Critique Please

I've gone back and started re-scanning some negatives from a couple

of years ago now that I've actually figured the scanner out (many a

Homer Simpson moment - DOH! - in the process). This is one that I'd

initially dumped in the reject pile for various reasons, but once the

shadow details came out, I sort of liked it...I'd love to hear what

others think of it, mainly because its one that I moved from "reject"

to "Eh? I kinda like this..."

 

Oh, I print to watercolor paper, so try and insert the paper texture

of a Widsor & Newton warm toned paper in your mind's eye, I tried

scanning a print, and )@#$@#$ it looked awful at web resolution, and

you didn't get the paper texture at web resolution...the print is

10x14, by the way...

I think it's a nude and a head's-up to those of us in our cubicles would have been the considerate thing to do. I wouldn't have clicked the link had I known...

Err, it WAS posted in the adult section...thanks for the brilliant critque, though...

Thanks for the heads-up Mike.

Alton, I have to agree with the others. A "heads up" is necessary. There's no way to tell that the JPEG you linked was in the adult section. Your request for critique and the unlabled link were in the "people photography" forum.

 

This aside, I find the picture disturbing. It looks distorted, yet the viewpoint (persepctive and focal length) don't suggest that it should be. This makes you feel that the model herself is distorted. Something just isn't right about the face and feet. And, even without using "sinister lighting" you've got something of that gothic stagelight feeling.

 

I'm not a Windsor and Newton fan, so I tried the more familiar (to me, anyway) Arches cold pressed paper.

first, i couldn't care less if you gave a heads up on nude or not (and I'm looking at it at the office), so no complaints here! to the picture, I find the perspective renders her a bit strange... she looks like she had huge lower legs and feet, compared to her head... I don't really care for the kinda creepy lighting either... A diffrent camera position (up higher maybe? but then it wouldn't be the same shot that you had envisaged) maybe? Well I don't know, in the end I would not really have taken it out from the trash (but that is only my opinion!)

After looking again at it I find the composition is what disturbs me a bit more... there's either too much of the surroundings in the shot (if it is a shot of her), or not enough (if she is supposed to be part of the surroundings, sort of romantic like set...)... also the I think it is a bit unbalanced, with the heavy furniture AND the big light on the left, and no visual counterpoint on the right... maybe placing a small point of attention there would restitute the balance... as it is now I feel the picture pushes me (because of the heavy content on the left) to the right side of the pic, where there's nothing interesting to look at... mybe placing her some inches to the right, with her pose or look or whatever leading to the left again, that would catch the viewer inside the image for longer.... I hope you see what I mean, these are basically just random ramblings as I look at the picture... feel free to disagree :-))

A simply awful photograph

Great photo.

David or Igor, would either of you care to elaborate on what makes the photo "aweful" or "great"?

It's a bit unbalanced as someone above mentioned, I'd crop out the dark area on the right. Otherwise, it's pretty funny with nice lighting.

 

Photo.net does not require a "head's up" on nudity. It doesn't make any more sense to have this on photo.net than it does on any art museum.

Jeff - actually, they do require a "heads up". I'm not sure I agree with your analogy. Someone has to take kids into an art museum; they can wander into here all by themselves.

 

The moderators don't nail everyone, but they get some of us. I posted a nude on a thread about IR photography last year, and got a very polite email from the moderators. They also changed the subject of the thread, adding a nudity warning.

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=009ndo

Nor do I have nudes from an art museum in my office. That was a nasty shock because students can see through my window from the bridge and it would only take the wrong one to cause a whole lot of hurt. That's why I don't go to the Gallery at work. There's every reason to expect nudes there, so if I'm going to look at the pics, I do it at home.

 

Conni

You shouldn't be looking at photonet at work in the first place! If I were your boss I wouldn't care if you were looking at the New York Times or a porn site, you are wasting company time and resources.

Steve:

 

I teach at a university. We are only on the clock for office hours and class time. The real expectation is that we do most of our work elsewhere (libraries, computers anywhere and at home). If I charged the university by the hour for the hours I put in, it would be far more than a 40 hour week. In efect, I am never far from work. It's a bad habit I've fallen into that I'm just working on something for my classes all the time because the time framework isn't around me to demarcate work time from free time. Therefore, I can look at photo.neet at work with no qualms that I'm stealing time from my employer. I've begun to feel overwhelmed by my workload but I know too, that some of it is my own fault because I set my work time (with the two exceptions noted above) and I'm not just setting time aside when I'm out of the office and saying "this much and no more."

 

 

So if you fired me for reading photo.net in my office, you would have shot yourself in the foot because you would have lost a dedicated, well-prepared and available educator who is always seeking a more informed and better way of conveying skills to my students.

 

Conni

Here's one more answer for the "shouldn't look at work" people. I work in a Corporate Communications department. I am a corporate photographer. I take pictures of people every day. See a connection to the People Photography forum?

 

My boss and his boss both know that I sometimes surf the net between projects - sites like photo.net, dpreview.com, etc. are like the trade journals of my profession (usually better really) - however, it would be difficult to explain a nude photograph on my screen to someone who passes by my desk, so I avoid these images whenever possible. Thus is life in corporate cubicle land...

 

Like I said - a head's up would be the courteous thing to do. I don't complain every time, but I believe it is well within reason to point this out now and then. I may have been less than polite with my response because I was reacting to the feeling of having walked into an ambush.

 

Thanks-

topic drift!<p>I love the image, it's creepy and surreal, and I think it's the best I've seen from you. Her expression reminds me of Avedon's portrait of Marily Monroe, make just before her death (the lighting is of course, totally different, but very appropriate). I hope your subject was just having a bad moment, or better yet, was responding to your instruction.<p>I recall that you were working on a series of photographs of Asian consorts (?), and this makes me remember that work. The environment she's in and her complete nakedness seem at odds, like she's just there temporarily for a very specific purpose and will soon be shown the door. <p>If she were dressed like house keeping staff at a hotel (but otherwise looked the same) I would have the same interpretation... that she is on the job and you have photographed her in a moment of unhappy introspection about her circumstances... t

Oh yes, her gesture... just touching herself with a slightly defensive positioning, combined with the disconnected stare, make me think that she has recently been touched in an unpleasant (to her) manner.<p>I get a lot from this image (all disturbing) and that's why I say it is good. I would not want to live with this image, but it's a good photograph. Be careful... t