Jim's SECRET WEAPON Lens!

[rippo]

Anti pictoralism has been around in one way for a long time, and that doesn't make it suck any less, no matter how many people jump on the bandwagon when experiences it's recurring vogue.

you've got your terms wrong. the pictorialist movement was actually an artsy-fartsy blurry painterly photographic period, which was superceded by Ansel and his f64 crowd. you are in fact an anti-pictorialist. you might want to get that straight before you walk into the wrong bar on the wrong side of town.

it's generally considered polite to keep your mouth shut if you don't have anything nice to say, especially when commenting on someone's art.

perhaps you should start a separate thread on the superiority of realism vs pictorialism, where you can argue your opinion with anyone who cares to discuss it. but why you need to single out any one individual and disparage their work, well...that just shows poor breeding.

[David Karp]

What I hope I won't do, is start making crap, and calling it art, while all my buddies pat me on the back enthusiastically. I hope I'll have at least one genuinely good friend who'll look me in the eye and say, "Hey buddy, I'm not sure where you think you were going with that....but you ended up in Craptown, Crapsylvannia, and I think you should back that up and go back where you came from".

Before pitching cow patties, where is is said that Jim has lots of buddies here who pat him on the back and compliment on work that they don't really care for? I have been around here long enough to know that people are willing to speak their minds. Some can do it civilly, others sometimes less so. Or, perhaps those who don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all. Or perhaps they contact people via PM or e-mail for such comments. But to assert that the people who say that they like Jim's photos really don't, and that they are just patting Jim on the back assumes a lot of facts that are not in evidence. You may not like soft focus or pictorialist photographs. That speaks for you. Nobody else.

For the most part, I cannot stand soft focus photos. I don't have a soft focus lens in my kit, probably never will. However, for whatever reason, I have usually liked Jim's work, whether soft or "Group f/64." I enjoy his portrait work, environmental and otherwise. I really like a couple of the photos linked to this post. When I don't like his soft focus stuff, I can still respect another person's viewpoint. I am not wed to the idea that I am the only one who has the "right" idea about things.

And it is particularly interesting to see Jim's work after having looked through his camera with an old brass soft focus lens on it. How he even composes a photograph using one of those things is a testement to his skill and understanding of his tools. When the lens was open wide enough to get a good view of the screen, it was hard to make out the image. When the lens was stopped down to sharpen things up, the image was pretty darn dark.

[domenico Foschi]

Bobby,
there are different and more polite ways to express your opinion.
The fact that you are at the beginning of the learning curve in photography, somewhat explains your lack of tact and respect toward a FELLOW photographer who works hard and is getting pretty amazing results.
I am not telling you that you should like his work, what I am suggesting is that if it's a critique that you want to express make it constructive: explain what is wrong with the images in your opinion and, please, write them as if you would like a critique be addressed to you.
Think respect. This forum has been succesful because in the 98% of the occasions there is cameraderie and respect, we don't want to change that, now, would we?!
Good luck with your photography.

Cow crap.

You can look at blurry, out of focus images, with half an old lens, and call it fine art if you want.

I'll call it like I see it. I think Jim Galli is making crappy pictures with this "secret weapon lens", and his reputation is such that it's gained not merely acceptance, but critical acclaim. I also think that if he had posted these images under a pseudonym, with the caption, "Hi, my name is Jimmy Newbie, I'm 17 years old and just getting started, what do you think of my pictures with my homemade lens...." Then the resulting comments would have been.....different.


Anti pictoralism has been around in one way for a long time, and that doesn't make it suck any less, no matter how many people jump on the bandwagon when experiences it's recurring vogue.

If bad equipment can only make bad photographs better for you....great. Get your lomography on and power to you.

But it's still crap.

P.S. I'm still at the near end of the learning curve in photography, but by all means, if I master my craft, and then I get bored with the tedium of trying to make excellent images in a technically excellent way, I expect I'll simply take up another art form and start from scratch.

What I hope I won't do, is start making crap, and calling it art, while all my buddies pat me on the back enthusiastically. I hope I'll have at least one genuinely good friend who'll look me in the eye and say, "Hey buddy, I'm not sure where you think you were going with that....but you ended up in Craptown, Crapsylvannia, and I think you should back that up and go back where you came from".


And finally, to answer your first question directly, Asher Kelman, I'm a fan of well compsed images made in a technically excellent manner. I'm a fan of realism, or hyper-realism if possible.

It's why I have taken up photography rather than watercolours or pottery.

[Marko]

perhaps you should start a separate thread on the superiority of realism vs pictorialism, where you can argue your opinion with anyone who cares to discuss it.

Or better yet, go start a whole new discussion board. That way, you will have the benefit of controlling what goes and what not, while we will have the benefit of you having your own board.

[Dave Wooten]

actually I like some of these recent images Jim has posted, (the plants),
it does'nt matter if they are plants , puppets, or tadpoles in a pond. But then I also like some of those paintings of soup cans that Andy guy used to do a while back, and I have a tie with lots of repeated images of M M on it.

[eddie]

har har har.

thanks to jim for another wonderful posting.

thanks to ole ironsights for the ensuing discourse......fun photos followed by a fun exchange!

eddie loves this post

[Asher Kelman]

Cow crap.

You can look at blurry, out of focus images, with half an old lens, and call it fine art if you want.

I'll call it like I see it. I think Jim Galli is making crappy pictures with this "secret weapon lens", and his reputation is such that it's gained not merely acceptance, but critical acclaim. I also think that if he had posted these images under a pseudonym, with the caption, "Hi, my name is Jimmy Newbie, I'm 17 years old and just getting started, what do you think of my pictures with my homemade lens...." Then the resulting comments would have been.....different.

Hi Bobby,

Despite you using totally dismissive and devaluating descriptors of Jim Galli's work, I take you own values seriously. You can find Jim's soft images unimportant and without artistic merit. That is a report and I'd believe you. When, however, you repeatedly imply objective classification in fecal terms, which I find is in itself an argument of to say the least lacking solid substance and for sure, tainted by the source.

I do still respect and allow that you have no positive feelings at all for Jim's work since you have a right to your own reactions. These re both eruptive and based on your own cultural preparation. You are the only reporter and judge possible for your own thoughts.

When you talk about art, however, and deny as fact any artistic photographic value of Jim's pictures you trespass, invade and wound and insult my own pretty well-informed sensibilities.

I have no previous knowledge of Jim's work or status here. I'm new to this forum, have never met him or owned his images or traded with him. My only basis for judgment is my extensive experience in artworks from the earliest civilizations to the present. I personally travel a lot visiting many important National, State and city galleries, private collections and commercial dealers. In addition, I look at some 30 to 3200 pictures every single day and photograph for several organizations. In my own work I make about 500- 2000 pictures a month at events, street and portraits as well as a few important works for my own portfolio.

My level of education would match or surpass that of most people, however, I'm no better than anyone else and certainly not fit to have my own hard-won esthetic reactions to a photograph dismissed and trivialized by you or anyone else.

Anti pictoralism has been around in one way for a long time, and that doesn't make it suck any less, no matter how many people jump on the bandwagon when experiences it's recurring vogue.

Where did you get "Anti pictoralism" from? I don't follow your logic?

If bad equipment can only make bad photographs better for you....great.

By what set of standards do you find that Jim was using "bad equipment". Do you mean it did not fit the purpose Jim assigned to the lens?

Then for the concept of "making "bad photographs better for you", where are the "bad photographs" you refer to? BTW, Jim never claimed they were good photographs, just merely shared his pictures from otherwise nearly nothing to buy to inexpensive lenses.

P.S. I'm still at the near end of the learning curve in photography,

With due respect, you have a poor idea of what education might include in photography. Photography as art is about representation, not documentation, although the latter is not excluded. Art is a process whereby feelings and thoughts are transmitted by doing work in a physical medium such that some related feelings, thoughts and consequences will be invoked first in the artist, completing the work of art and next, hopefully in others, then completing "An Arc of Communication".

Photography as art is not about exactness, although that parameter can be admired and celebrated but is not at all required for the work to be art.

Creativity and genius requires openness to new ideas. If one does not possess that, just hubris towards others, as you have shown till now, then one is preventing any substantive education in photography as art.

While you may well succeed in learning the technical art of photography, art is totally different. Although the word "art" is used in both cases, but there is no necessary connection!

but by all means, if I master my craft,

You can master the craft from a technical point of view. Technical prowess might never be needed if the picture works without it! Certainly mastering the craft will not make you a master of anything except perhaps to copy someone else's type of work. The key qualifyer is the "perhaps" I attached as a condition. I personally doubt you would succeed since you would still lack insight and humility.

and then I get bored with the tedium of trying to make excellent images in a technically excellent way, I expect I'll simply take up another art form and start from scratch.

I'm a stickler for perfection and am hard on myself, knowing that the path I seek has been well worn by better men. However you have little chance of making meaningful art in any medium with a haughty dismissive attitude that is closed to work that doesn't move you right now.

What I hope I won't do, is start making crap, and calling it art, while all my buddies pat me on the back enthusiastically. I hope I'll have at least one genuinely good friend who'll look me in the eye and say, "Hey buddy, I'm not sure where you think you were going with that....but you ended up in Craptown, Crapsylvannia, and I think you should back that up and go back where you came from".

Well I'll be your friend and let you know that last paragraph of writing would not enhance people's opinion of you since you present here an impoverished representation of your own vocabulary.

Think Duchamp! That art challenged and changed our view of what art might be.

And finally, to answer your first question directly, Asher Kelman, I'm a fan of well compsed images made in a technically excellent manner. I'm a fan of realism, or hyper-realism if possible.

It's ironic that a person who insists on technical excellence, talks of "well compsed images". Then who you mention being even a fan of "hyper-realism"; you have missed the point of what abstract means. It is an extraction of some parameters of a subject to make some representation, more or less. Doing it "more” is still, by logic, abstract. There is no difference between "hyper-realism" that you would embrace and glowing soft abstractions that you dismiss so rudely.

You might do yourself a great service by rereading my post a number of times, as it's pretty sound advice. It is not directed against you but is a generous sharing from someone who really cares about art education and allowing people to understand what is possible.

If you can take what I have written not as a challenge or smack in the face but a kindness, then you will at least be able to take the first rung on the ladder to becoming a photographer. For technical capability, just get an apprenticeship and practice.

[Dave Wooten]

Well said Asher.

[Jan Pedersen]

I'd like to second that..

[Scott Squires]

As a Landscape guy my whole LF career I never really paid attention to anything except getting tack sharp Images. The only lenses I used were the newer Multicoated ones. Then I saw Jim Galli's Portraits and Landscapes on his website and the great article on his Portraits and using old lenses in the Sept/Oct issue of View Camera. I wanted old lenses and the ability to shoot that type of portrait (and Landscape). I got the lenses (from you know who) and now I have to learn how to use them. Thanks Jim and keep those photos coming.