Fen Funeral 06of10 The cortege leaves Susie's house and heads to the church

cool shot! you have provided a lot of mood in this image.

That´s what I call photography

Nice photo Ivan, brings in mind the times when the photography was an art. Which film and papers did you use?

You have a great title here, you have a man dressed in an original way, and you had the good idea to show HIM & THE WHOLE ROAD. This makes me feel that he's really an awkward man in an awkward situation. This is all good. BUT...

The way I would have dealt with this subject would have been to shoot after he passed the house. The fact that the face and the house meet isn't very good imo.

Besides that, I would also question whether we have here any good reason to break the sacro-saint rule by putting the man right in the center of the frame, despite his small size, and despite an otherwise asymetrical composition... My answer: I'd have wished the man were more to the right, and bigger then as well.

Last question being: how good was the camera level here ? If it had been a bit lwer, the man's shoulder's would contrast well with the sky, which souds better than the black on black we see here... Well, I'm not too sure honestly, because we would then loose the good topish view on the road...

Finally, a totally different but interesting possibility was to shoot from a position behind the man (middle of the road more or less). We would then lose the road perspective, and the shot would be very different, but might be better - not sure.

But what I feel is that the man was not at its best so small, so centralized and overlaping with this house. Therefore, just average in both aesthetics and originality, despite the fact that the subject was very promising. I think you basically did ok, but missed a much better shot. Just an honest opinion of course. Best regards.

I agree with just about every thing Marc has posted, except about him being in the middle. Sometime that adds to the awkwardness as he has no where to go, and no where to be coming from, so to speak. Even so, it would have been a better picture had the house been different relative to the man's position. Your sky tone is really nice, though. Many shots on days like this are rendered with a totally white, totally characterless sky.

 

I agree with you entirely on the 'ideal' placing of man, house, road etc. Though the shooting situation itself was far from ideal.

"failure...Never mind, try harder, fail again, fail better!"...Samuel Beckett

Marc, perhaps, has missed to notice the title of this folder and hence the context, especially evident from his comments about the title and the man's dress. BUT, if that's really the case, he has left a very precious little gem for you along the way. He said : "[it] makes me feel that he's really an awkward man in an awkward situation". So there's your winner, right there!

 

Ivan, BUT, if I may be prying my nose here more than I should perhaps am allowed to, I'd be curious to know how you fit into the context here. But since I see you've referred to the people by their first names, I'd assume (very wrong thing to do) you were quite 'connected' to the incident. I'm asking this only because the given context, is one of mournful nature and IMO, one that could be of reverence to a lot who are involved, though it could just be dismissed as a part of human life. And I'm just curious about the reasoning behind your decision to put these photos up on display for people to come in and just comment on the photographic aspects here.

 

Commenting on them as just photos, and nothing more, it would suffice here to say that I'd be in agreement with Marc since I see you are too about the perspective of the shot, both the height from the ground level and also in relation to the direction/angle of the street. In fact, I really like some of the photos in this folder, the light and tones in them. #3 in particular. But the gravity of the nature of the event is far overwhelming than the art and technique of photography. How vain would it be or how appropriate would it be if I say the tones look nice here and the light looks nice there?

 

But ofcourse, this is a photo forum and I have no doubt that viewers can freely comment on these pictures since they have been presented to them as pictures, nothing more, nothing less. But on the other end, one would have to transcend the emotional aspects to submit them as mere photos, if one were related to or were part of the event in some way or other. Or to not do so, one must have completely assumed the role of a person behind a camera and hence in that case would seek remarks on the accomplished task.

 

But I could be totally wrong here, these photos may be of journalisitc intent. Maybe you weren't that close to the heart of event, or maybe you were and have some emotional reason posting them. I don't mean disrespect to you, it's just a thought. As I was looking at the folder's thumbnails page, it crossed my mind and I decided to ask for your opinion, though it's none of my business to question the approrpiateness.

Good quote - Beckett is the master, no doubt.:-) I was called back in here by Balaji's comment. Indeed I had missed the name of the folder completely. Mea culpa, sorry. I never check folder names in general, because each picture should, imo, stand on its own, unless stated otherwise in the technical comment.

But now that I've seen the rest of the folder, I have to say that Balaji's comment makes a lot of sense. I've therefore revised my originality assessment. As for the general discussion about the importance of pure Aesthetics in any image, to me, it is most important. Can a picture only rely on a good & powerful idea - in general...? I don't personally think so. But of course it remains debattable.

Back to this image, and now that I know it is related to funerals, I must say it takes a new dimension, no doubt. Had the aesthetics of it been as powerful as the concept, the concept could have had as much impact as any concept possibly can. But the true power of an image gets validated through its Aesthetics - at least for me. Aesthetics have to somehow guide the viewer to the message and enhance this message. That's at least the may I see the role of aesthetics. Here is a shot by Ivan in the same folder that succeeds in doing so, in my view.

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=1042033

Regards.

Balaji,

you're correct in assuming that I am strongly connected with the subject. Susie was indeed a deeply loved family friend and your comments re my reverential nature are bang on. Susie's family asked me to document the funeral and in fact all have a copy of the Cortege shot across the Fen.

The family are happy for me to show the pictures and a large part of my reasoning for placing them on this forum was to gauge public reaction to them, in light of the fact that some newspapers here in the UK are interested in them and a larger story, on the nature and aspect of how the British deal with death and mourning.

I have to admit that it has been odd having people comment on their aesthetic (or lack thereof), but I realise (well I do now!) that the sensibilties of this forum perhaps aren't used to images and stories of this nature. That said, they are, eventually for public display and that means that Aesthetics and feedback do come into it, for which I heartily thank everyone here.

 

Ivan

Ivan, thanks for your comment to Balaji's post. It's great to get some perspective and you're right, photonet is not mechanically suited for storytelling, or sequence photos. You've done a good piece of work here and I'm glad to have seen it.

Thanks for the response, Ivan. I can put things into perspective a little easily, now. (I was sort of expecting you to bite my head off :-)) And yes, having a context greatly helps in appreciating a picture and this is so beneficial both to the photographer and the viewer of the photo.

No reason for me to bite your head off.

I was waiting for someone to ask your question of me.

Responsibility and context are of the utmost importance to me as a photojournalist and human being, you simply helped raise the issue. Ta very much.

Anybody that shoots with the sun in their face deserves my appreciation.

 

This pic tells me someone went out on a limb - both technically and artistically. And they did a wonderful job pulling it off.

 

I wonder if all the BS easy-mouth critics really understand the difficulty of such a photo?

 

Buck

Yo Buckwheat, I Agree Man Gotta Say something. How about shooting in to the light makes this A more old time looking higher contrast image, very cool and maybe not so hard to do, Just point the camera at the ground meter for you exposure point it back at the subject and shoot. If you have time if not than just shoot, nothing worst that missing A good shot.