Talk:Sam Haskins

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[edit] Lists (etc.)

This is a very energetically constructed article. Good. However, it needs a lot of attention.

Here's just one sample, a list within a list of influences:

* [[Irving Penn]][http://www.photo-seminars.com/Fame/irving_penn.htm]
[http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/penn_irving.html]
* [[Richard Avedon]][http://www.richardavedon.com/]
* [[Edward Steichen]][http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/steichen_edward_j.html]
[http://www.masters-of-photography.com/S/steichen/steichen.html]
* [[Henri Cartier Bresson]][http://www.henricartierbresson.org/]

And within those, let's consider Penn. Penn gets an internal link. Fine. However, he also gets two external links. I went to both; neither mentions Haskins. Thus there's no reason for either of the links.

What is needed is a source for the claim that Haskins credited these people. And I don't see the need for a list at all. I'd write something like:

Among photographers, Haskell has said he has been influenced by [[Irving
Penn]], [[Richard Avedon]], [[Edward Steichen]] and [[Henri Cartier-Bresson]].

As stated above, you need sources. Let's imagine for a moment that he credited Penn and Avedon in one page that's on the web, and Steichen and HCB in two others. You could then write:

Among photographers, Haskell has said he has been influenced by [[Irving
Penn]], [[Richard Avedon]],<ref>[URL1 title1]</ref> [[Edward
Steichen]]<ref>[URL2 title2]</ref> and [[Henri Cartier-Bresson]].<ref>[URL3
title3]</ref>

This will be dreary to read and also the scope of URL1 will be ambiguous. Better, amalgamate all the sources in a single footnote:

Among photographers, Haskell has said he has been influenced by [[Irving
Penn]], [[Richard Avedon]], [[Edward Steichen]] and [[Henri
Cartier-Bresson]].<ref>Penn and Avedon [URL1 title1]; Steichen
[URL2 title2]; Cartier-Bresson [URL3 title3].</ref>

Somewhere near the foot of the article, add:

==Notes==
<references />

which will dump the footnotes.

As a general point, I don't think we need a list of every exhibition. If the man wants to post such a list on his own website, fine; but here it looks like a CV. -- Hoary 06:30, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removing Sam Haskins from list of 'Pioneers of photography'

(Note: this discussion moved here from my talk page, TheMindsEye 23:23, 10 August 2007 (UTC))

I note your removal of this category in Sam Haskins' entry.

Sam Haskins has been cited as a pioneer by a wide variety of photographic authorities over the past 40 years.

His contributions are clear and well documented. Describing Haskins as 'Notable but not a pioneer' is an opinion not a statement of fact about one of the most plagiarized photographers of the 20th century.

I will assemble a list of citations over the next few days to make the status of pioneer crystal clear. He is certainly at least as much of a pioneer as Bill Brandt who is listed.

Camera5 Thursday, 2007-08-09T23:24UTC

• Thanks, I think this discussion deserves a broader audience, so I'm moving it to the Sam Haskins talk page. Moreover, I think the term pioneer needs better definition. When I hear the term, I think of the inventors of processes or photographers who were early explorers of now-established fields. Yes, you can always point to a name and say why him and not this other person. Your choice of Bill Brandt is interesting. Since Brandt is 25 years Haskins' junior, it stands to reason that he could be a pioneer while Haskin might not qualify. TheMindsEye 23:23, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

• • Whatever else Brandt might be, he's not 25 years Haskins' junior. (He is -- was -- Haskins' senior by about that interval.) ¶ When I too I hear the term "pioneer", I first think of (i) the inventors of processes, then of (ii) photographers (such as Salomon) who photographed what had never been photographed before, and finally of (iii) "photographers who were early explorers of now-established fields". Of these, (i) and (ii) are often interrelated (e.g. the man who used his own high-speed technology to photograph bullets passing through apples, etc), and (ii) and (iii) merge into each other. ¶ The big problem here, I think, is the use of "Pioneers of photography" for a category. I'm sure it was meant well, but it has seems to have come to include photographers with more than average originality (which I don't think was intended or is helpful), and it could easily be extended to mean photographers whose works aren't merely derivative. I'm inclined to propose scrapping the category. -- Hoary 23:50, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Either that, or stop putting photographers in it. People pioneer fundamental processes and methodolgies. Some of them might happen to be photographers, of course.. but then they usually take the form of technique, which isn't the same thing. Like artists and architects, photographers might be influential, the very best perhaps innovative, but they're none of them the first to make pictures or build houses. mikaul^talk 00:09, 11 August 2007 (UTC)