Light my fire

Mere mortals can learn how to "destructure" a shot with a thorough reading of these discussions. It's been established that it's not a candid shot. She is a model.

..blessed is the shot which can withstand this much deconstruction. I really thought this was a candid shot, so the only clutter which would have really mattered is background distraction, not misplaced objects scattered around a table, ie the usual debris you'd almost expect of a snatch shot in a cafe. In the former respect, this shot has no clutter. The various environmental elements merge nicely into a complex but telling scene narrative, which in itself is self-supporting: complementary colours, axial layout, reflections and background figure all harmonise perfectly well. I see no real advantage in removing the 'battering ram' either; it is maybe a little heavy but it carries an important amount of both warmth and perspective. Lose the colour (duotone/B&W versions) and it becomes that little bit more obstructive but who wants to lose the colour..?

Had I set this up I'd have changed none of this. However, knowing it was posed makes me wonder about missed set-up opportunities - that tabletop.. why is the spoon not on the saucer? The glass rudely steals the tabletop scene, or at least obstructs an appreciation of form in a most unflattering way; I'd have swapped it for the ashtray. This and everything else seems unceremoniously pushed to one side.. these are problems I didn't have with this shot without that knowledge. Now, they really bug me ;)

This notwithstanding, the shot, for me, is primarily about colour and form; next, a so-called 'lifestyle' statement. Ranking somewhere below these is the beauty of the model, her thoughts, her suntan, her slightly distracted stare.. they simply aren't as compelling as the overall scene, which really is something, although they obviously partake in it. Ok, the saturation is perhaps a little too in-your-face and could have been more selective - vis the green newspaper on the table, the distracting purple pants and luminous yucca. I dearly want to correct the verticality with a small anti-clockwise rotation. These are simple post-processing jobs which verge on the inexcusable, but they're minor relative to the overall impact of the shot.

I've blethered on enough, I think.. did I mention that I like it? Despite losing the visual innocence of my first impression, I still do.

You're asking me to assume that the photographer intentionally placed the battering ram, purple pants, and green leaves just so in order to accomplish this distraction that would offset her serenity. It's possible, but I doubt it.

 

 

I cant remember asking you, but I can tell that I would have placed the green leaves there..... (yes you wont belief...) but that?s not my problem ;))

As I read these latest posts, I am still trying to reconcile why it matters if the shot was set up

or not--(I understand the issues around photojournalism). If the elements of the photograph

work, then it works, if not, it doesn't. Jochen presented his creative choices. Other than

allowing us to think how we might have styled the set differently, I don't see how the

knowledge that it was set up makes the photo itself better or worse.

I am still trying to reconcile why it matters if the shot was set up or not --(I understand the issues around photojournalism).

 

 

and? where is the problem,,,, this photograph works very well... if we present a faked photojournalism wok.. but here? arranged or not arranged... I don?t care.

"I don't see how the knowledge that it was set up makes the photo itself better or worse"

That's quite a big subject you raise there, Mona.

Maybe it's a bit like law, and it's all about intent. I've certainly heard compelling arguments against 'accidental' abstract photographs (and art in general) on that basis. Would you rate a painting equally if you knew it was made by a dog rolling on a canvas, rather than Jackson Pollack?

Sometimes respect is due for the I remember being disappointed to discover a shot had been set up when the real joy of the image was an apparently super-skilful 'decisive moment' of capture. I certainly rate Cartier-Bresson's shots higher in the knowledge that they weren't set up.

Then again, there's opportunity and what you do with it. Think Ansel Adams. I rated Jochen's shot 'worse' for having not exploited his opportunity to the full and 'better' for aiming for, and achieving, a convincing candid-looking portrait (intent). Your question here is: does the fact that this was set up make it a worse shot? - and I don't think it's the best basis to judge this particular shot on. It has a lot more going for it. It makes a difference, but a minor one, all things considered.

Maybe it was set up.. But to what extent ? I doubt the lady with the hat (?) in the background is a model too.. Well, it might be intresting to know, but it won't change the way I felt about the picture. Nevertheless, the girl's pose and expression does make me feel she was waiting for Jochen to click.. and that disturbs me.

Had this been a commissioned shot, I'm sure both model and photographer would have worked a lot harder. It's a bit tough on both to judge this submission as if it was, but then having confessed to using a professional model, I suppose Jochen has put himself in the frame for this sort of criticism..

Maybe we envy him the opportunity. Personally, I think it was a well-snatched opportunity and should be judged on that basis.

For me it matters considerably whether a shot featuring a person is set-up or not. I read Jochen's post before I wrote mine, and judged it as a commercial 'lifestyle' shot rather than a candid 'street' shot as a result. For me, there is real life and there is the life that we are sold in movies, pop videos and coffee commercials. If a shot is a candid then I feel sometimes one may glean a tiny insight into the subject's real character, their state of mind, or their attitude to their environment at the time the shutter clicked... if it is 'set-up' I feel the sitter is likely to be 'playing' to the camera, in however tiny a way. The person is acting in their own movie, with or without the direction of the photographer. So the mask is on, as it were...and as a result the whole fabric of the scene around that person is changed from a real place into a set. The image loses the magic of 'reality' and to balance this out it needs some other 'spark' to raise it up to a higher level. Certainly the composition must be perfect. If the person has grown used to the camera being around and becomes 'unaware' again, as in family pictures or many iconic photos of famous people taken by a photographer who joined the entourage for a time, then the 'set-up' is no longer a set-up and the photo becomes a candid again...but I don't think that is the case here (I may be wrong). Also, there are some occasions where the set-up is so good you might never tell, and playing with that idea can be an art in itself. But I think I could tell this one was a set-up immediately, as there is a certain self-consciousness to the image, in my opinion. I still think this is a good image however, don't get me wrong. But I must judge it as a commercial image rather than a candid and that is why I think little things like the coffee drip are 'inappropriate'. Phew, sorry that was rather a long lecture, wasn't it!?! Best wishes.

When I view this photo from a 'she is no more important than any other element in the composition' perspective, I like it a lot more. Collectively it works well. I realized this when I viewed Jochen's interesting portfolio. -Greg-

I agree with Ed and others that there is a distinct difference between posed shots and found or documentary shots. As a matter of fact it is so fundamental that if you do not understand it you are in trouble.

 

Returning to my previous comments about architecture, that thing everyone is referring to as a battering ram appears to be a (decorative) piece of bamboo. The palm leaves and bamboo are another element or subset of Googie Architecture referred to as Tiki or Polynesian Pop style. In my version of the image I was trying to use one of the common color combinations generally associated with Googie Architecture. I did not get it exactly right in the amount of time I spent on it. I love the black and white versions of this photo but to answer a previous question, the color is important because it supports the style of architecture at the location. Or in other words, it goes with the theme that is set by the place. Remember that this is an environmental portrait and not a studio portrait, therefore the setting or place has more or less equal weight to the primary subject. It appears to me that the person who designed this space tried to incorporate all of the design elements of this style of architecture. I am actually curious about what the rest of the place looks like.

 

One interesting aspect of the photograph is that the girls expression is more or less the opposite of what this style of architecture is meant to express. Googie Architecture looks towards the future or at least did at the time of its creation. It was meant to be optimistic and enthusiastic. Exuberance (of design) verses thoughtfulness or melancholy (of the person). This is a way cool idea for a photograph.

The other issue that is essential to understand to keep you out of trouble is the difference between subject and composition. Dennis, I agree with your observations about the possible interpretation of her mood versus the mood of the environment, but to my eye, the environment could have been framed in a way that wasn't so aesthetically jarring. Get the battering ram out of her face, include the whole plant, wear neutral clothes to emphasize the play between her expression and the contents of the room. Back up a bit and let us read chaos first before we discover her in her solitude. Here we see her first, then fight off all the elements that are presented as visual intrusions (intended or not.)

Re: The Model

 

http://www.modelstyle.com/interesse.php?model=Eileen_1072113949

 

The link is under "Details."

 

--Lannie

You know, it occurs to me that art is to elicit a response. After reading all the comments and critiques on this photo the mission was accomplished.

 

~peace

A. McWilliams

A wide shot from a little farther away would be interesting in that it would take us a couple of moments to assess the scene and then discover the model within the scene and hopefully a more subtle and less jarring composition. Maybe the photographer was sparing us from seeing her fluorescent orange tennis shoes.

 

Good ideas do not always translate into good compositions and as I said way back at the beginning, this almost seems as though it were a hasty test-shot just to work out the very details we are discussing. The minimal direction of the model and the lack of attention to details make it seem as though she is was just standing in to test the lighting and composition. Whether or not it was by intuition or design, I think the photographer has an idea with some good potential. I hope he took more frames from other angles.

 

The wardrobe should have been a bit more neutral (as you said) and I would have brought in more plants or have added them digitally, which I thought about but did not have time to experiment with in my version. Your cleaned up version would work well also depending on the intended use. You would probably not use this as a cover shot just because it is so busy.

to Ed S--I think your "long lecture" actually made my point

Mona Chrome when you gonna post some pictures of your own. Words are fine but photos are sublime. What can we say because so far you are just some shade of gray. Without some images your words look so all alone. Mona, Mona Chrome, when you gonna post some photos of your own.

So one's relevance is judged by one's photos ? When people have a lot of respect for someone's photos, I've noticed they tend to agree with what he says too.. but no need to take photos to be a good critic.

 

And to come back to the subject: add more plants digitally ?? Staged or not, I think we have to learn to enjoy a moment without always trying to make it ideal.. this picture is not about perfection.

Lots of interesting new posts on this page. I'd like to react to some of them. Stefan, you wrote: "guys, we are looking at a picture on a screen!"

 

Yes, that's true, but there's a big "BUT"... The picture we are looking at is a picture that you can copy and open in photoshop, and once you do so, you can check which are the "out of gamut" areas, the areas that are not printable. Not so surprisingly, as I did that before posting my first comment, this yellow-red transition area and part of the yellow skin areas appeared not to be printable. Which can lead us to 2 objective conclusions:

 

1) Maybe the yellow/red transition area that Mary showed us a close-up of, would actually appear on a print much more gentle, and therefore it may be less of a problem.

 

2) But this also means that what we are seeing today on our monitor is really a web presentation, which doesn't actually translate to any possible printed photograph: so if we don't judge the colors based on what's on screen, then we have nothing else to judge, because a print that would look just like this can simply not be achieved.

 

Btw, Imho, it's in fact a good news that the colors seen here can't be printed just as they are, since I don't like them.

Then, I've got to agree with Carl Root on this one:

 

"You could bring "life and tension" by creating a busy scene in a more aesthetically pleasing way photographically. You're asking me to assume that the photographer intentionally placed the battering ram, purple pants, and green leaves just so in order to accomplish this distraction that would offset her serenity. It's possible, but I doubt it."

 

But, although the photographer probably didn't PLACE all the items and colors as we see them, probably he just caught what was in front of his camera because he was happy with the busy feel he saw. And that's ok, I think.

You wrote; "As for its technical completeness, who cares. Its too spontaneous a shot to bother with curves..."

 

Sorry if this reply sounds a bit harsh, but from what I've seen in 18 years working as a photographer, the only persons in the industry, who wouldn't bother about curves and colors of printed materials are the people who know the least about it.

You wrote: "Had this been a commissioned shot, I'm sure both model and photographer would have worked a lot harder." And you are apparently not very happy with the way the table was set.

 

My view regarding the set-up of the table - as a photographer who worked mostly on commissions between 1994 and 2004, is that it would all depend on what's the purpose of the image. Yes, the table is a mess, but depending on the brief, this mess could very much be intended. I have had - many times - clients asking meto mess up a set, precisely so that it wouldn't look arranged. And in other cases, the clients have requested that everything should be neat and tidy.

 

In the present case, if this isn't an assignment, andif the photographer means to pose a shot that's supposed to look like a candid, I see nothing particularly wrong with the mess.

Thanks for this great sentence, Dennis. I just love it ! :-)

 

Like Carl, "I agree with your observations about the possible interpretation of her mood versus the mood of the environment, but to my eye, the environment could have been framed in a way that wasn't so aesthetically jarring." What I have a little more problems to agree with is the part about the architecture being important. Or rather, I think the architecture is of GRAPHICAL importance, but not important for the semantics or significance of the picture. This girl - yes, lost in her environment - is still the main subject. So she has got to appear lost, but indeed, there were many ways to set-up the frame in order to oppose her to this exhuberant background.

 

I wouldlike to point out that the graphical quality of this architecture, as well as the busy-ness of the environment, are both preserved in black and white. But because the jarring colors are gone in bw, the model recovers at the same time a pleasant visual aspect and her role as a main actor. And the mess is still there.

 

So, yes, I agree, good ideas do not always translate into good compositions, but a good composition for a good idea is a composition that preserves the relative importance that all elements of a picture should have within a frame. In this POW, the composition is fine imo in bw, just not in color because the girl's expression is then overpowered by the color of her skin and by the cluttered colors of an already cluttered background.

I have also thought about the messy table and wondered if perhaps Jochen wanted it that way. I am also sure that the bamboo looked very nice in the larger setting, and thus it perhaps seemed to make sense to include it in the final composition, even though it does not really work there. Perhaps Jochen also wanted the shot to look like it was candid when it actually was not. (Surely we can all relate to that.)

 

Most of all, I think that he got the model's expression the way he wanted it at that moment, and grabbed the shot. Can't blame him for that. This certainly is not the worst PoW of all time, and all of us toss a lot (and some of us keep a lot) of shots that are much, much worse, which is only to say that we save very few of what we take if we take very many, and a lot of us take a lot more really bad shots than really good ones.

 

I didn't mean to express such contempt for the photo as a setup as to express a desire that it had been done a bit better. The setting was there. The model was there. The light was apparently good. Ultimately, however, the composition does not work, and the post-processing looks rather weird on my ancient Trinitron. Surely this is a place where we are invited to be perfectionists about someone else's photos.

 

Jochen, you have been very patient. I congratulate you on this photo and on getting Photo of the Week, but I offer what is now my standard caveat: I like some of your others a whole lot more.

 

--Lannie

"In the present case, if this isn't an assignment, and if the photographer means to pose a shot that's supposed to look like a candid, I see nothing particularly wrong with the mess."

As you already know, I'm sure, there's mess and there's mess.. a 'genuinely' messy table is really quite difficult to create, like asking a rather self-conscious model to 'just act casual'. This table seems hurriedly and rather carelessly cleared and re-propped, that's all. Which is would be ok, but for me it blows the candid feel more than the model's less-than-candid expression. My point was more, 'if you're going to set it up, set it up!' The caveat here of course is that it wasn't a commissioned shot; nonetheless, once you step into the scene yourself you can't go leaving big footprints everywhere.

I don't think the same applies to the 'clutter' of the rest of the scene, where colour (IMO) actually supports the composition to an extent, because there's real harmony there - hair/bamboo/wall complemented by the blue/greens - which you lose in B/W. A case of confusion achieving concord via a strong introductory element, ie colour. However, as I said earlier, had it been more selectively saturated, it would have worked so much better.

I think you make a really good point about printable colours, incidentally. I have several misgivings about digital viewing media and this is one of them. Well said.