Fire

Paal Audestad just visited my photo club ( http://www.oslokameraklubb.no ). He is working for one of the largest newspapers ( http://www.aftenposten.no ) and is depending on his credibility for work. See his other work:

 

http://tekst.aftenposten.no/tekstcgi/tekst.cgi?stdsok=nwaisok&sidenfelt=dato&felt3=url&q1=paal+audestad&q3=&sidendata=m3

 

If manipulation is his way of work, then he got no time for taking pictures.

Well, I suppose there may be some who feel they can define what a photograph is; still others yet who feel they can define art for the world; but when people start thrusting their perceptions of reality on the world, that's going a bit too far, don't you think?

 

I had a friend once who said he only read dead poets'/authors'/dramatists'/essayists works because the creators could not offer their take on their own work. The creators' views are the least reliable, and the fallacy of authorial intention is one disposed of years ago for that very reason. Characters do not exist outside of the works of art they appear in; they have no lives, no past and no future except as those possibilities are suggested in the moment they appear, and in how they interact with the experiences of their audience. All art is manipulation of a medium, a moment and an audience.

 

I do not see in black and white. My mind does not take in its whole 180 degrees or so of visible coverage without focussing intellectually and emotionally (as opposed to simply optically) on something. The photograph's strengths are its grain and its weight. As the "telltale" brightening of the image shows, all photographs need considered manipulation to give them strength and impact. If it had been left without contrast but with detail whatever emotional power it has would be lost. Cropping the sign also changes this photograph as it is considerably, and I don't think necessarily for the better. There is a balance it provides with the woman in the bottom corner.

 

I wonder if the sign had been removed if there would be such uproar. Somebody a few dozen posts back (can't be bothered looking for the post now) can't believe the audacity of some photographers using photoshop to pass off bad photos as great. Even if that were possible, isn't the problem with photoshop when it detracts from the images quality in form and/or content somehow?

 

Not much real art criticism happening here, but what there is I enjoyed.

 

I like the image. The composition, texture and colour all reproduce in me the feeling I had inside on those rainy Vancouver days gone by, and the emotion a work of art instills in its audience need not necessarily be a product of its subject matter.

 

Equivalents. Art is reality. Truth is beauty...and any other way it's been said over the past four or five millenia.

 

 

I withdraw my earlier comment about this photo being "too dark". I always knew my monitor at work was miscalibrated, but holy #$%^!!!!! I'm at my "ex's" right now looking at this photo on her monitor, and it is precisely the way I would have printed/displayed it. Fabulous photo. Period... well except for those street signs others have commented on:-)

I've read all the above comments about how the use of photoshop means that images are no longer "real" because they don't capture the moment. This is of course, utter rubbish. The minute a photographer places a filter over his lens, or uses any lens other than standard, he is distorting reality. By using photoshop to tweak colour at one end, or to montage a whole image at the other is just an extension of the tools available to the photographer. Surely you wouldn't say that dodging and burning when printing black and whites was in anyway cheating, so why is it when done on a computer? The simple fact is that photoshop can't make a bad photo into a great one, but it can enhance and image when used properly. And if the enhacment is being made by the photographer, who are we to argue? It's all a creative process after all.

Cartier Bresson had a series of images that involved this delicious synchronicity, something he sought out in his photography.

People are responding as if it were a fake because they can not imagine so much irony in real life. Often times you will find that reality is a wonderful thing, creating coincidences unimaginable by the human mind.

I can really enjoy this image .. really nice..

I love the juxtaposition of the grey dreary street with the warmth of the event in the interior.

great moment capture -- have seen this image before many times but never commented --- thought it looked busy, and that perhaps cropping out the signs on left might work better; then read the other comments and saw others thought the same. With cropping I feel makes the image much stronger, brings the two critical elements in the story out and clearer in relation to each other

Great originality.I love it!

great composition!! I love the mirror image of the fire scenes and the reflection itself from the store window. It really caught my eye, good oringinality and lighting.

7/7

Since I live on the upper part of the street, near Birkelunden, I confirm the buildings exist on both sides of the street, the shop is called now "Edvards Kaffe", at the corner of Thorvald Meyersgate and Schouss Plass, down of Grunerløkka. I feel like there was no flash through the window but the portrait might have been "clear-washed" with Photoshop ? Today, the ladder of the truck stands on the exact place of the cables for the tramway... Well, nothing more to say for me, I don't feel like to smile about fire in the city of Oslo : this is not the common way of norwegians.

Aftenposten announced on the front page yesterday (11/09/2003, afternoon edition) that the collapse of many enterprises has created jobs in the country. Big joke :-)))

I consider myself pretty well educated in photoshop. Given what I am looking at there is insufficiant evidence to prove if this is a hoax or not.

 

I think it does matter, but for now I am going to take the side of the photographer.

 

I don't really get what he is saying about tradition and ritual however. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

The picture is good. period. 7/7 is my rating.

A photgrapher walks up to the banks of a river and finds it a perfect subject for taking photos. He even finds a rock to form a part of the foreground. But the photo looks too barren. Not much variation of colours in it. So he plucks some flowers with stems and plants them around the rock. The photo brightens up and he gets a picture perfect photograph. Was he right in doing so? Next he needed a photo of a dead tree. He finds one and photographs it against the sky with few clouds. He develops the photo, a very ordinary looking photo. He goes on to transform that photo into a very surreal picture with dramatic effects with the help of some latest software. Would you rate it as good phtography or skilled use of software?

7/7

 

A photography is a particular moment in life seen by a particular perspective. An instant in time which is caught and frozen by the camera following the photographer´s (artist?) taste and skill. You can even compose in a studio, adjust the light, process the film in many ways, adjust the tonalities in photoshop to match the colors to post it by the internet... you can crop and even double exposure (yes, that moment was there... twice!), but, don´t you touch the image! this is why the photography is so wonderful subject...

 

Paal´s picture remembers me a Cartier-Bresson´s one, of a long-moustached man seen by the window in a boat. This, like all mr. Bresson´s ones, is a magic single moment. Thank you and merry christmas!

 

 

Whatever it is originally pic or computer work! I love photographer's mind, put this contrast in order to pass message to us. Whenever we doing in our lives, there are so many things happening in other side of the world. Technical is not key thing in photography! I like it.

One of the best photos i have seen for a loooooooong time. Thanks