Here's a professional photographer.

JR, George, photography is both art and a medium in which to document the condition of the human soul. Photographs compel, inspire, and even haunt us, into facing issues we'd rather not think about, much less talk about.

I did not mean to imply you were promoting bull fighting George. I just wanted to voice my opinion that while I agree with your princple, your choice of subject matter made it hard for me personally to appreciate it as art, just as I would find all those other examples you listed. That is all I intended. Is it too late to retract the vomit comment?

Regards

Drew

So do I.

It's not too late at all.

Had the pictures been as sharp and detailed as Ofutter would have liked them, then I think the subject matter might have got in the way of appreciating them as fine compositions. But the distance, the blur, the dreamlike quality, meant that there was nothing intrinsically revolting about the images themselves, only what people project onto them.

We should remember that cattle are killed every day in abattoirs to provide us with beef and shoe leather. I think pictures of an abattoir would have been much more unsettling than these.

But let's move on. No offence taken, at least by me.

G

Art is clearly in the eye of the beholder because, to my eye at least, I think those bullfighting shots are absolute rubbish.

Hi,

I am afraid Georges views of art school are very out of date and totally out of touch. I went to both art school and a photographic college and any art school worth it's salt does not try to 'teach' art. The good ones simply expose students to many styles, types and ways of creating art and then nurture the talents in the students...to dismiss art schools out of hand is simply silly...you may as well dismiss any educational establishment in the same way..they all have both good and bad ones.

Cheers Steve.

Hi all,

As a confirmed (and proven with my pictures here ) amateur with no formal teaching, I thought I'd add my tuppenny worth.

I can see where the artistic influences can be seen in the images, although I too find bullfighting abhorent. They are a colourful, and thoughtfully composed series.. although to be honest I wouldn't have any of them framed and hung on my walls.

You can see from his other galleries that he obviously knows (in my opinion, anyway) how to use a camera with good results, which makes the claims that he deliberatley shot these for the exact effect he wanted to portray entirely beleivable.

I think that to be able to consistently get the images that you want, regardless of other's interpretation or admiration (or otherwise) of them is the photographer's art. To do this, you need to be sufficiently technically experienced, and that's what sets apart the good from the great.. although, the bullfighting images would definitely only be in the good category, IMHO.

To use as an example, does anyone remember Les Dawson's piano playing.. or the circus clown on the tightrope. To be able to do either convincingly badly, but still be able to entertain with it, you have to first know how to do it well.

I personally prefer a central focus of attention, rather than an overall collage of shape and colour, but that is my own preference. He could have maybe dropped out the colour on all but the bright pink of the cape, thereby removing the focus from the bullfight itself. If the idea was to highlight the cruelty, or even the magnificence; depending on Buhler's own feelings on the theme, then I think that the series doesn't work.

And now to the contradiction.. I've been flicking back and forth between this reply and the gallery, and you know what, I'm starting to form the same conclusion as Niblue.. not as definite yet, but getting there slowly.

Normally if you keep looking at a picture, or pictures, you'll see something else to add to your appreciation of them.. and these aren't doing that for me. They just give more and more, the appearance of a badly shot set of out of focus pictures. The cropping doesn't help either.

Sorry, I tried to be nice about them, but the more I look at them the less they do for me, either technically or artistically. Again, it's because a good image should grow on you, and these don't personally.

I'll stop there I think, and wonder if this was even worth writing.. I'm posting it anyway, so you'll still have to put up with reading at least some of it.

Just shows how subjective "art" is really.

Cheers

Liam

I think there's little room left to argue on whether the images count as art.
They do. I hope that images I make, will inspire so much dialogue, emotion, thought, as those do.
good art or bad art.....eye of the beholder.
cruel depictions, cleverly sanitized or legitimate sports entertainment....to each: thier own.
any way you cut it I enjoyed this thread.

I don't know if a view can ever be out of date. However, the information it's based on can certainly be out of date, and I admit it's a while since I knew anybody who was actually attending or teaching at an art school.

But just recently we have had somebody come onto this forum and make certain very rigid and prescriptive statements about photography and art, and, lo and behold, he is currently a student at an art school.

So it seems that the foundations of my view on this topic are not built entirely on sand.

But I'm quite prepared to concede that there are good schools and bad ones, though I think that it is all too easy for such places, like all institutions, to get stuck in a rut. It's why I mentioned Beethoven; this malaise is not restricted to the visual arts.

I am also quite happy that some people think the photographs are rubbish. We are not in the Soviet Union, and there is room for more than one view. (However mistaken the other views might be! )

G

Hi all,

to follow on from George and Don, this thread proves one thing to me.. that I'd happily spend an hour or three propping up a bar with any of you.

To have such a diverse range of views aired on such a controversial subject, and to discuss them so politely and eloquentley, is indeed the mark of a gentleman.

I salute you.. and yes, in the absence of any of you, I took it upon myself to try out the bar, as mentioned above. If at any future point in time, you'd like to join me in such pleasures, you know where I am..

Cheers

Liam

When there's a drink in the offing, I'm very polite.

(Moderators please note.)

G

Hi G,

I very much hope this particular student is not representitive of all current art school students..judging by his other 'what makes a pro camera' postings I should say he is very narrow-minded and arrogantly self-centered (like many in London 'art' circles) and sorely in need of a reality check, so please do not judge all current art schools by his somewhat dubious ideas.

I agree with you 100% about the camera being pretty un-important in the greater scheme of things, you can make truly 'great' photos and art with almost anything...a short web search can prove that easily..or any look around a few London galleries on almost any day.

Cheers Steve.

Been fascinating reading this thread, I wasn't going to participate in the discussion as I don't think I'm qualified to do so but as a rank amateur maybe I do have an input.

Maybe a subject other than bull fighting would have been a more appropriate subject matter, like some of the other posters I abhor blood sports and can’t look at the subject subjectively, mankind at his worst.

I can just about understand what the photographer is trying to do, but for me it does not work, if it was a water colour or oil painting maybe he could have got away with it but I feel like Niblue, they are total crap!

While browsing the www in search of more info on B&W conversions I hit on a site by a guy called Paul Butzi (http://www.butzi.net, excellent site btw), on this site he has written an article entitled “Art is a Verb, Not a Noun”. This passage caught my eye which and please do not take offence but I reckon it adequately describes the OP.

Like Liam said, a night in the pub would be absolutely brilliant.

Sometimes splitting the diference is a great way to resolve a dispute....
My kids were fighting over the vcr last weekend.
My older kids wanted "Jurassic Park 2", while my autistic boy and my Two year old wanted "Barney and Friends"
I wish I could've combined the two and had Barney in Jurassic Park....
Barney VS a real Trex..
Now that's my idea of entertainment!
but would it qualify as art?

AS the OP, I confess to being a little mystified as to how the above "adequately describes" me. Do you mean my attitude to commodity art, whatever that is? Do you think I liked the bull-fighting pictures because they are outrageous? (I don't think they are, incidentally.)

Juan Buhler, the photographer normally shoots very good b&w stuff in the vein of Cartier-Bresson. I only picked out these rather atypical pictures to illustrate a point about equipment. They are not representative of his usual style, which is not in the least "outrageous".

In fact I share the sentiments of the writer concerning the kind of art that seems to win the Turner Prize. However, unlike some of those artists, this photographer is a highly competent artist (in his medium - photography), both technically and conceptually.

I am not a great fan of blood sports, but nor do I think they represent man at his worst. People who hold such views are obviously going to find it hard to look at these pictures with a degree of objectivity.

But I am not going to get into a debate on blood sports (cue audible sigh of relief from JR). In my experience there is no surer way to arrange for blood to be spilt than to enter a debate with those who say they hate the spilling of blood.

G