James G. Dainis

After some 40 years doing photography I thought I was well versed in the standard rules (or suggestions, if you will) of composition. I don't think I have ever seen that "groups of three" given as a rule of photo composition. Watching HGTV (Home and Garden Television) I have often seen decorators say that flower pots on a porch should be in a group of three as well as small objects on a shelf or mantle. I never thought to apply that to photography. But then, who has? When taking photos of a small number of people, one has them together in one group, six people side by side or three in front and three in back. Maybe that is why the picture of the fishwives in two groups looks more like a painting than a photograph. Photographers don' t do things like that. Hill was a painter not a photographer. As I understand it he used photography as a tool from which he intended to create paintings. As such he would set things up to approximate the painting that he would have in mind.

Besides the superb tones and sharpness on the cactus spines the acutance is amazing.

Great model, greater photographer. I agree. She was one of the photographers who I admired.

Mr. Hill's training as a painter stood him in good stead with this photo. The composition is perfect. However, a painter can create light using lighter pigment paints. He can capture with paint the dynamic range that his eye sees. The camera has a much smaller dynamic range. Having the fishwives with the sun to the side and slightly to the back made for dark shadowed faces. Still, the shadows are not that bad. Perhaps the paper and chemicals used had a greater dynamic range than the ten zones associated with most of today's films and digital sensors. (Five or six zones for slide film.) I like looking at old photographs and thinking about the people and what was taking place when the photo was taken. How did Mr. Hill approach these women? Since they most likely never heard of photography what were they thinking when this guy stuck this box in front of them and asked them not to move for a minute or so? Did they laughingly agree just to humor this nut ball? When finished did anyone ask, "So where's this pitcher thing you said you was making?"

Ron, How long of a time exposure was it to capture all those meteors on one frame?

I rarely have been impressed with meteor showers. Sky pollution may be a factor in smaller streaks not being visible. One time during the Leonides shower I sat on a lounge chair facing up to the Long island New York sky determined not to quit until i saw at least one. After about twenty minutes I saw something that looked very dim, about one inch long in the sky and lasted about 1/4 of a second. That was it for me. Most of these 200 per hour, 3 per minute, are streaks that would be very dim and maybe 1/2 inch long in the sky; small meteors that hit the atmosphere and quickly burn up in a fraction of a second. If not looking directly at them one may notice something in the sky out of the corner of one's eye but not be sure if that was a streak or just a "floater" in the eyeball. .Only once living in Puerto Rico did I see a shower in which there were bright blazing streaks passing over 1/4 of the open sky. That was good.

If it was a light leak the lines would be black on the negative not clear or white. You have those lines also in what should be the clear space between frames, and they follow the same pattern of being wide then getting closer and closer together. Really strange. The fact that the unexposed lines extend into what should be the clear sides of the film indicate that this is not something that is happening through the front of the camera. What should also be clear sides in the negative of the autos are dark above the white lines and clear (as they should be) below the lines indicating the film has been fogged above the lines. Has this film ever gone through some x-ray machine?

Note from Moderator: Is this thread appropriate for this forum? Since the moderator didn't delete it, the answer is obvious. Were some comments made in responses inappropriate for this forum? Since those comments have been deleted the answer, again, is obvious. This is a friendly forum; the moderator will keep it so by not allowing personal bickering. I see nothing wrong with displaying the results taken with a Leica IIIc (1942) camera and Leitz 50mm f/2 Summitar, Epson R-D1 or Argus C-44. The photos taken with those classic camera are very nice and more interesting than some water tower. Edit note: "water tower" was meant to be humorous.

You have those sharp straight white lines of underexposure but above them you have a less sharp wider line of underexposure. The area of the photo above the top straight white line seems to be underexposed but the area of the photo below it seems to be well exposed. The broad line of underexposure could have been caused by pressure rubbing on the roll of film but the narrow lines below that are too sharply defined to have been caused by that. It would be nice to see two or three frames of the negative.<div></div>

I notice the more obvious things such as the guy who will take shot after shot with a Speed Graphic without once pulling out a dark slide or cocking the shutter. Sometimes there is in "inside" photography joke. In a Jerry Lewis movie, I forget which one, Jerry was playing a photographer. He took an 8x10 film holder, pulled out the dark slide, looked at the pinkish brown surface inside and said, "That's a good emulsion" then he reinserted the dark slide and slid the film holder into the camera. That was a joke that only photographers would get.

Don't worry. When you post a response to a forum question people will think that you spent eight years thinking up a really good reply.