Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: John R Smith on April 23, 2012, 10:03:52 am
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I do enjoy making pictures of "found objects" around the cottage. Part of the fun is setting up all the complicated bits and pieces for a tripod shot with the 500 C/M and 120mm S-Planar - the magnifying hood, the bellows Pro lenshade, my nice Nikon cable release, and so forth. I use available light only, so I often have to wait for just the right time of day and weather conditions too. This lens is my second 120mm, and interestingly although both should be identical I think the latest one is slightly more contrasty and a tad sharper.
John
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Classic...
Mike.
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This could be a product shot for the Berio Olive Oil Company. Well done.
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Very nice, John.
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John, your photo looks "polished" as usual. Lovely Sir.
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Hmmm
Maybe you are right and I should send a pic to the olive oil ad department ;)
Many thanks for your comments and replies, as always. Now then, the little thing which interested me was whether any of you would pick up on this - my ex-wife said that the subjects of the picture seem to her like a group of people, and it disturbs her that the jug appears to be facing out of the frame.
I must admit it never crossed my mind until she mentioned it.
John
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... I must admit it never crossed my mind until she mentioned it...
That's it then... the husband is always the last to know ;)
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Now then, the little thing which interested me was whether any of you would pick up on this - my ex-wife said that the subjects of the picture seem to her like a group of people, and it disturbs her that the jug appears to be facing out of the frame.
I take it to be common courtesy on the part of the jug; it doesn't want to be seen staring at something so blatantly labeled "Extra Virgin." ;)
I like it. I think it would also work with the jug facing the other way.
Eric
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That's it then... the husband is always the last to know ;)
I take it to be common courtesy on the part of the jug; it doesn't want to be seen staring at something so blatantly labeled "Extra Virgin." ;)
One thing you can always rely on around here is high grade humour ;)
Thanks chaps . . .
John
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John,
It is photography, pure and simple. As it should be in my book. There's far too little of it around these days.
The relationship between the objects is true and shows the power of the photograph to set up a narrative, even where there might not be one.
No surprise that there may be a difference in the 120mm 'Blad lenses. Were they the same style? CF or C? T* or single coated?
There are bound to be variations in such a broad sample manufactured over such a long period of time and production tolerances being what they are.
Cheers,
W
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That's it then... the husband is always the last to know ;)
What, even in the case of 'extra virginity'?
Rob C
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No surprise that there may be a difference in the 120mm 'Blad lenses. Were they the same style? CF or C? T* or single coated? There are bound to be variations in such a broad sample manufactured over such a long period of time and production tolerances being what they are.
Walter, many thanks for your input, I'm pleased that you liked the picture. The two 120mm lenses are both silver-finish 'C' f5.6 S-Planars, about two years apart in manufacturing date. As you say, it's no real surprise that there are differences. This "new" one (1969!) has just been serviced by Hasselbald UK at Elstree, and they have done a smashing job. The shutter now runs sweetly and the focus ring is like butter.
John
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Super image, I like everything about it!
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That 'extra virgin' oil appears to have been dipped into (a less than full bottle). Has it thus lost its virginity?
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John,
I also have an old Makro Planar 120mm 1:5.6 but it is a black T* model.
Strangely, no body at the moment but thinking about one.
It could be good to make a good examination of the differences in the lenses and then use one or the other according to the style of shot you wish to make. I used to do something similar with film types, using different emulsions for different complexions and skin colours.
Never an end to the permutation of our beloved craft.
Cheers,
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I also have an old Makro Planar 120mm 1:5.6 but it is a black T* model.
Walter, the T* version should enable you to shoot a little tighter into the light (contre-jour) without getting flare. Which is always a good thing. I've always enjoyed still-life and garden pictures, but still-life around the cottage was a real help last year after major surgery, when I was more or less house-bound for a while. It got me going again on something creative.
John
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I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to be the bad boy here. I don't usually comment on photos that I don''t find interesting. I don't like to 'slam' a photo, or discouragte the photographer from pursuing his interest, craft or profession, but I feel strongly in this case that I have to say that this image from John Smith is totally banal and uninteresting.
Perhaps this view is a result of my leading an interesting life. Perhaps I'm unsympathetic to those who lead a boring life.
I can't help feeling that anyone who thinks this image of an Olive Oil bottle on a kitchen top is interesting, must be leading a terribly boring life.
Sorry if I've upset anyone, but this is my frank opinion.
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Ray, now you understand my white tree.
Rob C
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Ray, now you understand my white tree.
Rob C
Not at all. C'mon Rob. A fuzzy monkey amidst fuzzy trees. What's interesting about that?
Okay! There's a certain interest in imagining shapes in the clouds. Maybe there's a face there. Maybe there's a monkey in the fuzzy trees. Crikey! There are far more interesting subjects.
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. . . but I feel strongly in this case that I have to say that this image from John Smith is totally banal and uninteresting.
Perhaps this view is a result of my leading an interesting life. Perhaps I'm unsympathetic to those who lead a boring life.
I can't help feeling that anyone who thinks this image of an Olive Oil bottle on a kitchen top is interesting, must be leading a terribly boring life.
Sorry if I've upset anyone, but this is my frank opinion.
Ray, that's absolutely fine. After all, this is supposed to be a critique forum, where all shades of opinion should have their voice. My brother didn't like the picture either - his comment was "oh, a test shot, is it?" It's also a jolly good thing that you lead an interesting life ;)
PS The photograph is not actually about the subjects, banal as they might be - it is about light, which is never banal or uninteresting.
John
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I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to be the bad boy here...
Oh, my God, who are you, why are you posting under Ray's name and what have you done to Slobodan!? ;D
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Oh, my God, who are you, why are you posting under Ray's name and what have you done to Slobodan!? ;D
What! Are you implying that I'm not normally aggressive enough? ;D
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PS The photograph is not actually about the subjects, banal as they might be - it is about light, which is never banal or uninteresting.
John
I understand the concept perfectly. Photography means, 'painting in light'. You've got a boring subject reasonably well-lit. There's no spectacular sunset rays illuminating the Olive Oil bottle. There's nothing special or distinctive at all.
Sorry to be so blunt. ;D
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... Perhaps this view is a result of my leading an interesting life...
Ray, I am not sure if monkeying around counts as more interesting than being surrounded by virgins ;D
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Ray, I am not sure if monkeying around counts as more interesting than being surrounded by virgins ;D
Hhmm! Surrounded by virgins implies you are a school teacher. Not an enviable profession.
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Not at all. C'mon Rob. A fuzzy monkey amidst fuzzy trees. What's interesting about that?Okay! There's a certain interest in imagining shapes in the clouds. Maybe there's a face there. Maybe there's a monkey in the fuzzy trees. Crikey! There are far more interesting subjects.
The fuzz, of course.
I take no pleasure in cloud-reading; yes, there are certainly more interesting subjects than trees, monkeys (sharp or fuzzy), but they (for me) require a client chequebook to reach.
;-(
Rob C
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Hhmm! Surrounded by virgins implies you are a school teacher. Not an enviable profession.
How silly; you just seek a complicated response! Why do you exclude other virgins?
Rob C
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What I find fascinating about this subject matter of the common-place bottle of olive oil on the kitchen top, is not the picture, but the response to the picture.
It seems to be quite popular, with 80 views so far. My shot of a monkey testing the firmness of a well-endowed young lady's breasts, got a mere 56 views, and I suspect that number was inflated as a result of Slobodan's comment that the monkey seemed to know what he was doing.
Now you may think I've got a case of sour grapes. Not at all. I'm genuinely interested in these issues of the reasons for the popularity of certain works. I've always been struck by the absurdity of the high prices paid for certain ludicrous works of art that most people would automatically consider as crap, if some so-called expert had not given it the nod.
I suspect the truth is, we're often being conned. This is probably why I had no desire to become a professional photographer. Producing photos in order to sell bottles of olive oil, or women's make-up products, or fashionable clothes, is totally boring for me.
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What I find fascinating about this subject matter of the common-place bottle of olive oil on the kitchen top, is not the picture, but the response to the picture.
It seems to be quite popular, with 80 views so far. My shot of a monkey testing the firmness of a well-endowed young lady's breasts, got a mere 56 views, and I suspect that number was inflated as a result of Slobodan's comment that the monkey seemed to know what he was doing.
Now you may think I've got a case of sour grapes. Not at all. I'm genuinely interested in these issues of the reasons for the popularity of certain works. I've always been struck by the absurdity of the high prices paid for certain ludicrous works of art that most people would automatically consider as crap, if some so-called expert had not given it the nod.
I suspect the truth is, we're often being conned. This is probably why I had no desire to become a professional photographer. Producing photos in order to sell bottles of olive oil, or women's make-up products, or fashionable clothes, is totally boring for me.
Ray, you’re opening up the proverbial can of worms.
I think that much contemporary ‘art’ is crap, and that gurus have intentionally made a difficult subject even more difficult to navigate, to the extent that some prefer to avoid it altogether.
A trip to a reasonable art gallery will quickly restore a sense of values, something that will come directly from the viewer’s own, gut, response to the painting or whatever he’s looking at at the time. Talent and skill are obvious in themselves – it’s only where the cons are being perpetrated that middle-men are required staff. Photography has historically suffered from its apparent similarity to painting, and I think that’s probably the root cause of the different but twin standards. Painting well takes undeniable skill; making a photograph requires little actual dexterity and only some observational skills in design and pattern. We probably all exercise the latter every day, even down to the act of buying a shirt, not that I advise buying one of those every day, but you get the idea.
The actual validity of the painter’s or the photographer’s vision may be the same, but the painter’s success is more difficult to achieve and depends solely on his abilities, not partly on those of a range of mechanical and electronic support systems. In that sense, I believe that the problems associated with digital photography as art are more pronounced than for wet processes photography as art. This concatenation of art and mechanics is why it’s so difficult to raise photography to the level of painting in the matter of how it’s received.
Subject matter. I have made similar observations on viewing figures here, and I can generally see that landscape-style stuff generates a higher viewer base. That fits in perfectly with the name of the site, why expect anything else, I ask myself? At the same time, I note that nudes also garner high figures (the higher the figure the higher the viewer numbers, too) and that’s also normal.
On the specific matter of Olive Oil and other Popeye figures, the attraction can be found in different areas of such works. There’s an undeniable attraction in ‘European’ cultural elements, signifiers of a different, possibly vanishing way of life drawing on old and largely lost commodities such as shown in this image and also in old drinking vessels etc. in other posts There’s also the attraction for some photographers in what they see as ‘lighting’; however natural or impromptu it might actually be, it’s credited to the snapper, with the viewers asking themselves how/if they could/would have achieved the same result.
But then, there’s also romance in the past; I remember it well!
Rob C
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Ray
May I just say that I really enjoyed your shot of the monkey and the young lady's breasts. It seemed to me to belong to the genre that we used to call "candid photography", and it was a great example of that - very well seen and expertly captured.
I enjoy the sort of debate which this thread has provoked. My own view is that we should be celebrating the diversity and range of the arts in general, and photography in particular - not feeling anxious or threatened by the plethora of subjects, methods and concepts which the visual arts have produced in recent times. I don't think anybody here is trying to "con" anyone, least of all me.
John
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Fair enough, John. Glad no offense has been taken.
Cheers!
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Great photography!!
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And where are you, John?
I don't seem to have picked up on your name in a while, are you okay?
Best wishes,
Rob C
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Hmmm
...said that the subjects of the picture seem to her like a group of people, and it disturbs her that the jug appears to be facing out of the frame.
I must admit it never crossed my mind until she mentioned it.
John
I was glad not to have read the comments before spending some time with this one questioning what it was that was triggering my response.
Glad that someone brought this forward John, as the response is as enlightening as your image is a nice place for contemplation. The portion of your comment I included above was even more so as I had reacted almost immediately in a similar way. Our lives are so "busy and interesting" that we move through them asleep as it were unwilling or disinterested enough to take the time to wonder at the hidden within ordinary things.
This for me was viscerally confrontation. I wished to understand how I might paint a sense of the same. For you it was about the light. For me it was about what you were saying with the light...as the same group of words might be arranged by one person to no effect whatsoever, while another might tuck them next to each other differently to create a visual melody, song, piece of poetry or eulogy. Yet it is clear that the viewer must have worked to attain some level of awareness to be receptive to what may be beyond the surface, as I would have needed to take the time to have obtained some level of fluency in the Japanese language to more fully enjoy the profound beauty of an haiku.
I like that this offered the chance to contemplate how this might represent how our level of awareness , our consciousness, our ability to sense the vibrations depending on how far we are willing to see beyond the surface.
And I fully understand that it is the light that was the focus of your energy, but it is what you wrote with that focused energy. A different story, with the same characters would have been written six hours later in that same location.
Also, I did notice that the message I took seemed most clear in a small intimate image rather than large, as if I , in the small image, was an onlooker, an intruder almost, to a very private conversation.
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And where are you, John?
I don't seem to have picked up on your name in a while, are you okay?
Best wishes,
Rob C
+1
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And where are you, John?
I don't seem to have picked up on your name in a while, are you okay?
Best wishes,
Rob C
I think John terminated his membership last year in a huff. I don't remember why but I think somebody upset him and off he went. If I have got it wrong then apologies to him. :)
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Rob, Patricia, et al -
It is very kind of you to ask after me. I am OK thank you, I have been having some issues with a bad back but I am otherwise in good spirits. And no, I certainly have not "terminated my membership in a huff", I don't recall being upset by anyone or anything. The folks here are very nice people and I have always found LuLa to be an excellent place to hang out.
Slobodan chased me some time ago and I gave him the same reply. I've just been taking a bit of a break from photography because I felt I was getting a bit stale, is all. So I packed away the Hasselblads for a while and did other things, and let the batteries recharge. Luckily I don't have to take photographs for a living or anything.
Funnily enough I got out on Friday afternoon and gave the 500 a bit of exercise, the first time for ages. And it felt good.
All best, John
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It's good to read your words again John. Glad you are OK, I'm one of many who has been wondering where you are, hurry back!
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... I've just been taking a bit of a break from photography because I felt I was getting a bit stale...
Why does this remind me of the "one man's trash is another man's treasure?" In other words, even if your work has become "stale," I am absolutely positive it would still be way above some other work posted here.
Besides, you do not have to post photographs for us to have the benefit of your wisdom. Words count too, you know. Although it seems at times we have too many of those here (words, that is), it is the wise ones that are often missing.
Or, perhaps, in your modesty, you adhere to Plato's adage: "A wise man talks because he has something to say; a fool talks because he has to say something."?
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I've just been taking a bit of a break from photography because I felt I was getting a bit stale, is all.
Don't we all feel that way from time to time? Best thing I've found to do when that happens, which it frequently does, is drag out a few books by the greats and run through them, then get back on the horse.
Welcome back, John.
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Thanks for getting back in touch with us all, John. There isn't that big a fraternity of folks infected with the 500 C virus, you know: keep posting!
Regarding charging of flat batteries: I used to buy Black&White over the years and then dropped out. Out of curiosity today, I looked up the site again and there's some really good stuff on there now: could interest several of us.
Walter - if you read this: some interesting art/architectural takes in black and white, some better than others, but mainly interesting. The few 'skin' pics I found left me cold; I just don't see the magazine as having a handle on that genre, but maybe the quick look at the website wasn't thorough enough.
http://www.bandwmag.com
Rob C