bilbao , san sebastian (spain) Street portrait

Sergio has made other attempts at crating a painted appearance of photographs in his recent folder, notably these two:
http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=17620216
http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=17625717

The other images are actually quite pleasant and rather convincing, so the question for me isn't so much whether this particular PoW is overly spiced, but how can one go about making it into a painted-look in a pleasant and convincing way.

The process usually involves contrast and saturation adjustments which will mess with skin tones in a big way thus risking viewer objection as we have here. The inherent cartoon-like of the man and his pose makes it even more difficult, if not impossible to create an image that differentiates itself from every other similar picture processed in a similar way.

Of course to advance the discussion in this manner will require a larger original file with members participating in their own attempts and sharing results in the discussion. Personally, I'd rather see the discussion go in that direction rather than its current course which, for the most part, results in very little to learn from.

I don't really see the point of making a photograph look like a painting unless you're selling it to someone to hang above their fireplace who can't afford to have a real painting done. Again, that may just be me, but I like my photographs to look like photographs. Perhaps I'm missing something and I don't have a good appreciation of art. Perhaps my view of photography is too literal.

Bob, sometimes we experiment with a particular technique for no other purpose than for its learning experience, which I believe is a common phase many learners go through and worthy of discussion. The technique in question is just as legitimate as any other even if one feels it's less desirable.

I sincerely hope you aren't comparing this photograph and its technique with Van Gogh's A Wheat Field with Cypresses. Van Gogh was a master of post-impressionism, and his work will be viewed with respect and admiration for many more generations, just as it already has been. This photograph is computerized gimmickry, and is easily forgotten moments after I stop looking at it...although the headache it gives me lingers for about an hour.

Jim, as you can see from my comments, I don't compared this weeks POW with van Gogh. You mentioned green skies and I gave you an example. That's all there is to it.

Well, I never said it wasn't a valid experimental technique. I just said I didn't like it. I don't like the technique, I don't like the effect and it's been overdone by lots of photographers so it's not original either. There are probably lots of other techniques I don't like. I'm sure there are apps out there that will give a look like this with a couple of clicks. Just because you have a tool doesn't mean you have to use it. Not all experiments are successful.

I believe that Picasso's early work wasn't appreciated by critics either...and Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" caused a near riot with things being thrown at the orchestra, fighting breaking out in the audience and critics calling it puerile. Sometimes art isn't appreciated in its own time. Sometimes though, it's just not very good and nobody remembers those attempts. Presumably Edward Weston had 29 failures (at least to his eyes) before he shot "Pepper #30".

I'll eat anything once. Twice if I liked it.

As I said in my first comments, this photo treatment might work in the context of a graphic novel approach, or other coherent theme or visual narrative in which a series of related photos contribute to a visual narrative. I'm seeing some hints that you might be exploring that direction (also observed by Mike in the "Lonely meal", and "Siesta" photos).

As an example, I recently watched the movie version of Philip K. Dick's "A Scanner Darkly". Some reviewers found director Richard Linklater's Rotoscoping treatment baffling and unnecessary. I thought it added a wonderfully bizarre, uncomfortably nauseating dimension that perfectly suited Dick's twisted semi-autobiographical rambling paranoid story.

I also enjoyed the hell out of "Alien:Resurrection", despite the naysayers, because the over-the-top adult graphic novel approach perfectly suited the story and characters. It was reminiscent of early Heavy Metal magazine serials like "Den".

So I'm open to the concept of an over-the-top treatment of a photograph. I don't object simply because it doesn't suit my preconceived notions about photography. I don't have any preconceived or cast-in-concrete notions about photography. All I care about is whether it works.

But taken on its own, without any external reference or context, the heavy tonemapping seems gratuitous and unnecessary. As I said before, I like the original, unaltered photo. It's not unique but it does mine a familiar vein in photos I like by Garry Winogrand, Bruce Gilden and David Alan Harvey. The original, unaltered photo is the equivalent to chicken fried steak. I like chicken fried steak. It's great comfort food.

So, if you're asking whether I'd at least try the chicken fried streak with the chocolate red chili sauce, I'd have to say, oh-kay, I'll try it. I'm an adventurous diner. But I don't have to like it. I tried this photo and I'd rather have it without the sauce. If you insist on the sauce, leave the fried batter off the chicken. I love Central Mexican chocolate mole sauce on chicken - spicy but not painful, deliciously rich and savory, not sweet.

Without a context, a visual narrative theme, to relate to this photo's tonemapped treatment, it comes across as carnival novelty food, like batter dipped fried butter cotton candy sushi in a neon cone - an impressive accomplishment at a carnival, sure, but... served at the ballet, I'd have to wonder why? It's all a matter of context.

Fair enough. Here I made, admittedly quickly and crudely, changes to test my initial hypothesis. I have to say that I prefer this B&W version for the reasons I originally cited. I now feel the main subject come forward in the frame with a slight reduction of background detail. More "portrait-like".My philosophy is if color isn't specifically helping a picture, it isn't helping. Neither the original, cranked up version, nor the more subdued original version really adds anything to the scene to my eye. By simplifying, the scene, without the visual "noise", the shape of the man looms much larger and overall is more successful is conveying the interesting qualities that do exist in the frame.

I think the image works. But what is 'works'? That is different to all of us. To me, it's keeping the eye in, and 'works' had nothing to do with me deciding if it would look good on my wall or not. Don't really understand folks that make that the end all of the critique. But then again, I'm a painter AND a photographer; a photographer first, although I painted first as a kid. I don't necessarily like the attitude of the gentleman in the middle, his body language is disturbing, but that's maybe what keeps you looking too, what's he so disgusted at?

Another cool thing is the sky, it's kinda like an old faded Polaroid. Nice juxtaposition to the rest of the piece. I like the blue tones scattered throughout the piece too, ties it together nicely. I don't mind that it's over the top, it's art, art can be over the top. (Van Gogh was mentioned. NOBODY would mention him when he made art back then, all those impressionists were looked down on, by their contemporaries and the 'art critics' alike, now look at everyone fawning all over their art).

Now that I've seen the original, which to me is boring, I applaud the cropping and the treatment. The action of all the folks, looking this way, walking that way, seems balanced- and that's important to me. Very important.

And I like the fact he's so big he weighs down that side of the photo.
And why is that lady strangling that alien?


Those are jokes.
Good job Sergio.

Oh yeah, cool there still is 'photo of the week', I'd thought it'd been discontinued. Went on a photo excursion a year or so ago and noticed it was gone from the front page. Looked high and low and gave up.

Thanks Michael of your POW!

At the beginning the only tool was a camera and darkroom, I had this experience many years ago, it's gone. Now with a digital camera we have a lot of tools available. The photography on my point of view it's a strictly personal interpretation of a reality. Photography it's not only B&W, even if I love it, not only boring ripetitive nude, with some great original exception, for example Raymond Elstad. But also great fine elaborate works as Dina Bova or Jaqueline Gentry are showing here. I'm not defending my picture now, but the idea that different tools are giving now different opportunity of expression. At the end the voice "This image is unmanipulated" on the "edit image info" IMO it's not coherent with this digital PN. Thanks, ciao Sergio

Sergio, I always keep in mind the difference between "I don't think this manipulation works" and "I don't think manipulation works." In this thread, many have responded with the former, which may be misconstrued to be the latter.

I like many of Sergio works. In this POW I like the original version, Sergio, more than the color PP, as in my eyes the scene looks more natural. The diagonal composition is well done,with a bit of a sense of humor... and different generations behind.
There is also a message here, even though I'm not sure if Sergio was thinking about it when photographing the scene . But I think that somewhere in his mind it was"planted"... as he saw the very fat man ,a symbole of sick elements in our modern society, triggering him to take that street scene.

Sergio, I think like Fred said, the issue isn't manipulation but rather this specific manipulation. I think your reference to the other two photographers on this site, Gentry and Bova, would be good ones for you to visit and compare the way you have rendered your colors, in this image, to their use of color.

People have a tendency to react to the least desirable element and thus most have balked here due to the over use saturation and contrast, something that is not the case with almost all of the works by the two you mentioned above. Their use of color is a bit more subtle, even when they do push it, than your result here.

Certainly, that doesn't mean you have to use color the way they do but if they are people you look to for reference, then such a comparison might give some perspective to the comments you have gotten here on this image.

John, I don't want to make any comparison between mine shot and the great works of Jaqueline and Dina! I just taken them work like an example of photography out of the conventional scheme! That's all. My be my poor english, I'm Italiam, don't help me to explain clearly my mind. I think that many people are still thinking that photography must be done with fixed standar rules otherways is not a good stake with french fries! That's all. Ciao!

Sergio, I'm sure you are right, that there are folks out there, who would criticise any image, that is not fulfilling some standard rules on what good photography should look like, according to them, and who are not kind to those who experiment and brake rules. We meet them all around and they may be even hanging around in Photonet It just isn't really what has been discussed above concerning your POW.
As John so rightly mentions, and in line with most of the comments, including my own, the painterly color modifications you have tried experimenting with in the POW is not convincing to most of us.
That you in the same time have received a series of more positive comments on the scene you have shot, and the way you have cropped it and presented it, you should take as a compliment.
I should not forget to congratulate you on the POW. You are in good company !

I have to say that I rather like the post-processing here, even though the scene now looks more painterly than natural.

Either way, it is a fine photo.

--Lannie

Sergio: I am totally impressed by your integrity. Regardless of criticism (including mine), you must always stand by your work.

Sergio, I have said it before, that it will be more interesting to upload works of photographers that are active at the net, and can explain their point of view...
You are a very good example, of an interesting discussion. thanks, and congratulation.

I'm not going to be as congratulatory, because I was left with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth from the discussion.

Sergio, I appreciate your candid participation in this discussion. Like Michael, I think it's wonderful for a photographer to stand by his work. I think it somewhat less wonderful to characterize the genuine critiques of others as "people are still thinking that photography must be done with fixed standar rules" rather than simply accepting it as criticism of your individual photo and some of the choices you made and results you got in that particular photo. For me, an important part of standing by one's work is accepting rather than dismissing or so characterizing the criticism of others.

Dear all, notwithsatnding mostly comment was negative, I have appresciated your effort to explain why your feeling was negative. Unfortunatly there are some people in photonet that always rate (3) without any explication. I can easily listed some names. My be they are shy or may be they are coward... But, dear administrators, you can do thomething to avoid this, for example enable rate (3) only followed by a critic. It's question of trasparency! Thanks again for your attention. Sergio

That may be but it's irrelevant here. This is a photo of the week critique session, not a rating session. Viewers who access this discussion via the POTW route don't even have access to the options to rate this photo.

I'm doubtful that you can list the names accurately. Only photo.net administrators have access to that information.

This assertion appears often. I'll use my own member profile page to illustrate as I go along to demonstrate why you cannot know for certain who gives ratings lower than 6.

The only information that is publicly accessible about which specific members rated specific photos in a particular is via our " photos rated highest by this member" pages. These pages show only the photos members have given ratings of 6 and 7. On my page you can see which photos I have rated 6 or 7, and which of those two ratings I have assigned. Nothing else is revealed by that information.

If you visit the member's page for a summary of their ratings, you can see a numerical listing of how many photos they have rated, and a tally for photos rated 1 through 7. You cannot see which specific photos they have rated 3, 4, 5 or potato.

On my summary you can see that, as of this writing, my ratings given to other photo.net members are:

You may deduce from my publicly accessible ratings a few things:

• I like quirky candid photos of people.
• I rate very few photos 7.
• I give out fewer ratings of 3 than I'd have assumed.
• I stopped giving out rating of 1 and 2 because they don't serve any purpose. The photographers don't see any ratings lower than 3. On photo.net, 3 is the new 1.
• I rate most photos 4 and 5, because 4 is average, 5 is above average, (or slightly below average and average, if 3 is the new 1 - it would follow that 4 is the new 2 and 5 is the new 3, and 6 & 7 are the new 4 and 5).
• Most photos I see presented for ratings are average and above average. That seems to be a reasonable distribution if we assume photo.net should have a fairly high standard for photography, no matter which genre we prefer.

What you cannot deduce from my publicly accessible ratings is which photos I have rated 3, 4 or 5. That information is not publicly accessible. You may choose to take an educated guess. And if you obsessively keep track of every change in the ratings tally of another member, and click around to their highest ratings, and to every photo they have rated, you might believe that you have deduced a pattern that will reveal who doles out the threes. But your guess would still be inaccurate because some photos never accumulate the necessary total of five ratings to reveal the names of those who rated a photo.

In short, trying to guess who rates photos anything lower than 6 is futile and contributes to paranoia. It does not contribute to an atmosphere for constructive critiques, or gracious acceptance of constructive critiques that were offered in the spirit of a supportive community.

I can only conclude that your priorities are misplaced. Particularly in posting these comments on the numerical ratings system on a POTW critique.

I am trying to imagine a contestant in a televised musical popularity contest accusing at the live audience, and television viewers, of being cowards because they won't individually identify themselves to the contestant to justify why they did not vote for him or her.

Overall this has been a constructive and lively critique session. It varies quite a bit from the pre-POTW critiques given for this same photo. So it's enlightening in many ways, including clarifying our views on the critique process itself.

Ok Lex It's not a matter of discussion here, I agree with you! For sure it's not my priority, but nothing it's perfect as you well know!

Same to you Sergio, in the eternal city.