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Is a MODEL a STATUE?
Can a (photo) MODEL be considered/viewed just like a STATUE? Are they just the RAW material of OUR scupltures? Feb 19 06 12:09 pm Link the later Feb 19 06 12:10 pm Link vanscottie wrote: I hope I don't get any 'hate' mail for this .. Feb 19 06 12:15 pm Link I would say that depends on the photographer/artist, and what they're looking to do. For example, some fine art nudes that concentrate on shape and form (ie; Edward Weston style), the model basically is raw material. Other styles try to take something of the model, something of their essence, and make it part of the final photo. If the model doesn't radiate something, the photos turn out weak and ineffective. Feb 19 06 12:15 pm Link Highly philosophical question, and a good one, that definitely requires a course to discuss thoroughly... ANSWER: I dont think so. While the artist in both cases, captures and creates a image and manifest the image, the model as artist, too, brings perspective, attitude, creativity, aesthetics, etc to the process as well...the model brings life to the process as well as the photog... the raw material of the sculptor is not "alive." Therefore, s/he who sculpts brings to life the raw materials...s/he gives birth to the statue the photographer and the model bring life to the process..they are both human beings engaging in the creative process....they both give life to the photo the photo: the "equivalent" to the statue" is a captured moment in time...a documented interaction between two human beings Feb 19 06 12:19 pm Link Mark Stein wrote: Well ... we can say that a STATUE can capture the 'essence' of the model who inspired it as well .. no? Feb 19 06 12:21 pm Link A couple of famous painters debated this issue several hundred year ago! Mannekins all! dress em up - or not at all! ........ joke ladies ..laugh!. I work with very creative models who have neat ideas! so I am an 'interactive' photog Feb 19 06 12:21 pm Link images by elahi wrote: Very wise argument .. ! Feb 19 06 12:26 pm Link Louis Braga wrote: yes, sir! However, hmmm, you know what plays into the discussion? the difference between the technologies ie photography vs sculpting. The elements of photography allow the model to "give more" to the process than his/her counter part who is posing for a statue. This is a great question/discussion..I am THINKING as I am formulating...like being back in school.... Feb 19 06 12:30 pm Link Louis Braga wrote: STATUE was your word . And yes, a statue can capture the essence of the model (as can a photo, painting, sketch, etc). I was referring to the raw material portion of your comment. Feb 19 06 12:36 pm Link I'd say it depends on the model, the photographer, and the circumstances. Sometimes I've worked with models that were true artists in their own rights. Other times the models are little more than breathing props that need to be placed, and coached into the proper attitude. Sometimes the model is both artist and scuplture....   Feb 19 06 12:43 pm Link BodyPainter Rich wrote: ah man!! your very presence just opened up a whole universe!! Because Feb 19 06 12:46 pm Link It depends on the model. Most of my models model for me because they like my work so they trust me to just pose them how I like and take pictures of them. (That is why I think it is so strange when I hear talk on MM about how much "experience" a model needs. Most of my models are college students with NO experience. What do they need experience for, holding still? I am the one deciding the poses.) But sometimes, models have ideas for poses. I have never said, "Shut up and hold still!" I am always willing to work on a model's ideas for a pose. My favorite models are artists and the session becomes more of a collaboration. That can be fun. Especially when you work with a model several times, then you can discuss previous poses with lots of "Oh, that idea didn't work." (And, I confess, I get a slight bit of triumphant pleasure if she concedes that my poses are better than hers.) Obviously, this only applies to people futzing around with art work. For a commercial job, I suppose one has to worry about actually getting a product out. Sorry. Feb 19 06 12:46 pm Link I shoot them as people, not statues. Feb 19 06 12:49 pm Link Depends on the intent of the shoot. For what I'm doing right now, expressing emotion matters, and for that reason I ask a great deal of my models, they tend to have a creative role very much their own. So they are worlds apart from statues. But in 1999, I took part in an exhibit titled "flesh and stone." Three of the photographers had done images of statues, actual bronze or stone. I was asked to provide images of real women, and in this case it was nudes of female athletes, and they were interspersed with the work of the other photographers. The curator was trying to get at a lot of things. But one of the more interesting revelations came out of the artists statement of one of the other photographers... she said that in the process of photographing statues, she had been reminded that real people had posed for the sculptors, and she had found herself wondering about the original models, in some cases now long dead... some of the statues she had photographed dated from more than a century ago. Looking at her work, I had to agree. There was emotion, body language, a dynamic moment frozen in that weathered and tarnished bronze. In the context of the current thread, it does make me note the contrast between the attitude of many sculptors, who often strive to capture the essence of life in a static work of art; and some of the line-'em-up-and-shoot-'em photographers who think models are just interchangeable parts. It's pretty obvious which of those two categories, most of the time, has put more thought into what they're doing. And I qualify that only because I've had a discussion with a European photographer who really does make a compelling argument that he can create his art with any model, in which case I'll note that in itself is part of his "mission statement" and he's one of the rare ones who has really thought it through. Feb 19 06 01:03 pm Link Mark Stein wrote: Still .. Mona Lisa was product of the artist imagination .. just "inspired" by her .. Feb 19 06 01:08 pm Link Ken Mierzwa wrote: great and enlightening answer! Feb 19 06 01:12 pm Link To me they are people and models that I attempt to turn into statues. The model has just as much imput as I do on how well the finished product turns out. While I might have the pose already figured out, its the models job to "bring it to life" Feb 19 06 01:15 pm Link When "lighting" a dancer in movement, the photographer must think in terms of sculpting with light, instead of sculpting with rigid stone. ... PSA Journal, Nov 2003 It's been said by many (including myself)... my opinion yes Feb 19 06 01:16 pm Link A statue is frozen in perpituity. A model is only frozen in a moment of time. Feb 19 06 01:18 pm Link BodyPainter Rich wrote: What a beautiful picture to ilustrate this subject!!!! Feb 19 06 01:18 pm Link Then again, if you watch models move around a room, they have, if they are any good, a certain liquid grace. The most ordinary motions can become infused with a special life. They do it involuntarily and it becomes the photogs job to capture that grace as a static image. Unless they insisit on setting up a posing mirror behind me, how can they know what I see? They move, I shoot, I pick, I say stop, relax, etc. So I don't see how much they are involved in the actual creation of...the thing that the photographer ends up owning. They look pretty...not an acquired skill, generally. Feb 19 06 01:18 pm Link Although I prefer they be capable of holding as still as one, especially for long pinhole exposures, there is a great difference between shooting with a living, thinking and feeling human and an inanimate chunk of stone or metal. While we as photographers may have our own vision of how we want the final image to appear and strive to bring it to life through technical and artistic decisions, it is the model, as an artistic partner, who can often improve the clarity of that vision. Feb 19 06 01:22 pm Link Louis Braga wrote: Yes, see my omp site for my "statues".. Feb 19 06 01:34 pm Link Louis Braga wrote: Well, if the model was inspiring the artist, then she did contribute something. I'm not sure how often we're inspired by a piece of rock. Feb 19 06 01:38 pm Link Zunaphoto wrote: I LOVE that analogy!!! Feb 19 06 02:04 pm Link area291 wrote: but the photo is frozen in perpetuity...hence , the photo and the statue are the finished products....the model is either part of the process and the materials Feb 19 06 02:06 pm Link I wonder why the MODELS are so silent!!! I guess because STATUES don't talk.. after all ..  Feb 19 06 02:56 pm Link TALK !!! Feb 19 06 08:05 pm Link I can't speak for anyone else, but I am not merely a statue. (Which isn't to say that I don't follow direction well.) The one thing that photographer after photographer tells me before, during, and after our shoots is that the emotional availability, expressiveness, and body awareness that I am willing to bring in front of their cameras inspires them to be better artists. Additionally, quite a few of the concepts I have executed, and am in the planning stages of executing, were my ideas from start to finish. That is why I collaborate with artists-with-cameras. The photos we do together couldn't be just what they are without what I bring to them. Similarly, they couldn't be just what they are without what the photographer brings to them. Together, we sometimes get to create magic. Feb 20 06 12:39 pm Link Shyly wrote: Don't you become one after "frozen" up in the image? Feb 20 06 09:51 pm Link I'm a statue. See how still and immobile I look? Feb 21 06 12:24 am Link theda wrote: and with such a ..... ! Feb 24 06 09:12 pm Link theda wrote: Somehow you have more presence than the average garden gnome Feb 25 06 10:33 am Link Missing the point entirely I think. Feb 25 06 10:35 am Link Louis Braga wrote: Funny, I just posted something to this on another thread Feb 25 06 10:40 am Link Mark Stein wrote: She'd sure keep the deers OUT ... Feb 25 06 08:22 pm Link |
