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Author Topic: Untitled  (Read 15394 times)

William Walker

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Re: Untitled
« Reply #20 on: September 26, 2011, 09:22:26 am »


Rubbish. The truth is, any evidence of man in a landscape ruins it. ... any evidence of man is an automatic delete of the file .

Phew Jack! Just as well you did'nt take this shot... ;D

WIlliam
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eclectix

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Re: Untitled
« Reply #21 on: September 26, 2011, 02:43:36 pm »

I'm not much of a photographer (yet, hopefully) but I've been a painter for years so don't totally discredit my input here.  In my opinion what matters is not whether there is the hand of man in a picture, but whether the hand of man is appropriate to the piece.  If you want to portray the wild on the verge of cracker-box suburbia, then the houses are essential.  If, on the other hand, your goal was to capture the unspoiled wild, then the houses are an issue.
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popnfresh

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Re: Untitled
« Reply #22 on: September 26, 2011, 04:34:39 pm »

I'm not much of a photographer (yet, hopefully) but I've been a painter for years so don't totally discredit my input here.  In my opinion what matters is not whether there is the hand of man in a picture, but whether the hand of man is appropriate to the piece.  If you want to portray the wild on the verge of cracker-box suburbia, then the houses are essential.  If, on the other hand, your goal was to capture the unspoiled wild, then the houses are an issue.

Leave it to the newbie to speak some sense. Thank you, eclectix.
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RSL

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Re: Untitled
« Reply #23 on: September 26, 2011, 05:29:42 pm »

Okay, all you rocks and stones and trees guys, here's a landscape without the hand of man. I've even Anseled it in Photoshop. How can you beat that? You inspired me to go out to Garden of the Gods this afternoonh and shoot it. Great, isn't it?

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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Untitled
« Reply #24 on: September 26, 2011, 07:32:25 pm »

Nice one, Russ! A little bit too much Clarity applied (white halos) and the sky a bit to crunchy for me, though.

But I think you posted it in the wrong thread.. this one would be more appropriate. ;)

ckimmerle

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Re: Untitled
« Reply #25 on: September 26, 2011, 07:35:40 pm »

It's absolutely ridiculous to advocated in general, either for or against showing man-made objects. That's doing nothing more than arguing narrowly defined personal preferences and completely ignores the existence of the photographer's vision and intent. As someone who almost always includes man's influence in landscapes, I would in no way insinuate it being a requirement for a worthy photo.

Can anyone argue that the work of the New Topographics photographers would have been better without houses? Would Clyde Butcher's everglades images be better if they included cars or power poles? The answer to both is a certain NO. Why? Because the decision to include, or exclude, certain objects to support their message is entirely their call. You folks don't get a vote on their vision.
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JohnKoerner

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Re: Untitled
« Reply #26 on: September 26, 2011, 08:38:50 pm »

Well! Here we go!
Jack, have you ever gone to a museum and stood in front of one of Turner's masterpiece landscapes? Try it some time. It may change your attitude toward landscape. If you can't find a Turner, try a Constable or a Thomas Cole, or an Albert Bierstadt. These guys understood what landscape should be. Ansel's all-time greatest photograph was "Woman Behind Screen Door, Independence, California." Bet you've never seen it.


Oh, admit it, this type of "reaction" is what you wanted by your opening statement ;)

But, um, a woman behind a screen door is not a "landscape," is it Russ?

Sorry ...




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________________




See? I don't need to make snide remarks. I can count on my serfs and minions to make them for me.
Thank you, Jack!
Eric

Minion? Serf?

Not to you, or to anyone, Eric.

No matter how much I think of the person :)




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Since you start pithily (not snidely), Jack, so will I: drivel.
Don't try to ply the trade in England, if that's what you believe, or France or Italy or any other moderately densely populated country where the landscape has been formed, over hundreds of years, by man. Are you seriously suggesting that, for example, Michael's wonderful photos of the Palouse are not "landscape" because they show crop fields?
To suggest that only virgin landscapes such as the American south west are the only places where landscape photographers can take photographs makes no sense at all.
Jeremy


Perhaps you should have read my post a little more closely, eh Jeremy?




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I'm not much of a photographer (yet, hopefully) but I've been a painter for years so don't totally discredit my input here.  In my opinion what matters is not whether there is the hand of man in a picture, but whether the hand of man is appropriate to the piece.  If you want to portray the wild on the verge of cracker-box suburbia, then the houses are essential.  If, on the other hand, your goal was to capture the unspoiled wild, then the houses are an issue.

Wow, that was really well said.




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Okay, all you rocks and stones and trees guys, here's a landscape without the hand of man. I've even Anseled it in Photoshop. How can you beat that? You inspired me to go out to Garden of the Gods this afternoonh and shoot it. Great, isn't it?

I actually like it alot Russ. Powerful. Well done.

A helluva lot better than that other one :)

Jack




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RSL

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Re: Untitled
« Reply #27 on: September 26, 2011, 09:29:58 pm »

Nice one, Russ! A little bit too much Clarity applied (white halos) and the sky a bit to crunchy for me, though.

But I think you posted it in the wrong thread.. this one would be more appropriate. ;)

Thanks, Slobodan. Actually it wasn't the clarity slider, it was a bit too much structure -- deliberately -- in Sliver Efex. I was trying to make a point. I think the thing approximates some of Ansel's stuff -- not to knock Ansel's stuff -- but I carried the whole effect beyond where Ansel probably (hopefully) would have stopped. The sky wasn't really threatening, just a sky with some rain clouds in it, and the rock isn't really that stark. But you've probably read about the difference between the bland negative for Ansel's "Moonrise Over Hernandez," (the score) and the dramatic print (the performance). I've seen a print of it several times, even had a poster copy of it on the wall in my office for a decade or so, but I've never seen the negative. Ansel did something with his negative similar to what I did with this rather bland raw color file of Balanced Rock in Garden of the Gods. When I saw the rain clouds this morning, and knew most of the tourists were gone, I decided to do a demonstration. Usually the slanting rocks in this picture are covered with tourists -- plus a kid over there holding up balanced rock while his dad takes his picture, etc., etc.

So this is how you make a silk purse out of sow's ear. It's not bad, but it's the kind of thing I'd concede doesn't need the hand of man.
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RSL

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Re: Untitled
« Reply #28 on: September 26, 2011, 09:45:29 pm »

But, um, a woman behind a screen door is not a "landscape," is it Russ?

Sorry ...

That was exactly the point, Jack. So why are you sorry? Actually, Ansel was a quite flexible photographer, but all most people know about him is that he shot landscapes.

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I actually like it alot Russ. Powerful. Well done.

A helluva lot better than that other one :)

Thanks, Jack. Actually I meant it as a lark, but it's growing on me. By the way, "that other one" was sort of a joke, but maybe I didn't make the point clearly enough. I pulled off near the top of Wolf Creek pass to get something out of the back seat -- don't even remember what it was, lifted the camera that was on the seat next to me and made the shot.

If you check my web you'll see several landscapes, but, if I remember right, all of them include the hand of man, which, to us humans, is always more interesting than rocks and stones and trees. Check the one titled "American Eagles Overlook." It's fifth from the last in the In Passing collection. Just to the left of that is "Ruxton Avenue," a valley in Manitou Springs in the fall. A little above is "Crystal River Nuke" the nuke at Crystal River, Florida. Etc., etc.
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stamper

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Re: Untitled
« Reply #29 on: September 27, 2011, 05:11:39 am »

In my camera club days whenever a landscape image of hills and mountains was shown the usual joke about " where is the man in the red jacket/anorak" was repeated. Some judges were serious about having someone walk into the scene. If you did have an image without someone then marks could be lost. It proves you can't please all of the people all of the time. :-\

Heinz

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Re: Untitled
« Reply #30 on: September 27, 2011, 07:07:34 am »

Popcorn anyone    ;D
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RSL

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Re: Untitled
« Reply #31 on: September 27, 2011, 12:32:20 pm »

As someone who almost always includes man's influence in landscapes, I would in no way insinuate it being a requirement for a worthy photo.

Of course not, Chuck, but, insinuations aside, that's what you do. I'd guess you're pretty familiar with the great landscape painters, and that's one reason you usually include man's influence in your landscapes, just as they did -- not always, but damn close to always. Which is one of the reasons they're called "great," and one of the reasons your landscapes are so good.

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You folks don't get a vote on their vision.

You'd better believe I get a vote if they're for sale, or if I'm deciding where to spend my time in an exhibit.
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Untitled
« Reply #32 on: September 27, 2011, 11:32:43 pm »

IMHO, the only people who have made positive contributions to this thread so far are, in posting order, Riaan, Slobodan, Janette, eclectix, and Chuck Kimmerle.

As John Cage put it, "All the rest is noise" (including my posts).

Eric
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Justan

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Re: Untitled
« Reply #33 on: September 28, 2011, 12:39:33 pm »

I wanted to add a couple of comments about “the hand of man” as a compositional tool.

First, because no image could possibly be brought to our attention without someone creating or capturing it, it would not be possible to exclude the hand of man or woman from any image. It’s simply built into the process.

As far as the value of showing something of culture in an image, the argument presented in this thread is known as a polemical argument. This is one where one-sided or either/or reasoning is used in an attempt to make a predictably weak point.

Showing humanity as a compositional tool works when it serves the purposes of the images. Think of story plots, for comparison. There are said to be 3 main kinds of plots. These are summarized as man vs man, man vs nature, man vs self. Each of these has numerous variants and if they’re all added up, it amounts to I think it was 34 possible types of plots.

Visual story telling employs many of the same goals. Therefore if something of humanity in front of the camera adds a useful or relevant element, why not use it?

In the photo above we have a largely scalped landscape, which implies that the harvester was here recently, and in the background we get our confirmation that this land has been altered to serve humanity. It’s a natural combination of elements.

JohnKoerner

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Re: Untitled
« Reply #34 on: September 30, 2011, 01:27:31 pm »

I wanted to add a couple of comments about “the hand of man” as a compositional tool.
First, because no image could possibly be brought to our attention without someone creating or capturing it, it would not be possible to exclude the hand of man or woman from any image. It’s simply built into the process.

I am sorry, but this is flawed logic Justan: Just because the hand of man (or woman) captures an image on the backside of the camera, does not mean that mankind must be in any way a part of what's being captured in front of the camera.




As far as the value of showing something of culture in an image, the argument presented in this thread is known as a polemical argument. This is one where one-sided or either/or reasoning is used in an attempt to make a predictably weak point.

I am sorry but this is wrong again. A person can make a very strong argument that, in most contexts, showing "evidence of man" ruins an otherwise good nature image. The only exception to this would be to show the negative influence of man in nature. I just took such a photo of a river where the local degenerates have been washing their clothes, dishes, etc. ... and the entire area is littered and the water has turned milky. While a sad image, and perhaps a powerful image, it certainly is neither a beautiful nor a fine "nature" shot ...




Showing humanity as a compositional tool works when it serves the purposes of the images. Think of story plots, for comparison. There are said to be 3 main kinds of plots. These are summarized as man vs man, man vs nature, man vs self. Each of these has numerous variants and if they’re all added up, it amounts to I think it was 34 possible types of plots.

Sorry Justan, but your thinking on "only 3 kinds of plot" is so simplistic and blind to the whole picture as to be almost tragic. The simple fact is not every story has anything to do with man at all. In fact most stories do not even involve man. If you can pull your face away from the anthropomorpic "tree of man" ... you would realize that in the whole jungle there are billions of "stories" all over the place ... from smaller than the eye can see, to several-times larger than any human ... running the gamut from the sumptuous beauty of a butterfly emerging from the chrysalis to fly ... to the life-and-death struggle for survival over food, territory in Africa, etc. ... that have nothing whatsoever to do with man ... but rather involve the billions of other organisms on this planet.

If anything, the only part "man" plays in any of these other stories is in man's utter ruination of their natural ecosystems, the decimation of natural populations, all because of man's own overpopulation and thoughtless short-sighted practices.

This is why I, and others, prefer to see natural landscapes without any evidence of man ... so that we may enjoy them while we still have them.




Visual story telling employs many of the same goals. Therefore if something of humanity in front of the camera adds a useful or relevant element, why not use it?
In the photo above we have a largely scalped landscape, which implies that the harvester was here recently, and in the background we get our confirmation that this land has been altered to serve humanity. It’s a natural combination of elements.

I agree with the first two sentences, but feel the remainder was pure speculation.

Again, there are many great and powerful images of cityscapes, farmscapes, etc. to be enjoyed for their intended purpose. I agree with you there. But I again reiterate that, for me, a nature shot should have absolutely no evidence of man in it whatsoever, or else it is ruined.

Others may feel differently,

Jack



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RSL

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Re: Untitled
« Reply #35 on: September 30, 2011, 01:43:08 pm »

If anything, the only part "man" plays in any of these other stories is in man's utter ruination of their natural ecosystems, the decimation of natural populations, all because of man's own overpopulation and thoughtless short-sighted practices.

Wow! Man's really a bad guy, eh Jack? ... "Utter?"

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This is why I, and others, prefer to see natural landscapes without any evidence of man ... so that we may enjoy them while we still have them.

Jack, remember, we've been all over this before. As I pointed out a long time ago, and Slobodan and others helped to make clear, it's only been recently that humans have seen much beauty in your "natural" landscapes. You, and others like you forget, or aren't willing to admit the obvious: man, and the hand of man, is a part of nature.

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Others may feel differently...

Really? Is that allowed?
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JohnKoerner

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Re: Untitled
« Reply #36 on: September 30, 2011, 03:38:05 pm »

Wow! Man's really a bad guy, eh Jack? ... "Utter?"

For the most part, yes.

Man has caused the extinction of more species of plant and animal, and caused the desecration of more delicate ecosystems, than all of the animals that have ever existed in the history of our planet, bar none.

Denial of this fact isn't rebuttal; it is only denial.




Jack, remember, we've been all over this before. As I pointed out a long time ago, and Slobodan and others helped to make clear, it's only been recently that humans have seen much beauty in your "natural" landscapes.

I don't take too many landscape shots Russ--macrophotography is more my bag. If you're trying to insult my macrophotography, Russ, that's up to you. I have only been taking macro shots with a DSLR for 3 years now, and yet I have already secured a book deal based on my recent work, so I'd say I'm a pretty quick learner. But if it makes you feel more secure about yourself to insult my efforts, then I guess I will have to learn to live without your approval

I would also be willing to compare my macro shots with yours any time ;)




You, and others like you forget, or aren't willing to admit the obvious: man, and the hand of man, is a part of nature.

Subject-verb agreement, Russ: "Man, and the hand of man, are a part of nature." ;)

If I decide to go ahead and concede your point about man as a part of nature, then in my opinion (with but few exceptions) man comprises the ugliest and most destructive part of nature overall. Honestly, it is getting to the point in my hikes and expeditions that I cannot walk 15 paces without seeing a discarded beer bottle, a piece of paper, or some other form of litter ... all thanks to man. It's pretty depressing, really.




Really? Is that allowed?

Yes, of course, you are free to "feel" anything you want to feel, whether your feelings are in harmony with the truth or not.

Jack



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RSL

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Re: Untitled
« Reply #37 on: September 30, 2011, 06:18:50 pm »

Man has caused the extinction of more species of plant and animal, and caused the desecration of more delicate ecosystems, than all of the animals that have ever existed in the history of our planet, bar none.

Denial of this fact isn't rebuttal; it is only denial.

So you're saying that even though this is a crock, it can't be denied.

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If you're trying to insult my macrophotography, Russ, that's up to you. ..I would also be willing to compare my macro shots with yours any time ;)

I'd hardly be in a position to insult your macro shots, Jack, because my interest in macrophotography is immeasurable. (And that word doesn't imply that it's too large to measure.) For the same reason, we won't be able to compare macro shots.

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Subject-verb agreement, Russ: "Man, and the hand of man, are a part of nature." ;)

Quite right, Jack. I thought about that while I was walking around town doing street photography and it bothered me a lot.

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If I decide to go ahead and concede your point about man as a part of nature, then in my opinion (with but few exceptions) man comprises the ugliest and most destructive part of nature overall. Honestly, it is getting to the point in my hikes and expeditions that I cannot walk 15 paces without seeing a discarded beer bottle, a piece of paper, or some other form of litter ... all thanks to man. It's pretty depressing, really.

Look out for the bear poop, Jack.
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JohnKoerner

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Re: Untitled
« Reply #38 on: September 30, 2011, 06:58:07 pm »

So you're saying that even though this is a crock, it can't be denied.

No, that is not what I said, that was your dishonest spin on what I said.




I'd hardly be in a position to insult your macro shots, Jack, because my interest in macrophotography is immeasurable. (And that word doesn't imply that it's too large to measure.) For the same reason, we won't be able to compare macro shots.

I understand that your dimensions in this skill-set are immeasurable (in the small sense, ironically enough), which is why you crawfished your way out of any sort of comparison.




Quite right, Jack. I thought about that while I was walking around town doing street photography and it bothered me a lot.

I am sure you lack any sort of awareness, or sense of duty, toward our natural world at all ... which (thanks to a multitude of people just like you) is precisely why our natural world is in such a state of peril.




Look out for the bear poop, Jack.

First things first Russ: I am having a hell of a time trying to navigate my way around your own.

Jack



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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Untitled
« Reply #39 on: September 30, 2011, 08:43:18 pm »

Why does every endeavor to have an intellectual discourse seem to sooner or later end up in... poop (bear or otherwise)?
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