[Neuse River Sailor]

My theory of photography is there are two main aspects, art and documentation, the two may overlap, and both are equally of value. I find it interesting, looking at old photographs, that the documentary value of much art increases with time, just as the artistic value of much documentation does. Everyone has an innate ability to create art, but some have much more of it than others. If those few cultivate their ability through practice and training (formal or informal) they may become artists. Documentation can be learned, but it is a difficult craft. The time researching, planning, obtaining access, and in some cases, simply getting to the site, can be enormous for some projects. Looking at the pictures on my walls, most seem to have been taken in sometimes futile attempts at artistic expression, and now have achieved documentary value as the subject matter has changed or vanished.

[alamo5000]

That sounds like something an artist would say. Another helpful accomplishment on the road to true art is to be misunderstood by others.

If people aren't even trying they for sure won't be one lol.

[Dartmoor Dave]

How do I select photos? I get home and delete all the ones that make me cringe because they're so utterly unbelievably awful in every way, then I process the one that's left. And it's only ever one.

[Wheatfield]

That sounds like something an artist would say. Another helpful accomplishment on the road to true art is to be misunderstood by others.

It's possible ( and I have seen it happen frequently) that images picked because they adhere to certain artistic ideals will speak to the "well educated" artistic elite, while being totally mute to the vast majority of the population.
A friend of mine was an extremely accomplished artist (though she never picked up a camera). As soon as she started university and taking classes in art history and the like, her own work started getting progressively more boring to everyone outside of a very small circle of people who were taking the same courses at school.

[LensBeginner]

It's possible ( and I have seen it happen frequently) that images picked because they adhere to certain artistic ideals will speak to the "well educated" artistic elite, while being totally mute to the vast majority of the population.
A friend of mine was an extremely accomplished artist (though she never picked up a camera). As soon as she started university and taking classes in art history and the like, her own work started getting progressively more boring to everyone outside of a very small circle of people who were taking the same courses at school.

This is interesting.
It's more or less what happened to "contemporary" music in the Twentieth Century...

[Wheatfield]

This is interesting.
It's more or less what happened to "contemporary" music in the Twentieth Century...

Ah yes, who could forget Corporate Rock.

[LensBeginner]

Ah yes, who could forget Corporate Rock.

I was thinking more like Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Webern, Varèse as the starters, and the disconnect with the public went on from there.
Now everyone listen to Stravinsky as if it were Mozart... but at the debut the Sacre caused a riot.

[PDL]

It depends on the images and what they are all about. Composition first along with basic information about focus etc. I have Capture One set up to simulate a contact sheet (six images across) just like the old days. I can mark the images I think will work out then view them on the screen to progress on through the shoot.

No, I do not select my "art" images the same way I select images for the non-profits I shoot for. Two different goals, with two different and continuously varying criteria however the steps are relatively stable. The same goes for vacation pictures usually used for my annual calendars. Sometimes I listen to music but it is eclectic to say the least. Classical music, Heavy Metal, 60's stuff and throw in a little strange stuff from the 50's, 70's and 80's with a few from this millennia. It's all from CD's that I own and I have about 2800 tunes on the computer.

[clackers]

I think shooting to spec guides you, Aacb, whether its someone else's notion or yours.

If you've got only picture about an event that you're going to print, submit to social media or whatever, it's got to be the one that when flicking through the contents of your SD card captures its spirit better than the others, even when the others are technically better.

It can be you and your wife on the gondola, or the celebration of a tennis player winning. (An editor is more interested in Djokovic on his knees than all the action shots beforehand … you can turn up an hour and a half late to the game and still keep the publication happy!)

With two shots, you've got more scope, so you can be more inventive and go for say, the wide shot and the close up shot that you like best.

With three, you've now got narrative possibility … context setter, followed by a picture of the subject, then the climax or resolution of the scene, the money shot.

So a lot of self-editing has to enter into it. Nothing worse than looking through someone's pics and it's clear that for two hours they just stood on the same corner and got the cars all going round it, pressing the shutter release again and again.

Having said that, it's not enough either just to get one shot from ankle height, one from standing up on a park bench, another shooting through bystanders, another backlit, etc, because for each setup you need to take lots of frames and then go through and put a keeper star on the pics which best capture the moment. Someone walking looks best when their front foot is down on the ground, for instance, so you'd try not to use the frames before or after that.

In short, I reckon, think not just as a tog on the day, actually shoot from the beginning aware of your role as an editor of these pictures later on too, and there'll be real purpose to how you go about this great hobby of ours.

[Dartmoor Dave]

I was thinking more like Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Webern, Varèse as the starters, and the disconnect with the public went on from there.Now everyone listen to Stravinsky as if it were Mozart... but at the debut the Sacre caused a riot.

That's true. After a lifetime of listening to music almost entirely from the Haydn through to Wagner era, I'm finding that nowadays I listen mostly to 20th Century and even contemporary composers. If you'd told me twenty years ago that I'd end up listening to Webern for pleasure and finding his music truly beautiful, I'd have laughed in your face. So perhaps it really was just a matter of the public eventually catching up with the avant garde?

I'm not sure if there has ever really been much of a photographic avant garde for the public to catch up with.

[LensBeginner]

That's true. After a lifetime of listening to music almost entirely from the Haydn through to Wagner era, I'm finding that nowadays I listen mostly to 20th Century and even contemporary composers. If you'd told me twenty years ago that I'd end up listening to Webern for pleasure and finding his music truly beautiful, I'd have laughed in your face. So perhaps it really was just a matter of the public eventually catching up with the avant garde?

I'm not sure if there has ever really been much of a photographic avant garde for the public to catch up with.

It's a slow process for sure, much slower than the speed it unfolded at...
Anton Webern's first pieces are not unlike Wagner's style (thinking about Langsamer Satz for string quartet... decadent late romanticism), but he gets progressively more integralistic, while his contemporary Alban Berg always maintained a hint of tonality even in his serialism.

If you don't know it (and I doubt it because Webern wrote so few pieces...), it's worth listening to:

You Tube

You Tube

[Dartmoor Dave]

Anton Webern's first pieces are not unlike Wagner's style (thinking about Langsamer Satz for string quartet... decadent late romanticism), but he gets progressively more integralistic, while his contemporary Alban Berg always maintained a hint of tonality even in his serialism. If you don't know it (and I doubt it because Webern wrote so few pieces...), it's worth listening to: You Tube

Thanks for posting that, and you're right that I'd never heard it. Lovely but soooo late Romantic. Does it make me a philistine that I got bored and clicked through to Five Pieces for Orchestra on youtube instead? (Apologies for the thread hijack.)

[LensBeginner]

Thanks for posting that, and you're right that I'd never heard it. Lovely but soooo late Romantic. Does it make me a philistine that I got bored and clicked through to Five Pieces for Orchestra on youtube instead? (Apologies for the thread hijack.)

I was thinking you did actually!
If more "extreme" is your thing, then I'll post something in the What music are you listening to

[ffking]

i once had the experience of submitting what I thought was a so-so picture to sort of make up the numbers and provide variety in a multiple entry big competition. That was the one that got through far enough to be published in the book - just an also ran, not a winner or highly commended or anything. To add context, I'd previously had a highly commended, a commended and a prize winner in that competition, so I might be being a little snotty here, but I'd actually rather that the picture in question hadn't been selected or printed because I didn't think it represented me as a photographer - hell, it wasn't even n Pentax equipment - I'd been lent a 1DX + 70-200/2.8 for reasons not relevant here. Anyway, long story short, I decided from that point onwards that I'd only ever submit images that I'd be proud to seein print with my name under them rather than images that were safe or derivative what I thought judges or buyers might be looking for. Not a great business model, but if you chose photography as an art rather than a technical exercise I think it's a decision you have to make. If I was in photography commercially, I think I'd be about finding people who liked what I did not tailoring my images to suit any client who comes along. So, to my mind, you print the picture you love, and if nobody else does, it doesn't stop you enjoying them - and there will always be some that others do love - and the better known you are, if you go down that route, the more of those people there will be.

[clackers]

i once had the experience of submitting what I thought was a so-so picture to sort of make up the numbers and provide variety in a multiple entry big competition. That was the one that got through far enough to be published in the book - just an also ran, not a winner or highly commended or anything. To add context, I'd previously had a highly commended, a commended and a prize winner in that competition, so I might be being a little snotty here, but I'd actually rather that the picture in question hadn't been selected or printed because I didn't think it represented me as a photographer - hell, it wasn't even n Pentax equipment - I'd been lent a 1DX + 70-200/2.8 for reasons not relevant here. Anyway, long story short, I decided from that point onwards that I'd only ever submit images that I'd be proud to seein print with my name under them rather than images that were safe or derivative what I thought judges or buyers might be looking for. Not a great business model, but if you chose photography as an art rather than a technical exercise I think it's a decision you have to make. If I was in photography commercially, I think I'd be about finding people who liked what I did not tailoring my images to suit any client who comes along. So, to my mind, you print the picture you love, and if nobody else does, it doesn't stop you enjoying them - and there will always be some that others do love - and the better known you are, if you go down that route, the more of those people there will be.

At least you're working to a purpose, just the shot list is your own.

As they say, shooting for others feeds the stomach, shooting for yourself feeds the soul.

Or some such crap.