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Award winning photograph of Andromeda


Jiggy 67

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1 hour ago, ollypenrice said:

You won't find many professionals in aesthetics who agree with this, however often it is repeated. If it were true, art would be impossible.

Olly

The phrase popped into my head so I couldn't resist posting it. Actually I regard it as one of those expressions that falls under the banner "PSB", or Pseudo-Profound BS. But I certainly wouldn't subordinate my own judgement of beauty to someone who might call themself an aesthetics professional. They sound like Thought Police.

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I m very disappointed to see this win. It’s even a poor image of M31, let alone the out of focus stars.  
They need to have an art section in that competition. Winning images of satellite trails, and lens flares?!?! 
Tom 
 

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1 minute ago, Tom OD said:

I m very disappointed to see this win. It’s even a poor image of M31, let alone the out of focus stars.  
They need to have an art section in that competition. Winning images of satellite trails, and lens flares?!?! 
Tom 
 

I agree, while I have not, yet, produced anything worthy of being entered into a competition, I wouldn't dream of composing the type of thing that appears to have got awards there.

I guess, if you want to be seriously competitive then it's more about finding out what the judges are looking for, rather than producing a good astrophotography result.

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15 minutes ago, Captain Magenta said:

The phrase popped into my head so I couldn't resist posting it. Actually I regard it as one of those expressions that falls under the banner "PSB", or Pseudo-Profound BS. But I certainly wouldn't subordinate my own judgement of beauty to someone who might call themself an aesthetics professional. They sound like Thought Police.

I don't think there's any need to compare them with the Thought Police. They are no different from experts in any other field: they've looked into the subject, made discoveries, conducted both thought experiments and practical ones and so on. Like any other expert most will be happy to afford people the freedom to think the Earth is flat if they choose to do so.

I agree with you that the phrase in question is PSB!  I don't think it's entirely false since, when any work of art is observed, there is creative effort on the part of both the artist and the observer. There is also room for disagreement and personal preference. However, if beauty really were only in the eye of the beholder there would be no general agreement that Shakespeare's writing is more beautiful than a random slice from the phone book or that a Rembrandt is more beautiful than a brick wall.  It would be fatuous to argue that Shakespeare really is no better than a random slice from the phone book but... there will always be people willing to do so. 🤣

Olly

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22 minutes ago, Tom OD said:

I m very disappointed to see this win. It’s even a poor image of M31, let alone the out of focus stars.  
They need to have an art section in that competition. Winning images of satellite trails, and lens flares?!?! 
Tom 
 

Yup. Such competitions will rapidly turn themselves into exercises in gimmick-finding. 

Olly

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21 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

I don't think there's any need to compare them with the Thought Police. They are no different from experts in any other field: they've looked into the subject, made discoveries, conducted both thought experiments and practical ones and so on. Like any other expert most will be happy to afford people the freedom to think the Earth is flat if they choose to do so.

I agree with you that the phrase in question is PSB!  I don't think it's entirely false since, when any work of art is observed, there is creative effort on the part of both the artist and the observer. There is also room for disagreement and personal preference. However, if beauty really were only in the eye of the beholder there would be no general agreement that Shakespeare's writing is more beautiful than a random slice from the phone book or that a Rembrandt is more beautiful than a brick wall.  It would be fatuous to argue that Shakespeare really is no better than a random slice from the phone book but... there will always be people willing to do so. 🤣

Olly

Why would brick wall or random slice from phone book be considered art?

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44 minutes ago, Tom OD said:

I m very disappointed to see this win. It’s even a poor image of M31, let alone the out of focus stars.  
They need to have an art section in that competition. Winning images of satellite trails, and lens flares?!?! 
Tom 
 

You do understand that those out of focus stars are made out of focus on purpose as a part of subject interpretation?

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8 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

Why would brick wall or random slice from phone book be considered art?

You have obviously not been to any UK End-of-Year Art College shows recently. My wife, whom I would consider a beautiful drawer and painter (in both senses), did a Fine Arts degree a few years ago, and the final year show was very depressing. There was even actually a brick wall on show, but the bricks were made of lard (pig-fat).

Edited by Captain Magenta
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48 minutes ago, TerryMcK said:

All our photos in the future may look like this, courtesy Mr Musk, if we don't use Sigma clipping (People and Space category: The Prison of Technology, by Rafael Schmall from Hungary)
 

 

_114315423_ps-23082-21_winner_the-prison-of-technology-rafael-schmall.jpg.acd64d6bbc20c5c9bd0f13417e6cfe81.jpg

That picture certainly made a valid point

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1 hour ago, vlaiv said:

Why would brick wall or random slice from phone book be considered art?

As Andrew says, Because any 'artist' can say they are. And yes, they can be offered as art and so just be worthless art - of which there is no shortage. However, I wasn't making a point about art, I was deconstructing the phrase, 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.' If taken literally this phrase must insist that the object itself contributes nothing. There are people who will defend this point - just as there are people who will argue that the earth is flat. They belong to a group generically known as... (insert your term of preference!)

1 hour ago, vlaiv said:

You do understand that those out of focus stars are made out of focus on purpose as a part of subject interpretation?

Of course he does! Tom is one of the best astrophotographers in the world and has done at least one image - his moon illusion composite - which quite openly strayed from what the camera gave. Fully declared, for sure.)

New paragraph...

Beware of 'easy art.'  Having an idea (tilt my camera and take a snap) will never make good art. Nor will, Get a butcher to cut a beast in half and stick it in a tank or Take my unmade bed and stick it in a gallery or Walk around Norfolk with a plank on our heads or Just get a load of bricks delivered and let the delivery man put them on the floor.  The glorious joke with this one was that the delivery men put them in a neat pile and the 'artist' had to intervene to make it a random pile. (All of these 'works of art' are factually true. They existed.)

I once wrote a short story taking the mick out of conceptual art. If you're really bored just PM me and I'll send you a copy...

😁lly

Edited by ollypenrice
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50 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

You do understand that those out of focus stars are made out of focus on purpose as a part of subject interpretation?

Of course I do.

Focus tilt, out of focus stars, lens flaring, dew on the optics which is what that prison of tech image looks like are to me, are In my mind all faults and aberrations in an Astro image
They can be what ever they want in an art image, but for me, we work hard Enough to avoid these issues. 
I feel like the Astro art is de-evolving the Astro Science. Hence I think they should be in a separate category 

 

51 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

You do understand that those out of focus stars are made out of focus on purpose as a part of subject interpretation?

 

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1 minute ago, Tom OD said:

Of course I do.

Focus tilt, out of focus stars, lens flaring, dew on the optics which is what that prison of tech image looks like are to me, are In my mind all faults and aberrations in an Astro image
They can be what ever they want in an art image, but for me, we work hard Enough to avoid these issues. 
I feel like the Astro art is de-evolving the Astro Science. Hence I think they should be in a separate category 

 

 

Beat you to it!!!!!!!

🤣lly

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1 hour ago, Captain Magenta said:

You have obviously not been to any UK End-of-Year Art College shows recently. My wife, whom I would consider a beautiful drawer and painter (in both senses), did a Fine Arts degree a few years ago, and the final year show was very depressing. There was even actually a brick wall on show, but the bricks were made of lard (pig-fat).

Beautiful draughtsman. She doesn't contain socks!

😁lly

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It appears to me that Astrophotographers can ignore all their hard work over the years learning their craft, making accurate, focussed, beautiful and detailed images and just contribute an image that they did when they first started, give it a gimmick and win a prestigious prize.

Carole 

 

Edited by carastro
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The M31 image does absolutely nothing for me and if I were one of the many other entrants to this competition, I would feel cheated by this result! This really makes a nonsense of an astrophotography based competition. On the other side, ‘art’ is a very personal thing but sadly it doesn’t hit that spot for me either! However, I would still like to genuinely congratulate the winner for pulling this £10,000 win for themselves - no mean feat!

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I’m no photographer, just like looking and imagining the distances and forces at work but that picture is like everything else these days, photoshopped or airbrushed. It’s special effects and doesn’t appear real. Seen many many far better images posted by the talented people on here. Then again I laugh when a pile of dirty clothes are described as art so maybe I’m out of touch (thankfully)

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