Illusion
A beautifully prepared meal comes to your candlelit table. The first of your senses, sight, is engaged and you delight at an aesthetic presentation. Then, as you dive in to the culinary work of art, and lift your fork to your watering mouth, all your other senses follow suit rapidly and simultaneously. You feast on the beautiful flavour and gorgeous aroma and sumptuous texture. And, then… you stand up, applaud, and praise the food for being so good, beautiful, so well prepared, so very tasty.
You do what? Of course you don’t. You praise the chef that created the meal, that talented and skilful person who took the raw material and made a masterpiece from it. Sure, the quality of the raw material had to be good in the first place, but even there the food itself can take no credit; the condition of the ingredients was down to the farmers who cared for it and nature itself that created it.
I am going somewhere with this. Bear with me please, please, please – I implore you to consider what I’m saying before you dismiss it as the ramblings of a mad woman.
The above analogy is to relate my view on expert photography, photographers and their subjects (human models in particular).
I have recently been taking some self-portraits. I am proud of these images, not because I am in them, but because I am the one who took them. I have learned enough about photography to know that if any of these images look good it is not because I appear in them, it’s due to the skill it required to take them correctly and finish them in Photoshop. The model can take no credit.
You may think, when you meet me in person, that I am attractive. You may not, of course, but this is for the sake of argument. You may think I am attractive, but I will tell you truly, when it comes down to a two-dimensional image representing my visage, if I look good in it, it is completely and utterly down to the artist (whether myself or any other photographer) who creates it.
Until I learned the correct way to take a picture, almost every picture I took of myself looked ordinary at best and absolutely hideous at worst. Oh, there was the odd lucky shot (everyone gets lucky sometimes), few and far between, when I could produce something that didn’t make me look like crap, but, for the most part, they were all rubbish. In the pictures (I’m not arguing about outside the photo, living and breathing flesh), I looked considerably less than beautiful…then, I began to learn the tricks to making a decent (and sometimes more than decent) photograph.
I have argued with people for many years when I would get complimented on MY looks in a portrait taken by my photographer husband. I tell them that it is Jamie that makes me look good in the photos he takes of me. I would feel…dishonest if I took credit for the beautiful image where no credit (on my part) is due. When I began to take pictures of myself, before I knew what I was doing, and then after I did know what I was doing with a camera and Photoshop filters, I was even more certain of this. If you have never seen me in person, you cannot say whether I am truly beautiful or not. You don’t know, do you? You can’t know. You have no idea the magic it takes to make me look good in a photo, and you have no clue how much of it is an illusion. Could my visual appeal be a skillfully created false impression I want you to believe?
Sure, as in the case of the lovely and tasty meal, the raw material must be decent to begin with, but a bad chef can make it taste gross while a good chef can make it taste good despite the food’s initial condition – so too, with models. Good bone structure, a well-proportioned figure and nice skin help, but the model can’t take credit for those things; those features are all down to good genes, and they come, ultimately, from God (or nature and natural selection, or whatever you believe about where we come from and how we are created). And, I have also seen (and tasted) meals made out of mediocre ingredients and, when put together by a master chef, made into something incredibly scrumptious, like you never could have imagined when you first saw the original, raw state of the very average food stuffs. Just so with a human subject in front of a camera…well, I don’t think I need to press the point. If you saw me in person, I think you would get it immediately. There is, indeed, much to be said for presentation.
I am average (in looks, anyway); nothing stunning or special…but I sure get told I am those very things by people who have never seen me in person but have seen either the professionally taken photographs I have had taken or my self-portraits since learning how to take a decent image.
So, you tell me. Who should get the praise for the aesthetic visual (good picture and representation of someone and their “attractiveness”)? The subject or the artist? I know what I believe, what I know.
I’m not going to thank my food for being tasty.
10 Comments
I think the person who posed is just as important as the person who took the picture. It takes two people to take a (non self) portrait.
I also think that models should receive credit instead of purely the photographer.
Models are not the same as food.
And if you want to think that you’re only pretty in pictures because they’re edited then fine. But I don’t think it’s fair to take a positive thing away from someone who has low self-esteem and genuinely appreciates a compliment when it comes along.
I am not a plate of vegetables. I am a person, and I look pretty damn good every now and then, regardless of who took the picture. And I never edit mine.
Jen, this post wasn’t about you; it was about me. It had been simmering in my mind for a while before what happened on the Northlands. So, it’s not personal – well, it is personal – it’s about me, but not about you.
And, I don’t just think I look good in pics alone (and just because they’ve been edited); I can look fair, at least, in person, but, there again, it’s with the use of makeup and camoflage clothing. But, if I DO look good in a pic, it is because someone who knows what they are doing took it and processed it. A two-dimentional image is quite a bit different than the 3D, living, moving form.
And, if you ever convert your photos from colour to black & white or crop them, then they’ve been edited.
It’s the photographer that determines if the person in the picture will look good or not. It is within their power to make a person look better or worse. You hear it often said, “her pictures don’t do her justice”. Whenever that is the case, it’s because she didn’t have a photographer who knew how to bring out her best.
Jamie just redid some pictures for someone who had them taken by another photographer. The other photographer used the wrong filter (a green instead of a red) when converting to black and white and, therefore, accentuated every flaw this woman had in her skin. Jamie re-processed the image with a red filter and, suddenly, you could see her glow because the flaws had been minimised while her beauty had been maximised.
The photographer is everything.
Bullshit. The photographer helps, the model is useful too. Otherwise models wouldn’t have careers. It’s a two-way thing. I know what editing is. I have only ever changed the colour of one of my pictures and that’s my current FB picture. That’s it. I do not edit my pictures.
If you want to have such little opinion of models then fine, but I believe everyone should get credit.
Not only do I not agree with you, I actually think comparing human models to food is highly degrading. Humans are not inanimate objects and if a portrait makes you believe that they are, then it is not worth much in my opinion.
Yes, you used an analogy, I understand the process but find the result disturbing. I’m naturally strawberry blonde of hair – but I don’t deserve people to see me as a strawberry. I am human and, obvious as it may seem, would like to be acknowledged as being so. I’m confident models would share this view.
Models are an art form without a photographer/painter/sculptor present, therefore they deserve credit. Where artists paint scenery, the beauty of the view is acknowledged alongside the artist’s portayal of it. It receives credit, and rightly so.
Lizzie Siddal, an artist and poet in her own right, collaborated with the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood as a model for many of their most famous works: these works would not have been possible without her input, she lent her image to their canvas: she even deserves credit for the inspiration she gave to Rossetti after her death.
Models can therefore be inspiration. Even the best artist cannot create a masterpiece without this crucial ingredient. You can be the most technically advanced photographer on the planet but without inspiration for that illusive image you will never be great.
I wasn’t ignoring this comment, it simply took me a while to get my head clear enough from sleep deprivation and pain to compose a coherant reply. Maybe I wasn’t clear enough in the post, and that is my fault. Sometimes I think that I am presenting myself clearly and saying what I want to get across, and others will still seem to miss the point. It could be the way my mind works as opposed to the way others’ minds work. Anywho. I was not calling models – or people in general – food. Perhaps, it would have been better if I had titled the post, “If you can’t stand the heat, then get out of the picture”. That might have been less offensive and more accurate.
People can, indeed, inspire. I have no argument there. Again, that wasn’t the point.
It’s the image itself I am talking about. The two-dimentional image – not the person themselves. And, what that image conveys – whether it has a person in it, or a tree, or a building, or whatever the subject is (yes, in that way, all subjects are on equal footing here – they are all “food” for the “chef’s” mastery). It’s only people who have egos, however, and thus the reason for my post. For myself, I was declaring to the world that what people see of me online is all down to excellent photography (in the case of my husband’s work) and improving photography (in the case of my own playing around with the camera). The “image” I present, anyway. As for the 3 dimentional, real-life me…well, sure, there’s more depth there to be sure. The spirit behind this blog, for one. There’s attitude and all the rest that makes a person a person. But, we are not talking people here – we are talking subjects and images.
If a person looks good in a photograph, it’s down to the photography. It’s in the photogs power to make you look good or make you look bad – for better or for worse (and much to many celebs’ chagrin).
Sure, you need the model, like you need the landscape or whatever the subject is in order to make the art….but, it is the artist that makes it what it is in capturing that very moment. And, in that way, the photographer is everything.
I’m sorry if I have still not been clear. I fear I feel the exhaustion creeping up on me again, and I may just have rambled instead of being precise as I desired. I can but hope, though…
Eugh, I have something to say… but I am really loathe to get invloved in what has turned into the second venue of the mudslinging contest. But here, unlike the Northlands – ironically, I feel I can speak freely, and also I respect the concept of expression through blogs. So I will go for it and hope you two ladies can respect my opinion even if you disagree with it.
First I understand where Autumn is coming from. I think photography as art places the emphasis on the skill of the photographer. A model is often almost a vehicle for the expression of a concept. The beauty of the model (or whatever value s/he is chosen for, of course it isn’t always beauty) is a given. The work… the concept, positioning, lighting, accessories, choice of film, aperture, lens… which makes and image become art is usually the photographer’s (though there is sometimes collaboration). Of course in some cases the model has a more active role… but often (not exclusively) these take us out of the realm of art into glamour, fashion photography, pornography etc.
To explore how the model’s skill (as opposed to simply her beauty – taking beauty as the assumed value in this instance) can impact the finished product I would not focus not on the quality of her looks but her attitude, I imagine a photographer would appreciate a model who has chameleon like qualities (as this gives her, and him) more range, or an ability to surrender, to lose the sense of lens and communicate some depth… as in be able to project some essence of herself through the image right into the mind of the viewer. Clearly in this sense some models are more ‘talented’ than others – and therefore the model’s role becomes foremost. You emphasise Autumn how you always pass on the credit to Jamie for making your 2 dimensional representation lovely – and I have also read many many photographers credit their models likewise. I don’t think it is simply artistic humility, I think some models are more professional, more talented in the art of modelling, and more able to assist the photographer in the creation of art.
Jamie has not thus far made a comment on your blog, but in all honesty I would LOVE to hear what he thinks about this topic.
Finally and totally off topic is grieves me that you two (Jen and Autumn) have allowed your friendship to have become so bitter. I am serious, reading this is deeply saddening. I don’t know what caused it and don’t want to know – but you had a lovely friendship and I would like to think you could still work to salvage it. But that is your business.
Ok one last point… in all my comments I have used ’she’ for model and ‘he’ for photographer which I hated doing cos it seems so stereotypical. But I am simply relating it to the current situation where the photographer is a guy and the model(s) women. I bet right now Jamie wishes he had male models… I am sure if that were so there would be less… what was the word Jen? Ah yes, bullshit.
I attempted to salvage. Nothing changed. I am fairly sure. No, completely sure. There is no friendship left to salvage.
Thank you for your thoughts, Tracy. I’d love Jamie to post his thoughts, too. He always feels that he isn’t good at putting his thoughts into words when it comes to commenting on something like this, but I’ll ask him, again, if he’d just say a few words so as to represent all the [real] photographers out there, who I would love to hear from.
Sadly, Jen still seems to think this is all about her… uhhh… I don’t know what to say that wouldn’t be harsh here, so I’m just not going to say anything about that. What happened yesterday on the Northlands was coincidental with this post. Just bad timing. I really should have waited to post it. My bad there. It’s not about her; it’s about everyone… and if it is specifically about any one particular person, then it is about me…because, this blog is all about ME! LOL.
I don’t think this is all about me. I’m referring to everything over the last however many months and was responding to something Tracy said. It was not a comment about my thoughts on this post.