7 ms·

Another recent example of how "bad photography" inspired "good photos" is Juergen Teller's shoot with W magazine. https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/best-perform

Another recent example of how "bad photography" inspired "good photos" is Juergen Teller's shoot with W magazine. https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/best-performances-portfolio-2021 https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/best-performances-portfoli... The photos are typical of Juergen's style. But his style has been evolving more into casual snapshot aesthetic, but in more ironic way.

jbtbfkkfmfne 5y ago
The same thing happened in fashion. High fashion is always copying what the regular unfashionable people on the street are wearing, in the eternal search for authenticity. Which is why things like bubble jackets, sweat pants, crocs and dad sneakers evolved from being laughed at to being very fashionable.
- swiley 5y ago
  I must be out of touch, those aren’t fashionable and I don’t think most people in their 20s would think they are (sure they wear them all the time but that’s because of a rejection of fashion in favor of comfort.)
  - jbtbfkkfmfne 5y ago
    > wear them all the time That's kind of what fashionable means. Oxford dict: Fashionable - characteristic of, influenced by, or representing a current popular style
    - zokier 5y ago
      fashionable, popular, trendy, and common all mean different things even if they are somewhat interlinked concepts. High fashion then stands even more apart from the rest. I kinda like this Cambridges definition[1] of fashionable more (even if isn't perfect) > wearing clothes, doing things, and going to places that are considered stylish There is clear difference of what is considered stylish and what is popular. Macmillian[2] has even more poignant definition available: > popular with rich and successful people, and often expensive Which I might disagree on specifics, but it still carries the thought over. Fashionable is not (necessarily, or even commonly) popular with the common people, but of some sort of elite. [1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fashionable#cacd-1 https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fashiona... [2] https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/fashionable#fashionable__5 https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/fashi...
      - vidarh 5y ago
        The important aspect of what.you describe is that fashion is more aspirational than popular. A lot of what is "popular" is still recognized by the wearer themselves as not fashionable, and is worn despite that (and sometimes because of that) for various reasons.
  - Spivak 5y ago
    Rejection of fashion in very specific trendy ways is fashionable right now. It’s more a rejection of “runway inspired” trends than a rejection of fashion itself.
    - meowzero 5y ago
      In this current internet age, there's a lot of trends of fashion. There was even a trend called normcore (https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/what-is-normcore/ https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/what-is-normcore/) that rejected typical fashion trends at that time.
    - DoreenMichele 5y ago
      Haute couture is almost all nutty stuff that no normal person wears anyway. It's like art for art's sake, not clothes.
      - baliex 5y ago
        Is it not art to demonstrate the capability of the designer? And what’s expected to follow is that they can put a great looking “regular” item together too
  - kergonath 5y ago
    “These things are not fashionable, they just wear them all the time”. There is a kind of contradiction there.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  The low point for me is when people get on an airplane wearing track shorts. Eech.
  - t-writescode 5y ago
    Sounds comfortable. How long of a flight are we talking?
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      So wear your pajamas, if comfort is the only thing that matters. P.S. class aside, nylon is a bad choice to wear on an airplane. It melts into your skin. Cotton and leather are good choices if you want to survive an accident. Also decent lace up shoes can save your life if you need to exit a burning airplane. Try running over burning wreckage with flip-flops. I take off my shoes for comfort when at altitude, but lace them up for takeoff and landing.
WA 5y ago
What's good about these pictures? If you released them on Instagram on an anonymous account, nobody would give a shit.
- meowzero 5y ago
  It's hard to say. But I've been a fan of Juregen Teller for a while. He wants to break all the "rules" of fashion photography and photography in general. You're right, if you post these anonymously to IG, no one would bat an eye. But it's published in a prominent fashion magazine, it's taken by the famous Juregen Teller, it features celebrities posing in an unflattering way, they're wearing the latest designer clothes, and it got a ton of negative attention on Twitter and other social media (all attention is good attention). A typical amateur won't be able to do that (they probably think they can). I consider his style to be real and "amateurish" in a deliberate way. In some ways, I feel he's parodying amateur photos and putting famous celebrities in situations that normal pros don't usually would or can. Here is another site that tries to describe it: https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/juergen-teller-w-magazine/ https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/juergen-teller-w-magazine/
  - WA 5y ago
    Thanks for clarifying this. The link is quite interesting.
  - matwood 5y ago
    I didn't find the photos necessarily bad or easy to replicate at all. Taking pictures of people is intimate and challenging thing to do, especially if you don't know them well. I'm also not one to critique photos from a technical perspective, and tend to go by feel in my own and others photos.
    - meowzero 5y ago
      I'm similar. Critiquing a photo from a technical perspective is the low-effort way to do it. Getting a technically good photo is probably the easiest thing to do. When I was more serious into photography back in the day, getting a photo that can express what I wanted it to feel or the story I wanted to convey was much harder.
falcrist 5y ago
The only really interesting thing here that cameraphones have sort of pushed photography to use shorter focal lengths more often. Some photographers feel the shorter focal lengths feel "more authentic" somehow. Other than that, this looks like someone with a smartphone trying a little too hard to "do photography" yet not bothering to travel to a nicer venue.
- dylan604 5y ago
  I love using wide angle lenses, but yes, some of them have distortion that will make people look weird. You also need to know that you have to get super close to your subject to fill the frame for a traditional portrait framing. To check out a good example for a movie, watch The Frighteners of doing traditional close ups with wide angles. This allows for normal framing of your talent while giving lots of room in the frame for the background gags.
  - falcrist 5y ago
    I'm not saying short lenses are necessarily bad, btw. I just think it's interesting that smartphones have had this effect.
- psychomugs 5y ago
  I'd argue that this started earlier, with the snapshot aesthetic pioneered by street photographers like Garry Winogrand and Daido Moriyama who often used wide <28mm lenses. The human field of vision is pretty wide at 120º, which equates to a ~12mm; wider is closer to what we "authentically" see. Then there's the obvious technical limitation of always being able to digitally zoom in but never out.
  - falcrist 5y ago
    Shorter focal lengths have other purposes in street photography, where composing shots in crowded areas can be difficult or impossible with longer lenses like 85mm. In terms of which focal lengths produce perspectives that make the most sense to our eyes, people usually point towards 35-50mm lenses. Supposedly the formula is something like "focal length = diagonal measurement of the format".
t-writescode 5y ago
I just appreciate that George Clooney is all "nah, I'm just going to wear my clothes"
nicbou 5y ago
I liked Scott Alexander's take on it. You only need to distinguish yourself from the class below, because no one would mistake you from someone two classes below. The rich or famous can cosplay poverty, but the people in between can't, for fear of being mistaken as poor. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/22/right-is-the-new-left/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/22/right-is-the-new-left/

jbtbfkkfmfne 5y ago

The same thing happened in fashion. High fashion is always copying what the regular unfashionable people on the street are wearing, in the eternal search for authenticity. Which is why things like bubble jackets, sweat pants, crocs and dad sneakers evolved from being laughed at to being very fashionable.

swiley 5y ago
I must be out of touch, those aren’t fashionable and I don’t think most people in their 20s would think they are (sure they wear them all the time but that’s because of a rejection of fashion in favor of comfort.)
- jbtbfkkfmfne 5y ago
  > wear them all the time That's kind of what fashionable means. Oxford dict: Fashionable - characteristic of, influenced by, or representing a current popular style
  - zokier 5y ago
    fashionable, popular, trendy, and common all mean different things even if they are somewhat interlinked concepts. High fashion then stands even more apart from the rest. I kinda like this Cambridges definition[1] of fashionable more (even if isn't perfect) > wearing clothes, doing things, and going to places that are considered stylish There is clear difference of what is considered stylish and what is popular. Macmillian[2] has even more poignant definition available: > popular with rich and successful people, and often expensive Which I might disagree on specifics, but it still carries the thought over. Fashionable is not (necessarily, or even commonly) popular with the common people, but of some sort of elite. [1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fashionable#cacd-1 https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fashiona... [2] https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/fashionable#fashionable__5 https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/fashi...
    - vidarh 5y ago
      The important aspect of what.you describe is that fashion is more aspirational than popular. A lot of what is "popular" is still recognized by the wearer themselves as not fashionable, and is worn despite that (and sometimes because of that) for various reasons.
- Spivak 5y ago
  Rejection of fashion in very specific trendy ways is fashionable right now. It’s more a rejection of “runway inspired” trends than a rejection of fashion itself.
  - meowzero 5y ago
    In this current internet age, there's a lot of trends of fashion. There was even a trend called normcore (https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/what-is-normcore/ https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/what-is-normcore/) that rejected typical fashion trends at that time.
  - DoreenMichele 5y ago
    Haute couture is almost all nutty stuff that no normal person wears anyway. It's like art for art's sake, not clothes.
    - baliex 5y ago
      Is it not art to demonstrate the capability of the designer? And what’s expected to follow is that they can put a great looking “regular” item together too
- kergonath 5y ago
  “These things are not fashionable, they just wear them all the time”. There is a kind of contradiction there.
WalterBright 5y ago
The low point for me is when people get on an airplane wearing track shorts. Eech.
- t-writescode 5y ago
  Sounds comfortable. How long of a flight are we talking?
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    So wear your pajamas, if comfort is the only thing that matters. P.S. class aside, nylon is a bad choice to wear on an airplane. It melts into your skin. Cotton and leather are good choices if you want to survive an accident. Also decent lace up shoes can save your life if you need to exit a burning airplane. Try running over burning wreckage with flip-flops. I take off my shoes for comfort when at altitude, but lace them up for takeoff and landing.

WA 5y ago

What's good about these pictures? If you released them on Instagram on an anonymous account, nobody would give a shit.

meowzero 5y ago
It's hard to say. But I've been a fan of Juregen Teller for a while. He wants to break all the "rules" of fashion photography and photography in general. You're right, if you post these anonymously to IG, no one would bat an eye. But it's published in a prominent fashion magazine, it's taken by the famous Juregen Teller, it features celebrities posing in an unflattering way, they're wearing the latest designer clothes, and it got a ton of negative attention on Twitter and other social media (all attention is good attention). A typical amateur won't be able to do that (they probably think they can). I consider his style to be real and "amateurish" in a deliberate way. In some ways, I feel he's parodying amateur photos and putting famous celebrities in situations that normal pros don't usually would or can. Here is another site that tries to describe it: https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/juergen-teller-w-magazine/ https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/juergen-teller-w-magazine/
- WA 5y ago
  Thanks for clarifying this. The link is quite interesting.
- matwood 5y ago
  I didn't find the photos necessarily bad or easy to replicate at all. Taking pictures of people is intimate and challenging thing to do, especially if you don't know them well. I'm also not one to critique photos from a technical perspective, and tend to go by feel in my own and others photos.
  - meowzero 5y ago
    I'm similar. Critiquing a photo from a technical perspective is the low-effort way to do it. Getting a technically good photo is probably the easiest thing to do. When I was more serious into photography back in the day, getting a photo that can express what I wanted it to feel or the story I wanted to convey was much harder.

falcrist 5y ago

The only really interesting thing here that cameraphones have sort of pushed photography to use shorter focal lengths more often. Some photographers feel the shorter focal lengths feel "more authentic" somehow. Other than that, this looks like someone with a smartphone trying a little too hard to "do photography" yet not bothering to travel to a nicer venue.

dylan604 5y ago
I love using wide angle lenses, but yes, some of them have distortion that will make people look weird. You also need to know that you have to get super close to your subject to fill the frame for a traditional portrait framing. To check out a good example for a movie, watch The Frighteners of doing traditional close ups with wide angles. This allows for normal framing of your talent while giving lots of room in the frame for the background gags.
- falcrist 5y ago
  I'm not saying short lenses are necessarily bad, btw. I just think it's interesting that smartphones have had this effect.
psychomugs 5y ago
I'd argue that this started earlier, with the snapshot aesthetic pioneered by street photographers like Garry Winogrand and Daido Moriyama who often used wide <28mm lenses. The human field of vision is pretty wide at 120º, which equates to a ~12mm; wider is closer to what we "authentically" see. Then there's the obvious technical limitation of always being able to digitally zoom in but never out.
- falcrist 5y ago
  Shorter focal lengths have other purposes in street photography, where composing shots in crowded areas can be difficult or impossible with longer lenses like 85mm. In terms of which focal lengths produce perspectives that make the most sense to our eyes, people usually point towards 35-50mm lenses. Supposedly the formula is something like "focal length = diagonal measurement of the format".

t-writescode 5y ago

I just appreciate that George Clooney is all "nah, I'm just going to wear my clothes"

nicbou 5y ago

I liked Scott Alexander's take on it. You only need to distinguish yourself from the class below, because no one would mistake you from someone two classes below. The rich or famous can cosplay poverty, but the people in between can't, for fear of being mistaken as poor. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/22/right-is-the-new-left/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/22/right-is-the-new-left/