Why does /p/ rarely, if ever, discuss other people's photography?

I'm subbing rn to this thread ;);))

Certainly not "high art" but I'm particularly fond of Tim Hetheringtons work from the early-mid 2000's, especially his Libera series.

He's definitely my favourite modern documentary photographer.

https://pro.magnumphotos.com/Catalogue/Tim-Hetherington.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Hetherington

Fewer people are interested in photography as fine art compared to music or literature. The barrier to entry for photography is basically zero especially now that everyone has a camera in their pocket at all times, while buying an instrument and learning to play music or sitting down to write a book or a poem generally takes more work. Photography gear is pretty much an entirely separate hobby unto itself and a lot of people seem more interested in talking about cameras than about anything else.

So /p/ reflects most other photography forums on the internet. Most of the user base are just entering the hobby or are not highly skilled in it, and are more concerned with learning the technical aspects and the gear because that's simple and more objective than creating and/or judging the actual content of photographs. It seems to perpetuate itself, because new people come to the board and see the majority of the discussion focuses on the gear and on the technical mastery, so that's what they latch on to and start to focus on. Eventually it becomes so focused on it that everyone convinces themselves that sharpness and high ISOs and sensor sizes are the central crucial issues to be discussed on /p/, and the long extended discussions on gear make people very emotionally attached to their own cameras so they start proclaiming the superiority of their gear over everyone else's and arguing with everyone who doubts their choice of gear.

>>2899538
Makes sense, thanks for the explanation.

>>2899538
To be fair, within music there's also a subset of people obsessed with gear, particularly with guitarist and keyboardists. Literature seems to be immune to this issue, for obvious reasons, but they have their own brands of autism nonetheless.

>>2899538
And also, most people's familiarity with photography is only as a form of documentary with no artistic statements or anything like that behind it. Photos of yourself on vacation, wedding photos, photos of things you saw. So if that's what you know about photography then the pinnacle of photography for you is a technically proficient photo that documents a scene maybe with a little bit of stylised colors or whatever, but nothing more. If that's what you expect a photo to be then that's what you will pursue when you enter the hobby yourself, and you will probably buy yourself a camera and take photos of your own and get more and more technically proficient, but never fall down the rabbit hole of photography as an art form.

>>2899543
But /mu/ has so many people listening to music and discussing it and idolizing musicians that it drowns out the gearfags who want to argue about guitars and amps and pedals all day. /p/ has so many people discussing gear that it manages to compete with the sharing and critiquing of photos and pretty much completely drowns out the discussion of photographs and photographers (except for the """photographers""" who are better known for their gear reviews and basic tutorials than for their photography).

>>2899544
To what point do people also avoid photography as art due to not wanting to associate with the prevalent stereotypes of pretentious artsy tumblr/instagram photographers? I mean, modern art in general has a pretty negative reputation for people outside of it and so people tend to avoid it before they ever give it a chance. This problem is not exclusive to photography, a lot of people (particularly considering the kind of people you usually see on 4chan) are not eager to associate themselves with art in general, and therefore prefer to latch on more objective, technical aspects.

You're all wrong. The real reason is that there is no culture for consuming photography (anymore). That's the same reason why also on /ic/ there is more debate about creating than consuming.

But for mu and lit and tv and so on there is a big consuming culture. And then it's normal that people talk about artists and stuff. On tv even there's hardly one thread about creating. For obvious reasons.

yeeah this is my main issue visiting this board.
theres not even an 'inspo' thread

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>>2899502
>even when you're talking about each other's photography all you ever talk about are the technical aspects of the photo
This is the only thing I really dislike about /p/. I see some photos with awesome compositions get savaged because a technical aspect isn't correct, even if it works for the photo.

Speaking of exhibitions, I went to a Leica exhibition recently, absolutely loved it.

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>>2899566
>>2896266

>>2899563
This is also correct, but only partially, there's still a lot of exhibitions and books coming out, so it's not like there's nothing to talk about.

its because /p/ is full of envious little shits.

>>2899563
>The real reason is that there is no culture for consuming photography (anymore).
t. photojournalist

there will always be a consumer demand for fine arts

>>2899577
>>2899582
I was talking about numbers. In comparsion to televison there is NO photography consuming at all. (Ofc as in photography as a sole art, ofc pics are consumed to no end but for other reasons.) Blabla fine art community. Ofc there is also a community for collecting somalian door knobs of the 18th century.

>>2899563
>On tv even there's hardly one thread about creating.

there are sometimes threads like "how do we fix the horror genre" or "crazy movie ideas" which are more stimulating than anything ive read on /p/.

the fact that p is so humourless goes tied in to its lack of creativity (its still somewhat prolific, because taking pictures is easy).

>>2899582
>there will always be a consumer demand for fine arts

lmaooooo just a single fact, do you know who buys photobooks? fucking photographers and no one else.

there is no industry for photo itself, there is industry for things that use photography as a tool, like fashion.

>>2899502
I see frequrntly threads on /p about this Ken Rockwell and some Fro. These seems to be the leading models for /p, so I contradict your statement. It's just little onesided.

>>2899588
>Ken Rockwell and some Fro

thats just trolling. these arent photographers. they are autistic salesmen.

we had a terry richardson shill, and i miss him now.

>>2899590
so autistic salesmen are your role models? wtf ...

>>2899592

in this gearfag infested board, yeah, seems to be the case.

>>2899588
One is pretty much the autistic savant of camera reviews and the other is an obnoxious youtube personality who also reviews cameras and does tutorials teaching basic technical aspects of photography. And you're forgetting the other obnoxious youtube personality camera reviewing that /p/ also loves.

So they are basically exactly what we're complaining about.

>>2899596
And holy shit I just realized in writing that post that Uncle Ken is our Scaruffi and Fro or Kai are our Fantano.

>>2899584
no idea what you're even trying to say

>>2899587
>do you know who buys photobooks? fucking photographers and no one else.
>there is no industry for photo itself
t. goblin who lives under a rock and somehow has no idea the world of fine art or studio portraiture or product photography exists

>>2899601
>t. goblin who lives under a rock and somehow has no idea the world of fine art or studio portraiture or product photography exists
That goblin actually knows better what he's talking about than you do. I wouldn't say he's 100% correct, just far more correct than I believe you are if you were to spell out your point.

>>2899615
t. goblin sympathizer

>>2899653
*shrugs*
They can be right from time to time.

For real though, the market for "fine art" photography is shit and studio portraiture/product photography fit the guy's definition of areas in which photography is just a tool (arguably fine art does too, but I think that's a foolish bit of overextension).

>>2899601
What he's trying to say is that, while there is a market for photos as art, that market is very obviously nowhere near the same size as music, tv, books, games, etc.

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>>2899598
Jesus christ there's no escaping the memes

>>2899659
>and studio portraiture/product photography fit the guy's definition of areas in which photography is just a tool
oh yeah, thats true. I missed that part.

remind me why commercial art doesn't count as "consumer demand for photography" though?

>>2899659
>>2899683
yeah, its not as big as music and television, so what? those are huge. photography is no different from the other visual arts though, like sculpture and painting. people want that shit, from poor fucks who want a pretty photograph framed at K-mart to put on their wall, to rich billionaires who want to make an investment, and every level of wealth in between. are you just mad you can't get into a gallery? no one said it would be easy but that doesn't mean there isn't a market

>>2899792
>yeah, its not as big as music and television, so what? those are huge. photography is no different from the other visual arts though, like sculpture and painting. people want that shit, from poor fucks who want a pretty photograph framed at K-mart to put on their wall, to rich billionaires who want to make an investment, and every level of wealth in between. are you just mad you can't get into a gallery? no one said it would be easy but that doesn't mean there isn't a market
What you described isn't the fine art market.

/p/ is a probably one of the more pretentious boards in all of 4chan, so likewise, there's more intense discussion and debate than what you'd find on most other boards. I think a lot of people come here to do just that-debate.

Why isn't there much debate on art, compared to the dense amount of discussion on concrete, black-and-white, mathematical and technical aspects of photography? Because when it comes to that stuff, there is a definitive right and wrong, yes/no, etc. There is no right and wrong when it comes to art, and most people on /p/ would probably find it boring to go back and forth in an argument entirely stemming from subjectivity.

This plays out all the time here. Whenever there is discussion on art, there is a complete lack of consensus on what looks good and what is good. Anonymity also protects people from holding back how they truly feel (however, trips often receive preferential treatment for some fucking reason, unlike every other board on 4chan). So when someone posts their own work, /p/ will never be able to decide whether it's "good" or not. And why does it matter if an anonymous poster thinks your work is good? it doesn't, there's no authority there, and same goes for people saying someone's work sucks. Its boring, and the effort is not worth a captcha.

All 4chan is a hub of debate. And when people can't absolutely prove right/wrong, they lose interest.

>>2899563 is right. There is a small consumer culture for photography, but no one is truly interested in it as much as people are in talking about TV shows or literature, mostly due in part because there's more to digest and talk about. Photography is cryptic in that you have a photograph, or a series of photographs. There's not much tangible depth like a 10 episode mini-series.

>>2899814
>Why isn't there much debate on art, compared to the dense amount of discussion on concrete, black-and-white, mathematical and technical aspects of photography? Because when it comes to that stuff, there is a definitive right and wrong, yes/no, etc. There is no right and wrong when it comes to art, and most people on /p/ would probably find it boring to go back and forth in an argument entirely stemming from subjectivity.
I think you're identifying some behaviors correctly, just injecting an incorrect motivation on them.

The biggest reason that people don't debate art in depth is it's hard. Even just a cursory attempt at a formalist analysis of an image is a weighty task--it's not necessarily a complicated task, but it does require a nontrivial amount of education in the subject and a nontrivial amount of effort from the one doing it.

Most people don't come to a site like this to engage in that kind of effort. Yes, some do, but for most? 4chan, no matter the board, is something you do while on the shitter, to kill time while a batch process is running, or the like.

That said, there are a bunch who don't know that much about the formal aspects of photography, but there is a sizable number of users here who do (how well they can apply that knowledge is another discussion), but having that skillset does not translate into willingness to apply it here. It's like a lawyer at a cocktail party...

Next add in that this is 4chan, so you have random anons popping in just to shitpost, that this is the internet so you often get to see people at their basest in general, and then add in how people prefer bitching about things instead of acting to change them, and you end up with /p/.

I haven't actually thought about that, I've just gone with the flow of /p/. I'm a huge faggot for the provoke style and Daido specifically, but I almost never write about it here.

Honestly though, I think it's really cool how much content gets posted and critiqued here. Most music related places I go to are just gearfagging and talking about the gear famous musicians use(d) and how to copy their technique. Far fewer people actually posting sounds they've made and even less people bothering to listen and comment.

>>2899876
>Far fewer people actually posting sounds they've made and even less people bothering to listen and comment.
I'm the guy right above your post (like that really matters).

Part of that also has to do with the ease of consumption. A three minute song takes three minutes of your life. You can glance at a picture in less than a second. I think that's partly why photography is now devalued some as well. We (in general) don't spend time with pictures, just mostly glance at them and move on because of how many there are...good or bad.

we've had hundreds, maybe thousands of art threads in the time i've been here (9+ years). you're either a newfag or you need to lurk more.

but hey, feel free to be the change you want to see in this board.

>>2899799
literally is

>>2899502
>Why does /p/ rarely, if ever, discuss other people's photography?

I don't talk about photography much at all, except to the few people who seem to care. Then again I'm the type of person not to add something unless there's something for me to add.

>on /mu/ there's people talking about music they've made but most still talk about music they've heard, etc
Like others said, people don't "consume" photography as much as other creative/artistic forms. I don't know many people who actively view images because they enjoy looking at images, vs. looking at what's IN the images. Most people I know do not give a rat's ass about composition or light unless it's extremely bad. They are usually far more interested in the subject matter.

What is there to discuss about in the ART of photography? This is an honest question.

>>2900104
...the bulk of what is interesting about photography? It's more than wanking off over Canon bodies and dxo scores.

because /p/ are formalist hacks and all the best photography is conceptual

>>2900104

arranged images as a language aka. social media. memes.

>>2900135

>implying formalism isn't high concept

>>2900139
great equivocation

>>2900140

great dichotomy

>>2899538
>/p/ in a nutshell.

>>2900141
listing two things doesn't mean it's a dichotomy lol

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>>2899850
>The biggest reason that people don't debate art in depth is it's hard

I very much agree. When you think about it art takes a surprising amount of effort to think and talk about. Beyond the time/effort involved in acquiring the requisite disciplinary knowledge, talking about art is challenging because it's essentially the act of integrating non-logocentric knowledge (what the artwork is) with the language of discourse.

This is compounded by the fact that there's no really thriving space for amateur discussion about art (on the internet anyway). Photography's consumer culture has reduced popular discourse down to the most meaningless nominal talking points. On the other hand, the specialized discussion of art is fully professionalized and resides mostly in commercial institutions or educational facilities.

Basically, anyone with the wherewithal to talk about art and/or photography will already have much better places to do so than /p/. This board lacks the density of (willing and capable) discussants that is required for a debate to take place. Who wants to spend the time trying to say something substantive when there's no guarantee that it will get a meaningful reply? (The answer is teachers, and teachers get cash money for doing it)

The board should just play to its strengths and have completely visual discussions. No text posts--only images!

>>2900388
>The board should just play to its strengths and have completely visual discussions. No text posts--only images!

>posted at the end of a giant self-indulgent wall of text
>with an anime girl for the image

/p/ is less like /lit/ or /mu/, and more like /k/
most people here have no use for a camera, sometimes you'll go out shooting on the weekend. some people shoot more frequently. we like talking about our gear's ability to shoot, and those that are really into spending money on gear are called gearqueers on /k/, not unlike our gearfags here.

>>2899502
maybe look a little harder then. The threads happen but not as often as on /lit/ because people on /p/ are self absorbed teens