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Quote: Maybe it actually shows how out of touch most of us really are.
Indeed. The world of Internet photography sharing is indeed a small one with only a very limited range of styles getting disproportionate praise. Show people something different and groupthink prevails. Don't try to understand it, just poke fun at it. Sooo much easier.
Quote: Maybe it actually shows how out of touch most of us really are.
Indeed. The world of Internet photography sharing is indeed a small one with only a very limited range of styles getting disproportionate praise. Show people something different and groupthink prevails. Don't try to understand it, just poke fun at it. Sooo much easier.
Personally I don't like many of the shortlisteds in the DB but not because I don't take to new things ... Quite the opposite I like to see inventive challenging photography but I so very often miss seeing it in these types of competitions as much as local camera club competitions. In the DB Awards some of the images look like 70's men's work equipment catalogue images. Some are pretty well repeated such as the urban decay/poverty of the tip images. The lack of any photographic input whatsoever in some. The very commonplace images in many other awards depicting miserable people staring impassively directly into camera. The standard ultra depressing minimalist urban landscape with very little in it and a nice little colour cast. Quite the opposite of being new - the themes aren't actually new or inventive and indeed actually border on or transcend the term 'cliched'. If these images offered something other than excessively plain, excessively mundane, excessively miserable, excessively badly composed, etc to put them in their lofty positions in trendy galleries and cool awards I would look and be more receptive but I don't see much more quite often, and I know if I offered images like the finger about to press the machine button or if I simply cut up and Pritt-sticked other people's photographs together I would be laughed at because I don't really move in the right artistic circles where the Emperor is always well dressed. What I feel also is that bless you can stnd in front of these images, tilt your head and rub your chin thoughtfully, and make agreeable noises then you are closed-minded, out of touch or don't understand this greater thinking and artistic expression.
The words 'out of touch' are used in the quote above - by being out of touch does that mean I have to be 'in touch' with some source that tells me or shows me what is good. The only thing anyone has to be 'in touch' with to know when something is good, is YOUR OWN MIND. The suggestion that we need to stay iin touch with something or someone to know what we should think is good or what we should appreciate is a very annoying and condescending suggestion.
Quote: The words 'out of touch' are used in the quote above - by being out of touch does that mean I have to be 'in touch' with some source that tells me or shows me what is good. The only thing anyone has to be 'in touch' with to know when something is good, is YOUR OWN MIND. The suggestion that we need to stay iin touch with something or someone to know what we should think is good or what we should appreciate is a very annoying and condescending suggestion.
I think you are reading too much into Keith's words and I'm pretty sure that's not what he meant at all.
The problem with sites like this is it is tempting to see it as a self-contained world and not to look beyond the work that is shown here to the broader world of photography as a whole. There is certainly a predisposition towards setting good technique above creativity as an end in itself such that work like John Stezaker's is not considered to be photography at all simply because the artist didn't use a camera to make his images. People do not look past that very narrow-minded view to see some genuine skill and artistry in what he's doing. I also rather like the 'Illuminance' series. I can understand why some might see the (deliberate) over-exposure of the plant shot or the seemingly banal image of light reflecting off steps as simply 'poor technique'. 'Traditional' photography is all about getting the 'right' exposure, rule-of-thirds, leading lines and that sort of stuff. Real creativity doesn't really get a look in, it seems.
But I'm not here to justify the shortlist. Some of the imagery does indeed leave me cold. I just find this whole attitude of sneering at anything that doesn't conform to a rather narrow defintion of photography to be depressing. Open your minds, people!
You'd have thought that the internet would have broadened peoples view of photography but as Jools says in some ways it has narrowed our views to within our own favourite web sites.
It's easy to dismiss John Stezaker's work as being nothing more than a bit of Pritt Stick and something that anyone can do - but you didn't - you didn't even think of it - John Stezaker did and it worked.
Like anybody, I can look at competitons of this type and see some that I like and some that I don't - a bit like looking through the Readers Choice Gallery.
Quote: You'd have thought that the internet would have broadened peoples view of photography but as Jools says in some ways it has narrowed our views to within our own favourite web sites.
That's very true. The internet seems to narrow opinion as people cluster together in safe groups scared to peek out into the big wide world in case it challenges their long held beliefs. You can only improve at anything if you step out of your comfort zone and try to understand that which you don't at first.
Quote: Open your minds, people!
perhaps we need an `open-minded' group on epz..? 
then perhaps we can challenge the boundaries of our own definitions and open the minds of members to the new and exciting world of `art photography'. Perhaps the gods in epz towers might consider an epz exhibition to rival Deutsche Borse (or are they just another reviled banker)?
Quote: Photographer or not, he alone deserves the prize
about sums it up for me, and I find that narrow and depressing.
Quote: It's easy to dismiss John Stezaker's work as being nothing more than a bit of Pritt Stick and something that anyone can do - but you didn't - you didn't even think of it - John Stezaker did and it worked.
Maybe we didn't think of it because we didn't find his idea remotely interesting or relevant...
I still feel that there is a glut of pretentious art around these days and I find it hard to believe that there is anything about these photos that can touch an individual's soul or truly engage their senses.
Quote: That's very true. The internet seems to narrow opinion as people cluster together in safe groups scared to peek out into the big wide world in case it challenges their long held beliefs. You can only improve at anything if you step out of your comfort zone and try to understand that which you don't at first.
It's nothing to do with coming out of comfort zones - it should be about engaging the viewer.
Who judges these competitions? Joe Public - no some pretentious oddballs on another planet who think they can tell us what to appreciate! 
Quote:
It's easy to dismiss John Stezaker's work as being nothing more than a bit of Pritt Stick and something that anyone can do - but you didn't - you didn't even think of it - John Stezaker did and it worked.
Actually that was the only one that held any interest for me.
Quote:
It's easy to dismiss John Stezaker's work as being nothing more than a bit of Pritt Stick and something that anyone can do - but you didn't - you didn't even think of it - John Stezaker did and it worked.
I fully understand what you are saying and I agree with it. I'm not jealous that I didn't think of it - lod knows I see enough pictures on this site and think 'I wish I'd seen that'. And doing what Stezaker did is not even new. My disdain of Stezaker's work in this particular shortlist is because it is totally banal - for example on the portrait of the woman I fail to see the link between the portrait and the photo that has been stuck over her and to there is neither an aesthetic balance in the picture and nor is there a dissonance to grab your attention. Yes, some may say 'that is the point', then fine. But that in turn means that any one of a gazillion pictures could have been stuck over her image which brings us back to the merits of the photo as a creative work.
Now if Stezaker has body of work that merits his listing in this competition, I can't argue with that but why use such a banal picture as a showcase for his talent.
Quote: no some pretentious oddballs on another planet who think they can tell us what to appreciate!
Like many on here are doing by saying its crap art. It has everything to do with comfort zone, the viewer sometimes has to be willing to look harder than they are normally used to doing.
Here we are dismissing something because we:
a) - don't understand it
b) - don't like it
One day there will be a thread asking questions of the EC, HC, GE awards and people will line up to point out that they are one persons choice.
If you want a competiton for Safe Landscapes or fluffy animals or flowers.....you will find it. This particular competition has its own criteria and outline for judging. Don't like it - find a fluffy animal competition.
Quote: Here we are dismissing something because we:
a) - don't understand it
b) - don't like it
c) - feel they should have put some effort in 
Quote: for example on the portrait of the woman I fail to see the link between the portrait and the photo that has been stuck over her and to there is neither an aesthetic balance in the picture and nor is there a dissonance to grab your attention.
You mean the one with the woman overlaid with a postcard of a seascpae? Look a little closer and you will see. It's actually rather subtle and very clever.
Yes, it's a picture that you are't supposed to 'get' within five seconds. Must be crap, then....
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