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The development of the photographer’s eye.
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Children
Give a camera to young kids and they will shoot with the purest eye ever. Primitivist artits knew it, and always tried to emulate either primitive people and/or children creations.
The best artists in the World have 6 years old or less. The school will soon kill them all.
Adults 1
Most who grab a camera don’t’ think before pressing the shutter (and that’s good), but without knowing they have lots of imprinted rules. They often don’t like the images they make, but they don’t know why. They ALWAYS shoot from eye level. They love zooms and Auto modes.
Adults2
They are amateurs (meaning that they are professional wannabes). They always need the latest piece of equipment, and always blame the equipment for the poor results. The best way to find themselves “almost pros” is to have professional equipment.
They love extreme wide angles and tilted horizons. They love patterns, abstracts, reflexes and golden light. They love long zoom lenses, IS/VR, landscapes, portraits in B&W (especially of children and elder people).
Adults3
They are pros. They use scarves (and even if they don’t, they have educated opinion about who does). They know that the equipment is only a tool, but love it as much as amateurs. The only difference is that they know how stupid it is, so they usually feel guilty and don’t brag so much about it. They hate extreme wide angles, tilted horizons, patterns, abstracts and reflexes. They love the 35 and 50mm, they love overcastted skies, and f1.4. They can’t live without depressive subjects. Junkies, prostitutes, and homeless you name it. Portrayed people must always look depressed and absent. Rules, like the rule of thirds should never be followed.
The form is always more important than the content, and formalism always comes first than any organic feeling. Any body of work must be coherent, cathartic and maybe metaphoric.
They will spend all their lives trying to shoot like children.
by
Alexandre Vaz
at
Mon Jun 01 19:10:42 UTC 2009
Lisbon,
Portugal
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Taxonomy of photographers Alexandre? You should give Latin name to each class, otherwise its too amateurish. :-)
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I don’t found were to put me. Maybe i have to get some scarves.
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here, I’ve got a scarf here in one of the pockets of my vest …
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“They will spend all their lives trying to shoot like children.”…that’s where the fluo pink Holga comes in right?
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Okay, this guy is shooting with a better camera than I’ve got and five’ll get you ten he’s wearing a spiritual scarf…
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The only thing I see in that image is: UN-cool
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That’s not a bad idea Santanu. The thing is that I just described the Class. I still have to go all the way down to the Species level…
One day I will write something about tastes, aesthetics and perception…
The funny thing, is that this process that I tried to speak about in an over simplified matter also applies to other art forms, and maybe even life in general…
If you like music, just try to think about the people who like Monteverdi, Mingus, Elvis, Neal Diamond, Stockhausen, Bowie, Philip Glass, LCD Sound System or whatever they like to hear, and try to explain WHY do they like what they like?
On a side note I think that a if a photographer tells me his favorite musicians, I will probably know what photographers dos he/she prefer.
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some of us shoot the way we brush our teeth….and are not so constricted, but by the size of our brush, the dexterity of our movement, the scalp of our teeth, the scrub of the paste…..
and not all of us use zooms or elsewise…
the shape of the work, does (i hate pejorative modals) take the shape of who we are and in this sense there is no difference between adults and children, amateurs and pros…
bb
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haha cool! currently an Adult3
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Bob Black
Photog/Writer/Editor-at-L
(Dreamer- Archer-Husband-Dad)
Toronto,
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