Catherine Smet
Van Nhi Nguyen
Catherine:
"I agree it's a difficult medium to make humor come across. I thought of Buster Keaton and how he uses over the top slap stick humor but i couldn't immediately think of loads of photographers who use humor in an obvious way. Martin Parr's images i do find funny because he's showing a funny side of the british people. Tanned, old, fat people with white noses because of sunscreen lounging on the beaches, maybe stuffing their face with ice cream. They read the paper showing serious headlines on what's going on in the real world outside of their holiday world.
I guess you can also find something funny if it doesn't really fit into your reality. For example i can't imagine myself in the same world as these people Martin Parr photographed. They seem like characters someone came up with. Don't know if that makes sense.
For my image i put a chihuahua where our prime minister is supposed to sit. It's a photo of the consultation committee who are responsisble for deciding which measures the people have to follow during covid times. I was inspired by my frustration because of the new measures. I sometimes think a tiny dog could make a better decision than some politicians."
"I agree it's a difficult medium to make humor come across. I thought of Buster Keaton and how he uses over the top slap stick humor but i couldn't immediately think of loads of photographers who use humor in an obvious way. Martin Parr's images i do find funny because he's showing a funny side of the british people. Tanned, old, fat people with white noses because of sunscreen lounging on the beaches, maybe stuffing their face with ice cream. They read the paper showing serious headlines on what's going on in the real world outside of their holiday world.
I guess you can also find something funny if it doesn't really fit into your reality. For example i can't imagine myself in the same world as these people Martin Parr photographed. They seem like characters someone came up with. Don't know if that makes sense.
For my image i put a chihuahua where our prime minister is supposed to sit. It's a photo of the consultation committee who are responsisble for deciding which measures the people have to follow during covid times. I was inspired by my frustration because of the new measures. I sometimes think a tiny dog could make a better decision than some politicians."
Van:
"Comedy in photography is a relatively small section. usually it’s not out loud comedy, just subtle aspects and detail of the image that can be humorous, it’s pretty lame. Sometimes comedy in photography can be suited a book form, like in a sequence. “Punography” by Bruce A. McMillan is a photo book of “funny” image sequences. However it’s quite lame, where we can clearly see how photography and humor kind of don’t mix well together: woman pulling out empty pockets with a sad and shocked face, man trips on banana peels and falls. It’s unfunny and corny.
Don Novello’s Blade book, however, is a pretty lovely book about a high school where everyone’s a sheep! one of the reason why its so funny is because to me they take themselves quite serious, with sheep sitting in tables in classrooms, after school clubs with sheep hosts, etc.
To me non book form comedy photography, stand alone images, works best street photography. One of my most favourite street photographers is Brian Karlsson (@voyeur1 on Instagram) who photographs candid moments on the street of New York. His images are often snapshots of random things and people, where its often pretty bizarre situation, from a bloody mask used as a pad, to someone doing cartwheels in a McDonald’s. it’s some sort of a lighthearted fun; his images function as kind of like a meme humor, the more inside, self referential it is the funnier it gets. Humanity is ridiculous and it’s okay to poke fun at it.
I took an image of a woman late night on my trip to Phu Quoc island, where she was sitting and eating her food with 2 dogs waiting to be fed standing next to her. I find it quite funny that dogs are always expecting everyone to feed them, especially at food establishments. it’s an aspect that i find quite quirky in Vietnam that i haven’t seen in many other countries."
"Comedy in photography is a relatively small section. usually it’s not out loud comedy, just subtle aspects and detail of the image that can be humorous, it’s pretty lame. Sometimes comedy in photography can be suited a book form, like in a sequence. “Punography” by Bruce A. McMillan is a photo book of “funny” image sequences. However it’s quite lame, where we can clearly see how photography and humor kind of don’t mix well together: woman pulling out empty pockets with a sad and shocked face, man trips on banana peels and falls. It’s unfunny and corny.
Don Novello’s Blade book, however, is a pretty lovely book about a high school where everyone’s a sheep! one of the reason why its so funny is because to me they take themselves quite serious, with sheep sitting in tables in classrooms, after school clubs with sheep hosts, etc.
To me non book form comedy photography, stand alone images, works best street photography. One of my most favourite street photographers is Brian Karlsson (@voyeur1 on Instagram) who photographs candid moments on the street of New York. His images are often snapshots of random things and people, where its often pretty bizarre situation, from a bloody mask used as a pad, to someone doing cartwheels in a McDonald’s. it’s some sort of a lighthearted fun; his images function as kind of like a meme humor, the more inside, self referential it is the funnier it gets. Humanity is ridiculous and it’s okay to poke fun at it.
I took an image of a woman late night on my trip to Phu Quoc island, where she was sitting and eating her food with 2 dogs waiting to be fed standing next to her. I find it quite funny that dogs are always expecting everyone to feed them, especially at food establishments. it’s an aspect that i find quite quirky in Vietnam that i haven’t seen in many other countries."