Google street view

[karenoliver]

An interesting article here about Michael Wolfe a photojournalist who has won awards with photographs that he used from google street view.

http://bit.ly/eQ7lPM

I actually saw some of these in Derby but wondered what everyone thought. Anyone could sit at home tonight, browse a neighbourhood and print screen the photos from streetview, would that make them a photographer or award winning journalist?

http://www.photomichaelwolf.com/ is his website where he also has street view portraits.

What do you think?

I am unsure to be honest. Part of me kind of respects the artistic merit and unique work but part of me thinks it was the camera on the street view car that made the shots.

Karen

[Markulous]

I'd agree with the "It's neither photojournalism not photography" but I wouldn't necessarily argue that it wasn't art.

Is it clever? Not particularly - like photos of smoke and water drops, if you give a chimp a camera it'll always produce "good" smoke and drops eventually as it's just a matter of time

[karenoliver]

Originally Posted by Markulous

I'd agree with the "It's neither photojournalism not photography" but I wouldn't necessarily argue that it wasn't art.

Is it clever? Not particularly - like photos of smoke and water drops, if you give a chimp a camera it'll always produce "good" smoke and drops eventually as it's just a matter of time

I'd agree with that. It does fall into the art category for me too but unless he stood behind the camera himself I just can't see how he can win awards for the shots.

Karen

[Cathus]

I'm going to steal photos from this forum, paste them to my backside & walk around the town centre whistling God Save the Queen.

Should win an award or two & get people spouting off about the deep & meaningful **** behind my work.

[Cathus]

Originally Posted by Markulous

Is it clever? Not particularly - like photos of smoke and water drops, if you give a chimp a camera it'll always produce "good" smoke and drops eventually as it's just a matter of time

why just smoke & water drops? by the same principle if you give a chimp a camera it will produce good shots of anything given enough time, surely?

[Markulous]

Originally Posted by Cathus

I'm going to steal photos from this forum, paste them to my backside & walk around the town centre whistling God Save the Queen.

Should win an award or two & get people spouting off about the deep & meaningful **** behind my work.

Should win you the Turner Prize......... unless you're over 50, that is!

Originally Posted by Cathus

why just smoke & water drops? by the same principle if you give a chimp a camera it will produce good shots of anything given enough time, surely?

Once you've got the setup, it's just a question of pushing the shutter release - it'll take the chimp a damn sight longer to get an interesting landscape (but I'll concede, like chimps with typewriters coming up with the Complete Works of Shakespeare, they'll succeed eventually! )

[Reinardina]

Originally Posted by Cathus

I'm going to steal photos from this forum, paste them to my backside & walk around the town centre whistling God Save the Queen.

Should win an award or two & get people spouting off about the deep & meaningful **** behind my work.

I hereby give you permission to use my entry to this week's competition (A match made in heaven) for your 'installation.'

If you choose the right (wedding) day, there'll be thousands of people around, most of them in festive mood and armed with cameras, so your 'behind the scenes' art will flash up in Youtube in no time.

You will be world famous before the police gets to you, to arrest you for breaking the peace! And you're almost guaranteed to win one of the big 'nonsense' art prizes.

The only thing I ask in return, is a small share (10%?) of the prize money.

[OldBoy]

Sounds like copyright infringement to me. Knowing the money Google have and their robust way of defending themselves, I wouldn't want to go there.

[OldBoy]

Originally Posted by Cathus

I'm going to steal photos from this forum, paste them to my backside & walk around the town centre whistling God Save the Queen.

Should win an award or two & get people spouting off about the deep & meaningful **** behind my work.

Need a extreme wide-angle lens to get all that in....

[ABERS]

What a wonderful and novel way of doing street/photojournalistic photography. Why make all the effort to go out there looking for it whan it can be served up on a plate. Masterly!

It's a bit like buying some M&S oven ready meals and telling your guests that you spent hours slaving over a hot stove to feed them. But not quite though, Wolfe has the decency to tell us that they are all lifted from the Google site.

He'll go far that lad.