thirsty (cheers ~ for Angela)

You know, keep it fun and just tell me what you think. ALL positive (except of course let it rip about the picture ~ critique it all you want).


The BAR is open. CHEERS!


This waters for you (hey I think it is water)~ he he ;)


:) FOR ANGELA ~ may the week be full of SUN and no more SMOG!!


~ HUGS!

He does look lubricated!

HAHAHAHA!!! Nice pic Micki!!! He's a cutie for sure. Hey... but... a great photographer once told me... not to take pics of people from this angle because you'll give 'em a double chin... unless you don't like 'em... LOL!!!! I think her name was Micki or somethin' like that ;P

lol ~ new word for the week!

 

Hello my favortie PORTRAIT photographer Mr. Stubbs.

 

I am now forever going to use this word whenever we go out. People will wonder "what in the world are they talking about" I will call it a STUBB word. he he!!

 

Glad you like the ANGLE ~ Angela. As long as it made you giggle.

 

CHEERS! ~ micki

Nice shot. I would just work on getting the focus right on his eyes, other than that great lighting.

There is another shot at the same time where I got a picture of the glass and the bar. I was just waiting for them to just finish there drinks so we could just go home. It was 1am and it was a formal function. I was tired. I plan on RE-DOING this shot next time he will get in a uniform like this. I really enjoyed these bar pics.

 

 

I will be more prepared next time and I am working on those glasses. BOY those are hard. ANY glasses (eye glasses suggestion would be greatly appreciated! :)

 

Thanks for stopping by. Don't be a stranger ;) ~ CHEERS!!

Good, very good portrait and in the same time what I call "life photo"! Good angle, background and pose as well as facial expression!

 

I'm still waiting for this machine to accept my ratings on your blue! I think I will have a stroke first!

 

PDE

I like the expression and how he is central to the 2 spot lights on the ceiling.

 

Ger..

 

It is actually a very interesting angle that I think you pulled off quite well.

 

I am going to have a second look at this from my home computer as it is hard to see the tones here, and I like what I see so far.

I was sitting up talking with Angela last night when I remembered that I had this picture of Andrew and I after a long formal function.

 

I had told her the previous night NOT to take pictures of people from under the face (yep the double chin). She saw it right off. Darn her! HA HA

 

I realized as soon as I posted it that I would HAVE to name it the same as the one I posted earlier as GEE he was drinking in that one too. HA!

 

But considering we were up till 1am and this was taken at 1am. CHEERS just seemed right!

 

CHEERS!

 

AND hey ~ I never noticed those lights up there like that. I did crop out the third one because it bugged me on the left. But hey it is a cool contrast. :)

I love the expression and how you seem to have caught him in the middle of a gesture. That does, as Pierre says, make it a life photo. There's reality here. Glasses often make eyes look soft and, given the environment and kind of photo it is, soft eyes seem fine to me here. What doesn't work in one photo often will, at least for me, in another. So, what doesn't work for me here is the angle, even though it's somewhat typical of your style and is often an interesting one for such a photo. It's because I'm so conscious of this uninteresting big ol' white sleeve in my field of view that it's hard to get past it. It just feels like a kind of roadblock. There's a dominating nature to that sleeve which, if it were capturing some more interesting lighting or had some gradation of tone it might be visually stimulating, just keeps getting in my way.

It works ut then it is frustrating. What I thought might be a great idea was have him sign his name in BIG BLACK letters CHEERS FERGI for some reason on something when he gets his next promotion.

 

That will tone out that sleeve. But yest I agree. I probably should have just ignored the medals and gone with my instinct.

 

 

It work very well!

Like 20 blind men looking at an elephant, here's my take. I actually think the white sleeve is the strongest part of the image. It is so deliciously presented, with such perfect exposure, that it begins to look like a Ralph Gibson picture, all duotone and lovely whites and deep blacks. In other words, the elboy BLASTS you in the face "KAPOW!".

 

As far as the angle, I know enough about you to know that, to you, rules are as useful as dog food is to a cat. Here's to IRREVERENCE!

You know when I take these pictures part of me thinks of the characters in all my favorite portfolio's (like yours).

 

And yes, I know no boundries and have never learned any rules. Only the rules of light that captures a laugh or a smile and the color that goes through the soul of something abstract or alive in a picture. Hopefully it is now working. I am feeling it work. YEAH! ;)

I took a look at some Gibson with Micki's photo in mind (for instance, this one: http://www.ralphgibson.com/) and, while I understand your referencing him here, I'd love to hear Micki's reaction to his work vis a vis her own photo here. To me, the effectiveness of Gibson is in his stark and high contrast work, particularly the way the whites play off the blacks. There is a fairly obvious consciousness on Gibson's part to have the strong white, in the case of the Gibson photo in question on the cuff of the sleeve, draw our attention and do so in a quite bold and graphic manner. I don't think the way Micki handles her sleeve in this photo, other than the fact that it is a strong white, is similar. That lack of similarity is due to the fact that, firstly, this is not a fashion shot, it is a portrait, so I want our attention more on the man's face, less on his large sleeve. Nothing wrong with portraits having accents and character offered by other elements of the photo beside the face, but in this case I still feel the sleeve doesn't add much character as such a strong element of the image. It's the medals that Micki intended (and rightfully so) to act as the supporting details to whom this guy is and I become so drawn by the large sleeve, I don't notice the medals as much. Part of my critique is to try to understand the goal of the photographer, and I don't think Micki's intent with the sleeve is at all the same as Gibson's intent with his whites. I think, for Micki, it was a function of the angle she was seeking (which is very much her own style). That angle (while I applaud Micki for finding her own shooting style and using it, liking the low perspective and liking to find interesting things in the foreground to add to her composition, often partially obstructing the view of the "main" subject) is often quite effective and used creatively in Micki's photos. Here, I think, unaware, it led her to what I still see as a problem with a big white sleeve occupying a little too much presence. Secondly, this image is not the same kind of contrasty and sort of high-gloss black and white that Gibson's are. Note the face and ceiling in Micki's photo. Quite neutral grays, not the strong offsetting tones of Gibson's work. I think if Micki wanted to recall or echo Gibson's vision here, she could and I think it might be a great exercise for her and I, personally, would love to see the results. She would probably need to start by making the ceiling either much whiter or much blacker and the medals on the man's chest much blacker for sure. There is a graphic quality to the medals, the stripes, which she could exploit in a very Gibson way. I seem to be talking about intention a lot lately in my critiques. I think if Micki had intended to make this Gibson-like, she would have done other things to make it work. As it is, I prefer to stand by the critique I offered and say that the sleeve was an unintended and somewhat unfortunate consequence of Micki's concentrating on catching the right moment, the right expression, and getting the shooting angle she wanted. I offered the critique to Micki so that next time she'd consider more consciously the elements that are going to stand out in her photo due to the shooting angle she chooses at the moment she picks. If I had felt she included the large white sleeve intentionally as a graphic element of her photo, I would have given a very different critique.

here is the origional in B&W and as you can see I did give a bit more contrast to Andrew's face but didn't make it to much glow or shine mainly becauase I wanted it to be happy.

 

Next comment....

As for Ralph Gibson WOW, I am impressed that I was even mentioned in the same ball park. I understand the refrence. Only that we both shoot in black and white. That is all (ok, I understand that MAYBE someday that emmanuel sees in me a flicker of something that I have like I saw in him back in the 80's a way I am going).

 

YES, I WISH I had done more to this is some ways, BUT it is what it is. I produced this quickly and in the evening BUT I also did plan on leaving these medals. I also know that "everything" I am doing now is just a "set up" for something I will do again. In my mind I am preparing for a photo shoot down the road. It is strange.

 

The great thing is, in a way, that I think Emmanuel (who I truly feel I connected with back in the 80's with his pictures of the girl he took with the hat as FRED he is not unlike you with his portraits, he captures something with each and every person) HE see's something far advance in me. Maybe something I don't even see. I think he is giving me an assignment. STUDY. HA! So, I just looked at everything I could on the internet and facinating as it was I had SEEN some of Gibson's work but I had never really looked at it as I have not been LOOKING at photography for very long. Paintings yes, but not photography. I have checked out books to look at but havn't run across him.

 

I ran across a wonderful thing on OVERTONES. I must order this book NOW!

 

"Overtones are a well known phenomenon in musical experience wherein two or more tones combine to produce another tonality. Visual Overtones function in much the same way; the enhanced impressions experienced by the viewer is a result of the two images that produce it. Therefore, Gibson has chosen pairings of his photographs that conform to the rules of visual scale and photographic tonality. Gibson offers no explanatory texts for the images, so viewers are challenged to find meaning in each of the still images, and determine the inferred significance of those images, which are paired together in a single frame."

 

It sounds VERY facinating.

 

Another artist which I HAVE known about and DO find that I have been influenced by and HAVE been taking pictures like but have been to "CHICKEN" to put up

is Eikoh Hosoe ( http://www.artef.com/Hosoe/hosoe.jpg ) As a friend of mine in Japan had one his books.

 

I never really paid it much attention except for the main picture on the front and thumbed through it a couple of times and really was impressed with its work but never got to look at it more than that.

 

Study, study, study...

 

YEP, that is what I must do YET, I don't want to be influenced. I want to be me. :)

 

And, yes you are right. I love the ANGLE of this. I like pictures to be taken without you feeling like it was a picture being taken. I don't like them to feel like you know there was a camera.

 

I'll get there.

 

WONDERFUL HELP!! Thank you! ~ micki

 

 

Sorry I did not read your rather long refrain to my critique. I don't much think it matters what the artist's goal is as much as what the finished product looks like. I tend to critique the image, not the photographer, and intentionally or not, the dominant element in that image is the white sleeve, the angle as eccentric as Micki herself.

 

As far as whether she is Ralph Gibson, or whether her intentions were similar to Gibson's, this is sort of like asking if Mapplethorpe's--or your--intentions are the same as Michaelangelo's. What does it matter? The viewer sees in your work that which his mind allows him to.

because of what you did I went to work on several pictures I had previously taken and went and did this here :)