l We Apologise For The Inconvenience: <em>a few small repairs</em>

February 22, 2008

a few small repairs

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

kool
=D
-ns

February 25, 2008 at 9:27 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

isn't there something dishonest about taking a picture of someone's work, making it black and white, calling it your own?

February 26, 2008 at 1:01 AM  
Blogger Gaia said...

not more dishonest than implying a correlation of ownership between a mere (albeit very well done) photographic (re)presentation of someone's work and the (re)appropriation of said work. no?

February 26, 2008 at 12:42 PM  
Blogger sdq said...

long answer--well, we'll have to do that over coffee.
short answer--no.

February 26, 2008 at 2:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

well, not dishonest in terms of plagiarism, dishonest in terms of effort. when i see the picture my focus is on the subject matter of the painting that the painter wanted to portray.... if the intent of the picture is to bring my attention to the painting, then well done... however, if the intention is to present the picture as the work of art itself, then i gotta look at the effort put into the picture...what is the artist saying, how is the portrait framed, what is subject matter...the problem i have with this particular piece is the seeming lack of effort, it is akin to someone taping a movie and then running it through a color filter and then calling it original...at best it's redundant, at worst, it's lazy

i know i sound harsh, but photography to me is always about found art...meaning that it's up to the photographer to help his/her audience to find the extraordinary in the mundane and making them see things that are not there before...the painting is already there, it's already someone saying something through his/her talents, the emotions that are evoked are through his/her efforts, not yours, that's the dishonesty that i'm talking about

February 26, 2008 at 5:45 PM  
Blogger Gaia said...

first of all, let me say that i see your point, and i can agree with you on the principle of it. however, it is important to notice that *nobody* here is claiming to present the photo as a work of art in and of itself, as an *original* work of art per se. what is original is the photo itself, in the sense that it is the personal view of an object taken by a person who happened to stumble upon the object (if i say that i was present when it was shot, does it change your perception of the issue?). the photo is framed in a certain way, manipulated in a certain way, but not to claim ownership of the work of art - only of its (re)presentation, as it would be, for instance, in an art book.

the work of art here is not portrayed as the photographer's own creational effort. the object is being shown merely as a tribute to the feelings that it evokes, the sensations that it creates in its contemplation, like the photos in the other posts (even if those depicts events, or people, rather than objects - but isn't it the same after all? they are all *things* that the photographer *saw*). think of it this way: it's as if the photographer went to the louvre and took a photo of the mona lisa, and then cropped, photoshopped and posted it - would you think of it as an attempt at claiming ownership of one of leonardo's masterpieces? or if the post contained a reproduction of a famous painting (taken from the web, or in person, doesn't really matter) - would it be considered as the photographer's own work? maybe this one in particular was perceived as such because this work is not (yet) famous as other painting / sculptures / 3D installments.

i will admit that this distinction is very subtle and that the border between the two is very easy to cross, but it's important to see the difference. as i said, your point has merits, and i wholeheartedly agree on the principle of it - but on the other hand, it's necessary to see what the intention of the photographer is, before jumping to conclusions that do not reflect the purpose of the post. nowhere else in this blog has the photographer ever posted anything that spelled plagiarism in any way, shape or form. so it is safe to assume, on the basis of consistency (and face value, if you wish), that the purpose of this post is purely representational, and not reflective of a proprietary attitude.

February 27, 2008 at 12:16 AM  

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