[johnmflores]

@johnmflores


These photos need a *huge* amount of forethought, gear, execution and post-processing, you can't just get off your motorbike with your little Panny G85 and take a snap.

I've done an overnight astrophotography workshop hours drive away from Melbourne down the coast, and my conclusion was nothing is left to chance.

We have plenty of Pentax photographers who do dazzling shots, like Pinholecam on his tour of New Zealand:



From Alps to Ocean - a cycling/photography log - Page 5 - PentaxForums.com

But those photos are not composed. They are not the artful photography that you placed on the highest plane and shared an example of. They are documenting a sliver of space and are documentary photography in the strictest sense of the word yet to so many they inspire awe.

[Wheatfield]

Everyone has their own idea about what a good picture looks like.

The truth is, there are no right or wrong answers to the questions because everyone has their own vision.

A technically good picture can be bad if the subject is considered boring or uninteresting... but it might be something dear to the photographer, in which case, for them it is a great picture!

It is probably similar to music... a classical music lover will hate rock music, and sometimes vice-versa... and then there's the crowd that just loves it all (except Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime" - I think everybody agrees that this song is just horrible and should never have been written or recorded )

So, is there anything that can be of a consensus regarding good and bad pictures, besides a picture taken with the lens cap on being unequivocally bad?

Good picture = one my wife likes.
Bad picture = one my wife doesn't like.

[clackers]

But those photos are not composed. They are not the artful photography that you placed on the highest plane and shared an example of. They are documenting a sliver of space and are documentary photography in the strictest sense of the word yet to so many they inspire awe.

Of course they are composed, John. See Post 70.

Who pointed Hubble in that direction and took the picture? Why are you showing us those ones with beautiful objects and not others of random space?

What you're now claiming is that if the subject's natural, it's not art. No, it's all about process, that's what people have said in this thread from a long way back.

NASA in particular is a smart agency when it comes to PRs … the mass of sensational photos and videos they make available to the public of course is influenced by the need to secure Congressional funding. It's not just mapping the skies.

Now, 'documentary photography' of the world around us can be done well and done badly, Pinholecam's pic back there shows how to do it well:

How to Improve Your Documentary Photography | Fstoppers

[johnmflores]

Of course they are composed, John. See Post 70.

Who pointed Hubble in that direction and took the picture? Why are you showing us those ones with beautiful objects and not others of random space?
...
NASA in particular is a smart agency when it comes to PRs … the mass of sensational photos and videos they make available to the public of course is influenced by the need to secure Congressional funding. It's not just mapping the skies.

Getting observation time on the Hubble Telescope is very competitive. It's not just a bunch of folk looking for "pretty" parts of the sky. The PR department likely chooses photos that have public appeal, but the fact remains that the photos are being taken for scientific purposes, not artistic ones.

Competition for time on the telescope is extremely intense. Potential users must show that their observations can only be accomplished with Hubble’s unique capabilities and are beyond the capabilities of ground-based telescopes.

Telescope observing time is measured by the number of orbits required for a successful observation. Programs requiring many orbits get much greater scrutiny. The observations must address a significant astronomical mystery.

The demand for time on Hubble is so great there are typically six times as many observing proposals for the telescope as those that actually are selected. This is because Hubble can do breakthrough astronomical research that simply can’t be done from ground-based telescopes.

Calls for proposals to use HST are issued annually. The time allocated for a cycle lasts approximately one year. Proposals are divided into several categories such as solar system objects, star formation, black holes in active galaxies, and the far universe.

NASA - The Hubble Space Telescope Observing Program<br> By Ray Villard, Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)

What you're now claiming is that if the subject's natural, it's not art. No, it's all about process, that's what people have said in this thread from a long way back.

I've made no such claim, so I'd ask you not to put words in my mouth. I am responding to your statement that "To me, there's no way that you planning out a concept and honouring it with subject, background and perspective choice isn't more artistic than other purposes of photography, like a medical X ray, or taking pictures of items for insurance documentation, or a selfie to show you were at the ball game."

These Hubble Telescope photos are beautiful but they are documentary shots, not artistic shots based on your own definitions. These shots are being made by scientists that have no interest in being "artistic"

[clackers]

I am responding to your statement that "To me, there's no way that you planning out a concept and honouring it with subject, background and perspective choice isn't more artistic than other purposes of photography, like a medical X ray, or taking pictures of items for insurance documentation, or a selfie to show you were at the ball game."

These Hubble Telescope photos are beautiful but they are documentary shots, not artistic shots based on your own definitions. These shots are being made by scientists that have no interest in being "artistic"

These photos are extremely planned in concept and honoured with subject, background and perspective choice, John.

The postprocessing alone can be done in multiple ways to bring out different colours.

If you don't think astrophotography image making is artistic, it's just scientific exploration, you can take it up with Voice of Reason or any of our other Pentaxians who actually do it, and probably have prints up on their walls. I haven't seen yours.

We've just had a good discussion here: Beginners guide to shooting the moon - PentaxForums.com

Mossy Rocks points out that a full moon is not as great for texture, it's the side light that brings out the details. There's nothing being discovered here that probes haven't already mapped extensively, just good advice for hobbyists wanting to make beautiful pictures.

[rdenney]

C. S. Lewis wrote that art is measured by the effect it has on art lovers, not the reviews of critics who seem to want to close doors rather than open them.

But he also distinguished between trite literature that wouldn’t penetrate the crust of indifference (his example was “bathed in a flood of silver moonlight”—for him an example of decoration rather than communication), versus writing that probed deeply (his example here from Malory was “the moon shone clear”—utterly undecorated but evocative enough to make me shiver with cold, and the fear of what the light would reveal). His theory was that the more experience people had loving art rather than being seen to love art, the more their taste would gravitate from the former to the latter. (From An Experiment in Criticism)

But even trite and cliche art is still art. Mozart sometimes composed dull music, but he never composed bad music.

As for me, a photograph has to draw me in. It may be visual mystery, or it may be clarity (the visual equivalent of “the moon shone clear”). It may be technique, though it has to be in the service of something, even if simple beauty. Composition is important. It has to include what supports the point, and exclude what doesn’t. But what supports the point, or even what the point is, can be subtle to the point of being obscure or inscrutable. It’s not the artist’s job to be obvious, after all. Consider the work of Lee Friedlander, whose photographs may seem like random scenes, but are tightly and formally composed, and thus invite deeper consideration.



But I am warned: The great tuba musician and pedagog Arnold Jacobs once told a student he was better with words than with music, and the student abandoned his musical ambitions and became a journalist. I fear that threads like this can invite such observations. Back to working through my Alaska photos.

Rick “having a point to make is required before knowing how to make it matters” Denney

[dsmithhfx]

Trying to frame photography as an artistic endeavor only is self-defeating, because it is reductive by definition. Photography is much more than that, and aspirational artistic photographers have much to learn, and take inspiration from the breadth of the medium, else they are mere replicators of received, self-referential ideas, producers of drugstore calendar pictures.

Ok, so maybe the hubble telescope 'inspired' you to take a picture of the night sky, and stick a barn in front of it. That at least is a beginning.

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Last edited by dsmithhfx; 08-27-2018 at 02:31 AM.

[ChristianRock]

There have been some great thoughts and insights in this thread. To me it's been a nice break from the gear-centric conversations - so now that we are having Photokina, I think I need to re-read the whole thread again to remind myself of what matters