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Amazing B&W portraiture
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 12:07 am    Post subject: Amazing B&W portraiture Reply with quote
I found this site to have amazing B&W portraiture:
http://www.holgarocks.com/saitti/?cat=17
Not of the kind you find in fashion magazines!
Actually many of them have sort of an eerie feeling to them.
But look at this image:



This is a masterpiece, for me.


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 12:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Why ?
Can you explain ?


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 12:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Attila wrote:
Why ?
Can you explain ?


It reminds me of the best Leni Riefenstahl, which is one of my favourite photographers.
It takes the best out of her, without mimicking her.
In this case, it creates an abstract space, like Leni often did, a supernatural space, and the light, seems to come from nowhere, it seems to emanate from the veil.
The pose is dynamic at the maximum, but without losing the grace.
The way the light goes around the model's face, is just wonderful.
My only remark/regret about this image, if it was just a half stop more exposed, it would have been 100% perfect. Not much, or it would ruin the result. But just a little bit, to bring out a little more white from the veil.
And, I would have cropped out about a 10% from the top.
But, that's about it.


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 12:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thank you for explanation!


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 12:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I would add that if I had a model beautiful like this woman, I would create this kind of image.
I would try also in colour, not only in B&W.


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 12:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Attila wrote:
Thank you for explanation!


You're welcome.

See, this is a powerful image. And, it's beautiful as well.
It's not an image the average man would enjoy (no naked tits)
But surely it is a virile image.
It's not a sugar, molassa image. Not a sweet image. Not a cute image.
It has power, force, energy. Yet, it has incredible grace and beauty.

How is that possible?
Only the greatest photographers can do it.


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 12:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Riefenstahl's movies were also great - carried that same hint of the turn of the century with them.


patrickh


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 12:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
patrickh wrote:
Riefenstahl's movies were also great - carried that same hint of the turn of the century with them.
patrickh


She had an incredible visual talent. So way ahead of her time.
The things she made in the 30s, fashion photographers have copied in the 80s and 90s.
And they took all the merit for themselves, because Riefenstahl is very little known. But the only thing they did, was to just carbon-copy her.


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 12:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
This was done by Leni in the same years when the normal photographers were photographing the divas like Marlene Dietrich with feather boas and cigarette holders and grandmother's cuckoo clock in the background, and a woman socks on the lens to make it glamour:



She was just amazing. She was born 50 years ahead of her time.
Helmut Newton shamelessly copied at least 80% of his "genius" from her.

-


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 3:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Orio wrote:
How is that possible?
Only the greatest photographers can do it.


I used to shoot some terribly exposed stuff too. Smile


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 5:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Orio

She kept ill-advised company.


patrickh


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 5:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Orio

She kept ill-advised company.


patrickh

Did you ever see any of her later underwater stuff?


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 6:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
patrickh wrote:
Orio
She kept ill-advised company.
patrickh


Who cares?
Caravaggio was a murderer - do you stop admiring his paintings for that? Has he been pulled off museums for that?
Charles Chaplin was a pedophile - but all the world keeps laughing at his movies.
I don't give a damn what Riefenstahl did in her private life. I evaluate the photographer, and she was a genius.
-


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 10:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Orio wrote:
patrickh wrote:
Orio
She kept ill-advised company.
patrickh


Who cares?
Caravaggio was a murderer - do you stop admiring his paintings for that? Has he been pulled off museums for that?
Charles Chaplin was a pedophile - but all the world keeps laughing at his movies.
I don't give a damn what Riefenstahl did in her private life. I evaluate the photographer, and she was a genius.
-


OK, but she worked for and thus supported the Nazis. That's what disqualifies her for me!
Might be that's because I am German and very sensitive to sucht things...


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 12:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
LucisPictor wrote:

OK, but she worked for and thus supported the Nazis. That's what disqualifies her for me!
Might be that's because I am German and very sensitive to sucht things...


Art is not judged through politics (thanks God).

Serghej Ejzenstein was a communist, and he supported the regime which killed as many people as Nazis if not more. Yet, all the books of the history of cinema count him amongst the main artistic inventors of this art.

Pinturicchio worked for, and was protected by, Alexander Borgia also known as Pope Alexander the 6th: a polygamous (let alone the fact that a Pope should not marry even once), performer of incest, and multiple killer.

So we erase Riefenstahl, Ejzenstein, Pinturicchio, Caravaggio, Chaplin... who else? How long must the list be of the artists banned because of their politic ideas or their factual krimes?

Do we want intergralist muslim-like museums, where most of the western Europe artists are not included because examples of blasphemous art, or just plainly infidels?

Or perhaps we want a Soviet-like museum, like it used to be the Ermitage under the Soviet regime, where you could visit and see all artists, but a guide was always with you and when showing the western artists of modern times, he always took care of explaining that "there are samples of degenerate art"?

Judging art through politics is the main road to the servility of the arts to the politic purposes, and of course, to the censorship.

Let me remind you that Riefenstahl did not commit any murder. She worked for Hitler but so did many other artists of the past (i.e. working for kings or dictators). She always claimed that all that she wanted was to make her art the best possible. Sincere? She only would know. Should we care about this? I think not: judging the artists by their intentions is not something that I think should be done (and not only with artists).

Was she a supporter of the regime, just because she worked for it? Maybe, but then millions of other Germans were. And let me remind you that, when Hitler and Mussolini were at the top of their popularity, the large majority of Germans and Italians were supporting them. They changed their minds after they experimented the "taste" or war, of course. But as far as supporting the regime goes, the list of accomplices is made of many millions of names.

Not knowing the personal history of Riefenstahl, and solicited by your comment, I went to Wikipedia and found out that, for instance, the fact that in occasion of the Olympia movie, Riefenstahl asked for, and obtained from Hitler, that her movie was not submitted to Goebbels' censorship (Goebbels was the minister of propaganda). As a result, she could include in Olympia many scenes containing Jessie Owens, scenes that would have otherwise been removed had not she pretended to be not submitted to the state censorship.
Does this matter to me? No, because when I see the movie, I evaluate the work of art. But perhaps this helps to set things in a more fair perspective than it is the boycott of an artist because of her political opinions.

-


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 1:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
patrickh wrote:
She kept ill-advised company.


She didn't have a crystal ball and neither did many others at the time. Like so many artists, engineers, designers in Germany of the 20s and 30s the situation was changing around them and they stuck it out because that was their home. By the time they realised war was inevitable it was too late for most of them to get out, and many of them bought the lies they were fed by the leadership.

Werner von Braun is a good example of this. His only real interest in life was in developing rockets for an eventual journey into space and to that end would have joined up to anything that allowed him to carry on his work, including the Nazi Party and the SS. The war was nothing more than a gigantic opportunity for him, as was being recruited by the Americans.

The man was thoroughly amoral and naive in that respect.

I think Leni Riefenstahl was too. In a way, it's a shame she became so well-known for just that one film - if not for that, she might have been more acceptable to a post-war European and American public.


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 1:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Hi!

I do not want to trigger another political discussion here, defintely not.
Just let me put it that way: I understand and respect your reflected opinion completely, Orio.
But I ask you to understand my resentments towards her as well. I can accept that she was ahead of her time as far as photography is concerned, but I cannot - and as I said that might be caused by the fact that I am German - accept anybody who was colaborating with the Nazi regime - and even more if this person never has admitted and regretted it (Riefenstahl has always refused to admit that).
Can we agree here not to agree?


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 1:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
LucisPictor wrote:
Hi!
I do not want to trigger another political discussion here, defintely not.


But this is what you are doing: by judging an artists for her alleged political opinions (I say alleged, because as far as I could search about her, she was not a member of the party), you are shifting what was my purely aesthetical comment, onto the political debate.

Let me point you to this link:
http://www.thesportjournal.org/2001Journal/fall/olympia.htm
Where the work of Riefenstahl is commented with a bit more insight than a simple drastic refusal of her work.
Let me quote a part of it:

Quote:
The objectivity that many perceive in "Olympia" is primarily a result of Leni Riefenstahl's refusal to compromise her film production standards with the wishes of others. Riefenstahl extended control over all aspects of the film's creation (Hinton, 1991, p. 79). Throughout the filming, editing, and production in general, the Minister of Propaganda, Dr. Joseph Goebbels frequently pressured Riefenstahl to modify the film in ways that supported Nazi ideals. Aware that Hitler resented successful African-American athletes, and against Goebbel's demands, Riefenstahl featured two highly successful African-American athletes: gold medal winning Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalf (Hinton, 1978, p. 81; Infield, 1976, p. 137). Riefenstahl's resistance to comply with such a high figures in the Nazi regime leads credence to her claim that the film was not produced for propaganda purposes. Also supportive of Riefenstahl's uncompromising ways as a producer of "Olympia" were arguments by Nazi officials that the film was too artistic (Berg-Pan, 1980, p. 102). Finally, somewhat favorable to Riefenstahl's claims that "Olympia" was not a Nazi propaganda film was that, following the war, de-Nazification courts determined that she was not a Nazi (Salkeld, 1996, p. 229).


LucisPictor wrote:
Just let me put it that way: I understand and respect your reflected opinion completely, Orio.
But I ask you to understand my resentments towards her as well.


I can understand your resentment against a political regime. I can not understand, let alone approve, your choice of censoring an artist for the reasons that you bring (or for any reason, for that matter).

I would feel the need to state what I think of this boycotting of an artist for his/her alleged political opinions, but if I did, I would risk to be offensive, so I refrain.

If everyone would reason like you do, the Futurism would disappear from all art museum, as it was an artistic movement that was born in Italy and supported both war and the Fascist regime.
So, we would not be able to admire any more artists like Balla, Boccioni, Severini.

And what should we do with the Colosseum in Rome? Probably the hugest human slaughter-house ever built.
So... let's tear it down?

Thanks God, the directors of museums reason differently. Following your logic, with every change of political leadership, this or that artist would disappear from the galleries, to a point where they would be left empty.

-


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
LucisPictor wrote:
... and even more if this person never has admitted and regretted it (Riefenstahl has always refused to admit that).

Can you see my point?

My granddad fought for the German "Wehrmacht" in WWII, but he admitted that he made many mistakes, e.g. not to fight against the regime. That's fine with me. I do not accuse my granddad.
Riefenstahl has never conceded that she worked for the Nazis, although many researchers have proven the opposite. That's the problem.
If somebody admits a mistake, I will forgive. If not, I will not forget...

I am very thin-skinned when it comes to Nazis.

And sorry, I do not want to continue this discussion. We will not agree. I don't mind.


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
LucisPictor wrote:

Can you see my point?


No, I can't. What you write has nothing to do with art.
I made an aesthetical comment about a photography, and what you came up with is this political soup. What has this to do with the arts?

Quote:
My granddad fought for the German "Wehrmacht" in WWII, but he admitted that he made many mistakes, e.g. not to fight against the regime. That's fine with me. I do not accuse my granddad.
Riefenstahl has never conceded that she worked for the Nazis, although many researchers have proven the opposite. That's the problem.
If somebody admits a mistake, I will forgive. If not, I will not forget...


What has this to do with art?
The father of my mother was a fascist. The father of my father, was an anti-fascist, and one of my father's brothers was killed by the Germans.
And what has all this to do with the arts?
Nothing! Thanks God.

Quote:

I am very thin-skinned when it comes to Nazis.


You are censoring arts exactly like they did. Are you able to see that?

Quote:
And sorry, I do not want to continue this discussion. We will not agree. I don't mind.


You don't mind?
Thanks. Very kind of you.
OK, so I won't mind either. And since you don't mind, I will let you know what I think of boycotting artists for their political opinions: I think it is XXXXXXXXXXXX

I censor myself

Orio


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 3:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I understand you and you certainly have a point, but I will not change my attitude toward Nazi collaborators who did not regret. As I said this is a very special case.

But obviously, you do not want to understand what I try to express.

Orio wrote:
...you came up with is this political soup.

Can I just ask you to to deal fairly and not depreciate personal opinions? This I don't know from you.

P.S.: I am out of this thread.


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 4:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
LucisPictor wrote:

Orio wrote:
...you came up with is this political soup.

Can I just ask you to to deal fairly and not depreciate personal opinions? This I don't know from you.


I don't find my expression to be depreciative, just colourful. If you perceived it as depreciative, it was not meant, I apologize. What I wanted to point out is that I made a merely AESTHETICAL comment on a photographer, and I was replied with political comments.

Which is ok for me but please don't blame it on me or anyone else if you shifted an aesthetical thread over to a political one!

-


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 4:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Farside wrote:

The man was thoroughly amoral and naive in that respect.
I think Leni Riefenstahl was too. In a way, it's a shame she became so well-known for just that one film - if not for that, she might have been more acceptable to a post-war European and American public.


Leni Riefenstahl was an artist. One with undeniable talent. One may like her style or not, but this is another matter.
The corpus of her artistic work demands and deserves to be judged for it's artistic value, a right that must be granted to all artists, regardless of their opinions, faith, sexual preferences or any other ideological structure.

Was she appreciative of the Nazi regime? It is possible, actually quite probable. Many millions of Germans were, she would surely be not a white fly in that.
Or was she just a young and basically unaware ambitious artist who saw in the admiration Hitler had for her, an unhoped-for possibility to make movies with a lot of funds, to be able to work without any financial restraint?
I lean over this second hypothesis, but neither this one or the previous one should be a concern when evaluating arts.

As for her life, I don't think it should be a concern when evaluating the artworks. But for those who are concerned, there was a trial, and she was cleared of all nazi accusations by the same kind of courts that sent to death penalty the likes of Goering, Ribbentrop and other nazi generals.

Lesson to learn? This one: next time I will make an artistic comment on a photographer, it seems I'll be better previously submitting it to the Committee for Ethical Approval.

-


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 7:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
LucisPictor wrote:

My granddad fought for the German "Wehrmacht" in WWII, but he admitted that he made many mistakes, e.g. not to fight against the regime. That's fine with me. I do not accuse my granddad.


You must be proud about him and your nation, he didn't made any mistake.His leadership made mistakes not an individual soldier.I am proud Hungarian and I not prod about all are politician, this is true for the past and for present.


PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 7:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Orio wrote:

Lesson to learn? This one: next time I will make an artistic comment on a photographer, it seems I'll be better previously submitting it to the Committee for Ethical Approval.


This is one of few places what is not censored by long noses Smile even if they try all time.
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