Photo's to cheer you up : )
July 4, 2007 7:49 PM   Subscribe

 
Some of these are really nice looking, while others are wholly pretentious.

And this one is just... I mean is that what I think it is? (NSFW)

Nice find.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 8:08 PM on July 4, 2007


Source Magazine: Better photos than you take, but otherwise... eh, s'alright.
posted by shmegegge at 8:43 PM on July 4, 2007


LIKENESS
Identity is defined by those around us, what society wants us to be and how that society reacts to our visual existence. In an attempt to be myself, I end up trying to be someone else, reflecting the people I know and who I look up to, or enviously desire to be. I cannot identify which of these disparate personas define the real me, nor can I determine the collective affect they have on my individuality. As a consequence, neither I nor anyone else can determine if any of these images can be me.

whp the hell let him get away with this level of sophmoric thinking?
posted by Rubbstone at 8:52 PM on July 4, 2007


whp the hell let him get away with this level of sophmoric thinking?

The art department at Napier University, apparently.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 9:06 PM on July 4, 2007


i really like it when thumbnail pages link to other pages of the same thumbnails.
posted by tremspeed at 9:35 PM on July 4, 2007


whp the hell let him get away with encouraged him to develop this level of sophmoric thinking?

I read this kind of rubbish all the time at exhibitions, especially when they showcase the top hiskewl artists for the year, or university artskewl graduates.

My theory is that the vast majority of visual artists are simply people who have - or have developed - a bit of an instinct for drawing, splashing paint around appropriately, or pointing a camera in the right direction using the right settings. That is, they are overwhelmingly visual people, with some technical know-how thrown in.

In my experience, they tend not to be particularly intellectual in any kind of verbose, philosophical sense. That probably belongs to the other, less preferred half of the brain; the one they haven't been focusing on. And yet, artskewls think that it's not enough to just create pretty or interesting images, so to add a veneer of intellectual validity they force their students to try & explain the high-level artistic theory, inspiration & vision behind their works.

The result, more often than not, is exactly like that pretentious twaddle above. Rather than enlightening me about their 'vision', I find it usually detracts from the work.
posted by UbuRoivas at 11:09 PM on July 4, 2007 [2 favorites]


I dunno if it's a general rule that artists are all vision, no thought, UbuRoivas - I see a lot of work by undergraduates and recent graduates backed up by pretty rigorous thinking (and, personally speaking, most of my favourite contemporary artists are essentially philosophers or thinkers).

But you're right that there is way too much post hoc justification of work that just doesn't need propping up with a load of vague pseudo-philosophy, and that the art schools force this on some artists - at this year's degree shows, I saw some genuinely good stuff by graduates who'd ended up with second class degrees because their dissertations dragged down their marks, and I know of one art school that has changed their final marking procedures to prevent more 'traditional' teachers, who believe that studio practice always trumps the more academic stuff, from upping students marks at the last minute to compensate for poor dissertations.
posted by jack_mo at 1:43 AM on July 5, 2007


Thanks, that's good to know about. I enjoy dipping into Axis to find graduates with interesting work. Their filtering seems pretty good.
posted by patricio at 2:31 AM on July 5, 2007


A lot of this suggests that the most important quality in a photographer or artists is the cojones to state "this is art" with no apparent irony.
posted by rhymer at 3:32 AM on July 5, 2007


Personally I'd rather view photos of singles in my area.
posted by rhymer at 3:33 AM on July 5, 2007


who the hell let him get away with this level of sophmoric thinking?

The art department at Napier University, apparently.


Without wanting to be an asshole about it, I think it's fair to say that Napier is not one of this country's most prestigious universities.
posted by Aloysius Bear at 4:44 AM on July 5, 2007


I like this photographer's idea of shooting overlooked nooks and crannies in homes; I'd love to see more. And this photographer's theme of 24 hours with time-lapse photos in different spots around the city is cool. The church photo is rather glorious.

The painterly triptych here is fun, and these are quite touching and effective; I think this is my fave so far.

Lots of thoughtful and interesting things to find here.
posted by taz at 4:45 AM on July 5, 2007


This description, of some photos of car parks and roundabouts, is quite something.

This work presents a universe wholly constructed by human intention, I have attempted to unearth the patterns of order, logic and disruption imposed on these spaces by their now absent creators and inhabitants. In doing so the spaces have become divorced from their original function, becoming something more than asphalt and concrete. This work can be viewed as a tribute to the phantasmagorical endeavours of human kind whilst at the same time an actualisation of the permanent mark left by man.
posted by Aloysius Bear at 5:25 AM on July 5, 2007


Is it just me, or are most of the photographs here (admittendly based on a random sampling of 50 or so) just really bad? Even without the amusing blurb?
posted by popkinson at 5:42 AM on July 5, 2007


Without wanting to be an asshole about it, I think it's fair to say that Napier is not one of this country's most prestigious universities.

Maybe with other courses, but Napier has a very good track record in terms of photography and is very well respected in that regard, it may be the only good thing about napier : ) There's a bizarro inverse law of photography at work that means the less prestigous looking the college - the more technically competent they are, people actually leave art colleges to go to napier, strange huh ?

- theyre marking dissertations ? - oh shit.
posted by sgt.serenity at 5:49 AM on July 5, 2007


That's a gem Aloysius Bear. And the best thing is you can apply this description to pretty much anything manmade (omitting the words asphalt and concrete). Public lavatory: check, empty supermarket: check; recently vacated porno set: check. What a load of twaddle. Especially as these particular snaps are so utterly pedestrian.
posted by rhymer at 5:55 AM on July 5, 2007


for further explanation of this strange law - here's the Stevenson college photography website - (a college which is at the trainspotting end of Edinburgh )although the photos might not be to your taste, you can see they are better technically.
posted by sgt.serenity at 5:57 AM on July 5, 2007


(Javier Tereno is worth checking out)
posted by sgt.serenity at 5:59 AM on July 5, 2007


Well this is some boring crap. You see better all the time on flickr. What's the point of getting a degree in photography?
posted by delmoi at 6:14 AM on July 5, 2007


It's a .ie domain, that's Ireland. So it's Ireland and UK photography graduates online. Or in the words of it's own front page:

Welcome to Source, the magazine for contemporary photography in Britain and Ireland.
posted by davebushe at 7:07 AM on July 5, 2007


I think it's fair to say that Napier is not one of this country's most prestigious universities.

That's right. As we all know, the country's top universities are Oxford, Cambridge, and Hull.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:52 PM on July 5, 2007


I really enjoyed that Stevenson college link, sgt.serenity! Lots of good photos over there.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 5:08 PM on July 5, 2007


That's right. As we all know, the country's top universities are Oxford, Cambridge, and Hull

That's not right, it should be:

Hull, Oxford and Cambridge.
posted by sgt.serenity at 10:34 PM on July 5, 2007


Well, I'm not so sure. After all, Oxford's a complete dump.
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:42 PM on July 5, 2007


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