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Author Topic: The tree  (Read 7121 times)

Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: The tree
« Reply #20 on: August 07, 2012, 09:49:42 am »

Hi Julie,

I'm sorry if it sounded as if I was attacking your post. In fact you and I both suggested minor tweaks, and I agree with yours. But then others took up the dust speck as if it was a major part of the image.

I'm looking forward to David's reprocessing, as long as it is kept subtle.

Eric
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Dave (Isle of Skye)

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Re: The tree
« Reply #21 on: August 07, 2012, 03:50:53 pm »

...posts from competent photographers...

If that is meant for me Eric, then I thank you very much for saying that :)

I have owned several 5d's over recent years and cleaning all the crap from my images is the bane of my life, so yes I am now cursed with always seeing the dust spots, I have become programmed to do so, in fact I even see them in my sleep.

The rest of my review I thought was very positive about how I understood the image and liked the painterly effect and I even finished off with a bit of what I thought was good advice, for the best way to post images on this forum, without the Jpg compression ratios undermining the quality of the image and the viewing experience gained from it.

So hardly nitpicking, more like positive encouragement and a bit of advice I thought.

Dave
« Last Edit: August 07, 2012, 03:53:33 pm by Dave (Isle of Skye) »
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RSL

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Re: The tree
« Reply #22 on: August 07, 2012, 06:05:31 pm »

I am frankly astonished at the posts from competent photographers that don't seem to get this image.

I guess that in a way I'm surprised you're astonished, Eric. I think there are two kinds of photographers: There are photographers who paint with a camera, and there are the disciples of Walker Evans, who believe that the proper use of a camera is to reveal the thing itself in all its realness. From what I've seen, most of us on User Critiques tend to be of the second variety, so, when we look at the kind of thing David did here we wonder why he didn't do it on canvas with a brush. The more I look at it the more I like it, but it's certainly not a Walker Evans kind of photograph.
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WalterEG

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Re: The tree
« Reply #23 on: August 07, 2012, 07:06:46 pm »

but it's certainly not a Walker Evans kind of photograph.

I attended and exhibition and discussion at the State gallery here years ago that celebrated the differences between Walker Evans' and Dorothea Lange's approach to the same charter — pumping out propaganda for the FSA.

It is no secret that Walker Evans drew heavily on the descriptive poetry of Baudelaire as a young man learning in Paris and turned the principle to the photograph.  Lange brought a totally different set of experiences to her work.  I suspect it may be fraught with pitfalls to identify a genre with just a single name.  Or to expect all works presented in a particular venue to necessarily comply with that genre.

A change is as good as a holiday.  This image is refreshing.  It represents another philosophy, another view of the world: just as the work of individual poets and authors speaks of varying influences and preferences.

And ... I agree that it is not a bird, but over such a vast field it is hardly surprising that it may just be the highest jumping diust bunny ever seen.

W
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jule

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Re: The tree
« Reply #24 on: August 07, 2012, 09:40:52 pm »

Hi Julie,

I'm sorry if it sounded as if I was attacking your post. In fact you and I both suggested minor tweaks, and I agree with yours. But then others took up the dust speck as if it was a major part of the image.

I'm looking forward to David's reprocessing, as long as it is kept subtle.

Eric
No Problem Eric... all is good :-)

Julie
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David Jilek

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Re: The tree
« Reply #25 on: August 07, 2012, 09:58:45 pm »

Okay, Here we go less processing.
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: The tree
« Reply #26 on: August 07, 2012, 11:33:35 pm »

Very nice (except, of course, that the "round bird" or dust speck is still there. If you have a recent version of Photoshop, it is easy to clone it out.)

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Steve Weldon

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Re: The tree
« Reply #27 on: August 08, 2012, 12:49:29 am »

Well.. the second image is just as unremarkable (to me) as the last.

What might be helpful is for those who claim the imagine is "speaking" to them and that we need to "listen" to the image.. maybe you could fill the rest of us in on what the image is saying?  Maybe whatever is being said is for certain ears only?

But "astonished" someone doesn't interpret an image the same as me?  Heck, I'd be astonished if they did.   You don't think this is going just a bit too far?
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amolitor

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Re: The tree
« Reply #28 on: August 08, 2012, 09:28:12 am »

I find the image to be extremely evocative of a moment, that single minute in the morning when the light's filling in and the birds have begun to talk somewhere in the mist, before the fog starts to lift.

That's very nice, it's a moment I like a lot. It doesn't evoke much ELSE for me, but evoking anything at all counts as a victory, I say.

Graphically I find it remarkably dull, it's a photograph that I don't much enjoy looking at. Not that I am normally one to complain about "rules of composition" this is one where centering the subject up seems to have done it no favors. On my eyes, it performs the opposite of eye-leading, it seems to chase my eye out of the frame. There's very little reward for the attentive viewer.
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RSL

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Re: The tree
« Reply #29 on: August 08, 2012, 09:18:09 pm »

I attended and exhibition and discussion at the State gallery here years ago that celebrated the differences between Walker Evans' and Dorothea Lange's approach to the same charter — pumping out propaganda for the FSA.

Walter, If your state gallery told you that Walker Evans pumped out propaganda, it needs to recheck its sources. The reason Stryker fired Evans was because he flat refused to do propaganda. Walker always did art, and for obvious reasons Stryker couldn't abide that.
« Last Edit: August 09, 2012, 11:03:38 am by RSL »
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Russ Lewis  www.russ-lewis.com.

amolitor

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Re: The tree
« Reply #30 on: August 09, 2012, 09:25:21 am »

I was thinking the same thing, Russ. Evans just did his own thing. Sometimes Stryker was able to re-task the work, because ultimately Stryker wasn't about outright lying. Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, the truth served his purposes adequately. Evans did a bunch of stuff Stryker didn't like, though. I think he processed his own film and only sent in selected negatives, both of which were violations of Stryker's processes.

I haven't actually seen the story of why Evans left Stryker's service, but always assumed that it was a combination of things.
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RSL

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Re: The tree
« Reply #31 on: August 09, 2012, 11:27:36 am »

Right, Andrew. It was a combination of things, though the main thing was Evans refusal to follow Stryker's "shooting scripts." The other main thing was that Evans's output, in numbers, though certainly not in quality, was below the output of most of the other photographers.

I'm with Evans, who's always been my favorite photographer, but I also have to go easy on Stryker when I consider who he was and what his position was in the New Deal organization. Stryker's boss, Rex Tugwell, billed as an economist, really was nothing more than a socialist politician, and Stryker was under constant pressure to produce propaganda that would boost the image of the FDR administration and minimize the PR results of its disastrous economic policies. If you do some serious reading about the FSA you realize that even though Stryker was way out of his depth and far beyond his area of competence, he did an absolutely amazing job building the FSA photographic file. All things considered I have to give the man a thumbs-up.

For anyone who's actually interested I'd recommend A Vision Shared: A Classic Portrait of America and its People, 1935-1943 by Arthur Rothstein, who was one of the longest-term FSA employees, and, later in his term of employment, a very fine photographer. There are other excellent books on the subject, but to me, this one is top of the stack.
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Russ Lewis  www.russ-lewis.com.

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Re: The tree
« Reply #32 on: August 09, 2012, 12:32:28 pm »

Thanks, Russ! I have read James Curtis on the FSA file, but he's got a somewhat biased viewpoint (and couldn't even be bothered to fact check when one of his students accused Evans of staging photos).
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RSL

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Re: The tree
« Reply #33 on: August 09, 2012, 01:25:35 pm »

I've heard and read that accusation too, Andrew, but I guess it depends on what you mean by "staging." I've seen some pretty good evidence that he moved a clock on the mantel over the Burroughs's fireplace when he made that series of shots, but I'm not sure that's "staging." Standing Allie Mae Burroughs in front of weathered siding for her portrait might be called "staging" too. But I guess I'd call it "art."
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Russ Lewis  www.russ-lewis.com.

amolitor

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Re: The tree
« Reply #34 on: August 09, 2012, 01:39:45 pm »

Curtis' student claimed that "there is no mention of the clock" in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men or at any rate that is the idea we have received in the modern era. Errol Morris repeats this claim in his recent book.

It's false. The clock IS mentioned elsewhere in the book, just not in the more or less famous "inventory" Agee wrote down.

Curtis and Morris failed to check the student's work (presumably because the book is crazily hard to read), which unfortunate.
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RSL

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Re: The tree
« Reply #35 on: August 09, 2012, 01:53:07 pm »

Yeah, I have Morris's book. He's a sloppy writer and a sloppy researcher.
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Jeremy Roussak

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Re: The tree
« Reply #36 on: August 09, 2012, 05:15:01 pm »

Okay, Here we go less processing.

Well, it's OK, I suppose; but apart from the lessened vignette, which I applaud, I don't like it as much as I did the first version.

Jeremy
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