chris_battey

Cropping tightly into the couple can only reduce the context of their surroundings, certainly reducing the sense of place and leaving a less romantic picture.

There are no faces to be revealed by 'moving in close' here, instead the visible information (the garden) is reduced and we lose elements of the picture, subtlety is clobbered by barging in too close.

For example, I love the texture of the Brick wall on the left, and the surrounding plants of the garden, without this the picture is only weakened.

Marc, I see your point.

Yes this picture feels very much to me like the streets of Paris.

I agree that street performers work in this chaotic environment, and yes the blur and the almost windy composition

(if this makes sense - windy?) certainly supports the idea of the spontaneity, and shows the difficult places these people perform.

But (of course there's always a but with me), and I thought I was being to harsh with my original comment, personally, I want more.

I'm stuck in that decisive moment thing that HCB went on about. And do I feel that this moment captured, really brings together all the elements that truly represent what was happening at the time. Non.

I think this pic may be more like Jazz than Poetry, and being an old school romantic, I want the classic romantic street shot.

Lei you have a wonderful eye, loved your desert pictures, but for me Paris is Doisneau and Riboud, so until I have my dose of ECT and wipe my slate clean, I remain stuck with rose coloured spectacles.

Regards. CB.

Doesn't work for me.

I think the composition is too weak.

I don't think the background is very interesting, blurred people rarely work well, unless you're using the the blurred shapes to frame, or lead your eye to the subject. If the kids behind were sharp, then maybe the look on their face would give us a reference to how they felt about the singer and the player.

As the pic sits at the moment, I think compositionally it's sitting in one plain, very 2d ie left and right.

I think to successfully photograph a street scene with an xpan you need to weave form and subject across the frame, holding an interesting background to contrast or support the foreground subject.

It's difficult, and in my experience it's worth looking for a great background and waiting for your subject to walk into frame.

Congrats though, good to see that this stuff still goes on in Paris, especially since the change in privacy laws over there.

Hi Luke,

yes that is Cirq quay.

The film scan was quite muddy, and fp4 is quite a fine grain film.

Consequently I had to throw in some noise to break up the contrast.

Should have used Tri-x.

Charlie Chaplin is still going strong.

Sniffing Chocolate eclairs in Sydney.

The 50mm Tri-x approach works, and is promoted by educators and leading Photographers.

You know if we all went out with a 50mm lens and rolls of Tri-x and just took pictures, then most of us could sooner understand that the simple approach is often the most poetic.

I think I've seen most of Ian's pictures before, and when I here a Photographers name, a key image of theirs always pops into my head.

Tony D, mentioned to me that Ian had won again with this shot, and I instantly thought of the picture and also of Eugene Smith's Pittsburgh Worker mentioned above.

Eugene Smiths composition is more controlled, wereas Ian has a successful environmental portrait.

But what I like about it is the simplicity of the 50mm lens and the lack of shadow detail.

Don't you feel like you're standing right next to the guy?

No quirky angles or distracting technique. You can almost here the noise.

The workers glasses, for me, bring a certain anonymity to the subject.

After all, how often do we really imagine the faces of the people who put the stuff together.

The debate on originality seems benign, cleverness and all the tricks that popular Phtography likes to fix upon has really very little to do with actually learning to see.

Documentary stuff is really about communicating, be it a story or an idea, and Ian's fits right into the American tradition.

Please offer your opinion of this C330f driven portrait.

Cheers. Cb.

Well technically you did well here, hell I can't surf.

But, I find faces more interesting than the back of someone's head.

The cross processing doesn't do much for me, because Australian surf looks like this anyway, a kind of tropical cyan, so I didn't really notice the processing.

I would of liked to have seen a self portrait of yourself, if that's possible.

As a 'tube shot' it's a great success, as a Photograph I don't find it very interesting.

Ah yes, after waiting 7 hours for Tony's Curry to materialise from his kitchen, I think the chicken had to fly in from New Guinea, we spent the following morning at a close radius to the Great White telephone.

The ambient temperature caused my hands to cripple, and so I'm grasping the mamiya like a moron, hoping that a decisive moment occurs through the window.

I manage most of my photography this way, taking careful aim from lavatory windows, this makes weddings a little difficult, although I have invested in a portable Loo sort of like a Bird Watchers Hide, I can poke my lens through the dunny door and catch the Bride as she exits the church.

Of course during the longer ceremonies there is a tendancy to run out of paper, hopefully I'll get a digital toilet soon thus allowing me to function for extended periods.

I'm joking of course, Tony's Curries are fantastic.

'Put away away your curry holy man...'

No he is quite dead.

Took the picture in a morgue, his eyes were quite dry, like grapes.

Hi Matt,

the idea was to make the images distinctly seperate.

That's why one BW and the other colour.

It's not supposed to be a montage, rather a contrast between the crowd and party boys.

The lady on the right is actually a man. It was the 'Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras.'

Yeh, that's Tony on the right, he was just heading off Bushwalking in the Blue Mountains.

I said 'Mayte...you can't hoof it up the rubble in those heels.'

But he wouldn't listen.

Give a man a Gortex G String and he can go anywhere.

Sydney Mardi Gras, take a look...

Nikon D1, 28mm lens and sb28.

Ahh, love that duffle coat, and his sister looks like a poorly dressed shop dummy, they're obviously from UP North...

'..take your coat Harold, and tuck yer shirt in, London's awful cold this time of year (watch the cat on yer way out).

What a good'en.

It's got ration booooks and post war written all over it.

The poster family for the National Health Service

'Have you bought War Bonds Mrs.Tiddlesworth?'

'No, Doctor'.

Bit of Photoshop, thin negs, Mamaya C3, cold out, watch it, don't trip over your scarf.

That kid in the middle has got made in England stamped through his legs like Blackpool rock.

Who cares about the head, and who cares about blur...you can blur out backgrounds by printing with an open lens, no complaints then eh?

Oooh wide you say, f2.8 yer say, well done, clever lad.

Photoshop..? Photo wot? Don't go talkin' to strangers

Stick with what you know lad, remember the war and pass me an orange.

Basically living in England is what this picture is like, cockeyed and slightly out of focus, everyone looking in different directions and crowded.

Well done, I couldn't have said it better myself.

I kept coming back to this in Photoshop over the course of a week.

I was never satisfied with it but I wanted the eyes to be the focal point, whilst at the same I was begining to take the picture into a sort of charcoal, early century print...if you know what I mean.

I began to imagine 'Paul' as a character in some sort of Arabian nights story, and this influenced the heavy play in Photoshop.

The original is in colour, has no grain and in fact is fairly ordinary...a 'C+'on my scale of things. So this picture is really me trying to claw something back from a functional portrait.

I really couldn't get his chin right in the burning and dodging, but most of all the grainy texture that I have added, sort of works, and yes his forehead has been de-botoxed, because I know he wanted to see wrinkles in the finished job.

It's a bit of a construct, but next time will be less so, as I now have a better understanding of the histograms on the D1, it's easy to get carried away looking at the screen thinking 'what you see is what you get' only to find Photoshop laughing at your poor attempt at rendering any midtones.

Most of the shoot was blown out because of this.

I have to say though that the D1 digital output is so smooth, that I feel compelled to throw in some texture otherwise my shots look like ceramics.

Thanks for the input.

Shot at night, lit with a 'shoot through' brolly, bowens monobloc,

and triggered with an sb28.

Not really the picture I had planned at all...but after dark the idea

became a little darker.

Does it work...is it ott, too camp, or trying to hard.

The subject, Paul, really likes it.

It was originaly shot for competition, but I pulled it early after I

wasn't sure of what I wanted anymore, however it's growing on me.

I must admit I don't post pictures hoping that they become POW.

That's not why we're here is it?

I'm a bit dissapointed with this picture, in the sense that it's a bit of a Pinnochio, not a real boy...and like a wonderful illustration on a Beer mat, well it's just a beer mat.

But it could be argued that this is in fact a true documentary Photograph. Because it is. In the sense that it's a found object, the situation was real (dummy in straight Jacket in a Prison Cell) and so to be truthful the only real manipulation has been the cropping and sharpening, dodging and burning. The elements remain intact.

The fascimile is the dummy behind the camera.

But I'm not really interested in defending this Photo from a Documentary point of view...what inspires me is the story that the finished work points towards.

It's a work of fiction, and I love a good story.

You know, I love Photography...and I love talking about pictures.

And this is probably why I posted this picture.

Not to create a debate or be cunning, but because out of something that was totally false in life, I had with Photography created something that was deceptively real.

This isn't a Pandoras box, this is not the Hitler Diaries, and this picture was not on the front page of any newspaper.

I have simply used my knowledge and understanding of the Documentary Genre, to create a Photograph, a still Life...and it's a bit of a dig because it fools some of the people some of the time.

But in itself it is remarkable because it looks so real, and that's why it's on Photo.net because it shows what Photography can do and also demonstrates what people think Photography should be.

PS. The title quote is from 'The life of Brian' and is not about me being the Messiah or anything...although I do have a picture of JC if anyone's interested ;)

Hi Gang.

Tony Dummett called me on Monday night and said, 'Chris, congratulations on winning POW...again'.

which is a bit like being 5 years old, when your best mate runs out of his house and says,

'Hey Chris your house is on fire! There are Fire engines everywhere!!!'

'Fire engines', I say, '...FANTASTIC!

...what?

My house is on FIRE!!!'

So.

The picture then.

Yes he is a dummy, but I don't know if he's wax.

To be honest this picture is really more about my imagination, and, mixed with a lazy afternoon in Photoshop; I imagined myself back in the eighteenth century Photographing the dispossessed, the condemned...hey if you've read Papillon, well what an assignment that would be, Devils Island, le guillotine...it's good to think like a five year old sometimes.

Technically this was a very poor underexposed thin neg, of a very unconvincing facsimile of a convict in a Melbourne Jail.

(Gasp..but wasn't it France, le Revolution...wasn't it Dickens, perhaps Bluebeard. Wasn't that you back in Paris in 1789?)

Gawd...I wish it was.

Anyway for those who enjoy using their imagination...enjoy.

And for the rest, well yeh it's a bit crap isn't it, just a dummy in a wig.

Congratulations Lucas.

I like your lighing choices here, but a couple of things could perhaps improve next time.

The most obvious thing to me is your man on the right, if in fact you're portraying a film poster of old then of course your hinting at story, what is this film about? Make me curious.

Is this infidelity? Forbidden love etc...

As your shot stands I think this 'romance' is missing, sure it's a nice fashion shot but your man is saying 'I'm modelling' and not 'I'm running',or, 'We're in danger'.

That's it! To me there's no sense of 'Danger' in this picture, you've gone for the story shot using the techniques of a fashion photographer, and arrived with a fashion shot, when I think you need more of an edge running with your pic.

Specifically I think your Male is too detached from his female, he's modelling (no surprises there) and not for one moment do I forget that he's modelling. Do you see my point?

Are you shooting with actors or models?

Personally I prefer actors for setups, but you shoot this way more than I do so who knows.

Technically I think you should have also switched to a longer lens and thrown out your curtain a little.

I'm always bitching about getting tighter.

In the end though this picture does tell me something about you, where as some of your slicker and more perfect shots are a bit too text book to appeal to me.

Finally, I like the close up shot of your man best.

Just personal taste.

Cheers CB.

...by now you should feel pretty confident about approaching total strangers with your camera.

So how about moving onto 'emotive themes'.

Emotive themes are a great way to get out and about, meet a few more people and try and capture what really makes them tick...or not, as the case may be.

When approaching your emotive subject, be gentle you don't want to scare them off and miss out on that Prize we all dream of.

Remember, if the person is smaller than yourself don't be afraid to stoop and project your voice in a firm but direct manner and speak slowly.

Example.

You're happily walking through a foreign village when a Prize shot appears at a window;

approach the subject without startling him, don't be afraid to smile.

If time permits use Tripod No.3 with Flash and Brolly stand 2b (ref: Chapter 7 'Lighting and the joy of Alluminium supports').

Now here's the interesting thing, remember all that complicated stuff you read about 'decisive moments' and 'candid photos', well with todays fast lenses and spot metering you don't need all that to slow you down. Simply approach the window and with a firm knock say,

'Excuse me Sir, could you please remove the watch?'

On National holidays you may want to add,

'Happy thanksgiving', or 'Happy Valentines Day' whichever occasion suites.

Happy Shooting, and remember 'There's a prize waiting for all of us, yes even you...'

In foreign countries (eg.central Asia) you may feel more comfortable with a Telephoto lens and 4WD.>