photography philosophies, theories, art and critic

[eikin]

just finding out if there are anyone with interest or had training in the field of photography theories, stuff like Walter Benjamin's Little History of Photography etc.

share your thoughts, views, whatever, if there's a a group big enough maybe we can start something in CS.

:cheers:

 

[ellery]

wat dies walter benjamin have to say .

 

[Jed]

Yeah I actually did my Masters primarily on that area, so would be happy to contribute.

 

[Redsun]

field of photography theories??
please dun make photography so complicated:cry:

 

[eikin]

wat dies walter benjamin have to say .

he wrote a substantial amount on photography, mechanical production and the unconscious, you might want to borrow some books from the library to find out

field of photography theories??
please dun make photography so complicated

photography itself is complicated enough without anyone complicating it :sweat: just finding out the interest level for now

Yeah I actually did my Masters primarily on that area, so would be happy to contribute.

thanks for responding Jed seems like not much demand in the forum to speak of for now though

 

[Celebring]

seems like not much demand in the forum to speak of for now though

I would be interested to listen to such a presentation. I've usually avoided philosophy, but would like to hear about photography and self-expression, among other things.

 

[alvintang]

this is a really important factor that will contribute to how one's image will/should be read. (besides the usual technical aspects, which a good 90% of the images here are usually being commented)

other than walter benjamin's writings, (especially the essay on the age of mechnical reproduction) one should be really take on the theory and study of semiotics which will in turn allows you to see images in different lights. Sub-genres in semiotics will include feminisim (eg. cindy sherman), modernism (rodchenko), post-modernism (vannessa beecroft), appropriation (richard prince) etc.

im from a fine arts background, majoring in photography so i would really love to contribute to this topic if there are enough people involved and discuss about it in-depth. every image tells a story, even if its just a picture of a blank wall; it depends how much you read into it.

 

[eikin]

this is a really important factor that will contribute to how one's image will/should be read. (besides the usual technical aspects, which a good 90% of the images here are usually being commented)

other than walter benjamin's writings, (especially the essay on the age of mechnical reproduction) one should be really take on the theory and study of semiotics which will in turn allows you to see images in different lights. Sub-genres in semiotics will include feminisim (eg. cindy sherman), modernism (rodchenko), post-modernism (vannessa beecroft), appropriation (richard prince) etc.

im from a fine arts background, majoring in photography so i would really love to contribute to this topic if there are enough people involved and discuss about it in-depth. every image tells a story, even if its just a picture of a blank wall; it depends how much you read into it.

cool ... i'm from architecture background, but you know we read almost anything, though sometimes not very indepth :bsmilie: i'm doing a module now actually ... have you read Deleuze?

indeed, if there are enough people around, we can start talking nonsense online :sweat: actually if can really find enough people with similar interest, can even plan for some ''experiments'' ... that'll be in the longer term though

 

[alvintang]

i assume you are talking about gilles deleuze? if so, nope i havent read anything indepth from him. i read alot from jeff wall, freud and barthes.
hope more people will be interested in this

 

[eikin]

i assume you are talking about gilles deleuze? if so, nope i havent read anything indepth from him. i read alot from jeff wall, freud and barthes.
hope more people will be interested in this

yup, Gilles Deleuze. seems like you're quite well read! i'm an impatient reader, so i haven't covered alot, but there are some concepts in A Thousand Plateaus which are quite important but not quite ''explored'' in artistic execution i felt (for example indirect discourse.) also i thought Walter J. Ong's idea of ''Second Orality'' is quite interesting, especially in internet environment.

hope to see more people with similar interest indeed

 

[Jed]

field of photography theories??
please dun make photography so complicated:cry:

Maybe photography is complicated

Some of the literature in this area is occasionally dry, as with a lot of things that fall under the general remit of academia... but some of it is exceedingly readable and almost all of it is relevant.

When you start considering the photographic image as an entity, you can start to question its authenticity, discern its roles in the development of society, place it in the world today and understand how it can be different things for you, and the person standing next to you, amongst other things.

I'm sure many people in CS wouldn't call their photographs snapshots - but when does a snapshot become something more than that?

Photographic theory doesn't have to be complicated; it's just thinking about photography in a way that doesn't involve equipment and brands.

 

[Jed]

Maybe, I've had a thought, that perhaps you would get a better interest/response if the request did sound less academic. But perhaps like the question I posed above, re snapshots, would be more accessible because people would ask themselves the question, and find the need for answers. So you could start a thread posing a question that challenges people to theorize, when its a specific question they see as relevant to themselves you will end up with a better response. You will of course then open the discussion to a wider pool, which has its drawbacks as well.

 

[eikin]

Maybe, I've had a thought, that perhaps you would get a better interest/response if the request did sound less academic. But perhaps like the question I posed above, re snapshots, would be more accessible because people would ask themselves the question, and find the need for answers. So you could start a thread posing a question that challenges people to theorize, when its a specific question they see as relevant to themselves you will end up with a better response. You will of course then open the discussion to a wider pool, which has its drawbacks as well.

it's possible, but such discussions have been done before, with most ended up with the ''shoot more talk less'' kind of conclusion :sweat: actually i'm looking for people who has taken up photography with a ''different'' interest than the ''majority''

 

[Jed]

Yeah I that might be the case ^.^

We'll have to wait and see how many theorists come out of the woodwork then!

 

[NMSS_2]

this looks interesting!:thumbsup: i am all ears.

 

[alvintang]

Yeah I that might be the case ^.^

We'll have to wait and see how many theorists come out of the woodwork then!

for sure! it will be interesting to see how many are actually interested in this

just a link for a start>>>
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem02.html

 

[Jed]

Are you studying at Aberdeen?

 

[alvintang]

hi jed,
nah im not..im from queensland college of art.

 

[Jed]

ROFL. Nevermind me, I got that from the link which I assumed was the Uni of Aberdeen... turns out it's other end of the country in Aberystwyth God bless the Welsh.

 

[frametology]

i think this is a super idea though i've never studied photography!

personally, i love philosophy, AND photography. so if we could merge both. WAH. it'll be perfect! ha.

but i guess you all are right, majority of the threads started under such a theme would just end off with 'don't think just shoot', but that shouldn't stop us right!

anyway, the signs 'thesis' was relatively interesting. read about a quarter so far. they should teach such things in GP (general paper) lah! HA.

oh. sorry i may sound like a noob to you all (cause all you guys here are like sages in the academic realm of photography).