new -- color & b&w 'The Elvagene'

Relatively simple photos with somewhat simple compositions are generally

considered my hallmark, but consider this photo of the boat 'Elvagene,'

docks, and two other boats off the Puget Sound's Ballard area at Seattle.

Your critiques, comments 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 superior knowledge

to help improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! john

I like the chosen perspective and the composition of this image. You have used the planks well. Elvagene is a very rare and unusual name. Just one regret: the whole place seems too awash in uniform lighting for my taste.

I accept with enthusiasm your comments on the composition and the use of the planks.

The lighting - well what can I say?  You have a cloudy day with absolutely uniform lighting and you get uniform captures.

I think this is a rare photo where I hold the photo in highest estimation as the highest of my ability while raters are not exactly stumbling to rate or to rate highly, which is counter to what I expected.  For me, I really can hardly do much better and really love this photo, particularly for the composition, but obviously it is not 'in synch' with the tastes of others or knocking others over with its wonderfulness, which I did not expect.

Oh well, I do shoot for myself (though I love to share), and occasionally I do need a splash of cold water.

Still, I challenge you to find any 'dead space' in this photo -- it's all working for the photo, from the rays of the planks in the foreground as one theme, to the 'threes' of the fishing boats beginning with the Elvagene and the two other boats in the background.

I had a 12 mm zoom lens with me and would have liked a 10 mm lens to become just a little wider, but that's just Monday (Sunday) morning quarterbacking.

I think on this one, raters and I are going to have to agree to disagree, since I've learned that initial rates generally are close to final rates.  I regard it as one of my best -- obviously not a shared opinion.  Sadly.

Thanks for your splash of cold water and sharing your thoughts.

john

John (Crosley)

I too really admire the composition. The textures and patterns in the timbers themselves are a delight and they serve as leading lines very well as they converge.  Although I am really enthusiastic about this shot, and yes I do love it!  I would venture that the back ground for me is too busy.  I noted your comments relating to dead space, but for me dead space is just the element that provides more attention to stars of the show. In this case the foreground the bicycle and Elvagene herself. 

It could be argued that the nautical flavour of the image is heightened by the detailed background, and that maybe so. But I can't help but wonder how this image would have looked shot with an open aperture providing a relatively shallow dof and so a more impressionist view of the background rather than a detailed one that tears me between foreground and background. 

As for the rates that give low rates without the courage of their convictions to state why............well suffice to say that's why I don't put my images up for rating any more, without any constructive reasoning, ratings become somewhat meaningless. 

I have rated this a 6 for the reasons stated above.

Best Regards 

Alf 

Yours is one of those far too few but wonderfully explanatory comments that pops up now and then in my portfolio, sometimes from the most unexpected sources and helps shape my shooting.

It is the appearance of such critiques alone that would justify my participating in the critique forum, and I am so thankful you took the time to share you enthusiasm for this photo AND your differing views.

Interestingly, I identified this as a possible interesting subject, but at first misjudged its worth.  I walked by, saw the bike and the boat and shot from far too close, but when I 'chimped' the shot, saw the value of the planks as 'rays' leading to the subject, and then began the process of stepping back and only wished I could have stepped back more, but to do so to include more 'empty space' (or so) foreground planks, would have required me to include subject matter on the sides (hose bibs, fire equipment, etc.) that was totally destructive to the compositional elements here, so those things defined how far back I could step and still get my composition.

It is for that reason that then (for one of the first times), I wished I had my 10-24 mm instead of my 12-24 (a sturdier lens) built to highest standards and constructed so it's practically indestructible (the 10-24 mm is somewhat more easily damaged).

When I stepped back, I began composing for the planks (foreground), the boat (center/rear) and the background boats.

With a 12-24 mm camera (even wide open) in daylight, I had no chance of isolating depth of field, except by doing so artificially, maybe by selecting the background and throwing it out of focus with Gaussian blur, but I just don't do such things. 

A 12-24 lens at 12 mm setting even at f4 (and this was stopped down) has almost infinite depth of field, and without neutral density filters (which I don't use), it is almost impossible to use to isolate depth of field for subjects that are not REAL CLOSE TO THE CAMERA.

Now, I do use the 12 to 24 mm setting in portraits at f4 or even f 5.6 and manage to get good isolated depth of field when the lens is inches or a foot or so from my subject's face in a portrait, so isolating depth of field is not impossible, but just not in a photo like this (without waning light or ND filters).

Yours is a textbook excellent comment; and I thank you from my heart's bottom for sharing with me.

Best to you as the cold months approach for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere.

Remember, this is one of those cases where I semi-identified elements of a potential good photo, but I had to 'work the subject' in order to pull back and use the planks as pointers or rays to the subject and then to use them to their maximum before I got too far away where I would have to change my composition.

As to the background, I had little choice.  Alas.

If I could have been a movie director, I would have moved those boats JUST SO, but I'm not and never will be.

My art (and science) is placing frames around what I see, not in re-arranging things.

And I use various lenses (sometimes my coat/jacket pockets bulge rather than carry a camera bag), in order to get a good choice of focal lengths 'on the spot' or I use more than one camera (two seems ideal, but I've been known to carry three, each with dedicated lens, to avoid the unseemly problem of dropping lenses (especially worrisome when working on docks, but also in changing them over concrete or stone steps such as are often found in places like Kyiv, and when one drops a lens on such a surface, say 'bye-bye' to the lens, because it ain't gonna work no more.

Best to you Alf, and thanks once again.

john

John (Crosley)

I don't subscribe to the 'rule of thirds' as there is no such 'rule', but sometimes thirds works as a nice guideline.

Notice the tieup piece of wood on the dock and its placement in the frame.

It's at somewhat of a diagonal.

From the lower left, it's about one-third from the bottom of the frame.

Where it ends up exiting the frame, it's about one-third from the top of the frame.

Again, it's not 'rule of thirds (no such rule), but thirds does work.

Notice also there are 'three boats', the Elvagene and two others.  Threes have been an important theme in my shooting from early on (there's a presentation devoted to that subject from long ago, now long out of date).

john

John (Crosley)

The Elvagene is quite typical of a West Coast fishing boat.

The day I took this photo I talked to another commercial fisherman who said he took a similar, but slightly larger boat first to fish in the protected waters of the Puget Sound of Washington (similar to the 'Washington Sound' of Canada which is what the same protected waters are called beyond the Canadian border and behind Vancouver Island.

After fishing there for salmon and maybe bottom fish such as halibut, he then would spend part of winter months fishing the Pacific Ocean off Ilwaco, Washington near the mouth of America's second largest river, the Columbia which flows from Canada through Washington, divides the Washington-Oregon border, and flows into the Pacific with a miles-wide entrance. 

There he'd fish for Dungeness Crab, which sometimes are abundant in Pacific waters (and sometimes just cannot be found for inexplicable reasons unrelated apparently to any kind of 'global warming' as the cycle predated by decades claims of 'global warming' and happened when Time Magazine warned of 'global cooling' and a 'new ice age' which was a '50s, and '60s fear.

Finally, calmer weather approaching, he'd go to more protected waters in around islands in the Souhern Alaska region where he'd fish again for salmon, avoiding the dreadful and overpowering offshore Bering Sea which is the stuff of danger reality television shows featuring crabbing for crabs with legs six feet long.

This particular boat (in larger scale sometimes and sometimes in smaller scale) is quite typical of boats used for all kinds of commercial fishing on the West Coast not involving nets for the better part of the past century and maybe longer than that and thus this photo's boat(s) is/are emblematic of those used by West Coast 'mom and pop' fishers.

The above example shows how 'versatile' such boats are. 

Huge shiplike fishing boats moored nearby are more like factory boats -- some use nets and some use skiffs to round up the nets.  Some venture around the world in search of tuna for which nets are ideal, though nets are used for other fish as well; many jurisdictions (and diners as well) prefer salmon caught by trolling (long-line fishing) in which the boat pulls a shiny lure attached to a line through the water, hook attached, hauling in salmon one by one.

(more than you wanted to know?  It's free information and somewhat authoritative.  Source, nearly 70 years of research and observation, and interviews with fishermen including very, very recently, as well as fishing alongside them.)

john

John (Crosley)

"Now, I do use the 12 to 24 mm setting in portraits at f4 or even f 5.6 and manage to get good isolated depth of field when the lens is inches or a foot or so from my subject's face".

Certainly you are joshing.

No.

john

John (Crosley)

Hi John

Nice bw result. Good sharpness and adequate brightness. Congratulations. Roldao

Thank you for expressing your so favorable comments so concisely.

Ratings began in the high '4s' for a while, and I feared raters and I would not see 'eye to eye' as I wrote above, which is rare, as raters generally get it right.

Time seems to be working well in favor of this photo thankfully -- a new favorite of mine -- especially since I almost passed it by -- took a 'grab' shot of the scene, and returned to take six more until I got something I felt was 'right', but the 'grab shot' or the 'quick shot' (better wording), helped me 'see' its potential for being a superior photo than the oodles of workmanlike but otherwise forgettable photos that were filling my memory card.

I'm glad this one resonates with you; I may get a chance to shoot it again under different light and see if Rajat's criticism about too flat lighting is correct or not (or the bike, etc., may be moved -- I will have no idea until I return, who knows when).

Thanks for the comment.

john

John (Crosley)

[John Loengard, the picture editor at Life, always used to tell me, ”If you want something to look interesting, don’t light all of it.”]
― Joe McNally

Long ago, I sold to Evelyn Merrin one of the photo editors of Time Magazine for the Time-Life Syndicate and Time Magazine, but never came across this named editor whose name comes from my dimly remembered past.

Would you be kind enough to send me an e-mail (if you have the time and inclination) to let me know under what circumstances you and the photo/picture editor of Life Magazine happened to be encountering each other?

Did you work there, were you friends, were you a working photographer, etc.?

You write with much authority, and it came from somewhere, and this is the first time I've heard of a 'credential', and it's a heady one.

Can you fill me in . . . . privately I think may be your preference.

My e-mail's on my bio sheet.

I'd be very indebted.

I value your feedback very, very much.

As to his advice, in general it is pretty good, but goes against the lighting of much of what Cartier-Bresson (I am the King of Greys), showed.

He took photos in all sorts of light and some was even - memorably his 'Isle de Paris' photo across the Seine . . . which was evenly lit and all greys (and very succerssful).  In fact, as well as a 'no crop' stricture' he had a 'no fiddling with the lighting' stricture as well.

He also sold to Life, and I wonder how that worked . . . . if Cartier-Bresson's strictures were followed (they cropped his cover photo of life in Moscow when he went behind the Iron Curtain as first Western Photographer) to put the Life Logo over his photo.  ;~)) (so much for 'no crop).

Also, a careful look at some photos reveal that they are not 2:3 aspect ratio which means they were cropped despite all written to the contrary.

The old devil said one thing and did something else I'm afraid, more than once.

I'd be pleased to receive correspondence from you, but it's entirely 'at will' and if none is forthcoming, no demerits.  You're a wonderful critic.

Best.

john

John (Crosley)

On reread, I see you were quoting, and if that's just the case, that's fine, but if there's more, let me know.

My back door (e-mail) is always open.

john

John (Crosley)

Just as a follow up to some of your observations and comments.

I think it's wise not to subscribe to the so called "rule of thirds" or indeed any other rule where photography is concerned.  Whilst a guideline of sorts is useful for a novice photographer, if strictly adhered to, it swiftly can become a restriction to expressive photography and creativity. 

Another interesting comment you made was reference to the 3 boats, and three being an interesting number.

I would agree wholeheartedly with 3 being far more interesting than any other amount, but I would say that in this case it isn't immediately apparent.

3 boats arranged with some element of separation, would I think be more conducive to this. 

I take on board (no pun intended) the information relating to the aperture and and proximity of the shot which resulted in the sharp background.

It is what it is, and I certainly wouldn't entertain the idea of adding any type of blur PP either. 

Many Thanks for your detailed reply and explanations.

Alf 

I take seriously the idea that this is a sharing site -- an idea that seemed somewhat missing during the competitive earlier days when members guarded their secrets and were so zealous about what they would reveal.

I began at the outset to run entirely counter to that, and never was asked to join a serious mate-rating clique (I never seriously rated, so how could I help those people), and to share what I though was important about certain captures and to engage in I hoped interesting dialog with similar-minded members.

Things have worked out well -- this site has changed far for the better, and instead of being 'odd man out' as I was then, now I have moved to the forefront with guys like you.  Believe it or not, some others actually view photos like this just to read the colloquy between me and astute commenters like you and Rajat Poddar, in part because they're shy, inarticulate or don't have facility with English or the idiom of photography enough to step forward.

In that way, when we write, we're writing for an audience of 'we don't know how many' but I get feedback that it is helpful to lots of people, and the feedback comes from the most interesting places.

One blog even features my remarks about a photo (and its taking) in place of the blogger's usual post -- just a link to my remarks, which he thought were astute.  You just never know when you write something on the Internet, where your audience is.

(and my most viewed photo in this entire folder (not portfolio) at 11,000 clicked views -- 'mating' showing a male and female with their shoes in synch, still baffles me although it seems that Google images picked it up . . . and that accounts for the vast number of views for a not so great but OK photo).

You just never know, so you try your best and the rest is up to the Gods.

I am greatly thankful for commenters like you, Rajat and the host of other commenters in times past who have contributed -- I often remember instinctively their points when I am shooting, even those by Meir Samel who has made TWO very important observations among many that have almost no importance at all.

I feel the credit of all those comments when I'm out photographing my ordinary work, frame by frame, though not always when in a crush, where instincts take over, but who knows what shapes instincts (though I had them from the very first --see Nixon, Berkeley bayonet, etc.)

Best to you, Alf.

john

John (Crosley)

I like that: "EVEN those of .....

And if I told you that this background is so busy that I'm reminded of Katrina, then that would be a comment  of "no importance" which is why I'm not saying a word.

Meir, you protestesth too much, and in the process by talking about the subject and at the same time saying you'll disregard it, you negate your protest.

You are trying to have it both ways.

Sorry, no soap.

If you want to make a critique, make it; don't try to conceal it beneath a 'no critique' objection saying you're not making a critique, then make it anyway.

That is unfair and beneath you.

You have much to offer, but such tactics are beneath you.

john

John (Crosley)

Lighten up John. No harm intended. You are not familiar with Jewish mothers. Why would you be? Even so it does look pretty chaotic back there.

Well, for one, my last wife, for all her flirting (instigated by them) with the Baptists and the Pentacostalists who regarded her as a 'miracle child' for walking from hemiplegia after they prayed for her to be cured of 'in tongues' in Russian in Seattle after her brain cancer surgery, it was finally found she was Jewish through the maternal parentalla.  (mom's mom and mom both were Jewish, revealed by the family album, so of course she was Jewish.

New husband to be wanted a Jewish bride and was head over heels in love with her, and somehow she fit the bill.  Not only was she beautiful, smart beyond belief, possessed of a great personality, but she was JEWISH, and a Jewish mother already of one, and by him soon of three new young boys, so she's a Jewish mother times four.  That family album allowed him to seal the deal.  He got himself a beautiful Jewish bride.

I went to school in New York at Columbia.  The man who did my laundry at the bulk Laundromat near Columbia, people who worked at coffee shops and myriad others had those awful tell-tale tattoos on their left forearms -- you undoubtedly know what that means.

I went to many fellow students homes; one-third of the student body was Jewish, and the classes on Jewish holidays were one-third empty.

My girlfriend my sophomore year ('daughter of the holocaust', pictured), Shoiley from Brownsville, daughter of a Kosher butcher, Joina, who spent WWII with his wife in a German attic being hidden out, eating literally garbage and leftovers - almost dying in the process.  (I wore my yarmulke when I visited them and they never guessed I gr4w up Christian.) 

It's impossible to work in New York and live there without assimilating part of Jewish culture, if not the religion, and when I worked for an entirely Jewish publishing firm after I left Associated Press (for one year), I was one of two goyim, I think, but they gave me a journalism prize anyway, knowing I was not going to stay).

I am not Jewish, but there are Jewish roots somewhere in there, and maybe technically mom was Jewish if one looked back through the maternal parentella, but nobody did, or cared.

I'm only an outsider looking in, but I have more than the usual amount of experience with matters Jewish and even Jewish moms.

But mom didn't openly dote or push knishes on me, or push me into the professions (exactly, though I ended up a J.D. and a journalist, among other things), and maybe a good Jewish mom would have been good for me.

There's something nice about telling a 13-year-old, he's a man and meaning it more than just giving him a ceremony, but actually financing a nest egg.

I won't sneeze at that as a healthy way to raise a child.

As you can see, there's almost no antipathy here towards followers of your faith.

Even if I personally reject all religions.

I never had a 'Jewish mother', but one might have been good for me.

It's an alternative life style that might have benefitted me.

Though I am sure my blond-haired, West-coast/Oregon background helped get me into Columbia and keep me there with a full-ride scholarship.

I have a little more experience than the average person in a lot of things, but then I suppose you do too.

Just what were those guns for in that photo of you?

john

John (Crosley)

If photo of me then for protection;  but I don't know to what photo you allude.

I understand, Meir.

You'd prefer an ice cream shop photo.

Perfectly reasonable.

No argument from me.

john

John (Crosley)

Perhaps if I acquire a Sig Sauer model 229, which I have my eye on, then I'll change the photo....depending if I want to spend that much money.

And yet you subscribe to the "rule of thirds" -rule of thumb- time and time again -your last three posts for example.  And where is the bicycle in Elvagene? In the middle? An accident I suppose but  imagine if it were.

meaning "....imagine if it were in the middle"