Tim_Lookingbill

Refreshingly original and organic and that applies to your entire PN gallery, Kelly. Your work is a nice respite from the slick and polished commercial stock fare that trends here. Very interesting approach to portraiture.

A perfect image. I wouldn't change a thing. Reminds me of my youth building similar fires with my cousins and brothers to get rid of debris so my folks didn't have to pay to haul it off living in rural south Texas.

I can feel the warmth from the fire even though it's not in color. The cool black surround night framing the warm white fire back lighting the casual lean to the left stance of the boy. Compelling chiaroscuro rendering. Love it.

I am that boy. I remember throwing boards that way to see how far they'ld go and land in the heap.

Just wouldn't title it Thug Life. Lean Life? Not sure. Just a thought. I don't see race in any part of this image.

This reminds me of one of those hand painted giant billboards I used to see across the Texas border in Mexico for an up and coming Telenovela circa 1970's only the actors look too modern.

Not sure what is being depicted fits a difficult conversation unless the woman is telling the guy she's pregnant. Can't tell if they're in a car or small trailer with pillows and sheets. There's not a lot being communicated where it just seems it was shot as practice study to explore a painterly style as a homage to romantic paperback novel covers.

I'm confused about what it wants to be.

Agreed. Maybe the Elves should browse through PN's "Random Image Generator" to help make their POTW selections. I keep stumbling upon some really compelling and original looking works.

But of course I also kept seeing repeatedly similar exaggerated perspective views of fishing piers taken at various times and locations.

I do like the green and blue colors in this one.

I sort of got a sense of vertigo on first glance.

It's almost Escher like in its casual disoriented style. I bet if it was printed wall size it would for me at least amplify the dizzying vertigo effect. I feel like I could fall into the reflection and hang by the edge of the flag stones.

I didn't even spot the girl's reflection until Julie mentioned it. Wonder if there could be a way to bring that out without drawing too much attention and still look like a natural reflection of the girl.

Has nothing to do with me liking it, Julie. I don't like bad and poorly thought out and delivered jokes which only become lame attempts at ridicule. It's easier to put back the umbrella handle in post than it is recovering from the sickened feeling of a lame joke that doesn't land right.

Learn from this video on how to be funny online. You guys don't realize this but your humor comes across to me as if the German is telling the joke...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wuo8WK5U_YU

Warning there's one 'F' bomb.

Again, when communicating online one has to lead by example cranked up to 11. A critique by its very nature is a serious endeavor amplified by the humorless tone from contributors here. So if one wants to be funny within this given context using only words, then one has to be more demonstrative. Unfortunately this concept of communication escapes your simple mind, Robin. You people are not funny! Or helpful because you all suck at being funny online.

If you're going to be funny, Robin, you have to be more direct and clear about it. But you seem unteachable on this matter so I don't see the point in making it more understandable to you.

 

When did critiques become telling jokes? If you're going to be funny online learn how to do it or just play it straight and for once offer some insightful and meaningful feedback.

Yeah, Ralph. I know the line. As I'm sure everyone else here. I just wanted to put my own spin on it to point out context is king for humor to come across on the internet. If I'ld just copied it verbatim as you did there wouldn't be any context for why I'ld quote a line in a movie.

You guys really need to bone up on your sense of humor on the internet, but in the sense of being aware that it doesn't come across so well when writing in an academician literal style like a college professor with too much tenure.

Seriously, Shirley, you gest. Get it?...

...And don't call me Shirley.

You folks here are kidding, right?

I mean it would've been better off not to mention the missing umbrella handle than to have someone explain it away as a two person umbrella hat from the 1920's which makes it more comical than just a post processing mistake.

And how does Hugo Romano know about such an umbrella? I've never heard of it. I searched online entering a number of variations to the two person umbrella hat from the 1920's and nothing comes up, not one image in a Google image search showing this umbrella.

Even if by chance these two elderly folks happen to be wearing one, how in the heck does one keep the other from straying away and having the hat come off seeing they'ld have to walk in unison to keep the thing on.

This has got to be the strangest if not emotionally disturbing/conflicting POTW critique I've ever read.

Julie, I get it now, the shoes look bozo-ish. That's what you meant. I read your first comment too fast and was thrown by the implied "They, in tandem" as referencing the shoes which I missed.

So if this is just a compilation of random detail thrown together in hopes it means something caught on camera, not a post processed composite, where is this tiny door coming from?

Is this an actual capture of someone placing a tiny door as a prop for staging a scene or is this a DOF lens compression optical trick with a long lens?

This image is kind of mystifying in a similar way to the photos Harrison Ford's character in Blade Runner, Rick Deckard, finds of the replicants attempt at showing they have a personal history and family where the images just look oddly staged. Something's off.

And that's what I'm getting from Geoffrey's image. It looks oddly staged if not composited. I'm kinda' siding with your POV that it's just a bunch of detail thrown together in hopes it means something. But I'm also kinda' drawn to it just on the premise it's sparking this kind of discussion and questions.

The execution of this image reminds me of advise given to me by my art school drawing instructor back in the early '80's where he was pointing out pencil lines I left in a very detailed, clean and tight ink drawing of some subject matter I can't recall now.

I figured what he was basically saying is that if my ink lines in the drawing were done in a lose free form style, then the messiness of the pencil lines would fit/agree with what was being communicated through stylized rendering and blend in. Since my ink lines were clean, precise and detailed like a technical drawing the pencil lines distract and confuse.

I understand, Julie.

I still have questions about what appears to be two right feet. So what did you mean about the shoes looking wrong? What's wrong looking about them to you?

Also small things that stick out that tells me it's more of a composite is the leg on the right is blurred due to what appears to be motion blur from slow shutter speed but has a hard edge background window detail cutting into the blurry knee area that doesn't look natural.

My take on manipulated images is that if everything appears manipulated then that is what it is in order to tell a story or idea. When it's mixed with natural methods of photographic capture and its idiosyncrasies and artifacts with no apparent reason to support the idea to the viewer then it creates ambiguity as to what is being communicated. The photographer leads the viewer and in that manner of leading establishes a relationship through how the idea is being communicated both in its execution and image subject matter.

I still like the image especially the colors and composition but I have doubts as to what is being communicated.

Beautifully executed, conceptualized and composed. It's a winner!

Julie's point about the shoes being wrong does suggest it's not a naturally captured shot (manipulated in post) which would diminish IMO the soul (no pun intended) of the image. But it could be that the shutter release caught the right foot twice in mid stride revealing two right feet captures.

I hope that is what happened because that is a very uniquely lyrical and a bit bizarre in a good way image.

The minimal land elements appear like a chiaroscuro painting on pastel water.

Just wish the top sky was cropped out to emphasize the panoramic serenity offered by a less busy composition and the glass like appearance of the water.

Still overall a very pleasant image to look at.

Don't do too many critiques but this one caught my eye at the bottom of my "What Are You Going To Do With That Photo?" thread and had to comment.

 

Boy! Michael, you really got your game on with some very original looking abstracts. Visited your gallery years ago and now find there's not only been more added but also much improved and more interesting looking renderings. Love it when I see photographers get better here.

Well the thought did cross my mind that man might use it to beat Alf over the head with it if the subject and/or his family saw that he was being depicted as a "Resident Evil" instead of as a possible Iraq war hero veteran with PTSD. There's that kind of assuming that hasn't been considered.

Frankly I've been wondering how that man would really react to Alf showing him a print of the image and its title.

Keep the glib, unoriginal and obvious comments coming, Fred. I await reading something I didn't already know from you and others.

I'll give you an example using my own art I made back in '77 when I was 17. What if I titled it..."Too Old For Anal Probes".

Do you think that old man's relatives would take offense? Of course not because that old man doesn't exist. I made him up out of thin air. I got a first place UIL award for that piece back then.

Because that was before I knew the person in the image was an unwilling participant and not a model or actor. I did mention I had to read through the entire thread until I found your input on the background of the image.

I didn't understand why several folks posting were hung up on the title. I saw the film noir treatment and immediately was reminded of "Young Frankenstein" and that "Walk This Way" could be an alternative title to keep it in the vein of a photo that was made to entertain or pay homage to the movie industry until I found out that person was relying on that crutch for real as an unsuspecting person being captured on the street whose persona/identity would be changed in order to be used for public display without his permission.

 

Because you said he isn't a character in a movie but a real person you shot in the street. And I did mention your image did look good and it does. I just said it's a contrived idea, but now that you mentioned you initially created it for a PN "Halloween" entry which I also didn't know, I still believe or feel that doesn't dignify or respect that person as who he is. He's not a Halloween character for public display. It comes across to me as if you made him out to be a carnival side show freak without his permission. It feels wrong.

However, it did get me to think due to this new digital editing technology available to anyone who can cut/paste someone's head on another torso and other such identity changing photo manipulation whether it's now important to get the background on how a photo was created. There's most likely more like this online and no one is the wiser.

Just think if your image went viral and became famous, iconic and it rose in value and curated by museums, what do you think would happen if they found out that person was not a model or actor, not a willing participant whose identity has been distorted into something he didn't give permission, I can tell you there will be far more push back than what you're getting in this forum. We're probably talking lawyers and maybe that person in the image filing a lawsuit for defamation of character.

I mean look in the news on how touchy and hyper aware people are getting on how they're portrayed in a photo or when and how they're being photographed. But yours would be all OK if only you changed the title to something more dignifying for that person in the photo just to cover your *ss. You could call it "Tonal Study No. 1" or "Long Day's Climb Into Night", etc.

I wasn't offended by your photo, Alf. I think it looks good. So I don't understand your broad brushing it with that assumption.

Ever heard the term "it's one thing to have character, it's another to be a character"? You're assertion of your right to express yourself by making the real person in that image out to be a character that he isn't by adorning it with a copyright protected title of a video game turned into movie makes it unclear as to what you are expressing...

The love of video games turned into movies? Or the love of the person you photographed because you saw them as interesting looking or you wanted to express empathy toward the person's situation in life?

So which one is it? I'm not sure.

Already did, Michael. Any particular passage you think would change my assessment in my previous post?

Post a quote from Alf's input. There's a lot to digest here and I may have missed something.

I do have to admit this is one of the most interesting discussions on communicating with imaging I've had in a long time. Never really considered the importance of the back story of an image as told by the photographer. It shouldn't matter.

I even re-examined my take on this image from an angle by imagining first seeing this image hung in a local restaurant with only the title and asking price and how I would've interpreted what its communicating. I would've looked at it as craftily constructed and post processed homage to old Frankenstein flicks from the '30's where the subject (the photographer's friend as a stand-in model?) is seen as an igor type character modernized with the inclusion of a crutch as a nice touch.

But by calling it street photography by placing it in the "street" folder of the photographer's PN gallery really threw me as to what the real intent or vision the photographer wanted to convey.

I've gotten called out a couple of times in years past for posting close-up face to face images of wild animals I feed by hand in my local park claiming it as wildlife photography which I will never make that mistake again. I will still shoot animals this way because I'm more into making "image jewelery" from reality (I believe Alf's original intent). Also I don't have the expensive high powered lenses that allow me to wait out in remote areas to capture wildlife that technically qualifies as "Wildlife Photography" according to NatGeo.

However, my perspective is derived from a graphics/illustration/advertising background, (dabbled in photography and worked with photographers) but I didn't realize there were these types of photographic distinctions that determine how an image communicates. Now I understand why that is more so from reading this thread.

Guess I should've read the whole thread before I suggested the retitling.. "Walk This Way". I also should've noted by going to Alf's PN gallery that this image is listed as street photography. Now I get Lex's uneasy feel about this image. I was under the impression this image was more what the communication arts/graphics industry deems as photo illustration.

Photo illustration employs real elements such as scenery and subjects composed as a composite to act as a blue print for creating an idea or attitude that is not inherent within each element individually at the onset.

Since this is street photography and that's a not a model/actor but a real resident of that community who is close I would say to being considered indigent and handicapped (that's not a cane, it's crutches that I've seen polio victims use back in the '60's) I'ld have to say the title throws me off as to what this photo is attempting to communicate.

There's too much ambiguity caused by the title on where the passion lies within the photographer that inspired him to take the shot and clearly post process it to convey an attitude. Was it to be used as a blueprint to create a theatrical dramatic effect or as a depiction of a real person who is part of a real community? So I'm left not knowing what this photo is about other than it's just a striking image that grabs attention along the lines as an advertisement for a movie or graphic novel.

I would not call this street photography but photo illustration. And yes, it needs to be categorized due to its ambiguity and misleading representation of a real person on the street.

I think a more humorous or poignant title would be..."Walk This Way"...referencing a line in the movie Young Frankenstein or the rock song from Aerosmith. Could be taken either way but as a sort of strange double entendre to increase tension.