8 ms·
Talking about what good and bad means in photography always reminds me of Miroslav Tichý, who said "if you want to be famous, you must do something more badly t
by twic 5y ago
Talking about what good and bad means in photography always reminds me of Miroslav Tichý, who said "if you want to be famous, you must do something more badly than anybody in the entire world", and took terrible but strangely brilliant photos with homemade cameras:
https://flashbak.com/photographs-by-the-perverted-flaneur-miroslav-tichy-361768/ https://flashbak.com/photographs-by-the-perverted-flaneur-mi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miroslav_Tich%C3%BD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miroslav_Tich%C3%BD
- nsxwolf 5y agoCurious, is "more badly" here an intentional joke? Or did he mean "want it badly" in the sense of really wanting something?
- gowld 5y agoIt's itentional. He starts with, "First of all, you have to have a bad camera".
- jablan 5y agoJust a rough translation of "Když chcete být slavní, musíte něco dělat tak blbě, že tak blbě to nikdo ve světě neudělá". "...you have to do something in such a silly manner, that nobody in the world did it so silly" or such.
- lmilcin 5y agoWell, I took a look, they are just bad photos to me. I could not find any redeeming quality.
- helloworld11 5y agoI'm curious, show an example of what you consider to be good photos, if you don't mind taking a moment.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- lmilcin 5y agoI don't think I can explain to you by showing an example. Also, I type this on a phone and don't have access to my collection. A good photo looks interesting or has something interesting in it or comes with some interesting context. These are more or less random photos taken with a bad camera. That's it. Now, I don't say you need good camera for good photos. You can make interesting photos with any camera. And you can also use bad camera for interesting effect. But, again, these photos don't show any kind of plan, thought, deliberation, interesting subject, context, technique, nothing.
- panta 5y agoA good photo does not need to be interesting, since it doesn't need to appeal to intellect to be good. A photo can be good just by provoking an emotional reaction in the viewer.
- caconym_ 5y ago> A good photo looks interesting or has something interesting in it or comes with some interesting context. To my eye, these photos have all three of those things. You don't have to like them yourself, but it seems a bit much to imply that they are objectively without value as art.
- kergonath 5y ago> You don't have to like them yourself, but it seems a bit much to imply that they are objectively without value as art. There is nothing objective about art anyway. I agree with you, though. There is something in these. Some kind of motion. Some kind of primitive, wild instincts as well. As if a bear had found a camera, and he were more interested by ladies than about anything else.
- helloworld11 5y agoTo each their own opinion I guess, but these photos are more than just random shots taken with a bad camera. Not all of them are especially good but there is a conscious intent of showing us the world through a slightly novel perspective and in some of the shots, with quite a visually poetic effect (the dancing feet are one good example). Knowing the context and the work he must have put into building the camera, maintaining it and later developing his shots under the circumstances he worked with also helps. What I definitely don't see here is just a bunch of bad photos taken with a bad camera. I'd hardly call a homemade camera as simply bad, even imperfect it merits some respect. I'd say they at least fit Susan Sontag's loose definition of photography showing others something novel.
- Broken_Hippo 5y agoFrom the wikipedia article: "...using homemade cameras constructed of cardboard tubes, tin cans and other at-hand materials" I mean... I don't know if I'd take perfect pictures with such equipment, especially not if I'm trying to do it secretly.
- lmilcin 5y agoThis is not about technical quality. They just don't look or have anything interesting in them.
- chakalakasp 5y agoI'm a photographer and I'll be honest, I clicked on these fully expecting to not like them (usually when people say "look at these photos, they look like terrible photos taken with a bad camera until you, like, get it, man" what they really mean is that the photographer knew the right pretentious people at the right time in history)... ... but I actually like them. I wish I could explain why; he's doing some clever stuff here. Some of it is kinda pervy and it feels like TMI, but he's at least being clever. There are a few photos that feel like you are voyeuristically peeking through time, the defects in the photos are like peeking through bushes to see something interesting. But mostly I can't explain why I like it. I just do.
- zuminator 5y agoI don't have a professional eye but I'll try to explain why I like one of the photos, the one identified as Photo 20, in which there are two sunbathers, the one on the right flirtatiously peering at the camera. I like the way that their images are just barely recognizable as such but they still look like real people in a candid moment. The resolution is so poor can't even see where the second woman's back ends and where the background begins. But with just a hint you can make out a smile and a sparkling eye. It's similar to the way a clever caricature captures the essence of the subject with a few strokes. Are there flowers in their hair? A checkered blanket? The mind's eye starts to fill in the details as when reading a novel. You can't make out anything clearly but it still feels there's a whole story that the viewer is being invited to share in.
- glxxyz 5y agoI think I've used that 'homemade camera' Instagram filter.
- deertick1 5y agoKind of taken aback by all the people saying these are just shitty photos. I think they are gorgeous... Do y'all think Lo-fi music is just shitty music too? I guess its a little unsurprising coming from the usual HN crowd lmao.
- skrtskrt 5y agoAgreed, they are really beautiful. The bike in motion and dancing feet in particular
- nemo44x 5y agoI agree - the aesthetics are amazing here - uniquely stylized. It looks easy to do but I don’t think it was and to imagine this aesthetic in this medium is cool. I’d hang these.
- unmole 5y ago> Do y'all think Lo-fi music is just shitty music too? Yes.
- soneca 5y agoFunny, without context (that I am unwilling to pursue atm, just skipped the whole article for the photos) they just look terrible pictures. Period.
- staticautomatic 5y agoI think many of them are great and it has little to do with the “quality” being bad.
- CabSauce 5y agoIt looks to me like the pictures may have been for his... uhh... own self-gratification.
- tyingq 5y agoHad that reaction too, and it's not just us :) "Tichy was frequently arrested for hanging around the local pool and snapping pictures of unsuspecting women." https://www.howardgreenberg.com/artists/miroslav-tich https://www.howardgreenberg.com/artists/miroslav-tich Though he seems to have made quite a lot of effort in the handmade cameras and deliberate processing techniques.
- mdoms 5y agoYup, you can't just take awful photos and say "these are good actually". Well, in the art world you can get away with that kind of nonsense. But to most people those are just terrible photos.
- dagw 5y agoThere is no contradiction between something being both a terrible photo (or painting or sculpture) from a technical perspective and art.
- kergonath 5y agoThere are various philosophical and artistic movements for which art should not look like art. Others are about art being abstract, inaccessible and incomprehensible. Others yet are about use of archaic techniques to blend a modern eye with faux nostalgia (proto-hipsters, one could say). There is not one kind of art. Art does not need to be popular or broadly understood to be art. You are not a majority anyway. Good taste, feeling, and emotions are personal.
- markmark2021 5y agoSo this is the worlds most famous upskirt photographer?
- kebman 5y agoThe imperfections serve as a kind of verfremdungseffekt, making the viewer aware that he's looking at a photograph, rather than at a person. As such René Magritte comes to mind. It is fascinating that he made his own camera, though. That certainly adds to the quality of the images, though it's of course a kind of non-diegetic contents. He said, with a wry smile.
- stavros 5y agoIs it just me or has the quality of GPT-3 comments declined recently?
- short_sells_poo 5y agoI'm almost certain the parent is not an AI. Perhaps it's just that I have no idea what they are talking about.
- stavros 5y agoI don't think even Alan Turing himself ever envisioned this.
- kebman 5y agoI'm sorry to disappoint you, but I already passed the Voight-Kampff test. Didn't even need to fire my gun! :) As for GPT-3, well, it needs real input—like the above—to generate its contents. Here's a crude fore-runner taking postmodern discourse to the extreme: https://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/ https://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/
- short_sells_poo 5y agoCheers. I genuinely can't tell the difference between the artificially generated postmodern discourse that is supposed to be just gibberish and real postmodern discourse that is not. Perhaps this is just a case of extreme jargon overload that makes it unintelligible for anyone who is not part of the group? Or is this some commentary on the futility of the discourse, and postmodern discourse is just a performance art?
- mslate 5y agoBack when "street photography" meant snooping on unsuspecting women with zoom lenses
- helloworld11 5y agoYou need to examine the visual history of street photography much better if this is the only silly summary you can come up with about generations of work done with all sorts of interesting concepts and themes. What an absurd, smarmy and parochial judgement of such a broad photographic field.
- mslate 5y agoAre you a woman? Who has been snooped on by men with zoom lenses they've made in their shed?
- helloworld11 5y agoAnd how exactly is that specific context relevant to the rest of my point? Is this site saturated by people with null artistic appreciation outside an obsession with highly specific criticisms of very particular things?
- mslate 5y agoIt's specific to the context of discussing Miroslav Tichý's art, which is what this thread is about. Street photography is great, not sure where you mistook me
- dillondoyle 5y agoThat holds in other art too. there is a current trend in modern art to create the most child-like, simplest, crayon crap that you can still sell at a Mega for millions lol. Very easy to make fun of but people like it. Here's a couple that I don't actually mind too much, but still not my cup of tea. https://www.artsy.net/artist/misaki-kawai/works-for-sale https://www.artsy.net/artist/misaki-kawai/works-for-sale https://www.artsy.net/artist/maja-djordjevic/works-for-sale https://www.artsy.net/artist/maja-djordjevic/works-for-sale
- tayo42 5y agoThe oil painting looking like ms paint scribbling is kind of interesting. I wouldn't hang it up though.
- posterboy 5y agoyou mean like the curvy wall? https://www.streetartbln.com/blu-murals-painted-over/ https://www.streetartbln.com/blu-murals-painted-over/ https://www.sueddeutsche.de/panorama/cuvry-brache-in-berlin-kreuzberg-stinkefinger-gegen-den-investor-1.2537162 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/panorama/cuvry-brache-in-berlin-...
- cm2012 5y agoThese are just creepshots.