DPR Article: Erez Marom: On Originality in Landscape Photography

[Cem_Usakligil]

I have just read this and I kind of disagree with most of it. The author writes that if a landscape photo has been taken before by somebody else, even if you photograph the same scene under different light/conditions, your work is no longer original and thus it can never be called art. What do you think?

Erez Marom: On Originality in Landscape Photography

 

[Asher Kelman]

I have just read this and I kind of disagree with most of it. The autohor writes that if a landscape photo has been taken before by somebody else, even if you photograph the same scene under different light/conditions, your work is no longer original and thus it can never be called art. What do you think?

Erez Marom: On Originality in Landscape Photography

Cem,

The article is beautifully written and illustrated with some of the finest landscape images. His logic is internally consistent just as Rabbinical, Catholic or Hindu literature.

Incidentally, “Erez Marom” the authors name, happens to be, at least in Hebrew, poetic and beautiful as a sound.

The latter represents the truth of it all. Although the article is beautifully written and internally consistent, it’s hardly true.

He does, (accidentally), admit one critical flaw in his thesis that the scene when repeated is not “Art”! He says he’s not going to define the latter!

Well MY set of working definitions consists of these two poles between which everything is “Art”:

1.The artist imagines something emotive, makes it physical and gets the satisfaction that it evokes a family of feelings related to his idea and decrares it done: that’s “art”

2. others like it return to admire it or bring friends and even buy it, that’s “ART”!

Nowhere do I see originality or uniqueness, just behavior of those who attempt to make artwork and those who enjoy, seek it out, collect or invest in it.

BTW, the article, IMHO, can be considered “Art”!
Fabulous find, Cem and I agree with you 100%!

But notice how succinctly your opinion was presented!

I seem to act as if I was still working as a Professor and explain things!

Asher

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

Cem,

The article is beautifully written and illustrated with some of the finest landscape images. His logic is internally consistent just as Rabbinical, Catholic or Hindu literature.

Incidentally, “Erez Marom” the authors name, happens to be, at least in Hebrew, poetic and beautiful as a sound.

The latter represents the truth of it all. Although the article is beautifully written and internally consistent, it’s hardly true.

He does, (accidentally), admit one critical flaw in his thesis that the scene when repeated is not “Art”! He says he’s not going to define the latter!

Well MY set of working definitions consists of these two poles between which everything is “Art”:

1.The artist imagines something emotive, makes it physical and gets the satisfaction that it evokes a family of feelings related to his idea and decrares it done: that’s “art”

2. others like it return to admire it or bring friends and even buy it, that’s “ART”!

Nowhere do I see originality or uniqueness, just behavior of those who attempt to make artwork and those who enjoy, seek it out, collect or invest in it.

BTW, the article, IMHO, can be considered “Art”!
Fabulous find, Cem and I agree with you 100%!

But notice how succinctly your opinion was presented!

I seem to act as if I was still working as a Professor and explain things!

Asher

I fully agree with YOUR set of working definitions of art Asher.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Cem,

Think also of “frame tight and crop closer”, “no limbs sticking in or out the frame” and the like!

Aphorisms, like don’t retake known winning la da cape shots” seem intuitively correct!

However, and arm entering a frame can be remarkable and often framing wider and capturing overlapping neighboring frames allows new creativity when one arrives home!

The worst aphorism might be that “A Picture Should Speak for Itself”, when we all have different cultural backgrounds and so “anchors” and “ideation references” will always be viewer specific and might need some cultural introduction!

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

The worst aphorism might be that “A Picture Should Speak for Itself”, when we all have different cultural backgrounds and so “anchors” and “ideation references” will always be viewer specific and might need some cultural introduction!

I used to think like that as you might remember, that a picture should speak for itself. I still do, but your argument is definitely valid. So I might move a bit towards the middle ground after all.

 

[Jerome Marot]

IMO, the article points out a real problem. In a nutshell: people see impressive pictures and fly to the same place to redo them. This is obviously not limited to landscape, the Eiffel tower is one of the most photographed objects in the world. But what the author ignores is that there is a whole industry revolving about this: it is not difficult to book photo workshops or travels which promise exactly that: to bring the buyer to a well photographed place so that he or she can redo well-known pictures.
Is that a real problem? I don't know. But I know that we should not try to fool ourselves and others that we had a brilliant new ideas when essentially imitating the work of others.
In any case: we live on a vast planet even if most of it is water. I am pretty sure that there are plenty of new landscapes waiting to be found.

 

[Asher Kelman]

The Taj Mahal, from what I think is a very long water feature in stone is a classic example of a pointless image unless ones children are in the picture too.

But some preposterously tall buildings and terrifyingly high glass bridges over amazing river gorges in China, are still worth shooting as they are still rather novel and astonishing.

But Jérôme, you are so right, and so is the author, there’s still much original and amazing sights yet to be photographed.

The job of the tour guide is to take us to those famous place to get those famous shots and visit their favorite gift shops where they often receive a 5 -20% percent kick-back!

But it might require escaping from a tour or paying more attention to people and being able to stop the car and enjoy what one would otherwise pass by!



Asher

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

z

IMO, the article points out a real problem. In a nutshell: people see impressive pictures and fly to the same place to redo them. This is obviously not limited to landscape, the Eiffel tower is one of the most photographed objects in the world. But what the author ignores is that there is a whole industry revolving about this: it is not difficult to book photo workshops or travels which promise exactly that: to bring the buyer to a well photographed place so that he or she can redo well-known pictures.
Is that a real problem? I don't know. But I know that we should not try to fool ourselves and others that we had a brilliant new ideas when essentially imitating the work of others.
In any case: we live on a vast planet even if most of it is water. I am pretty sure that there are plenty of new landscapes waiting to be found.

Although you make a lot of sense (as usual), my original objection was not about originality and/or copy-cat behaviour but about the self given license to call your own work art or not.
Re. the imitation of other's pictures, it is a given. But what else could it be? We are all humans and we react in a certain way to certain locations/sights. If we have never seen a photo of a location before but upon visiting there we take a picture using our eye/emotions/gut feeling/whatever, and if it so happens that this picture has been taken by millions before you, does it make it less of a picture? Does is take away your rights to call it art?
We can extend this also to a concept for a photograph. Imagine a high contrast scene with a ray of light falling in diagonally and somebody has just walked into that light (e.g. Fan Ho). There are literally millions of such street photos to be found on Instagram, it is a genre in itself. And any other genre has also been photographed countless times. So what would be the remedy? Stop photographing all together? Everything which can be photographed has already been photographed? This last one was a nod to the patent office guy who said this in the past.

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

The Taj Mahal, from what I think is a very long water feature in stone is a classic example of a pointless image unless ones children are in the picture too.

But some preposterously tall buildings and terrifyingly high glass bridges over amazing river gorges in China, are still worth shooting as they are still rather novel and astonishing.

But Jérôme, you are so right, and so is the author, there’s still much original and amazing sights yet to be photographed.

The job of the tour guide is to take us to those famous place to get those famous shots and visit their favorite gift shops where they often receive a 5 -20% percent kick-back!

But it might require escaping from a tour or paying more attention to people and being able to stop the car and enjoy what one would otherwise pass by!



Asher

If you must photograph original sights, by all means find and photograph them. But don't do it because otherwise your own work would have been "worthless". It would be the wrong premise IMO.

 

[Jerome Marot]

Although you make a lot of sense (as usual), my original objection was not about originality and/or copy-cat behaviour but about the self given license to call your own work art or not.

I avoided to use the word or even the concept of "art" on purpose, but you noticed. I like it that you paid attention.

At first sight, we could believe that what Erez Marom means by "do not call your pictures art" is simply "do not sell them to that market". That would make sense if he was in the business of selling photographs as art and would not want competition from plagiarists.

But he is not in the business of selling photographs. Haven't you noticed? Haven't you check his website? He is actually in the exact business I was writing about: selling "workshops" to picturesque locations where attendees can plagiarize to their heart's content. So, basically, the message is: "there is no warranty in my workshops that you will be actually be able to sell pictures". Maybe some attendees wanted their money back.

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

I avoided to use the word or even the concept of "art" on purpose, but you noticed. I like it that you paid attention.

At first sight, we could believe that what Erez Marom means by "do not call your pictures art" is simply "do not sell them to that market". That would make sense if he was in the business of selling photographs as art and would not want competition from plagiarists.

But he is not in the business of selling photographs. Haven't you noticed? Haven't you check his website? He is actually in the exact business I was writing about: selling "workshops" to picturesque locations where attendees can plagiarize to their heart's content. So, basically, the message is: "there is no warranty in my workshops that you will be actually be able to sell pictures". Maybe some attendees wanted their money back.

This is an excellent line of reasoning Jerome, thanks a lot!