Cem_Usakligil
Well-known member
Does this count as street photography? 
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The Flemish Lion
- Thread starter Cem_Usakligil
- Start date
Martin Stephens
New member
It would to me. I like it a lot.
Maggie Terlecki
Moderator
oh, you are a naughty boy, Cem. ;-)
Yes, and it's pretty cool!
Maggie
Yes, and it's pretty cool!
Maggie
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Does this count as street photography?
I'm not sure, Cem.
Seems more like a photograph to me.
Asher
Cem_Usakligil
Well-known member
Thanks Martin, appreciated. You have made quite an impact in the past few days, good to to have people like yourself with fresh ideas around. By the way, my question was meant as a tease since we've had discussions on the definition of street photography recently.
Cem_Usakligil
Well-known member
Thanks Maggie. Guilty as chargedoh, you are a naughty boy, Cem. ;-)
Yes, and it's pretty cool!
Maggie
.
Cem_Usakligil
Well-known member
Hi Asher,Asher said:
Some people would disagree that this is a photograph but that's another discussion altogether.
Since I know that you always crave for some context, here is one. This cafe in Antwerp, Belgium is a hub for the ultra nationalistic, right–wing Flemish people, such as the members of the Vlaams Belang party. They are against multi culturalism and immigration. They have some factions which are considered to be racist and even militant. The flag is the official flag of Flanders. Within this context, the no entry sign on the right gains another perspective, doesn't it? I was particularly fond of the triangle the sign forms with the man and the flag.
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Cem,
Thanks for the superb photograph, (Maris Rusis, with respect, stay in your chair, LOL), and the explanation once again shows the great value of generosity by the artist in presenting the image with it's wrappings.
Given the politics, the picture might be also more confrontational in B&W. Not necessary but it might haver an extra prominence to the triange.
Asher
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Cem,
Thanks for the superb photograph, (Maris Rusis, with respect, stay in your chair, LOL), and the explanation once again shows the great value of generosity by the artist in presenting the image with it's wrappings.
Given the politics, the picture might be also more confrontational in B&W. Not necessary but it might haver an extra prominence to the triangle.
Asher
Maggie Terlecki
Moderator
Asher, I'm not sure. I am wondering if the yellow building and the Flemish yellow and black flag need to be in color, to really get the point across.
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Maggie,
You're too young to remember, perhaps, but so a search, the Fascist pictures of WW2 were frightening in B&W!
Asher
Cem_Usakligil
Well-known member
Hi Asher,
As you can imagine, I've got nothing but respect for our friend Maris.
Regarding the picture, I've explained the context to you because I know that you appreciate it. The downside is that one can think that this should be an image about politics to confront us. But those aspects were not the most important reasons why I took the picture. The main reasons were the composition and the peaceful scene of a man enjoying reading his paper in the not so common sun here in the lowlands. Regarding the b&w, as I've said many times before, I only consider it if the colour distracts. In this case it doesn't.
Cem_Usakligil
Well-known member
Yes indeed. People from Belgium will immediately recognize those colours without further explanation. Also the red of the no entry sign is essential to me.
nicolas claris
OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Pretty good one. Again !
In all meanings, let's keep colors against racism.
In all meanings, let's keep colors against racism.
Doug Kerr
Well-known member
Hi, Cem,
Well, do you know that fellow or not?
Or maybe I'm confused. Maybe what matters is whether any museum has offered to buy the picture.
Oh no, that's for it to be "art".
No, maybe that's for it to be "fine art".
This is all so complicated for an old guy.
But I think it is fine street photography.
Best regards,
Doug
Well, do you know that fellow or not?
Or maybe I'm confused. Maybe what matters is whether any museum has offered to buy the picture.
Oh no, that's for it to be "art".
No, maybe that's for it to be "fine art".
This is all so complicated for an old guy.
But I think it is fine street photography.
Best regards,
Doug
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Doug,
Just to let you know my official take after some careful consideration.
This photograph is fine as "Street Photography, in that it records a scene that both memorable and special to street sights and especially in this setting of a man relaxed and not being made to react or else to pose or do something remarkable. There's a great experience of the honesty of the picture. We feel fortunate for the very fact that this instant is memorialized and allowed to be engraved in our communal memories. We have a kinship with others who also enjoy tis scene. These are some of the features which make this picture rise above a snapshot or vacation memento to reach the value and worth of street photography at its best.
This picture is also fine to be considered as a "photograph", an image made by someone who has mastered sufficient skill in handling a camera so that it becomes at the service of the mind without any effort, so that what's composes by position and timing will be reliably recorded and not merely pleasant but a treat to look at again and again. So this is also a photograph.
Next, is it art? Well in my mind it succeeds as it has already recruited all of us to be moved in a family of divergent but related ways, just from each of us taking in that scene as if we were also there for that split second which has been engraved to withstand the passage of time. That recruitment of interest and the feeling that the picture has esthetic value worth saving for others to see, are some of the hallmarks of art of the Western cultures and likely true for most societies all over the planet. So yes, it's "art" and among such works, this would be considered refined and elegant and worthy of collecting, so I'd call it fine art too!
Asher
Cem_Usakligil
Well-known member
Cem_Usakligil
Well-known member
Thanks a lot for your insights Asher. I'm particularly interested in your definition of a photograph. You have mentioned the proficiency of the photographer as an aspect of a photograph, as opposed to not being one. What its the alternative state would you say?
Cheers
Doug Kerr
Well-known member
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Cem,
Let me try to approach an answer. My apologies for it being so long, but I have not the time to make it shorter right now.
In the development of the photograph, the most respected instances of the art of drawing with light, fluency of the photographer with all stages of the process were required. This reached it's height with the meditative cerebral work of Adams and the fast reflex actions of Bresson. Despite their difference in behavior, idiom and style, their work has the prestige of fluency with the medium.
Of course, a child with a digicam might possibly capture a scene that seems masterful. But it is just a fluke of happenstance! Is the picture then a "photograph"? Not in the sense I use to reflect on pictures I'd value. I'd still find the child's picture remarkable and be in awe of what was an accident of nature.
So finding a great photograph does not necessarily require that there were indeed ingredients of fluency in the making of the image, but likely as not, it was there and an essential element without which that picture wouldn't have been created. I doubt that the "Flemish Lion" as it's presented to us could have been made without the photographer having mastered the camera as both an extension of the body and a tool that can used creatively under the command of the imagination, as if an exceptional drawing was being made in an instant of inspiration. Great visual ideas for a photograph are more common than most would think. Most often, the imagined image, (without any other contamination that always occurs as time changes), is transient and then lost. The photograph is the end result of an ability to export and realize such esthetic transiencies into a permanent form to share with others. The photograph then extends time. This essential extension of time requires the skill and imagination of both an artisan and an artist to succeed.
So yes, there are likely only rare instances of the photograph coming into being without fluency. But then such a picture would have no siblings.
Asher
Cem_Usakligil
Well-known member
As Doug wrote before, very well said Asher.Cem,
Let me try to approach an answer. My apologies for it being so long, but I have not the time to make it shorter right now.
In the development of the photograph, the most respected instances of the art of drawing with light, fluency of the photographer with all stages of the process were required. This reached it's height with the meditative cerebral work of Adams and the fast reflex actions of Bresson. Despite their difference in behavior, idiom and style, their work has the prestige of fluency with the medium.
Of course, a child with a digicam might possibly capture a scene that seems masterful. But it is just a fluke of happenstance! Is the picture then a "photograph"? Not in the sense I use to reflect on pictures I'd value. I'd still find the child's picture remarkable and be in awe of what was an accident of nature.
So finding a great photograph does not necessarily require that there were indeed ingredients of fluency in the making of the image, but likely as not, it was there and an essential element without which that picture wouldn't have been created. I doubt that the "Flemish Lion" as it's presented to us could have been made without the photographer having mastered the camera as both an extension of the body and a tool that can used creatively under the command of the imagination, as if an exceptional drawing was being made in an instant of inspiration. Great visual ideas for a photograph are more common than most would think. Most often, the imagined image, (without any other contamination that always occurs as time changes), is transient and then lost. The photograph is the end result of an ability to export and realize such esthetic transiencies into a permanent form to share with others. The photograph then extends time. This essential extension of time requires the skill and imagination of both an artisan and an artist to succeed.
So yes, there are likely only rare instances of the photograph coming into being without fluency. But then such a picture would have no siblings.
Asher
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Cem,
Yes, I admit to some fluency with language. In very simple terms I mean to just say thanks for sharing images I enjoy!
Asher