Boys in Blue/Yellow

The shadow of the tree on the wall is what I would be excited over if I had taken this picture. I wish there were a little more space under the feet; but mostly I wish I could see more detail in the boys, esp. the faces. As it is, it has the quality of a colour photo in a newspaper.Charo:?hay alguna explicacion por nosotros?

I'm just glad that my favorite photographer has the photo of the week!well done, Charo! I love this photo (nice composition, a smart play of colors) but I want to congratulate you for all you work.

¿Qué piensa, Charo? ¿Voy a morir esta noche--o mañana por la noche? Lo siento muchísimo por manipular su foto buenísima. Solamente es una idea.

 

Just an idea, guys. Doing it right would take hours.

Looking at this photo, one might think the feet were cut of during a fast grab shot. However, taking a look at your portfolio, you do this all of the time. Its a bad idea. I do like this photo, however. It has good composition, and very pleasing colors. The tree shadow on the wall really helps.

"Very nice image Charo, but a question... part of what I like about this image is the shadow of the tree on the wall. With the light behind the boys and casting their shadow in front of them on the wall as well, how is the shadow of the boys head lighter than the shadow of the rest of him?

I think the reason the body shadow is darkerthan the shadow of his head and sholders is because the "body" portion of his shadow overlaps with the shadow of the smaller boy. This overlapping double shadow should be more intense than if theshadows did not overlap. If you don't believe me try observing shadows of your two hands in a room with two light bubs that are near each other: move your hands relatie to each ther and also closer and farther away from the surface the shadows are cast on.

I really Loved the contrast of colors and the shadows

The notion of a "painterly feel" is really a sort of cliche that does little to benefit the medium of photography and critique. If you took a photograph of a painting would it then by necessity have a "painterly feel"? What are you really trying to say? Speaking to a photograph in photographic terms rather than summing it up in light of another wholly unrelated medium seems the better way to go.

 

The digital embellishments (Lannie's as an example) also detract from the notion of good photography and good critique. Good photography is really about 3 things:

 

- inspiration

- camera position (relative to subject)

- light capture

 

As soon as you enter digital embellishments (i.e. cloning of elements) into the equation you've left photography and entered the world of digital imaging. Digital imaging has it's own merits but it has little to do with inspiration, camera position, or light capture. Digital imaging to "improve" the composition of a photograph is really just pseudo painting. It's interesting as a "what if" scenario in certain instances but most of us have the imagination to see those feet fully revealed without the help of added pixels.

 

With regards to the POW I agree that greater sharpness (faster shutter speed) might be desirable since detail in those kids offset by the softness inherent in the wall textures and shadows would serve the image's dynamic. I do enjoy the colors and the mood they create but beyond those elements I don't feel a strength of statement (inspiration) that makes this image overly compelling. To call this image "exquisite" by definition means its flawless.

I'm not sure this photograph would be improved by moving the boys higher in the frame. For me the subject of the picture is the subtle texture and complimentary colors of the wall. The boys help give the picture scale and their placement draws attention to line between the two colors. This is a wonderful shot.

So digital manipulation is not about photography and photography as a medium has nothing to do with painting as a medium? We all have our dogmas, but assertions without rational argument is not meaningful criticism. Those who agree with this dogma will continue to espouse it as self-evident gospel, and the rest of us will continue to redefine the ART of photography. Pronouncements such as these sound authoritative but simply represent the rigidity of a school of thought that cannot cope with innovation.

While we're on definitions, ."exquisite" does not mean "flawless" (and "by definition" at that). Flawless means perfect--by definition--and no photograph is perfect, but many are exquisite. Is the present photograph perfect? Not at all. Is it exquisite? That is a personal judgment that tells more about the viewer's response to the photograph than it does about the photograph itself. I like this photo, but I would like it better if it were not cropped so tightly at the bottom. I got a better sense of how it could look by manipulating it. Then I decided that I would share that with whoever wanted to see it. I hope that some found my digital manipulation for the sake of critique to be a valid and useful tool of critique--it is not in itself critique, good or bad. It appears that for you the use of digital tools and techniques for any purpose besides uploading photos taints everything into which it comes into contact, and one wonders why you drew the line even there. In spite of these differences, I found your critique useful because it does point up the fact that digital techniques cannot take the place of good solid fundamentals at the capturing stage. Focus and sharpness could have been improved, for example, and overall composition could be better. I still like the photo.

So many questions in just one day!... I don´t know where to begin, probably from the begining.

 

I took this shot 2 years ago in Cabo Verde Islands, by that time I had just taken up a course on photograph, and left my old point&shoot camera. So my first reflex was the FM10, and when I took this shot I hardly knew how to meter and how to work with the shutter speed, f-stops and how to get everything on focus at the same time! Needless to say, that composition was something completely unknown to me (as it is today...) So that´s why the feet are missing, that easy. If I were to shoot this again I would try not to make the same mistake, as Joseph has commented, there is quite a similar shot in my portfolio Helder Patrick that is out of focus, and a girl without her feet, am I addicted to cut everyone´s feet?

 

Any way, what caught my attention on taking this shot, was the blue/yellow wall, and has someone has pointed out: the shadow of the tree on it, but suddenly (well at least for me it was too quick ), these kids came by, dressed in the same tones, and this is all I could do.... Does this photo deserve the POW status? I´m not the one to say it, but you, and the rest of the photo.net comunity.

 

What you see is what I have at home, well, that´s not true: all of you have commented the quality of the image, and that it´s very unsharp, what can I say? The original slide is sharp, not very, or pretty, or too sharp, it´s sharp... but with a flabted scaner, what can you do? Most of us, can not afford a decent scanner for our negatives and slides, and the version I have submitted it´s the best I managed with my, sometimes-loved-but-most-of-the-times-hated scanner.

 

As Marc has said, there are some other shots in my portfolio far better than this one, and I do agree with him. I was very surprised, when yesterday I find out that this shot was the POW, I told to myself Charo, you must be prepared for all kind of critics... and here they are.

 

Scott was the first one ask me a question, about the strange shadow of the boy´s head, but some comments later, Ellis answered to him: I think it´s just a matter of the position of the two kid´s bodies and the direction of the sunlight, no added effects with PS, if I knew how to, I would have followed Lannie´s suggestion since she has done quite an interesting job building the ground at the botton but it works (I still have to learn a lot about PS)

 

So, that´s all folks! and thanks to all of you who stopped by and left a comment.

After some groundwork.

Smaller version.

Finally, it's time to stop praising photographs for their "painterly"

feel. There's nothing morally wrong with making a photograph to

look like a painting, but I think it's passe' to praise or encourage

such activity. Photography is all grown up now. Photographs are

uniquely different from paintings in all respects."

 

-- * Doug Burgess

 

Don't worry Doug, some contemporary painters have -- on the

other hand -- what they call "photo realism".

Ellis, I see what you are saying, but as I understand it, the only way to have overlapping shadows is by having more than one light source. If dealing with a single light source, the shadow of one boy would either fall onto the other boy (if aligned properly) or would find its way to the wall in a unique position. Just so it is clear, I AM NOT making any accusations about anything. Charo has said that nothing was done and that is good enough for me, but I am still curious as to how this took place.

It´s a photo hard to put your finger on, very nice and perfect, but also a big cliche I think..

Could it be that the ray of sun that projected the head's shade was somehow mitigated and/or deviated by the tree?

Excellent use of subjects, tone, and use of thirds. Definitely an aesthetically pleasing photograph.

 

What I wish to know is: did the boys know you were going to photograph them at this moment? I always love to find out the relationship of the model to the photographer.

What relationship is there between painting and photography? Aesthetics? No. Technique? No. Tools? No. Use of computers to replace the Artist's direct hands-on involvement in the work? No.

 

There is no "dogma". What there is, is a great spreading of misinformation about mediums that seem the same but at the level of ART, are entirely different.

 

There is photography. There is digital photography. And there is digital imaging. Digital photography utilizes many of the same tools as photography but relies on digital information (pixels) to produce the final product (print, jpeg etc.). It is a form of DIGITAL imaging. To get a print you MUST push a button and wait for a device to lay down color droplets (or laser light) onto paper. You seem to want to say this is an expansion of the ART of photography. No, it is an expansion of a XEROX idea known as cheap reproduction. And on one level that's great for the general culture of photography.

 

But the ART argument inevitably leads to the parallel conclusion that a lithograph of a painting is somehow greater ART than the original. That's nonsense. And I'll defend that "dogma" until I die. Time and history are on my side.

Photographers should accept PS manipulation when women accept cubic zirconium, and for the same reason.

Hey! I like cubic zirconium! LOL

It's certainly striking and attention-getting! The boys are charming and I'm really curious about what they are looking at. The colors are wonderful together and visually very pleasing.

 

Regarding the walls, the shadows are fantastic! I love how they form a natural border at the top, and how the two boys become one in the shadow. Too bad about that darkish patch at the top right. A slight camera shift downward would have eliminated that and dealt with the feet at the same time. Hindsight is 20/20 ...

 

As far as its sharpness, I would like it either sharpened or creatively filtered but not "almost sharp" as it appears online. If there were more space beneath the boy's shoe and the edge of the bottom frame I'd say it's compositionally solid but as is ... well, it's awkward and it looks like a mistake.

 

I think the weakness of the cropped feet is too high a hurdle to get over. The good things about the image just aren't strong enough to carry the image as a Photo of the Week, in my opinion.

"Time and history are on my side."

 

Well, Douglas, then why don't we leave this issue for time and history to resolve? This photo has a lot going for it, in spite of certain technical impefections. Some of these imperfections can be corrected using digital means--others cannot. I would not for a moment think about uploading as one of my works one in which I used the degree of manipulation that I did for heuristic purposes.

 

Thanks for your comments.

I am so glad that this photo was chosen as PoW, which, as has been stated many times, does not mean that it was the BEST photo of the week, but one that was quite good and--even more important--was worthy for the sake of stimulating meaningful discussion.

 

The colors are exquisite--and so was the shadow of the tree, in my opinion. Beyond that it has problems. The fact that the feet were almost chopped off (not "cropped" off, since that would imply a deliberate decision during the processing phase, not during the capturing phase) has raised for me some very fundamental questions. Let us look at these questions in the larger context of veracity.

 

Douglas Vincent and I do agree about the virtue of veracity, although we interpret photography differently in terms of veracity. I do think that it is incumbent upon any contributor to make clear the relevant degrees of manipulation--that might include darkroom techniques, by the way, and not merely "digital darkroom" techniques. In mountain photography, it would also require one to state when a telephoto lens has distorted the steepness of a mountain slope that faces one, or that distorts the relative distances between two ranges of mountains or other objects. Then there is that wonderful/dreadful question of the veracity of optically manipulating depth of field/focus. We know that people will use lenses to create dramatic effects that are not true to the goal of a realistic portrayal of reality. That does not bother me as long as people are forthcoming about what they have done--or as long as it has become standard usage and the viewer/purchaser is not thereby deceived.

 

By analogy, we can do many wonderful things with the computer, in the same way that lenses can do wonderful things--not to mention the true darkroom and its chemicals. There is always the potential for deception, but there is also the potential for creativity, and I for one am glad (at times) that certain mountain photographs are more dramatic than the real scene through the use of various lenses--or emulsions, or darkroom or printing techniques, broadly interpreted. In the same way, I am glad that the computer can do certain things of an equally dramatic and creative nature.

 

In the case at hand, the photo of two boys walking in front of a wall, the question is whether it would be ethical to add some more "ground" so that their feet are not at the very edge of the composition. Although I just said above that I would not do that for the sake of upload of my own work (having joked about it previously and offered a manipulated version of Charo's work in order to see just how much difference it would make aesthetically), I have to reconsider. How much "lying" is there in such a case? Well, there is none if one tells what one has done. Was it an accurate portrayal of reality? Well, that question entails another: the reality of the capture, or the reality of the moment of capture? The longer that I look at this photo, the more I am convinced that there is no clear ethical reason to go either way, provided that one is honest about what one has done.

 

I have written too much already. Therefore I will not try to answer that question in the instant case. Thanks, Charo, for the photo, and thanks, Douglas, for raising the truly essential issue of veracity. I will leave the deeper reflections about the "art" question for another time--or for a forum.

 

Even so, let me just conclude that "touching up" has always been a slippery slope--always has been, always will be. When is it justified? In addition, when are artificial means (chemicals, lenses, computers, printers) justifiable in producing images that can be argued to be BETTER than the reality? "Art" and "artificial" come from the same root. Why not just toss all of our equipment and go LOOK at nature or people? But, oh, don't bother to bring your glasses or binoculars, much less a camera and all its encumbrances. Someone (such as Thoreau or Muir) might or might not call "foul," and they might or might not be right.

 

I have an open mind on these issues. Somebody please enlighten me. I was facetious about the idea of the manipulated upload when I first suggested it. I'm not being facetious now.

My feelings about image manipulation has been stated/implied on a number of previous posts.

 

In general, I think there is a "grammar" or agreed set of rules for various sub genres of photography.

 

My default setting is no image manipulation, but if present, the DEGREE must SPECIFICALLY stated, or obvious to a reasonably trained viewer.

 

If grammaw sends us a formal studio portrait, we know that she is wearing a wig, makeup, and the photographer used a soft focus lens. This is part of the "grammar" of the formal studio portrait, and does not have to be specifically stated.

 

If grammaw sends us a photo of herself with the body of JLo, and lying on a beach in Buenos Ares with Fabio, she needs to inform us if there was significant manipulation of the image.