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Author Topic: I guess I'll simply post something pretty  (Read 5393 times)

michswiss

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I guess I'll simply post something pretty
« on: June 07, 2012, 10:28:29 am »

I need to get back into the swing of things...


RSL

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Re: I guess I'll simply post something pretty
« Reply #1 on: June 07, 2012, 10:55:34 am »

Nothing wrong with pretty, Jennifer. Beats the endless stream of meaningless dreck I see on "Documentary."
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michswiss

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Re: I guess I'll simply post something pretty
« Reply #2 on: June 07, 2012, 11:25:53 am »

You don't have to pay attention to the dreck on DGrin if you don't want to.  There's dreck here to.  If this particular shot is dreck, I'd rather know it and get some thoughts as to why. I've become lost as to how to use this group for feedback.  Some of the stuff I think pushes it is the sort of stuff I'd anticipate not much of a response to.  Maybe time to take more chances, eh?  More random stuff.  I'm working through a phase and not trusting much.

Rob C

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Re: I guess I'll simply post something pretty
« Reply #3 on: June 07, 2012, 11:47:22 am »

Okay, Jennifer: for my tastes, the leaves are all too small and there's nothing else to support them and add a little context. As their being the context isn't (to me) strong enough, something else is required to give mass.

I made a typo there and 'togive' appeared instead of 'to give'; made me think of 'forgive' and so on it goes - one thing leads to another you'd never expect would pop up, and pictures are no different.

Check out today's quotable quote from Robert Capa (Cover Shot).

Rob C

michswiss

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Re: I guess I'll simply post something pretty
« Reply #4 on: June 07, 2012, 11:53:19 am »

Well, yeah Rob.  This was something of a meta post.  I'll give you a heads up once I'm back into a groove.  You, of course, can decide otherwise at your convenience.  It's against my fabric at this point, but dreck is likely to follow.  And it's certainly not against a luminous background.

RSL

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Re: I guess I'll simply post something pretty
« Reply #5 on: June 07, 2012, 12:19:32 pm »

Okay, Jennifer: As I said, there's nothing wrong with pretty, but what I see here is merely pretty. Pretty's dandy when you're decorating a room, and that's why the crap you see in art fairs with absurdly pushed color saturation sells so well.

But the thing that's always made great painters and great photographers great is the significance they include along with exquisite composition and execution. Why was Cartier-Bresson the most influential photographer of the twentieth century? It wasn't, as BD Colen claims, his compositional ability. It was the fact that he went beyond composition and reportage to include a kind of transcendental meaning in some of his photographs: a kind of meaning you can't even begin to describe with words. Gene Smith did the same thing, but in a different way. On the "fine art" side, Edward Hopper did it again and again in his painting.

I keep coming back to a comparison between effective visual art and poetry and music. You can't translate music into words or visual images, but unless you were born with a tin ear great music can knock you down with a kind of informed, significant, transfusion of emotion and meaning. Meaning? Yes, but a kind of meaning you can't describe in words. Music can transmit its meaning long before you learn to speak. Poetry can transmit the same kind of meaning, but individual words can get in the way, and the ability to grasp the significance of poetry is something you have to acquire.

My beef with "Documentary" is that people who post on that forum are doing reportage. There's nothing wrong with reportage, but to make reportage worthwhile you have to be working for a newspaper or a magazine, or something comparable, and the value of your photographs has to be based on their news value, not their significance as art. I couldn't care less about reportage, so I'm off "Documentary for good.

I'm sure this is no help. It's obvious you're in a slump. All I can say is: "join the crowd." I'd be willing to bet that everybody on LuLa who's done serious photography for more than a few months has had the same kind of slump you're in at the moment. The bright side of a slump is that sometimes you come out the other side with a new approach to things. Here's some advice: don't plan. Carry a camera and shoot when something hits you in the heart -- not in the head.
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shutterpup

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Re: I guess I'll simply post something pretty
« Reply #6 on: June 07, 2012, 12:30:16 pm »

And going back to the original photo, how did the bluish blobs on the right hand half of the photo come to be. I get the berry thing everywhere else, and on the whole, I like the photo. But those blue blobs(look like berries falling?)draw my eye away from the rest of the image.
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michswiss

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Re: I guess I'll simply post something pretty
« Reply #7 on: June 07, 2012, 12:53:48 pm »

To be honest, I never intended to post the shot.  I'll write things up and back off.  In this case I hit post.  Oh well.  No matter.  The camera was fairly wide open looking into the northerly afternoon winter sun.  Thus blown background and short DoF.  Those blue blobs are more treefall.  I like the aesthetic of the shot, but it was spur of the moment.

michswiss

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Re: I guess I'll simply post something pretty
« Reply #8 on: June 07, 2012, 01:00:39 pm »


I'm sure this is no help. It's obvious you're in a slump. All I can say is: "join the crowd." I'd be willing to bet that everybody on LuLa who's done serious photography for more than a few months has had the same kind of slump you're in at the moment. The bright side of a slump is that sometimes you come out the other side with a new approach to things. Here's some advice: don't plan. Carry a camera and shoot when something hits you in the heart -- not in the head.


I might not be shooting a lot right now, but I'm not in a slump. The slump is in the forums.  I have little desire to post stuff as there's not much interesting critique or comment. If I felt there were a receptive and engaged group around I'd probably be dumping a lot of crap on you guys. I could give a rats about whether what I want to do is consistent with a previous master.  I do a lot of my own looking and learning.

amolitor

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Re: I guess I'll simply post something pretty
« Reply #9 on: June 07, 2012, 01:45:46 pm »

I kind of like it.

It's not a powerful and moving social commentary, and that's ok. Most photographs are not. I'll try to dig in to it a little more later today, but I want to step up and say "it's nice, I like it" right now.
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John R Smith

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Re: I guess I'll simply post something pretty
« Reply #10 on: June 07, 2012, 02:16:14 pm »


I think that Russ' commentary, whether it applies to any of us at this moment in time or not, is highly perceptive and worth thinking about. I might question whether HCB was the most inluential photographer of the 20th century (insert your own candidate) but the stuff about bringing an extra dimension to the work is spot-on.

John
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RSL

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Re: I guess I'll simply post something pretty
« Reply #11 on: June 07, 2012, 02:18:19 pm »

Come on, Jennifer, when has there ever been a lot of "interesting critique or comment" on the fora? What do you mean by "interesting?" Are cropping recommendations "interesting?" Are recommendations about how you should have included stuff off to the side, top, or bottom about which the critic couldn't possible have a clue "interesting?" And who said anything about shooting stuff "consistent with a previous master?" Masters didn't and don't shoot stuff or paint stuff "consistent with other masters" unless you define "consistent" as the idea that both works include, say, a human being. The only thing consistent is that masters universally get across a kind of transcendental meaning that non-masters don't. And your statement that you do a lot of your own looking and learning practically had me ROTFL. During the ten years my wife had her gallery I saw an endless procession of kids come in with crap produced because they did a lot of "their own looking and learning" and never paid attention to the whole world of art that went before them. Looking at some of your earlier stuff I know you know better than that.

Sounds to me as if your bitch is with the kind of responses you're getting to what you're calling "the crap" you're dumping on "us guys." If you dump crap you're not going to get kudos on any forum.

So, come on, start shooting again and stop bitching about the treatment you're getting on the fora.
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Bruce Cox

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Re: I guess I'll simply post something pretty
« Reply #12 on: June 07, 2012, 06:16:11 pm »

Nuts.  "Treefall" would be more in the swim of things than these hard balls.  You succeed in aggressively reducing and limiting the natural world to two dozen compelling dots elegantly connected to the rest of the world by a minimum of interesting material.  It is difficult to even be sure it is a Sycamore.  If you are going sing a song that expresses anger and lost as clearly as this picture you need to balance it against something to give people a reason to play it a second time.

Bruce
« Last Edit: June 07, 2012, 07:01:37 pm by Bruce Cox »
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Rob C

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Re: I guess I'll simply post something pretty
« Reply #13 on: June 08, 2012, 04:33:14 am »

Jennifer,

I’m surprised that you’re surprised about ‘critique values’ here, or anywhere else, for that matter.

No forum can be some kind of dedicated educational experience – it’s too tied up with the ego of every contributor that uses it. There’s experience, opinion, pride, narrow-mindedness, subliminal fights for superiority and heaven only knows what else in every post. Nobody has all the answers and fewer even appreciate that there are questions being posed, especially when those questions are often couched in terms that are a seeking after advice that’s also doing its best to appear as confident statement of a self-assured status.

Nobody other than the author can ever know what’s in the author’s mind. Intent can be anything – often, at least in my own experience, what started off as intent gets overtaken by something completely unexpected that turns out to be far more interesting and rewarding than the original plan, that plan simply playing catalyst to the surprising new creation.

This happens to me most of the time, really, and I seldom come back with a completed schedule! It was no different when I was working in calendars: the client and I would toss around some vague ideas and then I’d go away and do something I liked (mostly, depending on the client, and so the degree of satisfaction with the job), but the actual theme of the thing happened later when I was looking at the pictures on the lightbox. That was the time when ideas and words would spring into my mind and a little story concocted to give structure to the whole. It wasn’t difficult: pretty girls in attractive locations have a charm that those living in dour, grimly northern countries can very easily appreciate, and words on a page can direct the viewer to the desired interpretation. (With those that actually bothered to read the text and see beyond the images, that is.) Much of my advertising stuff ended up being treated in a similar manner: I’d bring in pictures around the art director’s brief and then he’d construct the ad upon the image he liked best and that he felt matched the message. It used to be a very free and flexible way of working and I suppose that it brought out the best in all concerned. Of course, there were those briefs where you had to construct a shape to fit within a pre-sold layout, but I was fortunate enough not to be involved in too much jigsaw photography, and once the calendars got underway the advertising went out the window, mainly because I moved personal location from big city to sleepy(ish) Mediterranean island.

And so with your own photography: your forays into the city bring you heaven knows what – it’s an ever-changing location – but what can you find in the sticks? Sticks.

Nature is a fairly lazy bitch, she lies there, month after month, and always looks the same, even though she ages and dies under your very eyes as you gaze upon her without being really aware of what she’s doing to herself and to you, too. It’s the slowness that lets her get away with it. What you don’t get today you’ll get tomorrow or next week, only you don’t: she’s changed her dress whilst you were thinking of something else.


But those offering critique have no way of knowing where your mind has wandered: all they see is a projection of what they think they’d have done in the imaginary circumstances that you faced or, more likely, did not face, for how could they know the reality of your stage at the time?

That’s one reason I seldom offer a personal opinion of anyone else’s photography: it’s an absurd exercise based upon no certainties whatsoever. It’s nothing but an opportunity to crow or to attempt mild or not so mild humiliation of another soul. In other words, it’s just another reality show played out on the Internet.

I don’t know if you are in a barren period or not – I have lived through some that lasted years – and I don’t even know if you have an eye for ‘nature’ or not; perhaps you don’t, and again, I suspect that about myself, in which case this might be nothing more than projection from self unto others. I’m honest enough with myself to upfront you with it – do other people making suggestions suffer from voids? I bet they do – maybe they know and experience nothing else and can’t tell the difference. In which case, lucky they!

Sometimes it seems a good idea to expand one’s range of work. I really wonder about that. Fine, when you have to live from it, but if for fun, I suggest doing nothing other than what pleases you and brings you personal joy. If you dig reportage or street or the human condition in general, stick with it. Typecasting? Pigeonholing? Sure, but none of us is all things even to himself. Doing something other than what one really, really desires is no route to salvation. Suffer for your art? That’s a moralistic load of old cobblers. It’s only truth lies in the usual fiscal condition that accompanies most artists trying to live from their art - it’s not about the art itself.

As I say, this is as much if not more about self than about you, but I guess we are, basically, pretty similarly cast: we are photographers.

Rob C

amolitor

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Re: I guess I'll simply post something pretty
« Reply #14 on: June 08, 2012, 06:48:00 am »

So, I like it. Here are my quibbles.

The negative space on the left is nice but feels slightly out of balance. The little bit of blue sky in the upper left corner is distracting. In general, I'd probably get rid of more of the blue sky, to give more of a sense of "white background" than of "clouds" since the clouds are so completely blown out anyways. Knowing they're clouds, I find myself wanting a little texture in there, but I think that would ruin the graphical strength.

I like the little out of focus double berries on the right, but they are also a slight distraction. I am torn as to whether they are little bits of mystery to amuse the eye, or whether they're simply distractions, though. Perhaps if there were more of them? Perhaps there are almost but not quite enough of them to make me believe is was on purpose. The "point" of the image seems to be the in-focus stuff, so the out of focus stuff feels slightly out of place.

Overall, I feel like the frame would benefit from being wider in both directions - open up the negative space so things can breathe, left, and maybe pick up some more out of focus material, right.

I still think it's an attractive piece of decor.
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amolitor

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Re: I guess I'll simply post something pretty
« Reply #15 on: June 08, 2012, 06:52:50 am »

Rob,

I understand your rationale for seldom directly critiquing other peoples work, but let me offer a counter. I try to critique and respond with my personal reactions, on the grounds that a photographer is (I assume) trying to communicate something or other. Therefore, I repeat back both what I "heard" and some detail about why I think I "heard" that.

My view of myself in this process is not that of an art critic (although I might occasionally sound like one) but as a laboratory rat. My job here is to find the cheese, or die, or eat the pellet, according to the photographs presented to me, so that the photographer can know how rats respond to their work. I am but a single rat, and an idiosyncratic one at that, but a bunch of rats working together can perhaps provide some truly helpful data.
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Rob C

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Re: I guess I'll simply post something pretty
« Reply #16 on: June 08, 2012, 09:41:25 am »

Rob,

I understand your rationale for seldom directly critiquing other peoples work, but let me offer a counter. I try to critique and respond with my personal reactions, on the grounds that a photographer is (I assume) trying to communicate something or other. Therefore, I repeat back both what I "heard" and some detail about why I think I "heard" that.

My view of myself in this process is not that of an art critic (although I might occasionally sound like one) but as a laboratory rat. My job here is to find the cheese, or die, or eat the pellet, according to the photographs presented to me, so that the photographer can know how rats respond to their work. I am but a single rat, and an idiosyncratic one at that, but a bunch of rats working together can perhaps provide some truly helpful data.



Well, they do fill a sewer!

(That's nothing personal, so don't go misunderstanding it - just an impossible-to-avoid reply to the point above, so forgive me my little moment of giggle; there aren't many such moments about these days.)

;-)

Rob C

amolitor

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Re: I guess I'll simply post something pretty
« Reply #17 on: June 08, 2012, 10:56:15 am »

If you have a sewer that needs filling, I would be happy to fill it for you ;)
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Rob C

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Re: I guess I'll simply post something pretty
« Reply #18 on: June 08, 2012, 11:12:15 am »

If you have a sewer that needs filling, I would be happy to fill it for you ;)




Thanks for the offer - but there are builders working on my terrace at the moment, relaying tiles, and I guess they're providing enough sewer filling as it is! That all makes work for plumbers, and you know the state of the Spanish economy right now: just like the rest of Europe, bar Germany... and they expect Germany to bail the lot of us out.

;-)

Rob C

Dave (Isle of Skye)

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Re: I guess I'll simply post something pretty
« Reply #19 on: June 10, 2012, 08:03:59 pm »

Hi Jennifer,

Too much blown out white without detail in the shot for my liking I am afraid, but then again I am from the old school who thinks that large areas of empty white in an image, will simply show up on the print as large areas without any ink on it, which was a cardinal sin in camera club competitions. So compositionally and artistically, I find it difficult to get passed all that empty featureless white. But as I say, that might just be my baggage from the past rather than a valid comment on the merits or otherwise of your image.

This is a 'just for fun' shot I took a few months back that is vaguely similar in that it also shows the randomness of nature and my way of filling the frame with something, anything, but not large areas of white without detail.

Dave
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