Who is to be pleased?
David Hobby, Strobist meister, has an interesting post about for whom the photos toll. Or, more directly: Are the photos for the subject, the viewers or the photographers who make them?
"Magazines (WIRED comes to mind) do not exist only to be filled with namby-pamby, flattering photos of people. (How boring would that be?) And yet, if your first goal is to please the person sitting for your photo, that is exactly where you might be headed," he states.
So for whom do you make your photos? Let's hear it.
Comments
I make 'em for me. It's nice, mind you, if someone else likes them, too (send money!), but how many fans of empty parking lots, decaying buildings and rusty cars are out there? So, when I push the shutter release, I'm doing it only because something in what I'm looking at appeals to me. (Looking at my own photos, I'd say that "something" has to do with simple geometry and vacancy.)
This being the case, why do I post them? Originally it was just to give me a good reason to get out there. I had more-or-less drifted away from photography, so needing photos to post forced me out and helped me rediscover my interest.
Posted by: stephen connor | February 27, 2008 3:30 PM