Enjoyed the video. I too have no perceived or expected ability. Frustration at my crap images with a total lack of "J'ne ce quoi?" however? masses of it! I spend my entire existence thinking I will be fired tomorrow.
This video is in line with the phrase "a little knowledge is dangerous"
As for art. I look at people perceived as "good" or "masters" and a lot of the time I don't get it. I watch Portrait Artist of the year on Sky Arts with my eldest daughter and I never choose the same one as the judges. They always choose one of the weird ones. I just don't get it. I hear people cooing over a piece or an installation and I think it is crap... - further I assume it is a failing on my part that I cannot "see it".
As for the likes of Ansel, his work was amazing for the time. I think the excellence was related to the state of the art/technology back then. He shot film where he couldn't chimp and try again an almost infinite number of times, I read his book on 40 example photographs and IMHO he was a master of his time but today, he would be no more special than the hundreds of photographers we watch on YouTube. One story about climbing up to get Half Dome using a wet plate camera and he had 12 glasses, 12 exposures, 7 cracked on the climb up there, then a couple were ruined because he didn't have the lens fitted correctly etc. so then to get all the way up there and not be able to recover the image in post , so the pressure to get the shot was real so his skills back then were very strong. Now, we have such latitude in post that I think it is a completely different ball game now. Maybe I am wrong. I look at photographs from famous photographers, the likes of Helmut Newton, Ralph Gibson etc and their images are nice but not that special. Hell, Helmut Newton could be seen as a bit of a perv in some of his shots, but back then there was limited scope to compare it to so it was elevated to art. His images of the pool party for example are no better than photographic name dropping that anyone with a phone will now take and post with a nasty filter on instagram.
Playing with fire now, the famous image from Bresson of the guy jumping over the puddle, let's be honest, Bresson was there waiting to get a picture of the guy falling in and got lucky or the image of the family eating lunch on the riverbank? who cares!?!? ten a penny on instagram now.
I once asked a photographer why in the 19th century, no one smiled in a portrait. We settled on a belief (maybe wrong) that as photographs were so rare and so expensive back then, then the process of being photographed was a serious affair and so everyone was so serious. I think this is the core. as we have progressed through history, the bar has been raised massively in terms of what constitutes an amazing image.
Don't know, controversial comments here? am I am idiot, don't know, probably.... whimsical moment of musing over, back to work.
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Everybody sitting down?
Okay, good...now don't freak out too much when I say this, but Ansel Adams isn't even in my top ten favourite photographers.
I know. Shocking news, but calm down. Everything is going to be okay.
lol... didn't expect him to be... you are a portrait guy. Who is on your list out of interest?
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But... didn't he invent the selfie?
You know that expression right? you recognise it? that is the "Ah NO! I didnt mean to press the shutter button!" face.
