Luminous Landscape Forum

The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: Dave (Isle of Skye) on May 12, 2018, 08:30:22 pm

Title: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Dave (Isle of Skye) on May 12, 2018, 08:30:22 pm
Now this is the type of 'Street' photography that I do like, as this type of architectural photography is all about seeing and creating a composition of interconnecting shapes, that the viewers eye enjoys (hopefully) exploring.

Dave
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Two23 on May 12, 2018, 10:43:56 pm
Nicely composed.

Kent in SD
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: BobDavid on May 13, 2018, 01:00:03 am
...a pathway out of the shadows.
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Rob C on May 13, 2018, 05:24:32 am
But it is without emotion, Dave; it just is. Exactly as book after book of similar stuff on the travel shelf of the surviving book shops.

And that said, it describes how I feel about landscape in general, with very few exceptions: all the snapper does is snap.

Scenes like that are all over the Med, in almost every village or small town; they mean zero when you live there. They are perfect examples of what Russ defines as "tourist shots" because that's exactly what they are usually produced to do: create an appetite in the prospective traveller to buy a ticket for a different form of the mundane, different to his own northern one, but mundane nonetheless.

The opposite end of the same, mundane spectrum is the glass and concrete cityscape. We have all seen it and it becomes interchangeable, one big, modern city with another. That's why places like Rome and Paris still have charm: they are capable of encompassing both the brashly new as well as celebrating the ancient.

Don't take this as a personal attack on you or your picture: it is a comment on how I perceive any form of photography where the photographer just happens to be there and contributes nothing but a camera. It's why I rate the professional jewellery photographer, the guy who lights and makes something amazing out of a bottle of whisky, the great portrait photographer or fashion shooter as a true photographer, a creative mind with lots of talent to express what he thinks he can express in an image; a manipulator of what's possible, if you like, somebody who has to deal with the physical and take it to a place beyond that, or not get paid.

Maybe the measure of a good photograph/photographer is this: what added value did the shooter bring to the party?

In other words, I believe in chasing the illusive dream more than I do in dealing with the obvious reality.

You could term that a form of masochism, I suppose.

;-(
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Dave (Isle of Skye) on May 13, 2018, 08:07:17 am
But it is without emotion, Dave; it just is. Exactly as book after book of similar stuff on the travel shelf of the surviving book shops.

And that said, it describes how I feel about landscape in general, with very few exceptions: all the snapper does is snap.

Scenes like that are all over the Med, in almost every village or small town; they mean zero when you live there. They are perfect examples of what Russ defines as "tourist shots" because that's exactly what they are usually produced to do: create an appetite in the prospective traveller to buy a ticket for a different form of the mundane, different to his own northern one, but mundane nonetheless.

The opposite end of the same, mundane spectrum is the glass and concrete cityscape. We have all seen it and it becomes interchangeable, one big, modern city with another. That's why places like Rome and Paris still have charm: they are capable of encompassing both the brashly new as well as celebrating the ancient.

Don't take this as a personal attack on you or your picture: it is a comment on how I perceive any form of photography where the photographer just happens to be there and contributes nothing but a camera. It's why I rate the professional jewellery photographer, the guy who lights and makes something amazing out of a bottle of whisky, the great portrait photographer or fashion shooter as a true photographer, a creative mind with lots of talent to express what he thinks he can express in an image; a manipulator of what's possible, if you like, somebody who has to deal with the physical and take it to a place beyond that, or not get paid.

Maybe the measure of a good photograph/photographer is this: what added value did the shooter bring to the party?

In other words, I believe in chasing the illusive dream more than I do in dealing with the obvious reality.

You could term that a form of masochism, I suppose.

;-(

Hi Rob, of course I will not take your comments as an attack on this image, or this style of photography, or me personally. I was on holiday in an ancient part of Spain and thought I would shoot what I saw and this is what I saw and yes it is nothing more than a holiday snap, albeit a very enjoyable one to see, compose and process.

I do however disagree with you about your statement that "how you perceive any form of photography where the photographer just happens to be there and contributes nothing but a camera", because with any form of photography that is not a setup like studio work etc and therefore completely under the photographers control, but with most other forms of photography the biggest skill and what the photographer brings to the table and is unique to them, is the art of seeing. Yet you make it sound as though images like the one above are obvious and easily observed and could therefore be made by anyone, yet I would contest the complete opposite is true, whereby I might have been the first person to see this composition and yet millions of people (lots of them with cameras looking for just such a scene) have been unable to see it before me. You see after once teaching photography for far too many years, I now believe that the art of seeing is a skill that not everyone can acquire, no matter how hard they try to acquire it or want it. This is the same for all forms of photography, be it street, fashion/studio or landscape and many others genres. So I do think you are entirely wrong in your assumption that scenes like the one above are simply akin to walking through an orchard of obvious photographic opportunities and then choosing which of the low hanging fruit you want to pick and that anyone can do it, because it is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel (oops really mixing my metaphors now aren't I).

Russ likes his street photography and thinks that it is the only truly creative form of photography and everything else is pretty much a waste of time and effort, you think fashion and portrait work is the best thing ever and that it is the only truly creative form of photography, whereas I think that landscape is the only truly creative form of photography and I don't suppose we will ever agree, nor should we. But hey it is really enjoyable to constantly chew the fat about and argue who is right and who is wrong with both you guys and which obviously is never going to be me that is wrong, as it is only me and my fellow landscapers that are the truly creative types of photographers and who are able to make something out of nothing jst by the art of seeing, whereas street is just wandering about and shooting random scenes and hoping it might work and intruding on peoples privacy and emotions and fashion/portrait etc is just about setting up lights and reflectors and using a ridiculously expensive camera ;)

Over to you Rob...

Dave
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: RSL on May 13, 2018, 08:35:48 am
Russ likes his street photography and thinks that it is the only truly creative form of photography and everything else is pretty much a waste of time and effort. . .)

Hi Dave,

What I said is that street photography is the highest and best use of a camera. But that doesn't mean I don't do other (lesser) kinds.

If you've been watching my posts or ever have checked my webs you'll realize I do all sorts of stuff. I do street whenever I can, which nowadays isn't often enough. If anything, I do wabi sabi more often than street because there's more of it out there. I also do stuff like formal portraiture with flash for various groups here in my retirement community. I even do tourist photography, which is what I'd call this picture of yours. I'm not gonna knock it, because I do it often. I just don't post it. I also like landscape, but from a brush instead of from a camera.

As far as street is concerned, here's a quote from my essay "On Street Photography." It's been on LuLa for a fairly long time now:

"Nowadays we can look at the photographs of Eugene Atget and learn something about the people who lived in his time and in his surroundings, but the most effective glimpse of historical human differences comes not from the kind of documentary photography possible with Atget's slow view camera and his posed subjects, but from the kind of street photography that became possible with the introduction of the small hand camera. Oskar Barnack's 1925 Leica finally made it possible for artists like Andre Kertesz and Cartier-Bresson to photograph people as they are, in an uninterrupted state, rather than as they were when posing.

"An historical novelist guesses at the past on the best evidence he can find, but a photograph isn't a guess; it's an artifact that has captured time. And so, a street photograph that has captured not only the visages of its subjects but the story that surrounds their actions can be a more convincing reminder of how things were than any novel or any straight, posed documentary photograph.

"Although good street photography is a powerful art form, it's also a way of recording what people really are like, and, for those after us, a way of learning what we were like. Seems to me that besides the satisfaction it can give you, those two things alone make it worthwhile."
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on May 13, 2018, 08:45:28 am
Scenes like that are all over the Med, in almost every village or small town; they mean zero when you live there. They are perfect examples of what Russ defines as "tourist shots" because that's exactly what they are usually produced to do: create an appetite in the prospective traveller to buy a ticket for a different form of the mundane, different to his own northern one, but mundane nonetheless.

The opposite end of the same, mundane spectrum is the glass and concrete cityscape. We have all seen it and it becomes interchangeable, one big, modern city with another. That's why places like Rome and Paris still have charm: they are capable of encompassing both the brashly new as well as celebrating the ancient.
Rob, your description applies to many of Klein's images of New York. Those of us who live in or near big American cities and frequently spend time in New York feel that way about much of what he captured in that book.
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Dave (Isle of Skye) on May 13, 2018, 09:06:39 am
I think what I am trying to say and which I will now try to distil into a single easily understood point, is that if I think a certain genre of photography is the only truly creative form of photography and other people think that their chosen genre of photography is the only truly creative form etc, then that is OK and long should this continue. But the problem only begins to arise when a photographer of one genre feels the need to tell photographers of another genre, that theirs is best and so whatever anyone else chooses to do in a different genre is by default only a much lower form of photography and in no way comparative in creativity.

Before posting these few images from my recent holiday and then gauging the response they have received, I would never have dreamed of telling another photographer that the genre that they enjoy doing is below the genre of what I enjoy doing, yet now I have because it finally began to really stick in my craw and I am fed up of hearing about who's chosen genre is the only truly creative type, as well as many others are on here as well I imagine. Sure you can think what you like about other genres and how pointless or uncreative they are, but let's try to keep it to ourselves and if you feel the need to critique an image from another genre, then critique it on its merit of that genre and don't start telling people that no matter how good the image is, that it can never really be any good because it belongs to a genre that you think sucks. It's just not a very nice thing to do is it?

We are all grown up here and probably have over a hundred years of experience in our chosen genres between the three of us, so let us enjoy it and the genre that gets the hairs on the back of our necks standing on end and let others also enjoy their chosen genres as well and stop trying to win an unwinnable argument, or post put downs about who's genre is the best and most creative, because they are all the best and most creative to each one of us in completely different ways.

Dave
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Rob C on May 13, 2018, 09:21:01 am
Hi Rob, of course I will not take your comments as an attack on this image, or this style of photography, or me personally. I was on holiday in an ancient part of Spain and thought I would shoot what I saw and this is what I saw and yes it is nothing more than a holiday snap, albeit a very enjoyable one to see, compose and process.

I do however disagree with you about your statement that

1.  "how you perceive any form of photography where the photographer just happens to be there and contributes nothing but a camera",

because with any form of photography that is not a setup like studio work etc and therefore completely under the photographers control, but with most other forms of photography the biggest skill and what the photographer brings to the table and is unique to them, is the art of seeing.

2.  Yet you make it sound as though images like the one above are obvious and easily observed and could therefore be made by anyone, yet I would contest the complete opposite is true, whereby I might have been the first person to see this composition and yet millions of people (lots of them with cameras looking for just such a scene) have been unable to see it before me.

3.  You see after once teaching photography for far too many years, I now believe that the art of seeing is a skill that not everyone can acquire, no matter how hard they try to acquire it or want it. This is the same for all forms of photography, be it street, fashion/studio or landscape and many others genres.

4.  So I do think you are entirely wrong in your assumption that scenes like the one above are simply akin to walking through an orchard of obvious photographic opportunities and then choosing which of the low hanging fruit you want to pick and that anyone can do it, because it is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel (oops really mixing my metaphors now aren't I).

5. Russ likes his street photography and thinks that it is the only truly creative form of photography and everything else is pretty much a waste of time and effort, you think fashion and portrait work is the best thing ever and that it is the only truly creative form of photography, whereas I think that landscape is the only truly creative form of photography and I don't suppose we will ever agree, nor should we. But hey it is really enjoyable to constantly chew the fat about and argue who is right and who is wrong with both you guys and which obviously is never going to be me that is wrong, as it is only me and my fellow landscapers that are the truly creative types of photographers and who are able to make something out of nothing jst by the art of seeing, whereas street is just wandering about and shooting random scenes and hoping it might work and intruding on peoples privacy and emotions and fashion/portrait etc is just about setting up lights and reflectors and using a ridiculously expensive camera ;)

Over to you Rob...

Dave

(Please excuse the chopping of your post into this numerated form that makes reply easier!)


1.   But that's not the entirety of my written line of thought in that post.

To complete that line of thought, mine, it is essential to include the subsequent qualifier that I made:

"Maybe the measure of a good photograph/photographer is this: what added value did the shooter bring to the party?"

2.   But they are exactly as you stated; and the reason they are seldom made is that they say nothing new, if they say anything at all, and one of the best reasons for the use of captions - as I know perfectly well in my own case, is to lend a faux validity.

3.  That has been my unpopular mantra since I came to LuLa.

4.  Again, it is exactly as you describe but deny: one could do the very same thing in any piazza, place or plaza in Italy, France, Spain and Portugal, and probably anywhere else with palms. Especially in tourist areas, nobody even looks at other people with cameras.

5.  Street is hardly the most creative form of photograhy, but good street, along with combat photography, is certainly one where the quickest reflexes are needed, as well as a sense of surrealism and the absurd. Without those factors, steet pictures are pretty meaningless.

Fashion and portraiture are both simple and extremely difficult, for the reasons you explain in (3). Additionally, they require that you can be best friends with people you sometimes don't even know or like the look of, and wish were somebody else. So a form of people-skill is needed on top of everything else. Complex lighting is, in my book (and that of Sante d'Orazio too) always a bad sign.

My first reasonable fashion snaps were with a cheap, second-hand Rollei T and an Exakta Varex lla. Buying into Hasselblad and Nikon didn't make me any the better a snapper, but did make life easier and more reliable, plus lending my operation a gravitas the cheap stuff could not. Gravitas is very important in business.

But yes, debating photography is an endless source of joy, frustration, anger and release! Wouldn't miss it for what's left of the world!

Rob
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Dave (Isle of Skye) on May 13, 2018, 09:27:06 am

But yes, debating photography is an endless source of joy, frustration, anger and release! Wouldn't miss it for what's left of the world!

Rob

Exactly Rob and so may it continue, but let's try to be a little more respectful towards other genres that we find less than our own, because even though we might not understand why someone gets a buzz out of photographing in a certain genre, if we think of the buzz we get from ours and then realise it is the same buzz for them, then we can at least begin to understand what is going on for them, even if we do not understand why the hell they would ever want to work in that genre or style..

Have a great Day Rob and Russ and go out and do what is that you love doing and try to find something that gives you that buzz  ;)

Dave
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Rob C on May 13, 2018, 09:58:31 am
Exactly Rob and so may it continue, but let's try to be a little more respectful towards other genres that we find less than our own, because even though we might not understand why someone gets a buzz out of photographing in a certain genre, if we think of the buzz we get from ours and then realise it is the same buzz for them, then we can at least begin to understand what is going on for them, even if we do not understand why the hell they would ever want to work in that genre or style..

Have a great Day Rob and Russ and go out and do what is that you love doing and try to find something that gives you that buzz  ;)

Dave


This is already varishing season: I looked at the weather forecast a couple of days ago and was promised sunshine and a few clouds, so yesterday I varnished the inside face of a set of bedroom shutters. Later, during the night, all hell broke loose and it rained. Wet varnish and humidity do not make for good chemistry.

Photographs are the last things on my programme; the next "creative" thing is getting the outer face done with some guarantee that it will be able to dry without further rain!

I gives me a rather different buzz... an annual one I would rather not have to experience, though the gasses bring with them a sort of high. On the other hand, it saves a lot of money, gets done with more care than if handed over to a painter, and I am using the best marine varnish I can find, which I doubt a painter would do, though he would charge for it.

But respect for other photographic genres isn't something achieved from a sense of kindness to fellow human beings. It, along with all respect, has to be earned to be genuine. Quite some trick you want me to do!

;-)
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Ivo_B on May 13, 2018, 12:49:03 pm


What I said is that street photography is the highest and best use of a camera. But that doesn't mean I don't do other (lesser) kinds.


Russ.... You are making fun, ...., You are, aren't you?
 :-X
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Dave (Isle of Skye) on May 13, 2018, 02:59:52 pm
Russ.... You are making fun, ...., You are, aren't you?
 :-X

Mmm, you haven't been on this forum very long have you Ivo  :)

This is the 'Critique' section of Lula remember and is where genres often clash through opinionated and yet always unwinnable arguments, about which is the ONLY truly creative style of photography, so welcome aboard Ivo and mind how you go ;D ;D ;D

Oh and if you dare to say anything derogatory about the merits of landscape photography, then I might just have to send the boys round, OK..!

But no it is all good fun really and very enjoyable, so you are more than welcome to throw in your own opinions -JUST DON'T BE DISSING LANDSCAPE..

Dave
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: RSL on May 13, 2018, 03:22:46 pm
Russ.... You are making fun, ...., You are, aren't you?
 :-X

Actually, Ivo, no. I think there's interesting work out there that's not street. Wabi sabi comes to mind. But I think street tops 'em all. Ever since Oscar Barnak revolutionized photography, and for that matter, fine art, and people like Kertesz and Cartier-Bresson turned photography into a way to grab life in passing.
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Rob C on May 13, 2018, 05:37:14 pm
Perhaps the point might be made that photography is a human activity, and most strong in impact where it deals with us humans.

A horse may show mild interest - curiosity, even, in a zebra - but would it want to take it home to meet Mother?

Rob
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on May 13, 2018, 06:44:53 pm
But it is without emotion, Dave; it just is...

But of course.

How else? It is an inanimate object and can not possibly have emotions.

Emotions are the prerogative  of the viewer.

If a picture is “without emotion,” most likely the blame is with the blase, empty (or oversaturated, desensitized) viewer.

Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Two23 on May 13, 2018, 06:45:28 pm


To complete that line of thought, mine, it is essential to include the subsequent qualifier that I made:

"Maybe the measure of a good photograph/photographer is this: what added value did the shooter bring to the party?"



Composition?  (The active part of "seeing.")


Kent in SD
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on May 13, 2018, 06:55:27 pm
Just so that you guys don’t think you can freely gang up on Dave, I have his back. 😊
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: John R on May 13, 2018, 10:22:43 pm
Love the golden glow and the overall composition. It has ambiance and invites viewer through the portal.

JR
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Rob C on May 14, 2018, 09:23:00 am
But of course.

How else? It is an inanimate object and can not possibly have emotions.

Emotions are the prerogative  of the viewer.

If a picture is “without emotion,” most likely the blame is with the blase, empty (or oversaturated, desensitized) viewer.

Simplistic reasoning, as you well know!

Place holds emotion (ambience) too, or it does not. The photographer's job is to do two things: record the place; show its emotional quality through his/her photography. If the place is sterile, why waste time with it other than for an I-was-there-too memento which doesn't warrant further notice?

As for the viewer, it depends on the state of development of his own graphic abilities, his sensitivity to mood and ambience. It's all part of what having an eye is all about. Without that personal asset much of the world is lost to one. That's the reason people prefer praise from their peers to praise from a relative or friend who knows nothing about the art form one is working within.
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Two23 on May 14, 2018, 09:33:08 am

Place holds emotion (ambience) too, or it does not. The photographer's job is to do two things: record the place; show its emotional quality through his/her photography. If the place is sterile, why waste time with it other than for an I-was-there-too memento which doesn't warrant further notice?



Doesn't "sterile" sometimes convey a message on its own?  How do we determine what is "sterile" vs what is "minimalism?"  Sometimes I take photos with the intent to convey the desolation or a featureless quality of a place.  Is that still sterile?


Kent in SD
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on May 14, 2018, 09:42:57 am
... Place holds emotion (ambience) too, or it does not...

We will continue to eternally disagree on this one. Places, things, do not hold emotion, people seeing them do. That is why a landscape, even when without the hand of man, always have at least one human in it - the viewer.
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Rob C on May 14, 2018, 09:48:18 am

Composition?  (The active part of "seeing.")


Kent in SD

Composition can mean many things, from careful framing of what exists, to careful arranging of foreign objects within said fame.

It's one of the reasons that I admire some of those clever photographers who can do still life with difficult subjects such as jewellery. Not only are they able to overcome the technical problems of contrast, reflections etc. but make something wonderful out of all of those restrictions and problems. I could never do that sort of work.

Working outdoors brings different problems and opportunities: light is what God offers on the day, and you have to accept or adapt.

Composition depends on other factors too, such as requirements/subject. If it's clothes, you want them to stand out distinctly; if it's just the model, then that tells you why so many shoots happen on beaches. Composition is easy if you are not doing still life: it is obvious to you as you look at the subject, even before you see it in the viewfinder.

If you consider composition - a tired word that I feel is not really suited to non-studio work - as shape or framing instead, it is blindingly clear to the photographer exactly what it has to be. There are many alternatives too, just in the moving to one side or the other, getting close or more distant. This is all gut emotion, and if one finds that difficult or mysterious, then one simply hasn't got an eye and photography is not for one. And it can not be learned: it has to be felt; you might consider it original sin, for it is guaranteed to brings its own problems to your life. Unless you are independently wealthy already.

;-)
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Rob C on May 14, 2018, 09:55:30 am
We will continue to eternally disagree on this one. Places, things, do not hold emotion, people seeing them do. That is why a landscape, even when without the hand of man, always have at least one human in it - the viewer.

Slobodan, you must be tired!

Are you seriously trying to say there is no such thing as a sense of place? Were that true, then absolutely anywhere and anything would provide the perfect image opportunity for every photographer who has an eye. This is patently not the case.

I don't think it's about agreeing or not: I think it's about semantics, and playing a game with them.
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: RSL on May 14, 2018, 10:02:28 am
Composition can mean many things, from careful framing of what exists, to careful arranging of foreign objects within said fame.

It's one of the reasons that I admire some of those clever photographers who can do still life with difficult subjects such as jewellery. Not only are they able to overcome the technical problems of contrast, reflections etc. but make something wonderful out of all of those restrictions and problems. I could never do that sort of work.

Working outdoors brings different problems and opportunities: light is what God offers on the day, and you have to accept or adapt.

Composition depends on other factors too, such as requirements/subject. If it's clothes, you want them to stand out distinctly; if it's just the model, then that tells you why so many shoots happen on beaches. Composition is easy if you are not doing still life: it is obvious to you as you look at the subject, even before you see it in the viewfinder.

If you consider composition - a tired word that I feel is not really suited to non-studio work - as shape or framing instead, it is blindingly clear to the photographer exactly what it has to be. There are many alternatives too, just in the moving to one side or the other, getting close or more distant. This is all gut emotion, and if one finds that difficult or mysterious, then one simply hasn't got an eye and photography is not for one. And it can not be learned: it has to be felt; you might consider it original sin, for it is guaranteed to brings its own problems to your life. Unless you are independently wealthy already.

;-)

Hear! Hear! Rob.
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Rajan Parrikar on May 14, 2018, 11:27:13 am
But it is without emotion, Dave; it just is. Exactly as book after book of similar stuff on the travel shelf of the surviving book shops.

And that said, it describes how I feel about landscape in general, with very few exceptions: all the snapper does is snap.

Scenes like that are all over the Med, in almost every village or small town; they mean zero when you live there. They are perfect examples of what Russ defines as "tourist shots" because that's exactly what they are usually produced to do: create an appetite in the prospective traveller to buy a ticket for a different form of the mundane, different to his own northern one, but mundane nonetheless.


This particular photograph is "without emotion," yes, I agree. But I cannot get behind your extrapolation that generalizes it to landscape etc. I can easily conceive this exact composition with a lot of emotional purchase. For instance, a surprising splash of colour somewhere in there, a shaft of ephemeral beams streaming through the tunnel, and so on.


Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Ivo_B on May 14, 2018, 01:31:42 pm
Actually, Ivo, no. I think there's interesting work out there that's not street. Wabi sabi comes to mind. But I think street tops 'em all. Ever since Oscar Barnak revolutionized photography, and for that matter, fine art, and people like Kertesz and Cartier-Bresson turned photography into a way to grab life in passing.

I agree when ignoring the photographic history post 1967.

Only looking at the work of David Lachapelle, it's hard to say photography ended with its Barnak technical revolution.
Consider Joel Peter Witkin. We can disagree on the content, but can we on the groundbreaking impact of his work?
Take a look at the breathtaking scenes of Nan Goldin, again, we can disagree on the pleasantness of the images, but we can hardly disagree on the massive photographic earthquake she caused.

Or can we disagree? Can we?

 :o

Ivo
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Ivo_B on May 14, 2018, 01:35:20 pm
Mmm, you haven't been on this forum very long have you Ivo  :)

This is the 'Critique' section of Lula remember and is where genres often clash through opinionated and yet always unwinnable arguments, about which is the ONLY truly creative style of photography, so welcome aboard Ivo and mind how you go ;D ;D ;D

Oh and if you dare to say anything derogatory about the merits of landscape photography, then I might just have to send the boys round, OK..!

But no it is all good fun really and very enjoyable, so you are more than welcome to throw in your own opinions -JUST DON'T BE DISSING LANDSCAPE..

Dave

Yes, I'm a totally LULA rookie. AND European. So, I guess, I'm typing while the most fo you guys are sleeping.

Anyhow. Thanks to point me to some LULA particularities. I will walk the slack rope with grace. :-)
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Rob C on May 14, 2018, 03:14:24 pm
This particular photograph is "without emotion," yes, I agree. But I cannot get behind your extrapolation that generalizes it to landscape etc. I can easily conceive this exact composition with a lot of emotional purchase. For instance, a surprising splash of colour somewhere in there, a shaft of ephemeral beams streaming through the tunnel, and so on.

And isn't that exactly the point? Without those additional things that are not there, the thing just is, devoid of anything else at all. It's a closed book. A dead radio.

But thank you anyway, for helping to show Slobodan why it is not an absurdity to expect a place to have a voice, a soul, a presence, even.

:-)
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on May 14, 2018, 04:18:24 pm
Slobodan, you must be tired!

Are you seriously trying to say there is no such thing as a sense of place? Were that true, then absolutely anywhere and anything would provide the perfect image opportunity for every photographer who has an eye. This is patently not the case.

I don't think it's about agreeing or not: I think it's about semantics, and playing a game with them.

Rob, I could be tired, but we will apparently never agree on this.

Of course I am seriously saying there is no such thing as a “sense of place” as this is not an attribute of the place. Only humans can give that attribute to the place.

To your second point, it IS patently the case: everything and anything can be photographed with a good eye: from microscopic images to astrophotography and anything in between. Beautiful or ugly, tragic or happy, anything can be photographed with a good eye.
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Rob C on May 14, 2018, 05:06:05 pm
Rob, I could be tired, but we will apparently never agree on this.

Of course I am seriously saying there is no such thing as a “sense of place” as this is not an attribute of the place. Only humans can give that attribute to the place.

To your second point, it IS patently the case: everything and anything can be photographed with a good eye: from microscopic images to astrophotography and anything in between. Beautiful or ugly, tragic or happy, anything can be photographed with a good eye.


More semantics or, more accurately, you are avoiding understanding what I'm saying.

That anything can be photographed does not of itself mean that anything can be photographed and mean it was worth photographing; those are two quite different things.

Having a good eye is a prerequisite for a photographer, but the best photographer in the world, with the keenest of artistic eyes, cannot photograph something that the subject is incapable of offering.

That alley will forever, unless Rajan's rays of magical light and colour suddenly appear, be nothing more than what it is as it stands, not as it might have been in different times, seasons and weather conditions. Even a stray dog taking a pee would have made something of it that, alone (alley, not dog), is not there.

Of course, if you are really saying that it is not the alley but the selected view of it that is capable of improvement, then all bets are off, and you could go mad with super-wides, distortions etc. without end, but then the snaps would not be the alley as in that photograph, they would be of something entirely else.

But yes, I'm also pretty tired too, in reality, and have to face an insurance inspector at 9am regarding some leaks in the apartment above. Only plus is this: as always with these mothers, he will find a reason why the company is not liable to pay an old peseta to us but, think of this: to get here by 9 he will have had to get out of his bed in Palma at least two hours earlier!

Look on the bright side of life!

:-)
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Dave (Isle of Skye) on May 14, 2018, 05:43:50 pm
Well it seems that yet another one of my images has stirred up a good discussion on here once again, which is a good thing right???

Anyhoo getting back to the picture - when I took the shot I wasn't actually interested in a sense of place, or emotion or even the quality of the light if I am honest, although I was more than aware of what it was doing to help lead the viewers eye through the scene and I felt under pressure to shoot it on this occasion before the light had a chance to change in any way. So no, the shot for me was never about those 'things' at all or in any way, but it was all about the blocks of colour, lines, symmetrical curves, repeating shapes and blocks of three etc, and how I could place them within the frame in such a way that I could design (yes that is correct, DESIGN) the shot, to show a sort of loose 'Golden Spiral' of compositional elements within the scene - think of a loosely held together Mandelbrot spiral here if you are unsure of the term. You see I wanted viewers to engage with the scene on a more subliminal level and hopefully like it, but not really know why they liked it, as it was just an old street scene with a few windows and a bit of interesting light at the end of it after all, wasn't it? But yet it still felt satisfying to look at, yet for no good reason, an 'I like it, but I don't know why I like it, but I just do' kind of thing.

I originally called the shot 'Shooting Shapes' but changed it to the name above later, after discussing my Malboro Man shot on here and perhaps I shouldn't have, as the original title was perhaps a little more explanatory, but then I thought what the heck, if people like it and they don't know why they like it, then that is mission accomplished isn't it?, and the name is therefore irrelevant, but perhaps I was wrong. So the thing I was trying to create was more of an abstract design of diminishing shapes, with the subject being a loosely fitting Golden Mean of those diminishing shapes that led you inexorably towards a doorway on the middle right, but that you couldn't see into, or an alleyway leading out of the scene to the left, but yet again that you couldn't see into, sort of like a fork or crossroads at the end of the road and both leading to who knows where?

So yes there was a lot of thought and design and work that went into this shot and it took me several return visits to this location to get exactly what I wanted, so it definitely wasn't a stroll by tourist shot and is why I thought it was a little more unique than your average old Spanish village alley shot, yet still keeping within its style of whatever you would want to call this type of shot.

I was hoping that people you would get all this and perhaps even without realising it, but it seems that some of you were unable to see past your own visual preconceptions and into what the shot is really about, and which I have already stated in far too many words above, and how the shot has very little to do with what you see on the surface of your screens.

So OK, it now it sounds like I am becoming really churlish and trying to say that the reason you didn't 'get it' for all those who don't, is because you were unable to understand it and so it is your fault and not mine that you don't like it or get it and perhaps to some extent I am, although I am trying very hard not to, as that would just make me sound like a pompous arsehole, which believe me I am definitely not (OK argue amongst yourselves here on that point). But can you not at least see the design of the shot and how everything in it is only there because it needs to be in there to complete the design of a sort of subliminal golden mean spiral? Because that IS the subject of the image and is the only subject I was trying to work with, as everything else in the scene is secondary to that and is also why I didn't want anyone walking through the shot or a dog taking a piss (jeez are we really getting down to that level of discourse?) and so I waited until the alley was completely empty, as to have a human form or any other biological entity within the shot I believe, would have broken up and ruined the spiral design of the shapes and therefore the real subject of the shot.

Dave
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: 32BT on May 14, 2018, 05:59:12 pm
https://fstoppers.com/photo/178642
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Dave (Isle of Skye) on May 14, 2018, 07:05:43 pm
https://fstoppers.com/photo/178642

Well found image, but you can see that this one is different, as even though it does deal with arches and repeating shapes etc, it doesn't quite do the golden spiral thing at all, but if it did, then yes I agree the size of the arches would mean that the man would indeed fit into it very nicely, but with my shot I just didn't have the luxury of enough space to do that.

And now I perhaps also realise that by having to explain the shot as I have done in a the previous post, then the shot has obviously failed, because you shouldn't have to explain a shot should you, as to do so is like trying to give a surface deep polish to the idea and I wanted it to be a much deeper connection, so therefore if the image hasn't done this, then the image and my idea didn't work - although in saying all of this, the two people that have so far seen it in the flesh so to speak, seemed to have been enjoyably engaged with it, yet couldn't tell me why, but then again they were family, so no deep and meaningful critique there I suppose. Yet it does make me wonder if it might appeal more to the different and less analytical eyes of non photographers, who knows and by now you are probably also thinking, who cares?

But all in all, a good discussion has ensued about it and for that I really do thank everyone involved, no matter what your opinion for or against  ;)

Dave
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Two23 on May 14, 2018, 07:25:34 pm

I was hoping that people you would get all this and perhaps even without realising it, but it seems that some of you were unable to see past your own visual preconceptions and into what the shot is really about,


No, I think I got it.  What I was saying was this was obviously carefully composed.  It wasn't like you handed a monkey a camera and it began snapping the button willy-nilly.  Even though there were no human emotions in the image to overtly "hook" you, there was still the emotions felt by the photographer who composed the shot.  I got a sense of mystery wondering what was beyond the passage way, just out of view.


Kent in SD
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on May 14, 2018, 10:13:00 pm
But of course, Dave, some of us, natural-born misanthropes, who would avoid human presence in our photographs like a plague, saw the beauty of your image in an instant. For the benefit or newer members, and with apologies for repetition to the old ones, here is a Socrates’ quote I have on my website:

"I will try to speak of the beauty of shapes... straight lines and curves and the shapes made of them... They are not beautiful for any particular reason or purpose, as other things are, but are eternally, and by their very nature, beautiful, and give a pleasure of their own quite free from the itch of desire: and in this way colors can give a similar pleasure."

Pardon me for scribbling on your image, but here are those forms and shapes Socrates is talking about, abundant in your image: (the blue line connnects the three repeating rectangles, echoed by the door on the other side of the street)

P.S. Of course there could have been something else in the image, a ray of sunshine, a beautiful girl, even a peeing dog ...and it might have been a nice image in itself, but that would be a DIFFERENT image, and would only detract from what this one is about.

Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Alan Klein on May 14, 2018, 10:35:54 pm
I like the picture.  To me it shows balance and is soothing.  Not every street picture has to have someone's nose getting punched.  Different flavors make everything interesting. 
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on May 14, 2018, 11:47:27 pm
If this guy Socrates is such a good critic, why doesn't he post some of his own photos on LuLa, huh?     :D
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Rob C on May 15, 2018, 02:53:48 am
I've run out of Kleenex!

But hey, it does explain a lot about LuLa.

;-)

Rob

P.S. Surprised to see the concern about a pissing pooch: HC-B shot several different images of street dogs, including a classic of two males trying a dummy run. They are not thought of as man's best friend for nothing, you know.

But I do appreciate that the title explicity denies the shot to be street.
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on May 15, 2018, 05:50:37 am
Genres.

It all boils down to, say, country vs. jazz. The two camps are rarely capable of understanding each other.

I see jazz in Dave’s image. An interplay of different, differing, contrasting, yet harmonious musical motives (or lines, shapes, and forms in the visual sense).

Rob is apparently desperately looking for a country girl in the image, carrying an overflowing bucket of water on her head, wetting her blouse into transparency (pardon the pun). Or at least a country dog, wetting the street.

 ;)
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Dave (Isle of Skye) on May 15, 2018, 07:42:46 am
Thanks Slobodan for reminding me just how effective scribbling on an image can be  ;)

So in my mind this is what I saw and photographed and IS the subject of the image and the only subject I was interested in, but as I said above, I obviously failed at doing this in any meaningful way, because most people didn't or couldn't see it.

But perhaps that then leads onto a deeper question, is that because what I saw only I could see through my view of the world, or is it because others could not see it because they were looking for something else and perhaps even before they looked at the image? Or perhaps they were looking for something that they wanted to see and that satisfied their own preconceptual tick boxes and so not really open to looking at what it actually is, so then only being able to comment on what it isn't?

...but yet again, who knows??

Dave
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Rob C on May 15, 2018, 07:54:00 am

Doesn't "sterile" sometimes convey a message on its own?  How do we determine what is "sterile" vs what is "minimalism?"  Sometimes I take photos with the intent to convey the desolation or a featureless quality of a place.  Is that still sterile?


Kent in SD

A valid answer would require seeing the picture. Chuck Kimmerle, once a poster here, is one of the very few "landscape" shooters who excites me a lot - or at all. Some of his work invokes the very sense that you write about.

In his case, I'd suggest it's a marriage of both eye, location and a photographic history of such themes. Not to be overlooked is his mastery of black/white processing.

Again, perhaps it's also the fact that it sits beautifully within a box of specific definition (for me).

Rob
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Rob C on May 15, 2018, 07:55:51 am
Genres.

It all boils down to, say, country vs. jazz. The two camps are rarely capable of understanding each other.

I see jazz in Dave’s image. An interplay of different, differing, contrasting, yet harmonious musical motives (or lines, shapes, and forms in the visual sense).

Rob is apparently desperately looking for a country girl in the image, carrying an overflowing bucket of water on her head, wetting her blouse into transparency (pardon the pun). Or at least a country dog, wetting the street.

 ;)


First, you have to have music.

:-)
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Rob C on May 15, 2018, 08:23:10 am
Genres.

It all boils down to, say, country vs. jazz. The two camps are rarely capable of understanding each other.

I see jazz in Dave’s image. An interplay of different, differing, contrasting, yet harmonious musical motives (or lines, shapes, and forms in the visual sense).

Rob is apparently desperately looking for a country girl in the image, carrying an overflowing bucket of water on her head, wetting her blouse into transparency (pardon the pun). Or at least a country dog, wetting the street.

 ;)


Okay then, here's a city girl playing country girl, and you have to take my guess for it that the background contained an arch. No, I saw no pissing pooch - the jet is from a fountain - but plenty of open, human mouths.




Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: RSL on May 15, 2018, 08:55:34 am
Your timing was great on that one, Rob. Bravo!
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on May 15, 2018, 08:59:08 am

Okay then, here's a city girl playing country girl...

Rob, my misanthropy has one, perhaps fatal, exception: beautiful women  ;)
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Rob C on May 15, 2018, 09:18:07 am
Rob, my misanthropy has one, perhaps fatal, exception: beautiful women  ;)

Me too, too bloody true!

I have survived the fatal part mainly due to extremely good fortune. There is no armour known to man to ward off the dedicated power of the honey trap. Wait! Age does help somewhat, as do regular, heavy doses of beta blocker. Ironically, those are the stages in life when such traps are very rare indeed, and probably sought more than actively avoided. As with everything, there are exceptions, of course.

;-)
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: guido on May 15, 2018, 06:36:03 pm
Nice image Dave. Well seen!
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: RSL on May 15, 2018, 07:48:04 pm
Rob, my misanthropy has one, perhaps fatal, exception: beautiful women  ;)

+1
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: KLaban on May 16, 2018, 04:53:14 am
Rob, my misanthropy has one, perhaps fatal, exception: beautiful women  ;)

Yup, they're so attracted to a curmudgeonly misanthrope that it's a problem to shake 'em all off.

;-) 
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Dave (Isle of Skye) on May 16, 2018, 06:22:58 am
Yup, they're so attracted to a curmudgeonly misanthrope that it's a problem to shake 'em all off.

;-)


Keith, you have had me laughing and tittering at the above comment for about an hour now, so well done you  ;D ;D ;D

Dave
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Rob C on May 16, 2018, 07:20:23 am
Yup, they're so attracted to a curmudgeonly misanthrope that it's a problem to shake 'em all off.

;-)


Why would you want to?

I know, I know, such a distraction from real life and the important things we have to do...

:-)
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on May 16, 2018, 11:35:53 am
Yup, they're so attracted to a curmudgeonly misanthrope that it's a problem to shake 'em all off.

;-) 

Trust me, Keith, the only missing ingredient is money 😉
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: brandtb on May 19, 2018, 09:08:08 am
There are some nice elements in this image that are working together to create some potential -  not sure if it's enough to make a great image - but as part of a travelogue or series about a place yes certainly. The vertical "rectangular" window surrounds moving toward the "arched" door in center is a nice development and a good counterpoint. The center door is really great with its arched head and the contrasting stone masonry on either side - the differing stone applications is fantastic.. Add to it the nice smooth arches (voussoirs) above are a good counterpoint to the aforementioned. Generally the wonderful variation of stonework is the strong point in an "architectural" loc like this - maybe you got some shots of the arched door as well? Not sure how much post was involved here - but in the JPEG image the contrast between cool blue in the fg and warm golden color in bg is nice  - complementary colors - strenghthening the image in small a way. This could be amplified somewhat with some blend modes. One might crop off bottom and left to bring more focus to the door in bg as well. if I get moment I'll pm an example.
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Dave (Isle of Skye) on May 26, 2018, 12:02:25 pm
There are some nice elements in this image that are working together to create some potential -  not sure if it's enough to make a great image - but as part of a travelogue or series about a place yes certainly. The vertical "rectangular" window surrounds moving toward the "arched" door in center is a nice development and a good counterpoint. The center door is really great with its arched head and the contrasting stone masonry on either side - the differing stone applications is fantastic.. Add to it the nice smooth arches (voussoirs) above are a good counterpoint to the aforementioned. Generally the wonderful variation of stonework is the strong point in an "architectural" loc like this - maybe you got some shots of the arched door as well? Not sure how much post was involved here - but in the JPEG image the contrast between cool blue in the fg and warm golden color in bg is nice  - complementary colors - strenghthening the image in small a way. This could be amplified somewhat with some blend modes. One might crop off bottom and left to bring more focus to the door in bg as well. if I get moment I'll pm an example.

Thanks and I am so glad that you enjoyed the 'design' of the shot and as I said previously in a post above, that is all the shot was ever really about for me, so it is really good that you could see what I was looking at, so thanks again  ;)

Dave
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: BobDavid on May 27, 2018, 02:02:59 am
wow
Title: Re: This is not 'Street' but a photograph of a street
Post by: Dave (Isle of Skye) on June 03, 2018, 04:28:06 pm
wow

Thanks Bob, it's not that often I get a "wow" as a critique for one of my images, so I am really dead chuffed to get one from you now and especially for this particular image, after the drubbing it got from some of my fellow (tough crowd) photographers on here ;D

Dave