Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => But is it Art? => Topic started by: Isaac on November 13, 2013, 09:58:42 am
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Landscape photography!
http://www.paulgaffneyphotography.com/We-Make-the-Path-by-Walking
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Overdone HDR, Isaac. You disappointed me though. I thought maybe I'd finally see an Isaac picture.
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Overdone HDR
What are you looking at?
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Landscape photography for people who don't like 'landscape photography'. Lovely.
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Yeah. I goofed. There was no indication that a click on the picture would bring up another. The first one is overdone HDR, but there are some pretty good shots in there. Unfortunate about the web design.
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I don't understand your reference to 'overdone HDR'. You mean the first picture of the forked path?
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The first one is overdone HDR...
What makes you think that? Seems ordinary for an overcast spring day before there's full leaves on the trees.
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Really? You think it's possible to bring up that much detail in the lows in that kind of picture under those circumstances? This is one of the reasons I'd like to see some of your work, Isaac. It would give me at least a clue about your understanding of this stuff.
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'Overdone HDR', according to Google. Is this really what you're seeing in Gaffney's work? I'm perplexed!
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=overdone+hdr&num=100&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=ZkSNUqXmCoishQf9oYCgCA&ved=0CC4QsAQ&biw=1438&bih=720
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Really? You think it's possible to bring up that much detail in the lows in that kind of picture under those circumstances?
I think you need to go for a walk in the woods on a bright overcast winter's day :-)
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This has nothing to do with the woods on a bright winter day. I grew up in the woods and I'm very familiar with bright winter days. This has to do with the capabilities of the camera. If you actually were familiar with the practice of photography you'd know that, Isaac.
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I think Russ's point is that the first picture, with the path and the road forking off from one another, looks extremely flat. "overdone HDR" often means popped colors, halos all over the place, and ugly tonemapping. What Russ means, I suspect, is HDR that is taken to the extreme of crushing all the shadows and modeling out of existence.
This is also a way you can use HDR and you can certainly argue that it's "overdoing it". I think there's the potential for a genuinely new aesthetic here, one that uses things which are not shadows to solve the problems that shadow and modeling usually solves for us. I don't think this picture is a good example, though. It just looks crummy and flat. The problems normally solved by shadows and modeling are not solved, nor are they defied, they're simply left there unsolved.
I am not myself certain that it's HDR, it could just be really unfortunate and unpleasant lighting, to my eye. Regardless, the problems solved by shadows and modeling are not solved in this picture.
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Right on, Andrew, and thanks. I probably shot too fast from the hip and didn't explain enough. Your explanation is right on the money. Yes, there are at least two ways to overdo HDR, and irrational exuberance when tone mapping the lows is one of them. Irrational exuberance when tone mapping everything is the other. A well-done HDR looks exactly like a properly exposed non-HDR, but it was shot in a situation where the dynamic range would have made the picture impossible as a single exposure.
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It just looks crummy and flat. The problems normally solved by shadows and modeling are not solved, nor are they defied, they're simply left there unsolved. ... I am not myself certain that it's HDR, it could just be really unfortunate and unpleasant lighting, to my eye.
Let's be charitable and allow that the photographer also understands what could have been done, and instead chose to photograph in flat light.
What does the photographer intend to achieve by that choice?
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What does the photographer intend to achieve by that choice?
Maybe demonstrate that he doesn't know what he's doing?
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Shooting too fast from the hip again.
Let's be charitable...
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Bullseye!
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Presumably you mean that you're shooting too fast from the hip again. Well if you think that's something to brag about...
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Europe looks like this on a cloudy day. It has nothing to do with HDR.
You think the photographer is clueless. You find his work ugly.
Fortunately others disagree:
http://www.paulgaffneyphotography.com/News
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For what it is worth, HDR, let alone "overdone" one, would not be the first thing coming to my mind seeing the first photograph.
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Well, it wasn't the first thing that came to my mind either, Slobodan. That was: "What a dull picture of a dull scene." Then I realized that the blahness of the picture probably came from some unnecessary HDR work: maybe using something like HDR Efex Pro in its single frame mode.
On the other hand, once I found that it was possible to click the picture and see another picture and another, etc., I realized the photographer is capable of some really good work. It's unfortunate that the site is so unintuitive and that the first picture is the blahest of the lot.
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Maybe demonstrate that he doesn't know what he's doing?
Reading the thread up to the post before this, I have found only one participant who has, for reasons best known to himself, been working hard to give the impression that he doesn't know what he is doing - or at least what he is saying.
On the first image, Elliot is on the money. The flatness in the light is part of what the photographer is trying to depict, and anyone who has done much walking in the woods in Europe would have seen what he sees. Why would he think it worth making a photograph out of it? For me it works quite nicely as a kind of "anti landscape", alluding to and rejecting the conventional aesthetic of landscape photography and reminding the viewer of how the landscape often actually looks.
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alluding to and rejecting the conventional aesthetic of landscape photography
Without which, the emphasis moves to the path.
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. . .reminding the viewer of how the landscape often actually looks.
I suspect most viewers older than two don't need to be reminded that the landscape often looks uninteresting.
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Well, he's specifically going for non-dramatic. Quiet and contemplative. I don't think we need to draw on the eldritch powers of International Art English to explain the pictures.
I think it's possible that the opening photo on his web site works better in the context of the book. The collection shown strikes me as a mixed bag of "small" scenes. The smallness and lightness is obviously by intent. There's a bright tonality coupled to a flatness of light that goes through most of these photos which strikes me as a deliberate attempt to hit that "quiet contemplative" note. They all look misty, basically. I can imagine a pretty decent portfolio that would hit that note, and would include the pictures on the web site.
The web site itself is, I assume, a subset of the larger portfolio, and may be an effort to illustrate the breadth of the thing, destroying any overall structure that might be present. Without some portfolio structure, I think a lot of the pictures kind of fall apart, they're not strong enough to stand alone. Not that I am saying there IS definitely some structure into which all these fit, only that I can believe there could be. The book could well be a disorganized mess of weakish pictures too, for all I know.
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I suspect most viewers older than two don't need to be reminded that the landscape often looks uninteresting.
+1.
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I suspect most viewers older than two don't need to be reminded that the landscape often looks uninteresting.
There are people who are interested; people who are interested when they are shown and people who are not interested. (With apologies to Da Vinci.)
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I don't think we need to draw on the eldritch powers of International Art English to explain the pictures.
What to me needs explaining is how an image that at first glance certainly does look like "a dull picture of a dull scene" can nevertheless be interesting. Of course, if you don't find it interesting, you will move on to something else. "Quiet contemplative note" and "misty" don't do it for me because they don't address content. I think we need to start with the idea that the photographer intended his image to look exactly the way it looks, and then work out why. There. Plain enough English for you?
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I suspect most viewers older than two don't need to be reminded that the landscape often looks uninteresting.
Indeed. So why would a photographer choose, as the opening image to a web presence, such a nothing bit of landscape? Your explanation would seem to be that he doesn't know what he is doing. After looking at his other work, I don't find that persuasive.
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Hi Ken, I'd say the poor fellow has the same problem most of us have, he doesn't understand marketing. His first picture is blah, and there's nothing on that web page to indicate that if you click on the first picture you'll get a second picture, etc. If somebody's trying to make a buck in photography, marketing skill is far more important than competent photography. If you don't believe that, take a walk through any small town and check out the "portrait and wedding" studios. Yes, the guy is a competent photographer, but why that nothing picture heading his web? He may be a competent photographer but that doesn't mean he "knows what he's doing"
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... there's nothing on that web page to indicate that if you click on the first picture you'll get a second picture...
Well there's a rather large arrow icon. Are you new to the internet?
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Oh yeah! Now I see those tiny < and > way out at the edges. Yeah, I'm pretty new to the internet. I've only been building webs for about fifteen years.
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He's making a political statement. The title "We Make a Path By Walking" is displayed with two paths formed by wheeled devices. Check the ruts made by wheels in the path. Of course the scene looks "dead".
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Dead or not, it's sure had a lot of comment!
The problem isn't the content: the problem is that he's done nothing creative with it.
It reminds me of the flat snaps that come out of my Nikon Capture NX2 compartment and appear anew in 'My Images', from whence I either forget them forever or try to make them look different to the pancake make-up of which they remind me. Of course, this instantly reveals the intrinsic aesthetic superiority of transparencies.
There's one shot within his collection that I really like: the 'underneath the bridge' one.
Rob C
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The problem isn't the content: the problem is that he's done nothing creative with it.
Isn't that just your general opinion of landscape photography --
Landscape, at best, is just a copy of nature from the most favourable vantage point that the snapper can find or perhaps access; he has added nothing of his own other than the angle of view, which is hardy creative but certainly a good use of judgement.
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Isn't that just your general opinion of landscape photography --
More or less, and I think he's helped prove my point somewhat.
However, 'under the bridge' isn't about landscape, it's about atmosphere and 'hand of homo sapìens' on the natural world.
Now, don't misunderstand my opinion about landscape: I do believe that good landscape work is exactly that: good work. It requires a lot of technical excellence and also a good eye: witness Michael R's recent Icelandic (pre-banking collapse?) images. And there, for me, it ends. So let's not get all steamed up about it again - just a personal opinion and worth no more than that.
Speaking of which, the early shots in the video I mentioned elsewhere, Inside Job, have some wonderful, scene-setting Icelandic landscapes; the visual quality of the video is superb. At least, I noticed it at the start, but the subject rapidly moved the brain from visual pleasure to message mode!
Rob C
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However, 'under the bridge' isn't about landscape, it's about atmosphere and 'hand of homo sapìens' on the natural world.
Isn't that also true of the other photographs? The wheel ruts noted by Alan Klein.
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Isn't that also true of the other photographs?
Indeed. We make the path by walking.
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Isn't that also true of the other photographs? The wheel ruts noted by Alan Klein.
In the literal sense, I agree, but in the artistic one - in my sense of that meaning - not at all. Might as well depict a farmer's field and because it contains a haystack, that's hand of man. It sure is, but in a totally boring and unremarkable way, which marks the difference between art and simple observation.
Rob C
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It seems to me that the project is quite specifically about the ways in which man makes pathways across the landscape, and how these pathways offer openings (or closings) to the journeying photographer. Haystacks would be off topic.
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For what it is worth, HDR, let alone "overdone" one, would not be the first thing coming to my mind seeing the first photograph.
Yup. Looks just like a straightforward shot from my iPhone (with the HDR turned off).
BTW, the HDR Feature in iOS 7 is vey impressive. Looks like it works on the raw image data.
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It seems to me that the project is quite specifically about the ways in which man makes pathways across the landscape, and how these pathways offer openings (or closings) to the journeying photographer. Haystacks would be off topic.
What about bridleways? Would horses have rights to being on topic, or only if mounted at the time?
I just lurve the concept of the opening and closing of metaphorical doors: makes me feel all artistic and terribly creative again. Positively rejuvenating!
;-)
Rob C
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Time to go for a stroll with camera then Rob. Maybe throw a dice at each juncture to see where to go.
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Dice? I do the Euromilliones every week - no need to be rash! Shucks, I even bought an expensive part-ticket to the National Christmas Lottery!
In fact, I won the price of the EuroMil ticket on Tuesday, with about 17 cents on top! So, I either buy two coffees or a new ticket next week - guess I may as well reinvest in the business.
Dice? I don't gamble.
Rob C
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Er, the lottery is gambling. With even less chance of winning than usual. Particularly the Euromillions. Which is why it often goes for weeks without anyone winning. Despite two draws a week.
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For haystacks, look at the work of James Smith:
http://j-smith.co.uk/temporal-dislocation/
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With work like particular set of James Smith's or that in the original post, it looks completely indistinguishable from so many other photographer's work. There seems to be nothing of the photographer involved in the shot whatsoever. It's like a template of blankness.
And I should add, it's not that I dislike the style or anything.
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The Bechers have a lot to answer for.
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The Bechers have a lot to answer for.
Do deities in the pantheon have to answer to anything?
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With work like particular set of James Smith's or that in the original post, it looks completely indistinguishable from so many other photographer's work. There seems to be nothing of the photographer involved in the shot whatsoever. It's like a template of blankness.
Sure, both photographers are shooting in a similar style (levelled large format cameras, flat lighting, subdued colour palette). But I don't think their work is interchangeable. They are pursuing their own themes, across series of pictures. This is how their personalities, or at least their thought processes, are revealed.
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The Bechers have a lot to answer for.
They didn't make people copy their work. Or did they……. :o
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Er, the lottery is gambling. With even less chance of winning than usual. Particularly the Euromillions. Which is why it often goes for weeks without anyone winning. Despite two draws a week.
Ummm - I think I knew that when I wrote...
Re. EuroM: but eventually, somebody always does win, and the money rolls over until they do, and it's as easy or difficult to pìck seven numbers on one gamble as on any other. It's pure chance. The prize is bigger due to more contributed cash, and the win size, actual money won in any grouping, will depend on the number of others lucky within that same grouping too; if only one guy gets the lucky set of digits he wins the lot, if more than one get the same set of numbers they share the prize.
And it runs right down to two numbers, which I've had a few times; even made three now and then, but it's just peanuts at that level - cups of java.
;-)
Rob C
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Do deities in the pantheon have to answer to anything?
Walter, beware the sounds of gathering thunder!
March and its Ides would be nothing compared to what a Photo-god could wreak! Just think Lord Digital.
;-)
Rob C
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Hmm, this talk of deities, pantheons and euromillions is going over my head.
Isaac, why did you post the link to Paul Gaffney's work in the first place?
(Perhaps your commentary, 'landscape photography!', needs to be unpacked?)
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Hmm, this talk of deities, pantheons and euromillions is going over my head.
Isaac, why did you post the link to Paul Gaffney's work in the first place?
(Perhaps your commentary, 'landscape photography!', needs to be unpacked?)
Elliot, it's all educational - wear lifts.
;-)
Rob C
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Isaac, why did you post the link to Paul Gaffney's work in the first place?
I thought others might be interested in them. I wondered about the obvious vehicle tracks and roadways, not paths. I was interested by the absence of ancient pathways and grand scenery.
As a contrast to "Landscape & Nature Photography (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?board=1.0)".
(Perhaps your commentary, 'landscape photography!', needs to be unpacked?)
Probably a reference to whatever else "The Art of Photography" was preoccupied by at the time.
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I thought others might be interested in them. I wondered about the obvious vehicle tracks and roadways, not paths.
Sometimes the path is not so clear, as in attached image. ;)
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When ya come to a fork in the path...take it. ;D
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Sometimes the path is not so clear, as in attached image. ;)
And which is why these got invented…… :P
(http://gruenagency.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/compass-old11.jpeg)
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i found this series quite interessting and dynamic. not always those too colorful sunset pictures or blue sky dreams.
the picture is not interessting itself but in the context of the series, its great.
best michael
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Good! That's one reason I posted the link. The other reason was to see the negative comments ;-)
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Overdone HDR
"I've never used HDR and to be honest I wouldn't even know how. I'm not a particularly technical photographer and I do very little post production. I use one camera, one lens and I just get out and do it..."
Paul Gaffney
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That's interesting, but it doesn't change the way it looks.
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It's simply confirmation that your summary judgement has no merit.
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It's simply confirmation that your summary judgement has no merit.
It has to him.
If Russ thinks it looks like HDR to him, then it looks like HDR to him.
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If Russ thinks it looks like HDR to him, then it looks like HDR to him.
It still makes him wrong though.
Looking at the image in question I can't see why anyone would think it's HDR, let alone 'overdone'.
A rather nice photo IMHO. I always think there's far too much emphasis on gaudy 'golden hour' shots that bare little resemblance to how most people experience the landscape.
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If you "experience the landscape" bare, watch out for cops.
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I'm late to the party but I think some of these are quite nice and a nice departure from the standard cabin in front of distant mountains.
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RSL appears to have a very different understanding to everyone else of what HDR is.
http://www.paulgaffneyphotography.com/We-Make-the-Path-by-Walking
I find that first image interesting, now that I have looked at it far longer than I would had there not been this discussion about it, and find that after looking for more than a little while it changes ( not unlike those 3D scrambled images do) so that now I see (almost) a line down the middle, well just left of the middle, which makes it look like two images taken in very similar light stitched together, and that makes it interesting, to me.
I don't think that trompe-l'oeil was the photographer's intention or perhaps it might be, if only we were able to converse with him about this.
However if we read that last page of that series (Tip: you don't have to actually click on the little arrows, just on the image, and it will go to the next in sequence, it's a technique borrowed from computer games and quite common now on ordinary websites - an useful technique to know as many sites use this device :p ) Paul explains his thinking behind these images, or non-thinking, if he attained the state he aspired to.
He says he wants to 'communicate a sense of the subtle internal and psychological changes...." Note the word 'subtle'. So I would have thought that the use of HDR would be somewhat perverse and unlikely in the extreme.
His goals , it seems to me, are not dissimilar to those of a high proportion of 'contemplative' photographers, and whether he succeeds here or not will depend very much on the eye of the beholder.
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http://www.photomonitor.co.uk/2014/03/we-make-the-path-by-walking-3/
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…if only we were able to converse with him about this.
He was kind enough to respond to my email, after a while.
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I see the first image as one of decision. If we internalize the image and look beyond the literal landscape and be still the image really comes to life. it is the presence of tire tracks and walking paths. The proof that someone tried to drive up the walking path but stopped and then continued down the usual road. The image begs the question...What path would you take? Travel down the same easy path or choose your own intimate path.
This image reminds me of Robert Frosts "The Road not Taken". It has a quality that is complex yet seemingly simple.
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I see the first image as one of decision. If we internalize the image and look beyond the literal landscape and be still the image really comes to life. it is the presence of tire tracks and walking paths. The proof that someone tried to drive up the walking path but stopped and then continued down the usual road. The image begs the question...What path would you take? Travel down the same easy path or choose your own intimate path.
This image reminds me of Robert Frosts "The Road not Taken". It has a quality that is complex yet seemingly simple.
I agree. Too many dismiss images because it's is not a way they would interpret the subject. This is the point, an individuals vision.
Peter
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I'm late to the party but I think some of these are quite nice and a nice departure from the standard cabin in front of distant mountains.
After wading through this thread myself for the first time, and taking the trouble to check out peoples web links by way of clarifying their views, I think your comment is pretty much spot on and made me laugh as well.
And it highlight's what it seems this thread has evolved into, a discussion by photographers who's perfect picture is a barn and blue sky, and those who like some intellectual meat to their photography. And my point is made by using the words 'picture' and 'photography' to separate the two schools.
Steve
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'Overdone HDR', according to Google. (https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=overdone+hdr&num=100&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=ZkSNUqXmCoishQf9oYCgCA&ved=0CC4QsAQ&biw=1438&bih=720)
In some way I like it as an abstract style.
However if we read that last page of that series ... Paul explains his thinking behind these images, or non-thinking, if he attained the state he aspired to.
I got caught by the final comment as well - inspiring - not so much supported by the actual photos
(just one click on the arrow left from the starting image (http://www.paulgaffneyphotography.com/#We-Make-the-Path-by-Walking)).
Peter
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iirc seems like more images are shown now.
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I like his work, but others have walked this path before him - Bustamante, Sternfeld etc...
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… but others have walked this path before him…
I'm tempted to quote Ecclesiastes but this seems more likely to open up discussion -
"Think it's all been done before? No one has done
this in your unique voice, at this time, in this
context. Be authentic and do it anyway (http://books.google.com/books?id=kc8WAgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA2&dq=%22Design%20school%20wisdom%20%3A%20make%20first%2C%20stay%20awake%2C%20and%20other%20essential%20lessons%20for%20work%20and%20life%20%22&pg=PA6#v=snippet&q=%22Think%20it's%20all%20been%20done%20before?%22&f=false)."
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These images remind me of Ansel's comment about sharp pictures of fuzzy concepts. For me, most of them have very little value.
But then, that's what I think of Jeff Wall's work, too. And many $$$ disagree with me on that point.
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Jeff Wall's work
I suppose I didn't look and didn't question when I first saw reproductions of Jeff Wall's photos -- I gave up without realizing the implausibility, silly me.