Well said, Emily. I was very blunt in my lack of enthusiasm for the images (even though a couple of them are very nice), but you've succinctly articulated my feelings. Andrew On 02/04/2010 04:05 AM, Emily L. Ferguson wrote: > At 8:38 AM +0000 2/4/10, Howard wrote: >> Which all goes to show that opinions about photographs are all very >> personal. What one person likes.... >> >> I don't like Cartier-Bresson, nor Ansel Adams! Am I alone? > > No. But you're probably in a pretty lonely place! > > The interesting thing about that Flickr page is that the commenters > don't seem to have any thing to say except, sycophantically, "oh yes, > wise one, the photographs you've selected this week are indeed inspiring." > > Inspiring is not an adjective I'd use for those images - they don't > inspire me to do much except go hunt for someone who paints on velvet. > And, unlike the work of Adams and Cartier-Bresson, when I look at the > gallery, no one image jumps out at me and sticks in my memory. > > Either because we're so educated about the history and technique of > photography, or because we've simply been exposed to so much, we're no > longer impressed with yet another gritty face, especially when we've > stared at Steve McCurry's Afghan girl and Dorothea Lange's Migrant > Mother for a great deal of our education. > > My personal opinion is that, in the case of McCurry and Cartier-Bresson, > some things are great because they're the first. > > Steve's image turns out to be formulaic, if you go and track down more > of his work. > > And here's the difference: Cartier-Bresson's isn't. -- http://andrewsharpe.com
