His mother's wedding...

Great selection of focal length. Awesome emphasis of "A picture tells a thousand words." Rockin! By the way, I agree with Jeff Spirer that regardless, take all comments and learn from it. So many heads out there with different perspectives. Gotta use that resource to better oneself.

I don't understand you. Almost everytime I take pictures of a party, including weddings, I take pictures like this one. I don't see anything great on this picture.

Marco, when you make a statement like that, you should expect that people will check your portfolio for the images that are clearly superior to this one. I did, and what can I say? Perhaps you should post your wedding pictures.

My pictures aren't that great, as isn't this one, that's why even I can take such a picture :-)

Marco, I'm not trying to be condescending, but another theory for you to consider is that this picture is great in a way that you are not yet able to appreciate, and when you can, you might have taken a step towards being able to equal it.

It might be helpful for you to post the wedding photos that you believe are as good. If they are, then photo.net will have gained some more wonderful photographs. And if they aren't, well perhaps someone will be able to help you see why not.

 

Almost any street or social documentary photograph which does not show something extraordinary like Diane Arbus-style freaks or drug addicts shooting up, etc, is going to look a little like thousands of hackneyed wedding pictures or snapshots. They all just show regular people doing normal stuff that everyone does. It is when the composition, the light, and the details combine in ways that are difficult to describe but can be recognized that such pictures become unusual and worthy of note.

 

Another point I wanted to mention: while most of the people who have talked about the "story" of this photograph have been admirers of it, I think they are admiring it for the wrong reasons. This picture is not fundamentally presenting a "story", as Vuk has correctly pointed out. This picture is about relationships, as almost any wedding photograph would be. This one has the composition, light, and detail that I spoke of. So I think this is a masterful photograph, but one will look in vain to discover a clear story here.

 

However, I do agree with Vuk that the woman being obscured by the central male figure is rather bothersome once you notice it. Another thing that I've realized from this week's discussion is that the composition is somewhat unbalanced on the right. This occurred to me after Sophia posted her diagram, where it is apparent that one corner of the compositional triangle is cut off. It was interesting that a few posts later, Chris mentioned that this is something that bothers him about the image.

 

 

I don't think the composition is "off" at the right. I think there is more "emphasis" on the left, but the beer glasses and the woman at right add sufficient balance. The fact that many did not notice that arm (and, after having it drawn to their attention, now do) only means that you can over-analyse anything, if you look hard enough. Some will see compositional flaws straight away, but most do not see them at all, or seriously, in this photo. That's a good sign. Regarding "stories". I don't think this tells a story, as such. But it SUGGESTS many stories... in fact, whichever story you want to write about it. It is a vehicle for our imagination, not just a sober piece of record-keeping. That is a definite strength of this image.

I remember being at a lecture all about Henri Cartier Bresson, the Talk was being given by one of the Magnum Photographers, who knew HCB quite well.

I knew very little about HCB, because I was a Don McCullin fan.

 

Now my older colleagues would often talk about Cartier Bresson, and as an eager teenager I was dead keen to see the Master's work.

Expecting great things,'...better than McCullin?', I sat transfixed as a slide showing the silhouette of a man jumping over a puddle appeared on the screen.

 

'What? I thought, am I missing something?

It's just a bloke jumping over a puddle, I take pictures like that all the time.'

 

Of course I never did take a picture like that.

 

Maybe I saw people jumping over puddles all the time, after all this was the UK.

My point is this, sometimes I can only appreciate something when I recognise a certain way of seeing ,or, I recognise the influence of other Photographers within a new Photographer's work.

 

(Please, before anyone leaps to their keyboard, I'm not comparing myself to Cartier Bresson, and Marco I'm positive you can shoot a picture with your own style to be POW).

 

I only know how I felt when I was first confronted with a picture labled good, when I only saw ordinary.

 

 

 

 

Wow, Seven, I'm surprised your second to last post didn't get commented on. I thought about responding to it last night, but hoped someone more eloquent than I would, but I guess I will.

 

I was stunned to read your comment implying that this is just a wedding picture and dismissing black and white photography as something juvenile. I had to go back and make sure this was the same Seven whose POW a couple of weeks ago was of a paperweight, and I thought of the way so many defended you when others slammed you for posting a picture of just a paperweight, yet here you are indicating that there is some lack of value in this picture solely because it is a wedding picture. You can do better than that. Surely you aren't so stuck in innanimate macro mode as to dismiss other types of subject matter as passe. Like it or not, I don't care, but I would expect a more careful analysis than that.

 

And then the black and white thing. I vehemently disagree with your implication that black and white is some kind of juvenile application of photography. I would encourage you to elaborate on your statement. Black and white photography is where many photographers learn, and many do move into predominantly color, that is exactly my history, but surely you realize that a person uses a somewhat different eye when composing and creating in black and white versus color. I've found that while I mostly use color now, periodically using black and white film or at least composing a color picture in my mind as if it were black and white is a refreshing and invigorating practice. When I shoot lots of color, I miss black and white, not in the way that I miss the carefree days of college, but in the way that black and white makes me feel fresh and brave. Color isn't going to save me or make up for compositional deficiencies. Understanding black and white and using it will truly help the compositions one does in color. Black and white alone does not a classic make in my mind. Of course the pictures most of America thinks of as "classics" are black and white, so a nice black and white image is more likely to bring ones mind back a few decades, but that's insufficient to imply that nothing new or fresh can come out of shooting in black and white, it just takes a bit more thought.

 

See, I'm not very eloquent, and I don't use either medium very well, but you made some sweeping comments in just a few lines that I think you have the insight to express more thoroughly and I would encourage you to do so.

Adams, Bresson, White, Weston........all a bunch of juvenile, black&white, punks. Yea right.....

Chris,Bill Brant would be proud of this one,knowing just when to press that shutter button,is what he exceled at ,you have that gift.

Color isn't going to save me or make up for compositional deficiencies.

I believe that's precisely what color does, Michael. In all too many cases color tends to confuse the issues of light and form, and not only is this confusion on the part of the picture taker but the viewer as well. The same mechanics are at work with film, if anything are exacerbated by the latter, more dynamc medium, one important reason why so much of film today will not (has not a hope to) stand any sort of test of time as there simply isn't much there of enduring visual interest.

Anyway, these well-nigh deprecating comments on Battey's work speak surely to gross ignorance of the photographic art form, both in terms of the technical demands and, concomitantly, lack of appreciation for the artist's expression in general.

I'm not sure Seven can be criticized for his subject matter, exactly. Afterall, there is a demand for this material, and ought a paperweight be deemed any less viable a photographic subject than, say, the Empire State Building? Evidenced by the wide acceptance of it I'd say that in today's art climate the paperweight enjoys the inside track! Still, it might not be a stretch to observe that as artists Seven and his contemporaries stand small chance of fruitful development unless they somehow learn the value to rise above an art culture which places significant, in some extreme cases exclusive, demand for this sort of fare. But as with all human endeavor the math is that most individuals lack the capacity to reasonably escape the gravitational pull of their cultural directives, and so they can never hope to realize unique and independent orbits for their art expressions. Instead, they produce and give only that which they are told.

This offering from Battey is excellent in its own right, to be sure, yet I don't find it to be the most startling or brilliant in his modest (that is to say, limited) Photonet portfolio. That being the case, how could we expect the community here to appreciate some of his other more daring work? The answer is we could not.

Look. Photonet is not primarily composed of people with artistic concerns per se but rather this is a crowd posessed of and obsessed by neophilia. This is all too stridently expressed in this server's collective actions, comments and, we as find it, art expression. Once a man comes to realize this he understands it is time to move on with regard for "art instruction," for with such an aggregate assembly that otherwise happy pursuit is not on the cards. One doesn't hawk genius in the street.

Yes, there exists balance, and a top class composition - but that cannot rescue this image from being rather ordinary and lacking very much in the originality department - just MHO okay?

Balance and composition are one and the same thing, Seven--or rather more carefully it would be correct to state that balance is an integral part of the larger concern of composition.

Getting around that technical nicety, your argument is that this image essentially lacks that which you deign to be "original."

Listen. There is a place for originality in the photographic arts, there is a place for originality in all of the arts. But there is a place for everyday ordinary life as we find it as well. Indeed, the latter is what we should expect to find with most artistic expression as it represents the common field around us. To grade down an image because it is not "original" then one needs to be entirely more explicit than what I've read here. What, because this is not the first wedding reception ever given therefore this picture is not to be considered "original"? You might as well deliver yourself to the opinion that a photograph of the Sistine Chapel is not "original" for the reason it's been photographed countless times before and so no matter how expertly rendered could not be good. Proclamations of this sort amount to no more than gibberish.

In short, love of the new.

My definition would be, "love of the recent".

 

 

To my mind this picture is extremely original. It leapt out of the page at me as a novel and witty take on what has become a routine genre. Even in the (now fashionable) "candid" section of a modern wedding album, you rarely find something as frank as this image. Usually the out-take pictures feature people making silly faces, or dropping their pants (as the grog sets in). But this picture has captured a moment of by-play across the banquet table that we feel we weren't supposed to see. It does have all the classic "wedding photo" prerequisites: guests, best man, bride etc., but also with the startling and humorously inserted addition of "the baby". It is the baby, for me, that engenders the initial process of uncertainty and tension here. Just what IS going on? It's a confusing mix of story potential that baffles the viewer (well, THIS viewer) and makes the resultant image more interesting. I'll bet the actual story of what's going on here is really quite innocent and perfectly straightforward. It's the presentation of it that bewilders and captivates.

 

That it is also close to perfect pictorially takes it onto the shortlist of "the best" pictures on photo.net (although its ratings are a positive scandal... most were given in a less "generous" era, all of three months ago). Damn your luck, Chris. And damn your eye.

 

As far as "cleverness" and "originality" are concerned, as criteria for rating a photograph around here, I'm not too happy with them either. The two concepts are too close to synonymous to separate them effectively (this is shown by the common practice of rating pictures with equal ratings in each, "2/2", "8/8" etc.). Perhaps "cleverness" and "originality" could be merged together into Morwen's "creativity", with the second criterion becoming "execution".

 

"Creativity" could cover both the aesthetic appeal and the original thinking behind an image and "execution" might encompass aspects of "technical competentcy" (everything from focus and exposure to print quality) as well as a whiff of pictorial qualities like "composition", balanced against the degree of difficulty that would have been needed to capture the image in the first place. In this case we might give more allowance for a well-executed candid photo, compared to a workmanlike (but technically "better") studio photo. A landscape shot from the top of Half Dome might rate better in the "execution" department than one shot from the parking lot at the bottom of it (is there a parking lot at the bottom of it?).

 

 

i didnt read all of the final few posts..prob should have...but black and white photojournalism is very popular with weddings right now. Bambi Cantrell does a wonderful job of it, just check out her book.

 

there have been a lot of 'pointers about composition' but in wedding candids the whole point is to NOT look posed. the unposed shots with uncle fred in the background smiling at his niece, even though it looks like his arm is growing out of the nearby potted plant, will sell more than one of him not smiling but with his arm looking better.

 

 

it's a great shot bro. do you do weddings professionally? too bad for us if not..

My reaction, after studying the photo and its title for a few minutes, but before reading any commentary is as follows:

 

I dont like the naming of a photograph in a way that adds considerably to the viewers interpretation of whats going on in the scene. In my opinion, a photograph should speak for itself.

 

The comment about his mother and wedding adds a great deal to what one could reasonably infer from the data in the picture. What I see here is a candid shot of a gathering, of people in their good clothes, at a banquet table, and amidst modest surroundings. The young woman who is standing and holding the baby appears to be either a bride or a brides maid, and appears to be absorbed with the baby, while the babys mother (in front of whom are two empty baby bottles, which in itself suggests that they have been there for a couple of hours) is possibly responding to her crying baby.

 

At this point I ask, What does the photographer mean by His mothers wedding? Whos mother, not likely the babys mother, because that would be the lady who is reaching back. Is the photographer being funny with his comment his implying that the baby is being held by his mother and that the mother has gotten married after the baby was born. Im confused by the word his.

 

The man with the diamond-marked tie appears to be furtively attempting to catch the eye of the man in the foreground (With similar curly, black hair hanging down their foreheads, they look as if they could be brothers who are similar in age, and who can communicate with each other by simple facial gestures). But what is he trying to say? Is he saying, Danny, is this thing as much a drag to you as it is to me? or perhaps hes looking at a man he doesnt like and is thinking, Just look at the way that S.O.B.s pretending to be concerned about a crying baby when he actually despises the little blighters.

 

That look is more like a Rorshach ink blot which could take on many different meanings in the absence of more information in the photograph. If the scene showed him looking like that while an older woman and her second husband exchange wedding vows or cut a cake, then his candid thoughts would be clear, and wouldnt need outside interpretation that he disapproves of the wedding of his mother if thats what the photos caption is intending to say.

 

The burned out window and left hand side of the table where the sunlight is apparently shining on the table makes the photo look as if some bleach was spilled upon it. Although the man with the look is nicely exposed, much of the background is blemished by too much sunlight.

 

Im confused further when I look at the standing ladys veil and ceremonial dress. Because her dress looks as if it is possibly white, she could be the bride. If so, how could she be the seated mans mother? I then think, is the caption possibly saying that the baby is illegitimate and that his mother is just getting married. If so, so what? More than half the babies born in Gr. Br. are illegitimate, thus making this after-the-fact-marriage unworthy of mentioin. Im confused.

 

Jim Vaughan

 

The title relates to the Son, seated left.

It is his mother who is getting remarried.

The baby, is her grandchild.

 

I disagree with your comments on captioning, this is a documentary Photograph showing a wedding.

 

The true caption should say,

wedding of blah blah, Preston Lancs UK. 1989.

 

However as this is Photo.net and not a newspaper, my title is a little more ambiguous and reflects my own tastes.

Right.... now I get it.

 

It's funny that Jim said the title took all the mystery out of the photo and then proceeded to speculate on what was going on for the next four hundred words.

 

We've agrued on these pages about technique (THAT window), composition (THAT triangle), the story (just WHO is WHO?) and now the title.

 

As we say in Australia, Chris, "Played hard. Done fine." As a PoW, this is a winner.

"...documentary of a wedding"? You mean a photo of people at a wedding reception, don't you. I do agree that it's an excellent candid photograph. But I after reading all the commentary, I don't think this photograph is as special as the crowd says.

 

Jim

 

I insist that this photo has nothing great. It's in B&W. Imagine it in colour. And I think most people here are rating the photographer, not the photo.

B/W is a legititmate art,as a matter of fact. For canidids and/or portraiture it allows emotions to come through more clearly. The cacophony of sensory input provided by color has to handled very delicately to provide that clear of a message. This is rare and simply not always achievable.

I really like you're candid style of photography. Almost a Cartier-Bresson, the decive moment... Well caputered !! Hope to see more shots like this in mono print.... Great work !

As though it was a well scripted group movement.Magic.Fluid.Perhaps the most amazing wedding photograph I have ever seen.This is the poster child of the need for more wedding journalists.

Nice black and white, interesting composition, and I like all the others in your folder as well.