W/NW : To Have and To Have Not

[andrew_somerset1]

That's an impressive list of thank yous, Alex. Ever think of writing Academy Awards speeches?

[hadji_singh]

I liked how Alex refered to himself in the third person...

[film rules]

FWIW Alex, there is a wonderful reference of great photography here: http://www.aphotoaday.org/index.html. Spending some time there might do your photography some good.

[h._p.]

"The only negative remark I'd like to comment on is the one that goes something like "It doesn't do anything for me."

 

<sigh>

[travis1]

Alex, I'd hope you kep posting and try new stuffs. This isn't a life and death issue, just pix on the internet. I admire your ability to write so well, I can't write so well. Your pix goes well with your social commentary and it's very different from the rest. Sometimes they speak to others but sometimes they don't. We just go on anyway. No other way about it. You can't change overnight, it's just you and how you see the world nothing wrong with that.

You don't have to be the best photographer(no on is), you just have to be you....sorta.

[travis1]

"No one is"...

 

see I can't write.

[Alex_Es]

Thanks Travis. You write well. You are reasonable. You're also a bit nicer to people who make idiotic statements than I tend to be.

[Alex_Es]

Google tells me http://www.aphotoaday.org/index.html. "not found."

 

Looks like I'm doomed.

[kilgore_trout1]

I personally like Alex's work -- we're all here for the love of photography... this isn't a pissing contest...

 

Alex --- keep it up.

[jack_lo_..._t_o]

You don't need to see Alex's name above a pic to know it's one of his. He's like Travis that way. His style is, at first face "snapshot"; but then you look closer and there's a structure. As there is in this one; in fact it's one of the simpler and cleaner of his posts. It's cropped to do this.

 

Problem some people have might be with the title. Had he called it "Two Men", or "Lying and Sitting", or "Eating and Sleeping", there might not have been the idiotic remarks about brass, glass and silver.

 

 

This is the kind of "criticism" that has done tremendous damage to our forum recently. It might be a good idea for a moderator or other writer to have a "Critique--How To, and How Not To" article on the site, with an enumerated set of rules and examples. One could then direct a self-indulgent hurler of vitriol to the Rule Book where he might see the error of his ways and perhaps mend them. When members try to do this on their own it often ends up in some kind of pissing contest.

[jack_lo_..._t_o]

By the way: Mike Dixon--you on steroids or sumpin'? You've been posting some real beauties lately.

[ray .]

<i>...have a "Critique--How To, and How Not To" article...</i><p>

Don't forget a "How to <b>take</b> a critique" article while you're at it.

[Alex_Es]

Thank you, Blake and John. John you made a good point about the title I need to consider. Also right about Mike Dixon. He has a neat one in Street and Doc. Photo. in "Street Performers," under W/NW.

[travis1]

giving critiques is easy man, anyone with a keyboard can do it..the key is to give good useful critiques, be it for the pic or against the pic...it's an art in itself. For me, I can't critique well, so I don't do that so often. All I can say to the poster most times is whether I like it or not(not so useful i know).

The funny thing is some personal remarks are passed off as critiques and when the poster of the pic make a response to that, again, he got critiqued for critiquing the critiques, which weren't really critiques but just you know, smart remarks.

 

thing is, there're aren't rules here, so it's a free brawl. You say what you have to and they say what they have to...just see who last longer..

[h._p.]

"whether I like it or not(not so useful i know)"

 

Why not? It seems to me that 'whether I like it or not' is the most important critique of all. You can witter all you like about composition and social awareness but in the final analysis what really matters is whether the viewer likes what they see. I'm sure those who've wasted (sorry, perservered) their time getting fine art degrees would disagree but to 99.9% of everyone, that's all that matters. This is why a cameraphone shot of Cousin Molly's new baby is far more important to cousin Molly's cousin than the efforts of <insert name of famous photographer here>.

 

Photo.net recognises this and that's what the rating system is about: click a button to indicate whether you love, loath or couldn't care less about the current picture. It's a great lesson in humility and humility is always something we can use.

[ray .]

Peter,

 

My questions on this thread aren't meant as statements, but questions. My issue isn't so much about being different, but how one comes to produce the photograph that gets shown. Is the judgement of the photographer such that he clearly knows what he's doing and makes choices based on his visual knowledge, or is it an arbitrary situation that he comes up with that requires verbal explanation after the fact for it to work? To my mind a photograph should speak for itself, it's a visual medium. The lengthy explanations and background describing how he took his photos that Alex provides are amusing, but have no bearing on how effectively the photo works on its own. If this were a photo we saw out of context without knowledge that it was Alex's, would we give it a second look, or find any particular meaning in it?

 

I'm reminded of Miles Davis comment to the effect that he had little respect for Ornette Coleman with regard to Coleman's trumpet playing... because Coleman made claims for it by putting it into public and recording it, yet had no knowledge of the rudiments of trumpet playing... he just blew haphazardly, and whatever came out he called art.

 

I'm not assuming Alex is doing something simialar, but through some of his previous postings there are indications that he really isn't aware of some fundamental elements that make up a visual picture. I could be wrong, but I'm just asking these things of him in what I think is a constructive manner. There's no way to prove who's right and who's wrong in these matters, but I hope the questions I ask are reasonable. They're certainly not meant as condemnation of Alex's work. I do wonder why it sometimes seems he chooses to respond only to praise, however. I can understand that some comments made here are harsh and unreasonable, but maybe if Alex would respond more often to constructive questions in a straightforward manner and occaisionally admit to failure (especially to himself, translated: editing) these kinds of comments would disappear.

[ray .]

Anyway Alex, just keep shooting. Be yourself, as Travis says. We're all learning here.

[kent_tolley2]

I'm one of the audience in this thread being new to Leica forum but Ornette Coleman played tenor sax not trumpet. Other than that nit the analogy is fitting. Personally I always liked Coltrane's sax and I think Miles did too.

[kent_tolley2]

just trying to make it perfect :-) since I suffer from this disease too. Ornette Coleman DID play trumpet and alto as well as tenor. But I think he is primarily known as a saxaphone player.

[kent_tolley2]

Sorry Ray. The know-it-all that I normally keep locked in the basement escaped this morning and did his thing. And when I saw what he had done I found I could not delete his comments like in other threads. I should remember to never pass up the opportunity to say nothing.

[ray .]

No problem. I didn't follow Coleman's career that closely (I have a tape or 2) but my assumption was he played trumpet a few times but it wasn't his instrument. Sax was.

[Allen Herbert]

To Have and To Have Not<div></div>

[Allen Herbert]

Or, where you are on the food chain. Jungle stuff...that simple really.

[Alex_Es]

Nice.

[Alex_Es]

Rational for my response here.

 

The negative criticism fell into two catagories: (1) Vague and (2)

personal attacks. Neither of these can be answered logically. To

the vague you can say: "Not it is not. The personal attacks require

that you turn into a kind of intellectual procrtologist because you

are dealings with a lot of you-know-whats.

 

Given the sudden spate of angry exchanges in this forum I thought it

best to limit myself to the above remarks.

 

For better or worse.