emotional pictures

cdifoto wrote in post #5548074
What amazes me is how many self-proclaimed art experts will insinuate that a person is uneducated, unappreciative, or unable to "see" just because some of the so-called greats' work does not appeal to that person.

I agree and I had the same discussion with Air' ... I think our friend just has a way of saying things and maybe a more book eduKated perspective. Mine is more raw and I know exactly what I like whether I have educated myself on stuff or not. Sitting in front of an Ansel ain't gonna change my view on them. I like 'em but zero response and that isn't because I ain't eduKaTed about him or don't understand his process and know about his life. I am and I do.

So Air' please don't assume that there is something missing in people that don't like what you like. My mate Skinnyhead loves the band UB40 and I think they are a poor replacement for genuine roots reggae. I seen them live too and was bored to death. If I read all their biographies and listened to their musaK 'til my ears bled and I became comotose I still wouldn't like 'em. All sorts like all sorts. End of story. We ain't right or wrong.

Some family photos and anything that has a seriously injured kid in it, such as the shot from several years ago of a firefighter carrying a child from the bombing at a federal building.

condyk wrote in post #5548239
I agree and I had the same discussion with Air' ... I think our friend just has a way of saying things and maybe a more book eduKated perspective. Mine is more raw and I know exactly what I like whether I have educated myself on stuff or not. Sitting in front of an Ansel ain't gonna change my view on them. I like 'em but zero response and that isn't because I ain't eduKaTed about him or don't understand his process and know about his life. I am and I do.

So Air' please don't assume that there is something missing in people that don't like what you like. My mate Skinnyhead loves the band UB40 and I think they are a poor replacement for genuine roots reggae. I seen them live too and was bored to death. If I read all their biographies and listened to their musaK 'til my ears bled and I became comotose I still wouldn't like 'em. All sorts like all sorts. End of story. We ain't right or wrong.

you get no argument from me but its kinda hard to understand something if its shut off before its given a chance and kinda hard to comment on something you haven't seen. But see you took the time to see UB 40. I'm not a landscape photographer and don't like all of Adams or Westons work. But I can appreciate what they create and thats not book thats actually experiencing.

airfrogusmc wrote in post #5548280
its kinda hard to understand something if its shut off before its given a chance and kinda hard to comment on something you haven't seen.

But I have seen it. Just not in the way you insist is the only right way. I'm sorry but some things just don't "speak" to me and I don't need to go to a gallery just to confirm it. A tree isn't going to get any kind of response out of me.

Maybe it's you who needs to try to understand something...and that is that not everyone enjoys the same things in life, is going to enjoy the same things in life, or even wants to enjoy the same things in life.

It won't cost you a dime in most galleries. A museum maybe and you certainly have a right to see it or not. I'm just saying and have been saying that seeing the actual prints is a much different experience.

I get more pleasure out of creating my own images than looking at what other big names have done and analyzing it to death.

airfrogusmc wrote in post #5548322
I'm just saying and have been saying that seeing the actual prints is a much different experience.

This is quite a step back from what you've really been saying. No one's going to argue that looking in a book is the same as looking in a gallery, but you can certainly understand and appreciate without seeing it in a gallery.

If a book isn't good enough for appreciation, learning, and understanding, there would be no books.

Case in point: I love seeing the work of some of the artists mentioned, but I get much more excited about a good forum fight any day.

Ok lets see if I can articulate this without offending. To fully understand what a great B&W print is you really need to see one. I mentioned these two because they have produced some incredible full range B&W images. Also to get a real good grip on what a good really good B&W is you need to spend some time doing it. I spent 30 years in the wet darkroom. Thats not book and I understand what a good B&W print is from both looking allot at original B&Ws and printing allot of B&W images. The reason all of this is so important is to know how to make a good digital B&W you need to know where the bar has been set. Adams and Weston are but two that have set the bar. You see it all the time digital photographer that don't understand why their prints that have no highlight detail or shadow detail are not good. Its usually because they haven't seen a really great B&W print either a great digital B&W or a really good silver gelatin print. This isn't directed at anyone its a general observation. You need to know what a good B&W looks like something to draw on when your making one. Now whether thats going to see really good original ones from the masters or any really good photographer/printer thats up to you. But life is a whole lot easier when you know what a good print is suppose to look like. Now back to emotion impact there are several images by many photographers that the light for me can make the image emotional.

airfrogusmc wrote in post #5548322
I'm just saying and have been saying that seeing the actual prints is a much different experience.

i do agree with that of course and in London we are pretty blessed with galleries and such. Some things you just see and you get but others don't care and all is good. I might see the prints and still not have much response.

The 'getting' lies within us, a personal response based upon our own prior temperament, experiences and meanings, rather than something that can be educated in; which isn't what you're saying but can sound that way.

I love Joyce and Beckett and Berkhoff and I knew as soon as I saw them or read them. later I enjoyed them even more by reading and finding out. Same with Klee but not Picasso, same with Mandela but not Hitler, same with Buddhism but not Christianity, same with Africa but not America. Was always the initial and raw 'something', a first perception of 'I get and don't need to know why' that made me like them, not reading about them and then kinda deciding maybe I should like 'em ... because I should.

EDIT: I agree with what you say about the prints and the process. I would get that. i just wouldn't necessarily get how attractive a tree or mountain is within an image as not my bag

Stocky wrote in post #5548367
Case in point: I love seeing the work of some of the artists mentioned, but I get much more excited about a good forum fight any day.

Not enough excitement in your neck of the woods Stocky? You wanted emotion, you got it. The way I see it art is viewed on so many levels that they are all right.

airfrogusmc wrote in post #5548414
Ok lets see if I can articulate this without offending. To fully understand what a great B&W print is you really need to see one. I mentioned these two because they have produced some incredible full range B&W images. Also to get a real good grip on what a good really good B&W is you need to spend some time doing it. I spent 30 years in the wet darkroom. Thats not book and I understand what a good B&W print is from both looking allot at original B&Ws and printing allot of B&W images. The reason all of this is so important is to know how to make a good digital B&W you need to know where the bar has been set. Adams and Weston are but two that have set the bar. You see it all the time digital photographer that don't understand why their prints that have no highlight detail or shadow detail are not good. Its usually because they haven't seen a really great B&W print either a great digital B&W or a really good silver gelatin print. This isn't directed at anyone its a general observation. You need to know what a good B&W looks like something to draw on when your making one. Now whether thats going to see really good original ones from the masters or any really good photographer/printer thats up to you. But life is a whole lot easier when you know what a good print is suppose to look like. Now back to emotion impact there are several images by many photographers that the light for me can make the image emotional.

Now this I can get behind. But that's because it goes into the technical skill of making a B&W print, and that would be impressive regardless of the subject. It still wouldn't evoke an emotion from me because a well-made B&W print of a toenail could impress me from a technical standpoint. That doesn't mean the toenail "speaks to me" in a pretentious art-critic kind of way and the same goes for the landscapes and trees.

Personally, I can appreciate the technical aspect of a print. I'm in the same boat as cdi though, a photo of a tree won't evoke me to tears or strike some kind of powerful emotion in me. It's a picture of a tree. Sure, it might have some awesome detail, neato features and incredible shape from years of aging, but to me, it's still a tree.

I DO appreciate the effort gone into it. But all you'll get out of me is "damn, that's a really nice print."

I've seen some photos that HAVE evoked emotions from me, and it's mostly people related. A young boy looking at me after having his legs amputated because he stepped into a land mine and just happened to be at the wrong place... to me, that's emotion. Heck, I've seen some images HERE, taken by some of the folks in the people section that have gotten reactions out of me. Soldier's caskets being carried to their final destinations with the American flag draped over it.. it's really quite powerful.

I've often been moved by photography-usually showing something very touching, such as a relationship of some kind, or something traumatic, such as photographs of a tragedy.

As far as for a landscape 'moving' me, it would be much less likely.

Last year, I saw Adam's works at a museum exhibition for the first time, and despite having seen quality reproductions of his photos in books and such, I was hit by the richness of the tones and the illumination. No, trees and mountains do not "choke me up," but the pure aesthetics of the experience was, for me, pretty poignant.

As for the subject matter itself, there's one that stands out, mothers holding up pictures of their missing sons during wartime…two come to mind, a German mother amongst a crowd of soldiers returning from the Eastern Front at the end of WWII and a Chechen mother.