ballet

I had to stop even though I have no time!! I think this is a wonderful photo. this is really a

great mood photo and speaks volumes compared to some of the other ballerina shots. I

don't know how her feet got there, but that is part of the wonder of the image. At first I

thought it was a little girl on a bench, but then thought otherwise, it really doesn't matter.

 

There is a wonderful balance within the image without cropping. The brightness in the

upper left actually helps hold that corner against the dark lower right. If there is anything

about the photo that holds it from being totally incredible, it might be the line of stuff-

edge of mat or some tape maybe--that looks like it could be trash on the floor. If it were

mine, I would probably try to clone it out, at least minimize it that way. But it is still

wonderful.

 

I have to admit though that I went to your portfolio hoping to find more of this type of

image and was disappointed not to find any. So I am left wondering if this is a one off or

if it is the sign of things to come.

I thought I would post a quick version with the line of "stuff" removed for your consideration.

I like the voyeurism atmosphere of this photo. With all the shadows and impossible point of view it looks like the photographer/the viewer is hidden somewhere in the room. IMHO this is the strongest asset of this photo.

well deserved ..and no crop please

Congrats Denis. You have a fine portfolio, but I'll second the call for more like this. You have an eye for this style although I can't make up my mind about this particular shot. Doesn't need cropping. I don't like the over exposed window and the big ugly dark area. But, I love the grittiness of it and the way it makes you feel that ballet is sweaty, hard lonely work ... not anything like the usual pastel-colored, diffusion filter girl in a tutu shot. I also like the square format and the Holga feel. So, a creative, interesting effort but not a complete success.

PS: The cleaned up version posted by Mona C seems much better.

I just noticed that my cleaned up version disappeared and may have been too big, so here it

is again

I think that any crop would destroy the image. I like it/prefer it as it is.

The contrast in the details works very well. The brighter foot has a dark background; the foot in the shadow is next to a bright portion of the wall. The timing of the shot to get uniform separation between her toes and the dark line is a nice touch.

 

(I wonder if this is a posed shot - feet just so, sitting on a table . . . . . would make composition and sharpness a lot easier :-))

 

Naw, a few frames at F1.8 and a bright room probably got you what you wanted. Well done.

I was attracted to it immediately and then got caught up reading the comments. So my initial gush of positive feelings for it began to diminish somewhat- OK, so maybe I overreacted. But it is nice to feel excited about an image, even for a few moments. The more I read the more I thought about how much I prefer the look of film. But then, I really liked Mona's cleaned up version! And it would be really difficult to do that with film... Sigh. All this striving for perfection fatigues the soul, but we can't help it, can we? Thanks for an inspiring image, and the interesting comments.

funny thing - my immediate impression was 'great photo'. I definitely wouldnt crop - you'd lose the light reflection on the left hand part of the floor. Then I started imagining the ballet dancer had been hung (same thought as Kelly L). I still really like it - yes the the cleaned-up version's nicer but then again it's no longer an 'original'.

A ballerina's feet I do not find all that original or interesting (done over and over, like an old person's hands) but I do like how you captured the feet here and the tone of the image. I do however find the composition not altogether compelling or flattering and the background is certainly way too busy and distracting IMO.

On the issue of cropping, I thought if you take a little off the top and enough off the sides to make the layout more vertical, it would create a greater feeling of lift, or in some minds a shorter rope from which she is dangling. Again all relative to what you are going for.

I really like the cleanliness of Mona's version and I like the out-of-focus background details because they give me a sense of place. I don't think the feet would be strong enough to hold it on their own, in part because they feel a bit lazy to me. Until people suggested she was jumping I assumed she was sitting on a bench. Congratulations on this photo!

Thank you for all of the constructive comments - here are a few extra notes on the photo itself.

This was not a setup shot or done in a studio.

It was done in a basement during a real ballet lesson.

There was hardly any light coming inside from the small windows... the matress was black and old - the "dirt" on the picture is pieces of the matress or pieces of tape sticking up. The girl was not sitting... she was jumping: you can see her image in the mirror at the back of the room (right of her leg) + a second girl next to her.

Let's just say that it was a challenging environment as there was three very different light sources creating weird colors casts on the subjects.... I wanted that shot and got it and it was shot with a PJ approach more than a studio perfect concept in mind - shot with my Drebel at 1600ISO with a 50mm 1.8 lens/conversion and noise added in PS

 

Thank you for the great feedback and input

Here is a totally different crop I made back when I shot this one... but I felt like it lost the "storytelling" part created by the busy/dirty not perfect room.

I think it is a great photograph, in my opinion some people focus too much on the perfection of what a shot could have been, other than what is was. It told its own story wheather it was cropped, or composed badly or too much/less contrasty. If photographers were more like bikers, they have a saying, it doesn't matter what you ride-only that you do. "Ballet" is what it was at that moment..... my hat off to Denis Germain for capturing the moment.

somehow the image did not show...

Well, one could argue that it's a fake story, that the image does

not

tell any story in particular, that it invents a story and

then does not tell it wholly, interrupting and hiding parts of it,

that the image merely suggests what it invents,

nothing more. That doesn't reduce its appeal to me, though.

It told its own story wheather it was cropped, or composed badly or too much/less contrasty

Well, there's no way to avoid the fact that composition is an integrel part of what makes a photograph work or not. And the "story" here isn't compelling enough to overcome an awkwardly tilted and cluttered background. If the subject were Lee Harvey Oswald being shot, perhaps we take what we get- but there are thousands of ballet dancers jumping every day, and thousands of opportunities to make a successful photograph of one. This was a good effort, has some interesting aspects to it, but that doesn't make it a good photograph. Not that composition has to follow any particular rules, but it does have to work in one way or another, and this one is just awkward.

J'aime beaucoup le grain. C'est tres reussi. Bravo!

Salut Denis !

Superbe photo ! (je l'avais déjà vu dans ton portofolio).

Elle semble soulever beaucoup de discussion.

Je crois qu'elle doit être prise pour ce qu'elle est. Une photo difficile à réaliser, à laquelle on

devait penser et l'exécuter comme on le souhaitait.

Salut à toi !

Sylvain

If it does appeal in a sort of dark way, then I think the question is-Is the photographer interested, aware, or able to build on it in that direction? Given what's in the rest of his folder, left alone, this photograph is an isolated accident, and it loses on that account.

Awkward, dark, sometimes it is just a matter of opinion. I didn't see either. We can only

bring ourselves to an image, I guess.

 

As to the clean up, I once had a prominent landscape photographer look at one of my

photos and indicated his pleasure with the image, but it was some leaves floating in the

river that distressed him. He asked me why they were there and I told him that "they WERE

there" he said "but they don't add to the photo, spot them out"--back in the early "80's we

didin't have computers for cloning. Whether the line of "stuff" is important or not is really

left to the presenter.

 

One thing that I haven't read about here is the wonderful placement of the feet. Probably

not a conscious thing by the description of how this was made, but it is really from

unconscious that genius emerges. The way they rest on the aura of the line of the wall is

incredible. Lower and they fight with the black line, higher, it might as wll be an

overthought studio photo. Perfect.

 

Finally, I don't normally like one offs, and the portfolio would lead me to believe that this

could be one, but I prefer being an optimist that this is an omen of things to come from

this person. If this wasn't such a wonderful photo in itself, I might be less generous, but

this one doesn't need a supporting cast to give it, or the creator, credibility.

One comment that I thought might be appropriate after these last few comments has to do

with viewing a presenter's portfolio. I actually do think that it is important to spend the

extra time to at least get a feel for the person's body of work. It gives you context for the

photo you are looking at, as well as some insight into the person's way of seeing. This

doesn't change the "value" of the image you are looking at, but it does allow for more

thoughtful and complete response, in most cases.

 

In some cases, if the viewer doesn't "get" the image presented, and the portfolio is full of

similar work, it may actually help the viewer expand their own horizons. And although the

presented image doesn't change, maybe the viewer will.