has given us a new super-material?

No, his work is not significant at all outside of the view of art insiders.

And, even if it were historically significant, it still doesn't make them any good. Hitler's paintings (before his political career, he was a painter) are historically significant, due to who he became. They're also crap.

Shadowblade wrote in post #16840944
In the same way that words are the building blocks of written language. Most books contain words. But just containing the basics of the language doesn't make a book any good.

I don't get the significance of his photos at all. They just look like old, badly-taken and unprocessed photos.

Even if that were true (it's not) but at least it looks like Bressons photograph and not another pretty picture. It is a meaningful photograph and that is a reason it has staying power and is beyond all the pretty stuff you see everyday that looks like every other pretty picture you see everyday and you can't ell one photogrpahers work form the next. . Those are nothing special. They are a dime a dozen but to put the elements and then a little of himself into the work Bresson will live on and some will get it and others wont but if you really look you will start to see.

Shadowblade wrote in post #16840957
Really?

How has his work advanced humanity, or changed its direction? Has it started/ended a war? Helped send man to the moon? Cured a disease? Laid the groundwork for future work that has given us a new super-material?

No, his work is not significant at all outside of the view of art insiders.

And, even if it were historically significant, it still doesn't make them any good. Hitler's paintings (before his political career, he was a painter) are historically significant, due to who he became. They're also crap.

Read!!!! There are a multitude of books on the history of photography and Bresson is in every one I have read. Photography, to become a legit art form on it's own, had to move away from imitating paintings like impressionism of the time late 1800s. Photographers were creating photographs that were imitating painting and that was referred to as pictorial photography. Then a movement started by Stieglitz, Weston Adams Cunningham and many more in the early to mid part of the 20th century (straight photography) that concentrated on the things that photography did best that no other art form could do. Bresson and many like him were also exploiting the things that only photography can do. Freeze a moment in time. Now, as a photographer, you suddenly had to see not only the moment but the other visual elements that painters had all the time in the world to put into their work, in a fraction of a second and then have the skill and the reflexes to capture that. Bresson was on of the masters of that moment.

And Hitler also was the one responsible for the degenerative art exhibit....Look it up....Modernists and abstract painters were not ones that created work that Hitler understood. He liked more representational work.

Great artist fled Europe and we in the US were the one the benefited from that migration for those lucky enough to get out. Some were imprisoned Sanders to name on)

Hitler was also very narrow in what he excepted as art.

Have you spent any time reading about Bresson or really looking at his work?
Your statement would tell me no... I suggest that you do.

Shadowblade wrote in post #16840850
I just don't see the point [of an artwork] if it doesn't beautify or entertain.

It's not like it has a practical application - it doesn't make vehicles move faster, let us build taller buildings or stronger bridges, or cure a disease. It just sits there. If it can't even look good, then what's the point of having it?

Put simply, it might make you think or feel or do both. It's there to provide an experience for viewers. But it won't do anything for you if you're not open to letting yourself have that experience. A piece of art doesn't work by itself. It can't operate without the viewer's participation.

As long as an artwork "just sits there" for you, you'll miss what it's about. The photo or painting will remain a cold external object, like a tool that belongs to someone else's trade that you haven't learned. You can see how the tool is shaped, you can describe its objective features, but you don't know what its parts are for or how to use it.