Very Low Light Stuff

[Isabelle Lenatio]

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you mean Yes it includes the mastery of your tools...

[jaapv]

No I mean no. You used the word "opposed", which I denied by using "includes". Mastery of tools presupposes knowledge of their specifications

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[Isabelle Lenatio]

Well exactly what I mean Jaap ....

[jaapv]

Out of confusion arises consensus:)

[dpattinson]

Hmmm, I've been thinking about this a bit. I agree that mastery of your tools is vital if you want to be able to consistently produce your intended results.

 

However I think that to move forward, you have to push beyond your mastery and into the space where you are (at least personally) taking risks and learning.

 

One of the traps of focusing on technical mastery seem to be that it encourages repetition of known effective technique. Which is fine if it's pay-for-work, but not so fine if you want to avoid stagnation.

 

First you have to be unafraid to take a blurry photo, or at least be prepared to consider your accidentally blurred photos as having potential.. then you can go on to learning how to make a great blurry photo.

 

suffix... personally the tension between repeating known patterns and incrementally improving them vs. moving into new ideas and experiments (and failures) is what makes photography interesting to me.

[biglouis]

Just thought I'd add at the end of this massive thread how awful the original posted pictures are.

 

Any concept that these are acceptable examples of low light performance is an exercise in self-deception and self-denial.

 

I'm an enthusiastic supporter of the M8 but there are just some circumstances where I will not bother to try and use it, e.g. any situation requiring a higher speed than 1250.

 

LouisB

[RSL]

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Is that because you don't believe the rather uncontroversial point that given an infinite amount of time, anything that is possible will happen, or is it that you don't believe that a work brought about by accident can be art? In other words, does The Tempest as written by Shakespeare have more literary value than the exact same arrangement of words as written accidentally by our chimpanzee friends?

 

What's "uncontroversial" about it? This old saw has been around practically for an infinite amount of time and is no more true or "uncontroversial" now than it ever was. When you talk about something happening given an infinite amount of time you have to consider that the event may occur only after passage of an infinite amount of time. In other words, never!

 

I'm not going to get into the question of whether or not accidents can be "art." You'd have to begin by defining "art," and that would require an infinite amount of time to produce a definition everyone would accept. But in a spirit of full disclosure I have to say that I agree with Jaap: Even though wonderful things happen by chance, art doesn't happen that way.

 

As far as Frank's photographs are concerned, has anyone discussing them here actually looked at them? Almost all of them were taken in great haste. He's like Cartier-Bresson, a large part of whose work is also slightly out of focus or shows camera movement. He walks around LOOKING! When he sees something that strikes him he lifts his camera and shoots. Of course he can make sharp photographs. Who can't as long as he has time to set up the shot and get everything just right? Try doing what Frank's doing and see how many of your shots are precisely correct in all technical details. Frank's art consists not only of having mastered his equipment but of having an understanding of the significance of what he's seeing. The first part is what Jaap's talking about. Anyone hoping to produce art has to do that. The second part puts the technical skill to work. Just about anyone can do the first part. Only an artist can do the second part.

[Guest Essemmlee]

I'm no great photographer and my understanding of art is that if I like it, I like it.

 

These photos are just very dark, there is no shadow detail, no real focal point, and those that I can see are not interesting.

 

That's not to say they don't have artistic merit; I just can't see it.

 

I doubt I would have taken them (without flash). If I wanted to record the event I would have tried to get an interesting shot.

 

I may not have succeeded, but you wouldn't have seen the results.

[sean_reid]

Agreed. You only have to look at any of Robert Frank's books - I was looking at Paris (Steidl) only yesterday - to see how unimportant technical excellence can be. None of the photos are remotely sharp and the exposures are all over the place yet nothing is lost because of this. I can't see how any of the photos would be any more compelling had they been shot with sharper lenses using 'better' technique. In fact, looking at the book made me feel a bit embarrassed to think how much money I've spent ensuring I have the latest ASPH wunderlenses.

 

Hi Ian,

 

It's interesting to consider that Frank, of course, started as a commercial photographer in Switzerland and has excellent technical knowledge. I think he has let certain things go intentionally (up to and including shooting holes in "precious" prints). I once wrote about the beautifully and intensely blown highlights of that jukebox in "The Americans" in an essay called "Correct Exposure and Other Myths".

 

In other words, and perhaps you'll agree here, Frank has long known how his cameras and lenses draw and has used that camera-drawing consciously (think of those blurred "demons" around the girl in the elevator in that Frank picture which interested Kerouac so much). You're quite right, though, that neither he, nor Levitt, nor Winogrand have been (was) concerned with using technically perfect lenses, per se. Though, of course, Winogrand had specific lens preferences and Helen has been using the same core set of favorite lenses for decades now.

 

Winogrand, of course, trained as a painter before becoming a photographer.

 

Maybe this brings us around to where the thread started. When we know how a combination of lens and camera will draw (that 24 on the M8 at ISO 2500) do we choose to use that kind of drawing and, if so, how?

 

------------------

 

To All,

 

Speaking generally, I think it would be a mistake to place expression and technical control on opposite poles. The second is hollow without the first and the first is random without the second. That said, though, perhaps part of Imants' point was that some of what is often thought of as being foundational (visually) very often turns out to be only cliche and convention. So, though knowing pictures broadly and deeply (paintings, drawings and photographs) is important, and knowing how to makes one's camera draw as he or she likes is important, there are (in fact) no rules about either.

 

I think in many great pictures there's some blend of elements that came from intentionality and some that came through chance and luck. Winogrand often said that he took pictures to "see what things look like photographed". Arbus wrote that the pictures she made were (and here I paraphrase) "never quite what I expected. They're always better or worse."

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[sean_reid]

The point is however that even these "technical monstrosities" hit the point of admiration and I sincerely doubt if this level of admiration would of been reached by Robert Frank using the M8.2 plus a surplus of M-lenses.

 

I don't understand what you're saying relative to Frank. Could you explain further?

 

Thanks,

 

Sean

[Isabelle Lenatio]

Sean, this was a reply to a sidetracked discussion within this thread, ... too dark, focal point, smudged out, bla bla bla..

 

I personally really like the images since I don't care for-, or look at technical precision in photography, just the creation of "atmosphere" which I think the original poster has managed well.

 

Someone didn't agree .... someone else came up with Robert Frank and his images published in a book which wereN't sharp etc. either.

Someone else claimed that he didn't have the technical quality as we have today.... hence my remark which you noted in your posting ...

 

Hope this clarifies a bit ..... and trust now you'll never ask me for an explanation again :-)

[sean_reid]

Sean, this was a reply to a sidetracked discussion within this thread, ... too dark, focal point, smudged out, bla bla bla..

 

I personally really like the images since I don't care for-, or look at technical precision in photography, just the creation of "atmosphere" which I think the original poster has managed well.

 

Someone didn't agree .... someone else came up with Robert Frank and his images published in a book which wereN't sharp etc. either.

Someone else claimed that he didn't have the technical quality as we have today.... hence my remark which you noted in your posting ...

 

Hope this clarifies a bit ..... and trust now you'll never ask me for an explanation again :-)

 

OK, I think I follow that. Since he first came to America, Frank has worked almost entirely with Leica M film cameras (for still work). I think he certainly could have done much of his work with an M8.2 (had it existed) if he'd wanted to. I haven't spoken with him for at least two years but I don't think he's about to switch horses (film to digital) now. I think some photographers who've spent decades (50 years plus for example) with film and the darkroom aren't interested in starting to work on computers. I'm sure that there are exceptions (Stephen Shore, for example, is younger than Frank and has done some work with digital).

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[Isabelle Lenatio]

You have spoken to Robert Frank? ..... you know he is one of my photographic heroes, I love his work and now communicating with somebody that has actually spoken with him!

 

Man would I like to get to have him tell me what drives him.... (photography-wise that is)

 

(I'm not like this usually you I wouldn't spit on Tom Cruise or similar even if they were burning on the sidewalk I was walking on)

[sean_reid]

You have spoken to Robert Frank? ..... you know he is one of my photographic heroes, I love his work and now communicating with somebody that has actually spoken with him!

 

Man would I like to get to have him tell me what drives him.... (photography-wise that is)

 

(I'm not like this usually you I wouldn't spit on Tom Cruise or similar even if they were burning on the sidewalk I was walking on)

 

Yes...a couple of times at his home in Nova Scotia. I don't know him well though and the last time we mostly just sipped beers and looked at the ocean. He and I have a friend in common.

 

Frank has talked about this question of intentionality just this year during an interview. Be warned that the interviewer doesn't handle this rare kind of interview well at all but, rather than speculating, we can hear what Frank said on this:

WNYC - ART.CULT Robert Frank at Lincoln Center

Click the first MP3 link.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[Isabelle Lenatio]

this is what elliot erwitt said about robert franks pictures

 

""Quality doesn't mean deep blacks and whatever tonal range. That's not quality, that's a kind of quality. The pictures of Robert Frank might strike someone as being sloppy - the tone range isn't right and things like that - but they're far superior to the pictures of Ansel Adams with regard to quality, because the quality of Ansel Adams, if I may say so, is essentially the quality of a postcard. But the quality of Robert Frank is a quality that has something to do with what he's doing, what his mind is. It's not balancing out the sky to the sand and so forth. It's got to do with intention."

 

and I full agree.....

 

It adds to this dicussion .... especially the "quality of a postcard" part ... boring, boring, boring

[wattsy]

When you talk about something happening given an infinite amount of time you have to consider that the event may occur only after passage of an infinite amount of time.

 

Well that's the point of specifying an infinite amount of time.

[RSL]

Well that's the point of specifying an infinite amount of time.

 

Exactly! If something takes an infinite amount of time (eternity) to occur, it never happens. That what "infinite" means -- no end.

[RSL]

this is what elliot erwitt said about robert franks pictures

 

""Quality doesn't mean deep blacks and whatever tonal range. That's not quality, that's a kind of quality. The pictures of Robert Frank might strike someone as being sloppy - the tone range isn't right and things like that - but they're far superior to the pictures of Ansel Adams with regard to quality, because the quality of Ansel Adams, if I may say so, is essentially the quality of a postcard. But the quality of Robert Frank is a quality that has something to do with what he's doing, what his mind is. It's not balancing out the sky to the sand and so forth. It's got to do with intention."

 

Ahh. Elliott. My favorite among them all. I think that what Elliott left out is that Frank's pictures give you a transcendental -- transmundane -- experience. That's my definition of art -- when the viewing or hearing or reading gives you a jolt that goes beyond normal human experience. Robert's pictures frequently do that for me. Ansel's rarely do. As Erwitt says, it has to do with how Frank's mind makes contact with human experience. He sees the flash. But he's also mastered the tools that let him bring the flash to you.

[robertwright]

Hi Ian,

 

Winogrand, of course, trained as a painter before becoming a photographer.

(...)

To All,

 

Speaking generally, I think it would be a mistake to place expression and technical control on opposite poles. The second is hollow without the first and the first is random without the second. That said, though, perhaps part of Imants' point was that some of what is often thought of as being foundational (visually) very often turns out to be only cliche and convention. So, though knowing pictures broadly and deeply (paintings, drawings and photographs) is important, and knowing how to makes one's camera draw as he or she likes is important, there are (in fact) no rules about either.

 

I think in many great pictures there's some blend of elements that came from intentionality and some that came through chance and luck. Winogrand often said that he took pictures to "see what things look like photographed". Arbus wrote that the pictures she made were (and here I paraphrase) "never quite what I expected. They're always better or worse."

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

 

 

I always get piqued when the that hoary chestnut about "painting" comes out with regard to photography; it is either that photography is better because of, or, inspite of, its relation to painting or that it is worse than.

 

Do we ever say that so-and-so painter is better because he trained as a photographer first?

 

If I had started out as a sculptor would that make my pictures any better?

 

Sometimes in Jazz you get that attribution, Oscar Peterson for example, trained as a classical pianist. He is undoubtedly one of the greats, you feel the influence of his training, yet many jazz musicians never had this kind of training and excel.

 

Jazz doesn't need help, nor does photography. Training as a painter might indeed make you better as an artist, but then so would learning to sing Opera or Musicals. To equate the two is usually tendentious in my opinion.

 

I agree, there 'are no rules about either'.

 

sorry ot.

 

best

 

Robert

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Hallo,

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[jaapv]

Do we ever say that so-and-so painter is better because he trained as a photographer first?

 

Well- errr- yes. For instance it can be argued that Breitner was a better painter because he was a photographer too -and vica versa.