Here are some common areas of photographic interests that I came across in the previous thread about originality versus technical perfection. How would you portray them?

I started off by making some assumptions. Please add or delete liberally.

EYE-CANDY
Breathtaking
Composition
Sharpness
Solid editing
Schoolbook

ARTISTRY
Message
Story
Questions
Mood

ORIGINALITY
Rule breaking
New
Spontaneous
Fun
Ridiculous

AMBIANCE
Grain
Scratches
Exposure
Blur

Thanks,
U

Okay, let's take one at a time, starting with ...

EYE-CANDY
Breathtaking
Composition
Sharpness
Solid editing
Schoolbook

Please add, comment or delete freely!
U

Not quite sure what you are asking for Ulf, sorry. You may need to explain a bit more or show an example. .
best,
Jon

Ha ha, sometimes I get carried away and forget the importance of addressing a topic in a clear way. Thanks for pointing that out to me! I'll make a new effort here and now.

I want to discuss the denotation and interpretation of eye-candy, artistry, originality and ambiance. What is, for an example, eye-candy?

In my world it's first and foremost being loyal to the schoolbook, in a professional way of course. You attend to details in a thorough way. You care deeply about technical issues like composition, exposure, sharpness and such. You spend a considerable time post-processing the image to perfection and the end result is often breathtaking (i.e. very high impact). However the content is often without message, story or originality. In short; your aim is to provide an instant burst of candy to the viewer's eyes. Not necessary to challenge the viewers brain or emotion.
U

Eye candy to me describes something that is impressive for about 2 seconds, slick, glib, too showy, all style and no content, however much skill is evident. Vacuous and in your face at the same time. Rots the brain like candy rots the teeth. Or to a less extreme extent, something with too much emphasis on the superficial to the detriment of any deeper connection. Shallow. Pleasant to look at but ultimately empty.

Jon

Ha ha, well even two seconds is a bit short. But okay, I agree it's a problem that leaves me at unease too. Why publish images that wont last? To be perfectly clear, I do appreciate most images on 1x, but I'm also getting kind of bored by all beautiful images of beautiful and happy people, beautiful things beautifully photographed, beautiful views, beautiful spiral staircases, beautiful moody children, beautiful slow water, beautiful out of focus people / objects and so on and so forth.

To be honest, sometimes I wonder if everybody is relatives to Genghis Khan, living right next to the great plain? Surely I can't be the only member on 1x that lives a normal and quite boring, suburban life? And surely I can't be the only member on 1x that doesn't travels around the globe for living, meeting beautiful people and seeing beautiful places all day long. If I'm wrong, I envy you all, and ask you please to come home and take some ordinary (human) shots around the neighborhood - where you hopefully live in real life :)
U

I wasn't implying that there was a lot of eye candy by my definition on 1X though. Just making that clear.
I do agree with your feelings on the relentlessness pageant of beauty and good taste here ;-))))))

Am I going nuts or did you post the second paragraph on another thread? Not complaining but it seems familiar. I'm familiar with the concept too. Round my way there is not a lot of obvious photographic subject matter, which means that I am enjoying trying to make the mundane and the familiar unfamiliar by photographing it. Nothing new there i know, but it's that or kittens. . . It also means that when a decent photographic subject come up, i don't know what to do with it! ;-)
Jon

I like that too, more and more... but it is not the easiest nor rewarding thing to do unless you are William Eggleston or Steven Shore...

Yeah, they got there first. . . ;-)

Well, arguably Walker Evans opened that particular door first.

Jon

Could be yes, I've read somewhere he would avoid to shot subject matter that looks "pretty" or something like that... Furthermore that seems to be (?) a very American trend from historical point of view.