'The Sandblaster'

This is a long-ago image, for which I recently found the original film, had

rescanned and discovered for the first time that I had captured the entire

cap and space around it to the left which was cropped by the first photo

processer that scanned this image. Your ratings, critiques and

observations are invited and most welcome. If you rate harshly, very

critically or wish to make a remark, please submit a helpful and

constructive comment; please share your photographic knowledge to

help improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! john

After 6 ratings:  4.0

My estimation:  I'd put this in a museum, among my top 20 works.  Maybe higher.

Or in a gallery, also among my top 20.

Even if it's different from some of my other top-notch work.

Usually I agree with ratings.  They're a very good indicator of popular PN member taste.

But . . . .

Ratings are not always my guiding light.

I'll go my own way on this one.

I'll just respectfully disagree.

john

John (Crosley)

I just rated your excellent photo (6) before I read your comment on ratings.

I fully agree with you - this picture don't deserve 4s, but then I see a lot of very good pictures with a less than average ratings just because they are a little bit "unusual". And, interesting, often I found a very same names under these ratings (including this one).

I don't rate or comment your pictures so often, but I found your opus as an outstanding and every picture tells a story.

All the best!!!!

I think for the most part, raters get it right on bujt occasionally they miss it entirely.

This, at six rates, was a case in point.

I just think in such a case my judgment trumps those of raters, but do not disrespect either raters or the ratings system; it is what it is, with no derogation on my part. 

I think raters here just don't know how to rate a photo that's so blurry and more close to 'art' than photography.   This is the antithesis of 'sharpness' and I understand that, and this service's raters value 'sharpness' generally.

I am quite willing to see ratrs' judgments but not live by them, as I make my judgments independently.

I do find ratings judgments helpful on many occasions in judging the relative merits of photographs, but just not here.

Thanks for a well thought out commentary.

john

John (Crosley)

I like your composition, the silent colors, the blur and your motive. What's more to say ? Art !

Oh yes: you managed to put movement into the image.

Tommy

I learned early on 'keep pressing that shutter' even if all the settings are wrong.

You never know what you'll end up with.

This is one of the happier instances - there have been hundreds of thousands of discards, and this is one of the shining examples of why it still pays to follow that practice. 

Just keep pressing that shutter.

Thanks for a kind comment, Tommy.

john

John (Crosley)

A mastershot, that shows the hardness of this job with softness (shutter-blur) because of the action. How was said already - art! Best regards. Allways interesting textes.  hen Ry

Your comment on the contrast of the job vs. my depiction has added something to my understanding of the success of this shot and maybe why I like it so much.

I agree with your assessment, but some seem to revile on seeing it; tastes vary and that's fair enough.  Personally, if I could take 20 such shots, I'd be knocking on gallery doors right now. 

(Probably I could, but I'm an eclectic sort of guy who likes to 'try it all' and not get stuck in a niche, though I do like 'street' so very much, but for instance, I shoot nudes, to news to landscapes as well.

Thanks for the supportive and interesting comment Hen Ry.  It's important for me to receive all viewpoints and take them all into account.  I just with the '3' raters would write 'why' they rate '3' so I could understand their thinking . . . . is it lack of sharpness?  ;~))))

One member, Gordon B. takes almost NO photos that are sharp - in fact he plans his photos so they'll be blurry, and last I heard he was selling them as 'art'. 

Maybe I SHOULD take more such photos . . . .

Thanks again Hen Ry.

john

John (Crosley)

you wrote: "...I just with the '3' raters would write 'why' they rate '3'".  If you were told that your IQ is 160 not 100 or 100 not 160, does it matter?Are you not still the same as you've always been?  Or if a photo gets a 3 instead of a 7 or visa versa, does in matter. Is it not still the same photo -unimproved or disproved by the rating? Sort of like -"a rose is still a rose by any other name." When the shutter clicks, time stops. You cannot turn back the clock. .....As for the photo, I think it is a good photo -especially because of the colors. I would rate it "5". On photonet's street standard  it could go to 6. I doubt anyone rated this 3.

Meir, I appreciate your discourse, and it largely is correct.

Thank you for the kind evaluation of this photo.

I watched the early returns come in and after six ratings they stood at four, but had been much higher -- explained only by their having been a number of '3' ratings, paired probably with '5' ratings, or even lower than '3' ratings.

I know how to do my math as the ratings come in, and I can tell when a photo gets decidedly 'mixed' ratings.  

This one got very mixed early ratings, with more than a smattering of threes, which could be deciphered mathematically as the scores were displayed one by one. (this is not a process I usually go through but for this one I was curious because it is 'different'.)

Now, it's not of much moment to me, other than as an intellectual exercise, but I am curious how raters rate and why, so I can figure out for other photos I am less certain of, how reliable the ratings are. 

That some substantial number of early raters gave this a '3' indicated to me that the main reason was that it was 'not sharp' or too 'artistic' for their taste, or at least I surmised that.  I think justifiably so on my part.

They are entitled to their taste, and no sweat, but it is important for me because those same member rating names turn up ratings my other photos frequently, so best to know how to evaluate their other ratings.

Now, Meir, how did you know my IQ?

100.

Lucky guess?

In any case, it still makes no difference.  That and 25 cents will get you a ride on the Kyiv Metro to anywhere in Kyiv, and a 160 IQ will get you the same places for the same price.

I'm in the process of having early work professionally rescanned to remove dust and dirt from exhibition quality prints that must be done by software analysis and means rather than say, wiping prints with a damp sponge, because over decades the dust and dirt is so ingrained.

The negatives for this set are long destroyed, but with clean exhibition quality prints, you'd be surprised how well they can perform as negatives when scanned properly.

Dust and scratch filters, etc., render the prints somewhat dull, so that was not an option for scanning and there was so much dust, using the clone tool took more than a week per print and still hardly improved them.

Then voila, I take the prints to a real pro, and he does magic.  No dust and scratches and no use of dust and scratch filter for the final scans, just some software subtraction after rescanning out a mask of the dust and scratches, I believe, garnered by rescanning with the dust and scratch filter.

The happy result, is I'm looking at prints that first were printed exhibition quality in the early 1990s, and the scans now can be worked without dust and dirt in Photoshop. 

I tried to remove the detritus using the clone tool and the dust and scratch filter and spent up to 40 hours per print, but was unsuccessful but after a session with a pro scanner, the scans came out looking nearly pristine. 

You'll be seeing some of those soon.

This one came from the original negative which I found and never had been printed 'full frame' much to my chagrin, as in its previous scan the man's cap was cut off at the bill.

I never was able to submit my early work for exhibition because of the dust/dirt issue.  Now I'm free to give it a try. 

I hope some will wish me luck.

john

John (Crosley)

John, as you might know I don't rate photos. I'll rather comment on them.

I see this photo of the sandblaster in two dimensions. My first reaction is the one of being confronted to an abstract image with its vertical divide in four sectors and the play of curves, shades and beautiful colors. You can actually rotate it 90°CCW into portrait format and it functions maybe even better.

This being said, rapidly you discover the sandblasted "sandblaster" and the image becomes an engaged story of conditions of work and life - heavily marked and helped by the abstractional elements of the image. 

Good work, John.

You know I respect your photography AND your ability to critique very highly as one of the wiser, more hard working, intellectual, and studious members of Photo.net.

I'm pleased to be the recipient of such a finely thought out analysis, and instead of trying to analyze it, or respond at length as I often do, I'll simply commend it to others to read.

Thank you so much for the time and effort it took to prepare and share your thoughts.

john

John (Crosley)