Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Stef's Guide to Fine Art photography


Follow my easy tips and you can produce 'Fine Art' photography like this ...
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The rise of digital imaging has rung the death knell of the last great analogue recording medium, film. In spite of the apparently irresistible tide of technological change, there are still some die hards who refuse to give up on film photography. As with Hi Fi buffs who won't let go of LPs because 'they sound better than CDs' there are still some people prepared to spend huge amounts of money on 35mm film gear; on the basis that film-based photographs have a classic look that digital can't replicate.
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But I believe they are wrong. You CAN make photographs on a digital camera in a way that does produce work indistinguishable from the great film photographers of the 20th Century. Here are my Top 10 tips on how to get that elusive photo-reportage look using a modern digital camera:
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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's not fine art photography!
Its just a skanky subway in black and white.

Stef said...

Well spotted with the picture part of the post!

However, I think you may have missed the sarcasm woven into the wordy part

Sadly, the page I link to is long dead so you can't see that I'm taking the piss

Better luck next time

But thanks for reminding me that this blog started off many moons ago as an half-arsed attempt at a photography blog

That would be some time before photography was elevated to the status of a semi-criminal act

Happy days...

Anonymous™ said...

I didn't write that, but kudos to whoever did.

Anonymous™ said...

You have to remember that Fine Art is elitist, only squalour passes as art these days. It's called inverse snobbery. But then if art is meant to reflect the times...

Stef said...

I didn't realise that you were a connmoisseur of photography as well as stoats

This particular blog post refers to an article I wrote in response to an outbreak of pretentiousnes in a corner of Flickr I inhabited about five years ago

In the context of photography the expression 'Fine Art' has connotations which have little to do with the subject matter, elitist or otherwise, and more to do with the prententiousness of its marketing

It's an American thing, like the concept of 'gourmet' jelly beans

Stef said...

...and amusingly, to me anyway, Bill Eggleston bumped into a couple of on-line pieces I wrote on photographic pretentiousness, thought they were moderately entertaining and comped me some tickets for his next exhibition in London

which was a pretty damned gentlemanly thing to do given that I was taking the mick out of some of his work

which is one of the reasons why I let those articles expire with the web space I'd stuck them on

Of course, being such an expert on photography you probably know Bill's work inside out...