One of the most difficult topics to discuss about photography and many other art forms is creativity. Creativity is an intangible that often isn’t recognized until it’s seen and often unappreciated until an artist has passed. This is one of the many reasons creativity isn’t discussed as much as gear. The tangible is always easier to grasp and has finite boundaries of understanding, where as creativity is amorphous and tough to pin down due to its variability from person to person. Complicating this in the world of photography is the lowering of barriers to make photography easy and accessible to everyone. While this is great for most it really ruffles the feathers of long time photographers and in some aspects rightly so. Creativity is often lost on those obsessing on gear stats, subject location, exposure settings, machine gunning photo after photo and comments/likes. Rightly or wrongly it’s tough to hear and see cranky old photographers complain about how it IS versus how it USED TO BE. Case in point this recent article, Humanity takes millions of photos every day. Why are most so forgettable?
Slow vs Internet Speed
If you come across a film photographer these days you’ll never hear a complaint about the process being slow. Film photographers, those that are remaining, love the slow process as it’s methodical, allows for contemplation & thought before executing a photograph. Digital photographers that use DSLRs and mobile devices by contrast shoot and share at lightning speed. Given that the methodologies of these two camps are so different it’s no surprise there is often philosophical friction.
Story Telling & Narcissism
While these two camps operate so differently is it really realistic that one camp should expect the other to think the way the other does?
Good pictures that tell a story, he said (Larry Towell, a member of Magnum Photos), are always about other people. But when “everybody with a phone thinks they’re a photographer,” the result is “the autobiographical and the narcissistic.”
Mr. Towell’s grandparents used to have their picture taken once a year, and they had to dress up and go into town to have it done. He cherishes those photographs today. They are a record of what was. But he fears that his granddaughters won’t have any memorable photographs of their own children: They will be lost in the technological deluge.
“People aren’t photographing for history any more. It’s for immediate gratification. If you’re photographing to share an image, you’re not photographing to keep it.”
This is the part of the Humanity takes millions… article that baffles me. I straddle both sides on this one. I have thousands of photos on my iPhone. They’re a great way to document a moment and share it with others via online tools that didn’t exist years ago. In fact I tell stories with these photos more frequently than I do with photos from my DSLR (ex. 4 months of triptychs on Instagram). The upside is great new tools (iPhones, mobile apps for editing and social media web sites) allow me to communicate in ways unimaginable years ago. The downside which I hear, read about and often struggle with is not living in the moment and living behind an iPhone and DSLR. And true people don’t print photos like they used to, but its not the only way to share a photo now either.
One of the more interesting things I’ve observed since I’ve begun sharing DSLR images and mobile images online is that the images that garner the most attention are the those that reflect the life experience of the photographer whether they’re behind the scenes photos of a shoot or sharing spontaneous moments of one’s life. And yes the majority of these types of images are now taken with mobile devices to create a new form of story telling. That being said I still love taking more time with my DSLR to capture images that also tell a story.
Judge Hissy Fit
Should any of us be alarmed that that 3 judges decided to abstain from making any awards in a recent photo contest? I find it interesting, but its certainly not going to change my outlook on my photography. Contests are great for bragging rights, but they don’t really help you improve as a photographer. Not to take anything away from anyone who has won a contest, but having been a judge on multi-judge panel I can tell you that no 3 people like the same things and as a result winners are often compromises. As a result that means the best images aren’t always the ones that win.
So what went wrong at the 2013 Banff Mountain Photography Competition? Did photographers not read the rules and ignore the “photo essay” emphasis? Did photographers rely on photoshop too much? Were there photos truly uninspired or unedited? Did the judges have an unrealistic expectation and unbending view of photography? I’m sure it was all of the above to some degree. Still if I were an entrant I’d look at the contest in a much more skeptical light. At $10 an entry I’m sure they made a pretty penny from all the entries and it’s convenient that their $3000 grand prize won’t be awarded. Frankly if the organizers can’t guide their judges to follow their own rules it tarnishes their contest and erodes the trust of photographers who take part. In reviewing their rules there isn’t anything said about entries being non-refundable and given no award was granted I wonder if anyone will start demanding a refund. Either way it’s unfortunate that the judges decided to railroad the competition to make a statement versus awarding the best of the entries even if they didn’t think they were the best that could have been.
Creative Catalysts
Here lies some grounding news… for most photographers just starting out you do suck. If you’re pretty good now at photography at one point you sucked and you just suck a little less. If you’re great at photography now you sucked a lot and still suck from time to time, but you stuck with it to be great. If you’re a master photographer you suck at times just less than most, but you know what not to show. All photographers have one thing in common, at one point you sucked. Case and point This is Why Your Pictures Suck. by Ibarionex Perello
How do you suck less? Practice, devotion, tenacity and not biting on the fact that some judge, expert or critic is always right. Find things that inspire you, as inspiration is a catalyst to developing your unique creative outlook. Don’t fret over originality as Originality Is A Matter of Perspective. Get inspired, get comfortable in your own skin and find yourself. It may take a lifetime, but the creative journey will be worth it.
Fantasy vs Reality… Oh the Irony
The flip-side of the coin is just as amusing as mobile photographers also have their gripes. Video, it’s tarnishing the magic of still photography by making things too real! When I read Instagram Video and the Death of Fantasy it gave me a chuckle because it crystalized the fact that no camp of photography is ever truly happy. I’d argue that if anything is keeping photography mediocre it’s photographers inability to focus on their work and spending too much time complaining. *Looking at the time* Oh my how much time did I spend writing this?!
Nice article Jim, well done 🙂
Good article, but the light grey font on a white background is as hard on the eyes as the Yosemite photograph.
Great article, Jim. I think the hard part as photographers is there is simply so much of it out there bombarding us that it is bound to get on our nerves from time to time. I’m certainly guilty of it. Maybe I just need an occasional hiatus from social media.
I really enjoyed reading this article. It is a shame that a photo contest that has an entry fee won’t choose a winner because it didn’t meet the judges expectations. I mean the idea of a contest is to award the best of “whatever” that signed in to it, right? You are not judging photos out if it, you should only be judging the photos that got in the contest. To choose no winner because your eyes are to hard to please it might be a two edged-sword for the organization as at th end I believe it loses creadibility, if they thought they photo were meeting the contest lines they should have said so while they were receiving them. Hopefully they will make it right and refund the money. Thanks for sharing this and greetings from Mexico.
I enjoyed the article too. Very thought provoking.
Wish we could have seen the entries in the contest.
I’m trying to picture what the judges meant when they said they wanted a “photo essay” landscape photo…and essay by definition means multiple images IMHO…
good read man. Cheers.
Good essay, Jim. We live in interesting times!
I think the story confuses serious photography with picture taking.
““People aren’t photographing for history any more. It’s for immediate gratification. If you’re photographing to share an image, you’re not photographing to keep it.”
This is a giant putdown. Face it. Most people really are ordinary. They aren’t poets or divas or great photographers. They write and sing and take snapshots to share life and that is wonderful. That is life. Having a new device doesn’t change it, just makes the process easier. I see so many more people enjoying taking their ordinary photos of babies and bridges and coffee foam. Heck I do it too. It is nothing to look down on. Really.
Pro photographer and serious amateurs are really just a tiny minority. We still develop our craft, learn new technologies, strive to take the best possible images and, yes, we tell stories. Even if the economy and business model are changing, the art of photography is basically the same.
I have no idea what the issue was with the contest. Maybe contests are in decline.
But there is no massive decline in human sensibility and no need to play “ain’t it awful” and “those were the good old days”. These are the good days. Photography is not in decline.
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People have always taken photo’s for gratification – it wasn’t always immediate, but I’m sure they wished it was in the past. Polaroid comes to mind – now an art form in itself, adopted by creative photographers. Just because a process takes longer, it doesn’t mean it will be better or more creative. Rather, it’s the purpose of the photo, the thought behind it and hopefully the creative/technical execution behind it.
There’s different levels of skills in all photographers. I cringe when I see people using flash on cheap cameras, as even these cameras have reasonable ISO, so why use flash? I just know the resulting photo will be terrible.Sure, these types of photo’s are rarely taken for artistic purposes, but simply to capture an event. The problem is, it could’ve been so much better with thought.
That’s what separates good photographers from bad ones. What separates good from great is creativity and technical knowledge.
You can have all the instant tech in the world – top of the range DSLR with wifi upload – and still take crap photos. Meantime, someone with a phone camera can produce an incredible photo – again, another art form in itself.
Everyone can put marks onto paper with a pencil, but not everyone can draw.
Photography should *never* be judged on the process, it should *always* be judged on the result.
I think this competition was a joke which is a shame since the Banff Mountain Festival is quite regarded in the community of mountains and nature lovers. One must respect judges decision as to who they pick as a winner – I have no problem with that – but not awarding any entry at all is dishonest. The rules mentioned that the photo essay was not necessarily about a story but could also be about conveying emotions. I can’t disagree with the fact that images are everywhere and in giant numbers but it’s hard to think that among 500+ entries that made it to the judges all were random, photoshopped, incohesive or whatever, and that none of them had been produced by photographers seriously committed to a personal project. I know 2 of them engaged in long term projects who submitted images taken with large or medium format film cameras (not a criteria of course but to show that all entries must not have been “photoshopped digital captures”), I find it hard to believe these two photographers were the only ones in this competition to enter quality work. There are many people out there producing great images.
I’ve already commented on this on Jim’s FB page for the blog, but choosing not to award is NOT uncommon in other creative disciplines. The Pulitzer committee, which also charges an entry fee, occasionally chooses not to award in certain categories if they feel there’s no entry up to the (justifiably) high standard–and did so as recently as last year in the fiction category. Having come from that world before getting into photography, I’m perhaps less shocked by the decision not to award that some folks are. And I don’t think it’s a bad thing, either.
Thanks for sharing that Robin. I wasnt aware that it has happened in the Pulitzer and in that -many- other contests. however speaking specifically of the Pulitzers that’s an almost a 100 years award that represents the biggest prize in the US for published works so I can understand it that scenario, while the Banff prize is a “local” contest that has only a few years of existence. That being said I can appreciate how the contest itself is trying to keep high standards but I also believe that being such a young contest that is still building its own recognition it should be more tolerable or more specific in their contest rules or entry acceptance, for what I read they didn’t choose a winner because most, if not all, entries didn’t meet the contest rules so that sounds more like a communication problem from the organization than the participants. There’s literally thousands of Banff similar contests that gives you the same or even more recognition so if I would have applied for it this year I definitely wouldn’t do it next year. Anyway that’s my opinion as photographer that once in a while likes to apply to contest. Again thanks for sharing your point of view with creativity contests, it was very helpful to see it as a bigger picture 🙂
I read this article – the one you reference, Jim, not yours – a few days ago and I had a mixed reaction to it. The writer whose article you reference is right to lament the way in which recording experiences is more and more coming to replace having experiences for many today – I can spare you the well-known stories of people visiting some of the most profoundly beautiful places on the planet and investing only enough in the “experience” to raise their iPhone and snap an image of thing that they did not take time enough to experience. (And this is not limited to people with cameras – I could tell another story about people who believed that “live blogging” a major opera performance was in some way an interesting and meritorious thing.)
Within the context of this particular contest, the issue of how a photograph or a set of photographs might tell a story makes sense, but I disagree strongly with the notion that a photograph must convey a specific narrative. Often a photograph can simply be what it is, leaving the viewer to construct their own associations rather than being forced to accept those implied by the photographer. My musical background informs me that while some powerfully effective music can be _about_ specific non-musical things, some equally compelling music may be only about what it is and not about other things. I’m utterly convinced that photography _can_ work the same way, leaving the viewer to make meaning and context from the visual.
The writer really lost me when he started to go on about “digital” versus film. Yes, astoundingly powerful visual imagery has been created using film and continues to be created using that technology. However, there is nothing about film that makes it intrinsically better at producing visual art than digital means. Beautiful, powerful, compelling, effective visual art has been and will continue to be produced using film, digital, and combinations of the two technologies. (And those in photography who would argue that the old – in this case film – is better than the new, may find themselves on thin ice when discussing _any_ kind of photography by comparison to painting.)
There is tons more to say about this and related issues, but since I’m only _replying” to your post… I’ll stop here.
Dan
Living in a tourist town, I’m amazed at the number of people who take snapshots as they walk around. They don’t bother to look at the scene with their own eyes. They don’t compose the shot. They don’t check the result of their efforts. They just keep on walking.
And the 1,000’s of pictures they take? They couldn’t possibly view them all. When you had a single roll of film, you got 24 (ok, 36) chances to capture a scene that you carefully selected. You took the time to get everything right. You had to have your eyes open. Looking at the light. Guessing the exposure. Is the focus right? And if you did it well, you were rewarded.
Now, they just hit ‘delete’ and keep walking. And they never SEE anything.