Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: John R Smith on May 16, 2012, 03:29:38 am
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A lot of folks here will think of me as primarily a landscape photographer, but I do move out of my comfort zone from time to time. In the early 1980s I spent many hours working on documentary stuff, recording the Cornish china-clay industry as it was then for a book project. The pictures included some landscape themes, of course, but also a lot of environmental portraiture. This is one that I particularly liked, taken on my Rollei 2.8F using Fujicolour HR400, in the shunter's cabin at Drinnick Mill, 1983.
John
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I really like this shot. It captures the man holding the cards in the context of a card game very nicely. This could be part of a great documentary photo essay.
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This could be part of a great documentary photo essay.
Yes this is definitely a National Geographic quality shot! The color quality supports that too, one feels this image has come down through the halls of time, which I see it has. Perfect for the subject. Well done.
All through the 60's and 70's I kept having on-again, off-again love affairs with Rollei's and other TLR's and reflexes, even the Brontosaurus-like Bronica. Great image quality, but to get them tricked out for eye level work made for a seriously ungainly package. Rollies were always the best, definitely in the Top Ten Cameras of All Time.
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Never thought of you as a street photographer, John, but it's a very good shot. Now it's time to get out on the street with your Rollei and do more of it. Don't think of the Rollei as a street camera? Tell that to Vivian Maier (q.v. at http://www.google.com/search?q=Vivian+Maier&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=bO5&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvnso&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=wPqzT-HQD4ui8gSQ--G5Dg&ved=0CHAQsAQ&biw=1071&bih=917) Unfortunately, Vivian's gone into the great hereafter, but her Rollei work still astonishes.
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The juxtaposition of the two hands of cards really makes this one, you've really got an image within an image here. On the one hand, it's the visual center is The Card Game, right there very strong very definite. Then you've got a framing picture around it, of two men, looking at their cards and both apparently pondering the hand, so the outer picture is of two men playing a game. Then finally the whole thing is placed in a kind of interesting context, which is just out of focus enough to avoid being too distracting (the strength of the inner image helps here) but not so out of focus as to be abstracted away.
The eye dives in to the center, and then surfaces, and is nicely captured by the framing elements. There's a whole little story here (albeit a simple one -- Bob and Dave played cards) and that's nice.
As a formal composition, I can't really tell if it's "good" or "bad" because the human, touchable, elements are so strongly placed.
Nice work!
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Thank you, folks, for all your input. These gentlemen never knew that I took the picture, although it almost looks like I set the shot up. I'd hung around the cabin at Drinnick for so long (several months) that they had all got used to me sitting in a corner fiddling with my camera, and no longer took any notice. With the WLF on the Rollei, I could just prop it on my lap and frame things up without looking at the subjects at all, so they did not get spooked. And with no moving mirror and a leaf shutter, there was just a little 'click', so no one knew that I took the shot.
This is the footplate crew of the diesel locomotive parked just outside the window, taking their lunch break.
John
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Beautiful shot, John - let's have some more.
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Nice photo, very bad Omaha/8 hand.
Can I ask why you're posting photos from thirty years ago for critique?
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Can I ask why you're posting photos from thirty years ago for critique?
Why does it matter, Timprov? Here's a photo from 47 years ago. Is there a problem with posting it?
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Why does it matter, Timprov? Here's a photo from 47 years ago. Is there a problem with posting it?
Yes, you're hijacking OP's thread by posting your image.
I think Timprov may be referring to the idea that putting up an image for critique is generally done to improve one's skills, but this may not be so relevant for OP any longer. However, the image and comments may still be helpful to others...
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I think Timprov may be referring to the idea that putting up an image for critique is generally done to improve one's skills, but this may not be so relevant for OP any longer.
Well, I'm sure OP could still improve his skills, but I do wonder if he now hopes to learn something that he did not in the previous three decades, and what that thing might be.
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Well, I'm sure OP could still improve his skills, but I do wonder if he now hopes to learn something that he did not in the previous three decades, and what that thing might be.
If we are doing things right, we never stop learning. And no, I certainly can't go back and re-take the shot, of course, but that is hardly the point. I learn a great deal, as always, from your response to the subject of my picture and the way in which I presented it.
John
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Why does it matter, Timprov? Here's a photo from 47 years ago. Is there a problem with posting it?
You've posted it 2,810 times already, Russ: but it's a pleasure to see it full-size at last.
I agree with you, though. What rule stipulates that posted photos must be recent? John's is a great shot, sight of which brings pleasure and from which we (or, at least, I) can learn something.
Jeremy
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Absolutely no rules preventing the posting of "old" images.
Bring them on I say.
Regards
Tony Jay
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Absolutely no rules preventing the posting of "old" images.
Bring them on I say.
Regards
Tony Jay
Without 'old' there'd be no classics. Not now, not ever.
Rob C
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Without 'old' there'd be no classics. Not now, not ever.
Quite!
Regards
Tony Jay