Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: mitchdob on October 02, 2007, 01:01:18 am
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I've just updated my website with some new images from a trip into Joshua Tree NP last week. Joshua Tree is a special place to me so really wanted to try and do the area justice. Would love some feedback from the people at LL.
Images can be found on http://www.mitchdobrowner.com (http://www.mitchdobrowner.com)
The Joshua Tree NP images are off the RECENT link.... starting at the 4th image in (6 images).
Also slowly working a series of Los Angeles cityscapes (which you'll also see there in the URBAN link).
All comments are welcome and appreciated.
Thanks. - Mitch
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My comments won't be very useful, because I'm a fan of yours already and I, too, have a love affair with Joshua Tree (although I've only been there twice).
The new ones are indeed gorgeous and capture for me the sense of magic that JT has for me.
Beautiful work. Thanks for sharing them.
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Thanks Eric. Just wanted to say thanks and that I really appreciate you kind comments. - Mitch
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These are as wonderful as the original set. Thanks for sharing these, Mitch. Very, very well done.
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I am in awe of your new Joshua Tree photos, as I always am of your work. Based on their appearance, I presume some or all or them are in IR? I'm curious whether you use film or digital for IR photography.
Lisa
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Wow!
Rob C
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Gee, these are just not to my taste. I get a headache looking at them. I have the same reaction to over-processed music (you know, turn the distortion to max, and, even if the volume is low, one gets this empty sound).
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The problem for me is that, since I bought an HP B9180, I have had to keep changing the brighness of my monitor depending on the paper on which I am trying to print. This applies to black/white - colour is another bag of snakes altogether and I fluctuate from swearing at it to swearing by it.
I have concluded that all sites that show art photography to the level of this particular one should, in their own best interests, include a longish grey scale by which to adjust one´s monitor for accurate viewing of said sites, my feeling being that calibration might not be the whole answer to artistic representation. Doing a quick re-setting for something which looks interesting is no hardship.
Slipping sideways to that B9180 again, it really is a pain that it has to be left on 24/24; apart from the waste of ink and electricity, it does smell badly in a small office.
Rob C
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Mitch, I just wanted to say how very much I enjoyed your photos. I have looked over everything on your site over the last couple of days and they are all excellent.
Of the recent images I particularly liked #13 (Temple of the Sun) and #11 (Hoodoo).
Your portfolio is the most impressive I've seen in a long time. I've ordered the back issue of Lenswork you were featured in as I want to see some of this in some form of print. Thank you for posting here and sharing these!
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nniko, I shoot both visible light and IR digital. The mix of images on the website is about 50/50.
And thank you iancl and Robc (and others) for taking the time to comment and/or for the compliments. It always really helps to get feedback. - Mitch
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Gee, these are just not to my taste. I get a headache looking at them. I have the same reaction to over-processed music (you know, turn the distortion to max, and, even if the volume is low, one gets this empty sound).
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Russell
Your comment about ´empty´ has more, possibly unsuspected, depth than you might have thought.
By definition, deserts are empty, so I won´t fight with you over that; however, within the genre, I think that one of the few alternative routes the photographer can take is to do as Mitch has done with his work, and go for a dramatic rendition of whatever can be incorporated into the work - I would think that to mean cloud effects.
But that´s not personal to me. What is, is this idea of emptiness which you mentioned and which I take you to mean in a spiritual sense of the word. It has haunted me on most of the few occasions when I have felt inclined to have a go at doing landscapes, leaving me with this feeling of failure. I know where this comes from: it stems from a long career shooting models, where landscape/background was just that - incidental to the main subject which was the girl and/or the clothes.
As a result, I always walk away from any such model-free photography with the sense that something vital is missing in the chemistry of the thing, that the picture is incomplete.
This should not be confused with a failure to appreciate or admire landscape photography which is well done; it is not that at all, but it is some sort of mental impediment that forever gets in the way of my doing the same.
Funny old world...
Rob C
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Russell
What is, is this idea of emptiness which you mentioned and which I take you to mean in a spiritual sense of the word.
Rob C
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Rob: I just kind of tossed the term "empty" in quickly, since I do have a practically visceral negative reaction to photos such as those referenced. Let me try to be more explicit. It has to do with everything in the images being tuned up to the same level of interest. So there are no dynamics left, no breathing room (empty of oxygen). Everything is, like many of Ansel Adams' late works, pitched at the "Operatic" level (and Wangerian at that). Not my taste; I acknowledge the rights of others to an alternate taste.
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Rob: I just kind of tossed the term "empty" in quickly, since I do have a practically visceral negative reaction to photos such as those referenced. Let me try to be more explicit. It has to do with everything in the images being tuned up to the same level of interest. So there are no dynamics left, no breathing room (empty of oxygen). Everything is, like many of Ansel Adams' late works, pitched at the "Operatic" level (and Wangerian at that). Not my taste; I acknowledge the rights of others to an alternate taste.
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In fact, one might say that it is a case of the wine glass flowing over?
I´ve been working on a shot tonight which I did way back in ´79, on Rose Island in the Bahamas. There are two girls in broderie anglais skirts/tops, more or less full height on the horizontal frame of 35mm film, shot with a 500 mirror Nikkor. Now, the angle was chosen to get the maximum amount of sparkle in the ocean which, being through a mirror lens, converted to beautiful white doughnuts all over the background. Okay, lovely in colour even if somewhat (very) diffused because of the less than crisp rendition of such optics, but I´m trying to make it into a good black and white.
And that´s where things get tricky. What was a white ring against coloured sea is now a white ring against fairly dark sea, making the contrast ever so much stronger due to the loss of original colour. And I do feel that the girls have lost their power somewhat, becoming far less important than the overall effect of the water! In fact, the shot falls into the category you have just described. But I still think I´ll continue the work on it!
Must see how it prints when that´s done.
Rob C
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Russell, thanks for the feedback. I think its cool to have the work compared to Robert Wagner. I'm honored actually. I think that's the way I see the world..... a bit amplified (and beautiful).
Your feedback has been valuable to me and I appreciate that you took the time to write.
FYI, I'm also a Jimi Hendrix, Kobe Bryant and Rob Zombie fan. - Mitch
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Wagnerian or not, I absolutely love these photos!
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Mitch,
Breathtaking!
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No doubt the pictures are good technically, but to me i feel alienated. It would be superb if they can connect with me. Can the photographer connect with his subjects, and convey this to the viewers?
This is meant as a non-critical question, meant more as a question to oneself, in order to improve one's art.
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I feel alienated by most of what I have seen in Aperture (the magazine, not the software) for the past several years, but Mitch's images move me deeply and powerfully. I just browsed through them for about the fourth or fifth time and they still hold up.
Magnificent!
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Loved your Lenswork issue - these are great as well. Hopefully they'll hit Lenswork too.
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Add my "2 snaps up" to the list of approving fellow photographers!! Very impressive and dramatic. Thanks for showing them.
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All:
Thank you for the comments and honest feedback. Its all very informative and totally inspirational.
And to me that's what its all about.... being inspired and helped by each other. So thank you.
More work to come again soon (NM next week). - Mitch
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I will be eager to see your NM photos. I plan to make my first trip to NM next March.
Eric
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Beautiful shots, highly dramatic yet wonderfully simple in composition and presentation... a big fan of your work.
Looking at these images I'm reminded of a comment I once hear regarding Ansel Adams work, "...they make you feel small, in a place where being small is not a bad thing to be".
Not a direct quote but you get the idea.
Elegant web site, a true reflection of the images therein.
Cheers,
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Way cool images; sort of neo-pictorialism. I love to see highly individual interpretations of the iconic Western landscapes, rather than same old, same old.
Like yet another photo of sunrise under Mesa Arch (I presume there are tripod holes worn into the stone) at a recent art show in my town.