Photos and the Friday Art Show

I'm actually the laziest photographer you'll ever meet. I won't take more than a few photos of any car. If I can't "get it" in the first or second shot, it's not gonna happen. If you look closely in the chrome, you can see me, and chances are I'm not even looking through the lens. I'm one of those "jerks"

But anyways, this post wasn't all bad. In fact it made people think, so I'm going to call it art. Just because I can.

 

Anyone who has studied art will tell you that one of the most important components in any work of art is composition. Composition is more that just the arrangement of objects, but also the lights and darks and colors to create a kind of balance within the frame. Composition is the most complicated aspect of art to describe, but probably the most important component. It's what "tickles" the eye and keeps it moving around a picture.
Photography is an art in the hands of a person with an artists eye. Ansel Adams was without a doubt one of the finest artists of all time.
Many of the photos in the Friday art show are art, but the ones that started this thread are just snapshots, and frankly, I feel a little embarrassed for the guy who posted them, there's so damn much talent on this board that I've only had the nerve to post one work in the Friday show, and it certainly was not anywhere near the caliber of most of the other artists.
The Friday art show is something I really look forward to, I hate seeing it get diluted with just a bunch of pictures, but it's still worth sifting through to get to the good (great) stuff.

 

To each his own. I prowl car shows for photo ops. Probably the hardest venue I know of to get good shots. Try setting up a tripod at Good Guys to get a close up or a shot that isn't cluttered with extraneous background and reflections. Or try to shoot a car and not get your shadow or reflection in the shot. There is a fair amount of creativity to get a photo that tells a story and is unique. I might take 200-300 shots during the day and most of them are grab shots and throw aways but occasionally there are one or two that really tell a story. IMO it's art to be able to pick that detail out and isolate and capture it.

 

Well said.

I guess I fall somewhere in the middle. I don't have a fancy camera. I don't have any formal training. I know a little about the technical aspect of the camera... but don't have a camera that I can put it to use.

Still, I've managed to snap a few good pictures here and there. Heck, I've even had 2 in the HAMB calendar. Heck, Kilroy even started a post called something like "the best hot rod photo ever" off of a picture I took at Bonneville in 2003.

I really agree with Damnfingers... EVERY time there is a post asking for photos for the HAMB calendar and recently for C9s photo contest... people just start posting any pictures they took. I swear they don't even look at them first.

All I can attribute it to is the "me too" mentality. Someone looking for "five minutes of fame." But it irks me (as a no talent novice) when someone posts a picture at a car show with people in the background and a tree growing out of the hood of the car and they think we should be proud of them for it...

... I can't imagine what the Shortbus, RoadApple and links of the world must be thinking to themselves.


Not that this was even the initial intent of this post... but you better damn well believe that Shortbus, RoadApple, Link and the rest of the photographers are artists.

Really ANYONE that takes a picture is an artist... just the way that I could be called an artist when I draw something.

But it doesn't mean I'm good or anyone wants to look at it.

 

Regardless of the many Merriam Webster's definitions of what art is, I've always felt art is something that "moves" you or sets a mood or tells a story (positively, or negatively). This, of course, covers a lot of ground, and so does art. It can be a way to show something that is normal or commonplace, only stylized.

I like the HEART, HANDS and MIND thing mentioned earlier, that makes sense.

Careful intent, even if it's brought about by haphazard techniques.

Good, provocative topic, right up there with religion and politics....

 

the original post talks about point and shoot at car shows. he just brought it up again a few posts back. I have to wonder have you ever tried to take 200 - 500 good pictures at a car show? I'm not talking "art" pictures like April May but just a good picture of a car, like something you'd see in magazine coverage.

I go to car shows to take pictures. if they didn't allow cameras I don't think I'd go to very many. when I see a car I like I try to get the angle with the fewest distractions. I don't want any people in the picture at all, even behind the car. sometimes you need to compromise a bit in this regard. it seems like as soon as I pick a car to shoot 10 people have to go look at it, then 2 of them have to stand there and tell a long story... so I wait.

people like to keep thier coolers and lawn chairs near thier car. so I need to try to get an angle where they are not seen. many times I go back and edit these distractions out of the picture. telephone poles and power lines get the axe too. at a show you do not get to choose where the sun is so there is another thing to work around.

every photo I take is cropped to 7x5 (width to height ratio) to better fill up the computer screen since I put them all on CD to be viewed on the computer. they are also cropped to better fill the frame with the car rather than background.

are they art? maybe sometimes

point and shoot? definitly not.

 

This is exactly what I was thinking as I read through this thread! It's not what type of medium a person uses, but what they do with it! An artist is a person who can use a medium in a way to create something special. This thread has been a pleasure to read!

 

Great thread for thought. I enjoy the Friday art show but I do my art in the shop. I've studied photography and have done some "art" photos. If a poster put a single photo from a show into the art show, it may be just a bad piece of art. Snapshots should be out (multiples from the same show that are just that, snapshots).

Are they all art? To a certain degree, determined by the skill of the "artist". Some of the "art" drawings on Friday I don't like any better than bad car show photos.

Thanks to all the artists who go to great lengths to participate in the Friday art show.

 

I thought everyone wanted to be A Jeff Norwellian?

-Juan

 

Art is in the eyes of the beholder. If we don't like it we can chose not to look. We see excellent examples of all kinds of art on the HAMB, photos, drawings, paintings and some very unusual and beautiful hot rod and custom cars, masterpieces in their own right. I say bring it all on. Variety is the spice of life.

 

hahaha that is the best thing i've heard in a looong time!

 

I don't consider myself an artist, but I compensate for that by dressing fashionably.

Attached are pictures of parts for my coupe that I've polished with abrasives.

First is the engine that's based on a big block Chevy tall-deck 427 truck block. The block to me two weeks of evenings to grind and polish it as you see it here. I finished off the job of polishing the cast iron block with a D/A sander with 1,500-grit. It's shown in bare metal.

Second is that same engine as viewed through the door in the 1920s house I lived in a few years ago.

Third, also in bare metal, is the '32 axle for my coupe, with the gravel it's sitting on reflected along its polished beam.

When I was a kid, my mom worked at an art gallery. Many of her friends were gifted artists, and I got to know some of them. They are among my many sources of inspiration.

Dave
http://www.roadsters.com/

 

Hey Licorice tits! Thats' not art pffffffff! You have to take a bad picture and make it worse in frodochop. Why I outta. . .

 

Variety may be the spice of life, but sometimes too much spice can ruin a recipe. The Hamb is a feast, lets not ruin it's "flavor" by straying to far from the original recipe.

 

When you look at the big picture, whether or not some consider your work to be art isn't what really matters. It's far more important that the people who bought examples of your work can sell it at a profit after you're dead. To that end, out of concern for my customers, I have pledged to them that before I leave this earth I will attain notoriety, perhaps by committing a horrific yet victimless crime, or as a Chippendale dancer.

 

Hmmm... reminds me of a logo I did for a HAMBer... a photogroapher... and one I certainly consider an artist:



This has been a real interesting discussion, and I was certainly concerned about the pictures that were posted to cause df to start this thread. But I just blew them off as one of those occasional posts that we've all done (some of us many times over) where we put some misplaced words that really have nothing to do with the thread.

That said, I like having "artists who use cameras as their primary tool" posting their work in the FAS rather than a separate Wednesday show.

I think a lot of the big difference for me is that most of us use our cameras to capture a convenient visual record of a thing (car), place, or event, etc. This is not art.

 

[right click, save as]

 

Hey I remember that! In fact I just rediscovered the CD you sent me and was going through it the other day. Those pictures were great because they were just pictures, and yet they told the story of the trip and showed the beauty of not only the cars but the scenery. That's not an easy achievement.

Anybody who's struggled to take a good, high-quality picture at a car show, knows they're art...

Some of my favorite 'art' in the world has been photographs...

Knocking what one person considers 'art' is a slippery slope... For that matter, how is someone regurgitating cartoon characters created by someone else, 'art?' Not saying that's how I think but I hope you can see that once you start to try to put too fine a point on what 'art' is, you start taking away some of the beauty of 'art' in general.

 

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/search.php?searchid=4915813

i tried it on weds for awhile.....just keep forgettin to post them...so maybe you guys can run with it...im just a dork with a digi anyway..dont have photoshop or nothing, but you guys do and use it well!!!! sorry to bring this old art show up...just lookin for the word photo and ran across it! jeffro...you can lock this down now if need be...just wanted to share the weds photo show with the gang!
todd

 

I have seen some amazing photos on this site that would easly be considered art, not to mention I love looking at the photos you guys post, great creative stuff. I think a seperate photo thread would be great the more art & photography the better...

 

I'm not an artist but photoshop makes it fun. Too bad I couldn't really paint my engine this way.

Fourdy

 

if you where to do a degree on the subject it is generally accepted that art is a subjective view of a subject. However how long is a piece of string??

 

Good Guys Del Mar shot.