Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: RSL on June 06, 2016, 09:55:05 am
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Rob won't like this, but the problem mostly is pigeon poop.
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I think a different angle showing the woman's face would work out well
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Have at it, Otto.
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OMG
Thank goodness it's not my daughter nor either granddaughter.
This is the sort of stuff one once associated with the bottom rungs of the third world, and I mean the bottom: dignity used to be something that the poor had, and begging was a last resort, or due to parental disf¡gurings and distortions made to force a life of professional begging.
During my trip to Palma last week I discovered a new technique: I walked past this guy on the pavement, on his knees and doing what I'd imagined to be his prayerful duty before or after having a drink. Mistake: as I walked later on the other side of the road, there was his clone, same position, and also with a plastic cup held out in his hands. He was equipped with pads for elbows and knees. An entire kit, then. It may be a new technique, but it certainly didn't work very well, because I imagined he was, as I indicated, praying.
I have sympathy for those with no alternatives, but not for those who do it as fashion statement.
Reminds me of the 70s jokes about the western hippies 'doing' India on an Amex card.
Rob
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I've probably told this story before, but since I'm an old guy I get to tell it again.
In Colorado Springs I used to walk down the sidewalk in the morning looking for pictures and there was always the same guy sitting against a building, panhandling. One morning I stopped and asked him: "Why the hell don't you get a job?" He came back: "This IS a job." I'd guess he was making out better than most of the people working in the store behind him. People always are suckers for this kind of crap.
But then there was the guy on the street one morning who said, as I walked by: "I'm not trying to kid anybody. I just want a drink." I gave him a couple bucks.
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Bernie Jugend relaxing, before clamoring for everything free?
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Have at it, Otto.
It is not my picture. ;D
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Well, get out there with your camera and find a similar situation. Maybe you can get the girl's face and maybe not. In this instance there were about 20 people milling around on the sidewalk. In a situation like that you shoot fast or not at all.
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I happen to think that there is just enough of the girl's face to tell the story.
Good shooting, Russ.
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Well, get out there with your camera and find a similar situation. Maybe you can get the girl's face and maybe not. In this instance there were about 20 people milling around on the sidewalk. In a situation like that you shoot fast or not at all.
If you don't like people commenting on your photograph, why post it in a critique thread?
It is your picture, do with it what you want. It is not that big of a deal.
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If you don't like people commenting on your photograph, why post it in a critique thread?
It is your picture, do with it what you want. It is not that big of a deal.
Ouch.
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Calm, gentleman, please!
Its just a matter of a comment/critique(?) that doesn't really fit the genre: you do what you can with what's fleetingly there or nothing. My own heart is filled with good intentions that never made it to reality. That's one of the reasons that I refrain from much comment on other folks' images: I wasn't there; they have different ideas I might not grasp; they only really want to hear good news, which is simply another manifestation of human nature. Oh - I also lack the killer instinct.
;-)
Rob C
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If you don't like people commenting on your photograph, why post it in a critique thread?
It is your picture, do with it what you want. It is not that big of a deal.
Hi Otto, I gather you're a landscape photographer. In that genre you can go back and re-shoot the stuff you've screwed up, so you were suggesting I re-shoot the picture. In street, once the shot's made, it's made. You can't go back and re-shoot it. So your comment was a bit on the absurd side. But I have to attribute that to the fact you don't do street and therefore don't understand what's involved. That's okay, but it's best to steer away from stuff you don't understand.
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I was not suggesting anything. It was your photograph, you shoot it the way you want to. I was just making an observation of an alternative way to take this photograph. In no way was I inferring that what you did was wrong/bad. I was just sharing a different opinion. I was not even critical of your work. My apologies if it upset you. That was not my intent.
You have my sincere assurance that it won't happen again.
Best of luck with your photography.
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Hi Otto, I gather you're a landscape photographer. In that genre you can go back and re-shoot the stuff you've screwed up,
You have suggested this before and in my opinion it's quite wrong. Landscapes change minute by minute and I understand dedicated landscape shooters will wait for hours or indeed days for the right moment. Is it BobDavid here with his lovely blurred seascapes who apparently will be on the beach waiting for 3 hours to get his one shot.
Then again I don't do landscapes much so maybe I'm wrong, what do I know?
Mike
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A kind suggestion to Otto to choose his words carefully next time: ;)
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I like the youthful innocence and charm the story tells. I think a bit of cropping might help.
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Strangely enough, Bob, I agree. Unfortunately I can't see any way a crop would improve it. The problem is the composition. I was steering around people on the sidewalk. I wanted some context to place the couple. I did manage to get an opening in the wall, but it wasn't enough. If I keep the same aspect ratio and reduce the frame I lose the hat, which is a critical part of the picture. If I simply crop off the top to eliminate the doorway the composition gets even worse than it is now. It's not my best work, but I ran across it in my Lightroom archives and it sort of echoed Seamus's "Siesta."
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A kind suggestion to Otto to choose his words carefully next time: ;)
A priceless lesson for the new, politically correct world!
;-)
Rob
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Some people, the competitive kind in particular, tend to see photography as a (contact) sport. Yes, there is always some level of difficulty involved in scoring (or not), but in photography it doesn't really count. Had it been figure skating, you might have scored some extra points, Russ, for technical difficulty. Photography is more like basketball: only those balls that get through the hoop count. Not near misses, nor elaborate ballet-like moves involved in throwing.
What makes this one a "close, but no cigar" shot is the awkward way the guitar cuts the girl's lips. A fraction of an inch higher or lower, and it would be a whole different matter.
So, in the mother-approved language: "It doesn't speak to me." ;)
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Some people, the competitive kind in particular, tend to see photography as a (contact) sport. Yes, there is always some level of difficulty involved in scoring (or not), but in photography it doesn't really count. Had it been figure skating, you might have scored some extra points, Russ, for technical difficulty. Photography is more like basketball: only those balls that get through the hoop count. Not near misses, nor elaborate ballet-like moves involved in throwing.
That's a nice way of putting it.
Mike
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Thanks, Slobodan. But as I admitted, it's not one of my better works.
Almost sounds as if you think I ought to go back and re-shoot it. St. Augustine isn't far away, so I probably could go over there, but to round up these two kids and get them to re-enact the scene might be difficult since I haven't the foggiest idea who they were or where they came from. But I understand where you're coming from. You can make sure architectural photography is correct because, as is the case with landscape, you can go back and re-shoot if you screwed it up.
I screwed this one up. Ahhh. . . well. . . crap!
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... Almost sounds as if you think I ought to go back and re-shoot it....
No, Russ, you really can't reshoot many things, landscapes included. As Heraclitus would say: "You could not step twice into the same river."
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Wish I were younger and had time to wait it out for the right conditions. I'd go back and duplicate one of Ansel's Half Dome shots. Yeah, nature changes, but not that much and not that fast. Might take a bit of PP work, but it could be done. You can't do that with street. Moon Over Hernandez might be a bit more difficult.
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... I'd go back and duplicate one of Ansel's Half Dome shots...
Duplicating is easy. Doing it first is what it is all about.
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No, Russ, you really can't reshoot many things, landscapes included. As Heraclitus would say: "You could not step twice into the same river."
Not quite right, Slobodan: landscape is one that you can reshoot. Why? Because it doesn't really have a face or features that humanly connect with people in the unavoidably intimate way that shots of people inevitably do; there's not a shot of a woman that one doesn't wonder, positively or negatively, how she' d have been to be up close and personal with... but, with a landscape, nobody really gives a shit: a second before or after and nothing is visibly different. It's sunny or there's snow; so what? That's the ugly truth of the matter, and why digital has spawned so many pictorial horrors: it costs nothing to shoot, you can bastardize it as much as you want, turn blue into green, black into white and then claim that's exactly what you saw in your mind's eye when you pressed the tit. It's a charlatan's paradise! And there is nothing real with which to compare the end product, for product is what it eventually turns out to be.
Street, portrait, fashion, porn, anything to do with people you have a reference, a personal understanding of right and wrong, and even of beauty though that's subjective. But you can still see the truth. Landscape has no truth: it just is.
But, pick up a paint brush, mix some colours, and you have a different language, a different world. Photography can't do that neat trick of turning nothing into an attractive alternative. That's why nobody questions whether painting is art, but constantly doubts whether photography ever can be.
" "You could not step twice into the same river."
Indeed, but would you be able to spot the difference in the water? That's key.
Rob C
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Duplicating is easy. Doing it first is what it is all about.
Right. Do you know who first shot Half Dome? Neither do I. Neither does anyone else. Besides, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about whether or not it's possible to re-shoot landscape. I maintain it is, though it might take some time out there in the blizzard. Landscape simply isn't transient, except in a very few special cases -- like a flood for instance, or a volcanic eruption. Actually, it IS transient, but in most cases to see it trans you have to live a lot longer than humans live.
Oh, and I mentioned probably having to do some PP on Half Dome. Have any idea how much PP St. Ansel did? If he was doing his usual thing it was a hell of a lot more than most of us do.
Rob's got his finger on the situation.
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I am really surprised that two committed and experienced photographers are dismissing landscape in this case in terms of 'if you screw up you can just go back and reshoot'. I'm stunned to see a comment along the lines of no-one gives a shit about landscape. A second or two makes no difference. Yes it does. It's an area where it's all about the light and that is never the same twice.
I took a shot in my garden of some weeds growing in some paving slabs. The light was just right. That photograph wasn't there a minute before or after. Because of the time of year that light will almost certainly never fall on the weeds in the same way again and of course the weeds change as they grow or die. You cannot reshoot - and I did screw up. Scale it up and you have landscape.
Architecture - once again surely the light is key and I have missed shots by being too slow changing lenses.
I don't accept any photograph of any person as any form of truth. We will all have our own interpretation of what we see when we look at a person. My wife and I can look at the same photograph and draw radically different conclusions. We did this as family once as I found an amazing photograph of some guys in a Siberian hut. We each of us took something different from the image, we each created our own back story. This is in part I think what Russ refers to as ambiguity.
Regarding that quote about stepping into the same river twice - sure you may not be able to see the difference, but it is different, you know it's different and what's more that river doesn't give a shit if you have the keenness of observation to see that difference or not. And of course it has nothing to do with rivers.
Finally, and I despair of this, I really do not look at an image of many women and think what it would be like to up close and personal and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone like this. I have no doubt of my masculinity, I meet women I do wonder about but I don't usually fantasise about women in photographs. Maybe I'm odd but I don't think so.
I really must learn to let this just wash past me but I'm just stunned at the comments about landscape, just simply stunned and uncomfortable so I shall probably bow out now to the relief of one and all I expect :)
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Quick and dirty crops. MS paint is a clunky program, especially on a MS Surface.
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and i thought the real story was in the feet !
Frank.
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Yeah, those are the crops I looked at, Bob. The first one is the best because it at least hints at the hat over there for contributions from passers-by. But you can't really tell it's a hat. The other two concentrate the picture on the two kids without any context, and that's okay but it's a different picture. And you're right Frank. That's a pretty cute pair of feet. In any case, when I posted this picture I had no idea it would start a war. Whew!!!
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Yeah, those are the crops I looked at, Bob. The first one is the best because it at least hints at the hat over there for contributions from passers-by. But you can't really tell it's a hat. The other two concentrate the picture on the two kids without any context, and that's okay but it's a different picture. And you're right Frank. That's a pretty cute pair of feet. In any case, when I posted this picture I had no idea it would start a war. Whew!!!
I agree that the crops change the narrative. I like the square crop, the second one. It is an intimate scene and you, the photographer, took the picture rather spontaneously. ... For me, the picture evokes a feeling of yearning. I wish I were young again. Back in the day when 6 X 6 was a ubiquitous format, 1:1 was more in vogue.
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I am really surprised that two committed and experienced photographers are dismissing landscape in this case in terms of 'if you screw up you can just go back and reshoot'. I'm stunned to see a comment along the lines of no-one gives a shit about landscape. A second or two makes no difference. Yes it does. It's an area where it's all about the light and that is never the same twice.
I took a shot in my garden of some weeds growing in some paving slabs. The light was just right. That photograph wasn't there a minute before or after. Because of the time of year that light will almost certainly never fall on the weeds in the same way again and of course the weeds change as they grow or die. You cannot reshoot - and I did screw up. Scale it up and you have landscape.
Architecture - once again surely the light is key and I have missed shots by being too slow changing lenses.
I don't accept any photograph of any person as any form of truth. We will all have our own interpretation of what we see when we look at a person. My wife and I can look at the same photograph and draw radically different conclusions. We did this as family once as I found an amazing photograph of some guys in a Siberian hut. We each of us took something different from the image, we each created our own back story. This is in part I think what Russ refers to as ambiguity.
Regarding that quote about stepping into the same river twice - sure you may not be able to see the difference, but it is different, you know it's different and what's more that river doesn't give a shit if you have the keenness of observation to see that difference or not. And of course it has nothing to do with rivers.
Finally, and I despair of this, I really do not look at an image of many women and think what it would be like to up close and personal and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone like this. I have no doubt of my masculinity, I meet women I do wonder about but I don't usually fantasise about women in photographs. Maybe I'm odd but I don't think so.
I really must learn to let this just wash past me but I'm just stunned at the comments about landscape, just simply stunned and uncomfortable so I shall probably bow out now to the relief of one and all I expect :)
1. I am really surprised that two committed and experienced photographers are dismissing landscape in this case in terms of 'if you screw up you can just go back and reshoot'. I'm stunned to see a comment along the lines of no-one gives a shit about landscape. A second or two makes no difference. Yes it does. It's an area where it's all about the light and that is never the same twice.
2. I took a shot in my garden of some weeds growing in some paving slabs. The light was just right. That photograph wasn't there a minute before or after. Because of the time of year that light will almost certainly never fall on the weeds in the same way again and of course the weeds change as they grow or die. You cannot reshoot - and I did screw up. Scale it up and you have landscape.
3. Architecture - once again surely the light is key and I have missed shots by being too slow changing lenses.
4. I don't accept any photograph of any person as any form of truth. We will all have our own interpretation of what we see when we look at a person. My wife and I can look at the same photograph and draw radically different conclusions. We did this as family once as I found an amazing photograph of some guys in a Siberian hut. We each of us took something different from the image, we each created our own back story. This is in part I think what Russ refers to as ambiguity.
5. Regarding that quote about stepping into the same river twice - sure you may not be able to see the difference, but it is different, you know it's different and what's more that river doesn't give a shit if you have the keenness of observation to see that difference or not. And of course it has nothing to do with rivers.
6. Finally, and I despair of this, I really do not look at an image of many women and think what it would be like to up close and personal and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone like this. I have no doubt of my masculinity, I meet women I do wonder about but I don't usually fantasise about women in photographs. Maybe I'm odd but I don't think so.
7. I really must learn to let this just wash past me but I'm just stunned at the comments about landscape, just simply stunned and uncomfortable so I shall probably bow out now to the relief of one and all I expect
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1. I live beside the sea. I can go to the same spot every day of summer and see exactly the same totally blue sky and placid water. The only changes are in the boats. If I were obsessive, I suppose I could stick on a pola and shoot at every little variation in its trip around itself and claim that the vital, critical difference is a miracle of nature and witness to my keen, observational prowess. Bullshit. It would be nothing but an affectation, a con, a simple self-deception at the most generous.
2. Exactly. And who gives that proverbial shit about your weeds? Scaling up, as concept, is an error: that was the problem with Pentax's 6x7; it doesn't translate.
3. The Empire State, terrorists aside, will still be there tomorrow. And one cloud is pretty much as valid as any other in the greater scheme of things. Contrails, I admit, could cause one to return at a later time, which kinda proves my point, if you think about it.
4. That's not a point. Truth isn't about personal, viewer interpretation, which is ever present after the fact; it's about (truth) what the camera catches, despite the shooter, and being inanimate it has neither opinion nor bias. All that it can do is tell the truth of what exists before it.
5. Then you have no argument, as you have just shown.
6. Maybe so, maybe not. I refer to the instant judgement as to whether, given the chance, you (one) would or would not. I believe it works in reverse, too, only far more quickly and efficiently and accurately. For the record: most of my observations have made me very grateful for the hand that I was dealt. I do not suggest that one thinks about it for more than that split second of recognition. Anything longer would indeed be worrying. I'm not suggesting that we all go around mentally sniffing one another's tails à la pooch. Dogs take their time; we are far more rapid, time-efficient and easily satisfied with our deductions.
7. I hope that you do not bow out; a little bit of actual involvement, of being committed to this forum and adding some life to it beyond bland nods of approval to every bit of equally bland stuff that gets posted. That has to be better than just closing down the eyes and mind because one might not feel comfortable with them open.
Rob C
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and i thought the real story was in the feet !
Frank.
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I agree that the crops change the narrative. I like the square crop, the second one. It is an intimate scene and you, the photographer, took the picture rather spontaneously. ... For me, the picture evokes a feeling of yearning. I wish I were young again. Back in the day when 6 X 6 was a ubiquitous format, 1:1 was more in vogue.
There you go: torturing me with memories of abandoned 500s!
If anyone ever gets one, hang on to it as long as you can: in the future somebody will produce cheap, efficient 6x6 (FF!) digital backs and the kingdom will be back!
;-)
Rob
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Rob - I have read your reply and I think it's probably best we agree to differ otherwise we will just become more entrenched in our respective positions which isn't likely to be productive.
Your point 7 'bland nods of approval' wryly amuses me, so many times I bite my tongue. I have at least learnt that much. Almost no-one responds well to a well meant deconstruction of their photograph :) But then we are back to my shitty weeds. They matter to me and and bugger it I will just say Edward Weston's peppers seem to matter to a wide range of people as well. No, save me I'm getting sucked back in!
Mike
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Rob - I have read your reply and I think it's probably best we agree to differ otherwise we will just become more entrenched in our respective positions which isn't likely to be productive.
Your point 7 'bland nods of approval' wryly amuses me, so many times I bite my tongue. I have at least learnt that much. Almost no-one responds well to a well meant deconstruction of their photograph :) But then we are back to my shitty weeds. They matter to me and and bugger it I will just say Edward Weston's peppers seem to matter to a wide range of people as well. No, save me I'm getting sucked back in!
Mike
Well, at least I can help you there: there's a product called weedkiller that is far more likely to solve your problem for you than any camera.
Never mind Weston, I've done it too:
(http://www.roma57.com/uploads/4/2/8/7/4287956/7063696_orig.jpg)
Technical details: kitchen table, flourescent ceiling light and any available north light that may have been peeping in to say hello. Probably 105mm (manual) micro Nikkor and either D200 or D700. (This was pre-glaucoma, so that explains a lot; probably adds value, even.) One pepper, red.
But I didn't feel llke making a career of it; however, his part of the States and mine of Spain...
And did it matter? Well, to the pepper, perhaps: it went into the paella.
Now, back to the blondes 'blands': there's no reason for anyone to feel depressed if they get unfavourable comments - they are under no obligation to post. Anyway, because of my general sense of kindness and consideration towards others, I started the Without Prejudice spot which offers freedom from second-guesses. Well semi-officially, that is. Anyone abusing the concept is instantly seen for the troublemaker he/she may be. Peer pressure soon takes care of that incursion.
;-)
Rob
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I think we have all had a go at a pepper. One of the better ones I have seen was by a club member who is quietly and sneakily good. She's pushing 70, can't even be 5 feet tall, a retired PE teacher (what) and hers was beautifully done. The lighting was superb, so soft and subtle. I asked her how she did it and she said she simply adjusted the curtains in her living room until it worked, took a one second exposure. She too promptly eat the pepper.
Myself I ambushed a fennel before it was used.
(https://c7.staticflickr.com/2/1484/24621528534_06e83e5493_o.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/DvHLCE)
Mike
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It's a strange genre. Sotheby's has a copy of Pepper #30 signed by Weston. The estimated sale price is $150,00 to $250,000. I always scratch my head when I see something like that. What's setting the price is Weston's signature on the print. I can get a good copy of the pepper for a hell of a lot less than that, and I suspect -- in fact I KNOW -- that I could make an equally good pepper shot myself if doing so weren't so boring. And I couldn't care less about Weston's signature.
That's the difference between a painting and a photograph. The painting is unique and contains the artist's brush strokes, which you can examine to see how he went about painting the thing. The photograph isn't unique. If I have the negative I can make hundreds of thousands of indistinguishable copies . If I have a print I can make a negative or digital file with a scanner or camera and print hundreds of thousands of identical copies. The print itself shows nothing about how it was made. They're all the same.
Arrghhhh!!! How can a photographic print of a pepper be worth $250,000?
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A kind suggestion to Otto to choose his words carefully next time: ;)
It's also, "not that big a deal", rather than "not that big of a deal", but maybe I shouldn't expect too much of our cousins aross the pond :-)
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I think we have all had a go at a pepper. One of the better ones I have seen was by a club member who is quietly and sneakily good. She's pushing 70, can't even be 5 feet tall, a retired PE teacher (what) and hers was beautifully done. The lighting was superb, so soft and subtle. I asked her how she did it and she said she simply adjusted the curtains in her living room until it worked, took a one second exposure. She too promptly eat the pepper.
Myself I ambushed a fennel before it was used.
(https://c7.staticflickr.com/2/1484/24621528534_06e83e5493_o.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/DvHLCE)
Mike
And created a rather interesting wooded landscape out of it. You see how it goes?
Rob
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I don't see any wooded landscape at all, you're projecting onto the image :) The image I saw is a play of light colour and form and that's all. Nothing more.
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I don't see any wooded landscape at all, you're projecting onto the image :) The image I saw is a play of light colour and form and that's all. Nothing more.
What a shame!
Instead, I see an image of a fallen pine tree with sections of the tunk cut off it, lying sadly on the ground, realising that the end for it is not only nigh, but almost in the past; that it, once-proud monarch of the woods is now just junk, destined for living death as rafter, cheap shutter, window frame or firewood, in case of which latter fate it must play host to wandering wolf spiders and occasional snakes and almost certainly woodworm and, in Spain, lizards.
So much in a image that was born dumb, devoid of message, as all images are until they fall into the minds of others, to be done with as those others will...
Rob C
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Quite so - until they fall into the minds of others - then everyone sees something different and there is no universal truth :)
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Quite so - until they fall into the minds of others - then everyone sees something different and there is no universal truth :)
Universal truth comes when the concept, craft, heart and a little magic in the artist are present.
Peter
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Are you suggesting that any work can be viewed by anyone and the same conclusions drawn from it?
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it must play host to wandering wolf spiders and occasional snakes and almost certainly woodworm and, in Spain, lizards.
And mould