Spearhead

Saying something isn't a landscape because one doesn't like the way in which it is produced is ridiculous.  Painting are called "landscapes" whether they are photo-realistic, pointillistic, or abstract.  We don't change the nature of the subject because of how they are done.

 

There is no relevant categorization that includes "digital alteration" and "landscape."  One is about the technique used and the other is about the subject.  The idea that something would be classified as one or the other of these two categories is a theatre of the absurd.

 

Too many people think that photography is about materials science and technique, and miss the point that photos might actually have something to say.  

Demonstration photo for club article on photo.net

This is a demonstration photo for the photo.net article on club photography.

Terrific photo, it makes it obvious how easy it is for a childhood to be stolen. It has a very cynical feel to it, Soviet-era Eastern Europe in some way.

I made the wrong comment.

 

The question really is "why does the photographer have to say anything?" When you get a professional critique, you sit there and listen to it. When the paper critiques your show, you don't write a column responding. The expectations here are really very strange.

This is why I avoid the galleries here. The comments all seem to be about technique rather than anything about what it may or may not communicate. The criticism is a failure...

However, I think Nikos really hits it on the head, talks what photography is about rather than presenting technical fascism.

The photo isn't bad, but it seems cliche to me. It looks like many other photos of churches, with or without people, and doesn't make its message very strong, despite the efforts of the photographer.

I wonder how many of the critics who find this boring, could light a subject as well.

Why does that matter? If someone finds it boring, they find it boring and how it was lit is irrelevant. This is not a class in lighting, where that might matter.

I have to admit to finding it fairly boring...

The composition being tight is not a problem, in fact, it's one of the things that makes it work. The claustraphobia of the subjects themselves are reinforced by the additional "box" that the frame creates, resulting in a series of boxes. The clutter in the background would be better if absent, but many great street shots have some clutter, it's just the nature of the work.

How do you sepia tone in ps?

Assuming you are starting with a grayscale image:

Convert to RGB

Image->Adjust->Hue/Saturation

Click the Colorize box ON

Set Hue to 15, Saturation to 25, Lightness to 0

Play with these settings to get the exact tone you want. The effect is reduced by reducing Saturation.

I find hotel rooms fascinating. They tell us how others view what we might want, or how little they view what we might want, on a temporary basis. Some are like home - I stayed recently at a B&B in which each room was carefully assembled to look like a personal bedroom, and you chose the one that came closest to what was "you". Some, like the typical big chain hotel, reflect the absolute minimum perceived level of comfort, filled with banality.

This photographs is particularly interesting for the garish art displayed. Its inclusion apparently bothered some, but I find it a compelling element. Was it chosen because the hotel owner liked it, or was it chosen to reflect something about the intended visitor to the hotel? Why is it bigger than the TV? Who is that on the TV? Are two people staying in the room? If not, why did the hotel put out two glasses when it could easily make a single traveler lonely?

There's enough questions in this photograph to make it interesting for a long time. It's also composed nicely, with a certain level of restrained chaos.

One comment on the comments:

hotel rooms are things to get the hell out of, not take photographs in. But I already knew that (and please, don't bother introducing me to someone who doesn't).

The arrogance, and the lack of interest in the world, in this statement amazes me. How can a photographer rule out such a big opportunity for both himself and everyone else? I've photographed many of the hotel rooms I've stayed in, and like quite a few of the results. I won't clutter the thread with my own photographs, but this one sells well and is a photograph I get huge response to. It was taken in one of the most uncomfortable hotel rooms I ever stayed in.

This has a feeling of mystery, a surreal placement of elements in the frame. It is able to evoke questions, a wonderful attribute. I agree with Tom (Meyer), it is what is in the picture, not how it was made or what the technical attributes are. That's classroom stuff, this is a photograph.

 

Regarding "posed vs unposed," I don't think it matters. I find people often think unposed shots of mine are posed and vice versa. It doesn't really matter then, does it?

After reading about half of this, I'm left wondering if anyone has ever been to an art museum. Especially one that shows modern art. It reads like a bunch of techies, mostly, trying to talk about art, without any idea what they are talking about. Probably like artists talking about programming, or whatever it is that some of the commenters do. In particular, a comment like "Where are the blood, sweat or tears here?" leaves me thinking that some people have no idea how to value art.

Samuel did an excellent job saying a few of the things I was going to say. I will come back to that after some comments on the photograph.

 

I think that this is a great photograph. It's a fine shot of a band playing, full of atmosphere and feeling. It works in an art context and an editorial context. There are some options to change it though. For example, if this was to be used as a photo of the singer, it would help to hold back the left side until it was tonally closer to the right side. However, it works fine as is.

 

Regarding the sharpness comments, which Samuel discussed briefly...sharpness is a technical characteristic that may or may not matter. In a book of scientific photographs of insects, sharpness is paramount. In many photos, it is hardly the most important thing. If someone comments on the sharpness of one of my photos, I look to see what I did wrong. I don't want photos (mine or others) that convey "sharpness," I want photos that convey feeling and emotion, tell me something.

 

In particular, concert photos are NEVER about sharpness. Take a look at any decent book of concert photos and you will see this. I've done work for Polygram and other labels, and they have never asked for sharpness. Take a look at CD covers, music magazines (and I have had unsharp photos published in them), books about music, it's never about sharpness. It's about feeling, atmosphere, culture.

 

And this photo has plenty of that. It doesn't need silly commentary from, as Samuel put it, "babes in the woods."

Here's a good rule of thumb for you, something you could easily prove to yourself: a color photograph which does suck desatured of color is (and was) not a good photoigraph to begin with.

This is complete and total nonsense. Color theory shows us that relationships other than lightness and contrast exist in color. They don't in black and white. There are interesting color photographs (and paintings) that would be mostly one shade of grey when desaturated.

Simplistic reductionism of photography to composition is destructive. Photography is most of all about light, and the characteristics of light in color and monochrome are incredibly different.

I'd recommend a few introductory art classes...

This photograph is well-captured, it has a great mood and feeling. However, I find it a bit tonally unbalanced, distracting from the lines that lead to the children, and would probably dodge right hand street. That would give it a bit more strength in the all-important bottom.

 

I am loath to talk about something other than the photo, but it should be more relevant than whether or not the colors are real.

If someone says, "I don't like candids so I don't like the photo above," we can easily discount their criticism, as it has nothing to do with the photo. On the other hand, if someone says, "I find this too cluttered," there is some useful information to be gleaned, particularly if we can get a feel for who they are. For example, I have found that use of online critique forums has helped me to pinpoint where I go for shows. I have a good idea on age range, sex, sexual orientation, income level, and a few other demographic factors. Why is this useful? It tells me where to show my portfolio. Often it comes from simple "I don't like it" statements.

Then there are technical issues with almost any photograph that can be analyzed. I'm not talking about trivial technical issues like choice of film. As an example, could the balance between the foreground and the slightly burned out area in the back of this photograph be altered? It could significantly change the way this photo works, and it might be a valid way of looking at it. It doesn't change the photographer's vision necessarily, it may slightly alter the style or just give a different view of the same scene.

By the way, Roberto is correct, my "mentor" for the last four years or so has been a landscape photographer who shoots primarily with a Noblex. His photographs are so different than mine that it would maybe seem absurd at first, but his objectivity is often more useful than that of people who work in similar genres

This is a fine photograph, the clutter is a big part of what makes it work. We get too used to television's portrayal of things, with its simplification of everything. This shows the complexity and myriad of emotion all at once, and it's very well done.

One comment on the comments:

I would strongly recommend ignoring anyone who denigrates this picture

I think this is a terrible idea. We can't learn anything if we just listen to what reflects our own view. Even if it's only to figure out why some people don't like it, it's worth listening.

It's certainly well-executed and it has its own kind of glow.

 

However, it's like new age music, it's something that plays well in the background but doesn't offer enough close up. There's no feeling, no edge, no mystery, no excitement. Unlike Samuel, I don't think this has to do with digital - look at those UK photo magazines filled with photos of colored pencils or paper clips, those photographs have been in there for years.

 

So it might work in the "design" sense, home decor and all that, but it misses in the "higher plane" department.

 

That discussion is not well served by comments such as "Gorgeous!" when a print is out of whack with color.

Now vision and taste are subjective

These two comments are contradictory. If vision and taste are subjective, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with someone saying "Gorgeous" about any picture. Hopefully they will explain why they think it is, but there is still nothing wrong, no more than calling something "Gorgeous" when it is not "out of whack."

Joan Miro's paintings have color that is not the least bit "realistic," do we ding them for that? What creates this double standard, that photography must adhere to some arbitrary criterion of "realness"?

It's interesting how often "real" is boring. How many times has it been said that "it looked great through the finder"? It probably did, but what is "real" and what is a "photograph" are different, have different requirements, different meanings, different ways of viewing. "Real" is elusive anyway, and even when not elusive, is not what people enjoy seeing or get meaning from.

What I've rendered with the desaturated print of Blue RED may look washed out to some or many, but that image is still pretty much what we see at the beach and much closer in all likelihood to the "norm" than the original.

That's why photographs that look like the "original" aren't particularly interesting.

And rating "aesthetics" on closeness to "reality" is just plain silly and, as Vuk pointed out, quite opposite to what most photographs are and strive to be.

I find that the color scheme makes it look like a painting, an effect I happen to like. It creates an emotional response, one that would be missing with "realistic" colors. This shot also avoids the easy cliche of the lone umbrella on the beach precisely by its use of extremes in the colors.

and who uses one of those dang viewfinder contraptions

What does this have to do with anything?

I shoot with a pinhole camera that doesn't even have a viewfinder. Doesn't stop me from making worthwhile photographs.

And years of doing "hip shooting" helped me get there, probably similar to what Maurice is doing.

Really, this discussion has gone way out of bounds...

Though it is somewhat interesting as art. As a photograph I don't think so,

Is it any wonder that photography has had such a difficult time being regarded seriously as "art" by some people when photographers themselves are so busy drawing distinctions?

Regarding the photograph, it's a wonderful idea and it works quite well, the model is well-shot, but I think, as some others mentioned above, that there needs to be some more work around the model. It has the look of a "work print" (or "work image," whatever) rather than a finished piece.

But I still like it quite a bit.

Should we stop photographing war scenes because it makes people go out and shoot? Give me a $@$*& break. This is not glorifying smoking, it is showing someone smoking.

 

Also, staged shots are fine with me if they don't look stiff. This looks stiff, and that is the problem I see with it.

All it takes is a quick look at the photographer's images on photo.net to see that this is not "situational luck." Good street photography often depends on picking the right background and understanding the possibilities of what will happen. That doesn't mean one can exactly predict, but it does require practice and is not trivial.

 

Regarding photographs of peeing, the photograph that made Edward Weston croon over a then-unknown Mexican photographer named Manuel Alvarez Bravo (who is on permanent exhibition in many major art museums) was a close shot of a boy peeing. Bad taste is in the eye of the beholder.

 

Regarding this photograph, it's quite good, a very funny slice-of-life pic. I'd be happy to have taken it (it would almost fit in with some of my work), but if it was mine, I'd still wish for a bit more separation between the dog and the dark areas behind him.