kelly_perl

Evocative of "Stranger Than Paradise" and a lot of other things. I don't get it but there definitely is something to get.

I like this a lot for the muted colors and the unusal breakage pattern. One suggestion: straighten out the pane within the frame.

It's a dilemma--you either get the field or the cultivators. It might have worked better if you had been able to get closer and just got the cultivators close in with some of the field, which looks terraced.

 

As it stands, the field isn't quite interesting enough to stand on its own.

mystical looking

The women melt in the pattern of the bright panchos, &c. I don't mean that as a bad thing, necessarily, but I do think the composition could be better--crop the rhs so you have more focus on the women, for instance. B&W works here.

It's as if some of you have never seen a homeless person before. I can see many more "poignant" stories of humanity on my trip up and back from downtown in NYC. Like the couple on 86th Street and 3rd Avenue, or the guy on the Lex who has lost BOTH legs but looks perfectly suited to a desk job or my buddy Rosa who has no kin, she lost her job last recession, or Steve the Vietnam vet/recovering crack addict who reminds me of someone I used to know a very long time ago. They all have stories that can barely fit in a camera lens.

 

This guy doesn't, at least not as presented.

 

My points:

 

Shame on you, elves, for picking just any old homeless photo. I'm sure you can find better examples of homelessness than this in the photo.net archives.

 

Aldo, I will congratulate you on your award as I always do PoW winners, but c'mon, you also can do better than this. The sign is prosaic (I've seen life stories in less room); the setting unfortunate as it provides little context (you don't see his possessions); most of all, there's no face. You absolutely need the face.

 

If this were 1981, you'd have something because Americans had never seen homeless folks in big cities in the U.S. But it is 2002 and after 20 years I'm pretty jaded. There's not much I haven't seen. There's not much I, or any of us, can do that's politically viable.

I can see there's something there in the photo, but I can't find what that something is. It could actually be a statement of loneliness if you had scanned it in as a B&W, as well as irony. Loneliness: the popcorn (looks more like fried rice) is in a deserted kitchen. When does that happen? Irony: sustenance being in such a solitary setting. Perhaps I'm laying too much symbolism on here, but there's something.

 

Improve the composition (crop off the left column or reshoot) and straighten it out so verticals are verticals and horizontals are horizontals, and scan in the negative as B&W or scan the print and I think you'd really have a pretty good photo. This might be good for color, too. Best, KEP

Good exposure, angle and use of light. It's too sharp for the subject matter, IMHO. You need an Ilford look (dreamy, blurry) for better aesthetics.

Most importantly, this subject had already been done to death 30 years ago. Ya do the cigarette thing, realize it'll ruin your strings and possibly damage your axe, the girls aren't impressed anyway, and you move on.

Andre--

 

This is a much better example of your work than your PoW. You exploit the light without the technical flaws. I like the composition, especially the extreme space; I can almost smell it in there, a damp kind of paste and posterpaint scent.

 

One suggestion: see how it looks when you crop out the top window area. I think it's a distraction and gives the photo a crooked feel, although the kids look straight enough within the frame. Best, KEP

I want to like this picture but something's keeping me from it. I can't figure out what it is, and unless I can I don't know if the grain or cropping works. At first I thought it was a manicure, then a palm reading, then a woman at a family picnic who runs into her vaguely attractive second cousin she hasn't seen in 20 years. That works for me but that's an awfully lot of work for me to do.

 

Techie comments: I like the graining but her legs dominate this shot. If this is what you want, go for it, but otherwise a crop on the bottom may help.

Larry, you've done it!

Amy--I'm a cat person, but I like this. It's an amusing photo. The one thing I'd suggest is don't crop him so closely on the top. I think the crop should be close, just not THAT close. Best, KEP

Andre--

 

Instead of biases "coloring" work, I should have said biases "overwhelm" a person's sensibilities when they are shooting kids. Almost always, result is sentimental beyond belief. Sometimes you get the extreme "dark side of childhood" by that woman whose name escapes me--the one who photographs her own kids in various states of undress and has been accused of kiddie porn. She was flavor of the month about 5 years ago or so. Also see Diane Arbus. Somehow I don't like those pix either.

 

As for the rest of your question, of course biases color work of all kinds. I do have a bias that arise largely from the behavior of parents and the sentiments of the culture toward motherhood. The bias affects my feelings about kids. It's been developed from the parents who think a stroller gives them the right to bang it in to anybody they want, repeatedly. It's been developed from the parents who leave their kids to run wild in stores to make noise. Kids have to make noise, I know, but do they have to make THAT much noise? It's been developed from the McCaughy septuplet brouhaha a few years ago--c'mon, women were not built to have their bellies filled with 15+ lbs of kids at once. It's been developed from the political climate--you can get a domestic spending bill through Congress only if you play the "our children" card. It's been developed from the glorification of single motherhood--"friends" is just the latest example.

 

Thus, I usually don't create opportunities for myself to shoot kids, though I have a few kid pictures I'm proud of. The kid was part of a show and they are sentimental. At the time, all I wanted is a very shallow DOF in an action shot.

 

So I do fall for the "oh, how cute!" like anybody else, even though I try to shoot the kids in the best realizable way.

 

Most people can work with most of their biases and make effective art despite them (or because of them). Biases about children and feelings about them are in a different league entirely, and almost nobody seems to be able work with them. We get sentimentality and anti-sentimentality. There can be good pictures within that context. The best may make a pregnancy and early childhood book. But most of the kid pix are snapshots in the truest sense of the term. They don't have the strength to make it off a parent's mantle.

 

I think your pic rises above the level of the snapshot. It has appeal beyond the family. It has good composition. If you corrected the technical problems (streaks and rhs flare), you'd have a worthy PoW. I wouldn't jump up and down over it, I wouldn't understand the 10/10 people, but the pic would be worthy of the name.

 

Best,

 

 

KEP

Add me to the list of party poopers. Leaving aside the subject matter for a moment, the streakiness of the upload and the "sundog" (flare) in the lower right hand corner do not add to the image, they most definitely subtract from it. Technique and presentation do count. I tossed a gazillion "it would be perfect with one more stop" pictures today, and I'd lump this one in that genre.

 

That said, it is a strong composition and potentially strong use of backlighting. These elements do not redeem the photo entirely, but they do manage to do so somewhat.

 

I'll confess further: I hate kid pictures. Almost nobody can keep their own nostalgic sense of childhood wonder from coloring their photography or critique of same. Sentimentality becomes the rule of the day.

 

However, I do try to keep my personal feelings about a photo away from my opinions about its general quality. There have been PoWs that I haven't liked but deserve their status. I don't think PoW isn't of the usual quality of other PoWs mostly the techie reasons I've mentioned in the first paragraph.

 

Andre, congratulations on your award and be thankful that you at least you have gotten many intelligent critiques so far.

Impressive, but nothing like we have here in NYC. (I was talking about the parking signs, of course.) Nice, whimsical shot.

"Someday guess who'll be preening before ME at the Rotary club . . ."

 

 

A good anthropomorphic shot.

1/(10^6) shot. Great composition but those puke colors are a serious distraction.

Gawd, did the people who ruined Dallas (the city) move west? But tacky building outline lighting is not your fault. I applaud your selection of an unusual angle. Composition may be better if you cropped right at the tower. There's not much action on the right, after all. Pic looks tungsteny as well--while the tower benefits greatly, the city has a green cast. You can get rid of that through Photoshop.

There's something about this shot. It's the corkscrew that makes it as well as the rich b&w tonal range. It's a little underexposed for my taste. It might look better without strict alternation of dark/light bottles. All in all, though, a decent shot. --KEP

Domestic Goddess would be a good title for this pic. I like the muddyness and simulataneous shininess of the nude's skin.

 

Not sure about the composition. I find myself wanting face or at least more leg.

So charming, with good composition and two of my favorite colors. What's not to like?

Bruno--that was my immediate reaction, so your photo has impact. A good shooting day; excellent muted color. I'd advise you to crop Brooklyn on the right for better impact.

 

I'm calling this a 9/11 related photo; I don't rate those. Best, KEP

better than the other shot. Did you manage to zoom in on the two men? That would be even better.

Great composition--pity the balloons are so ugly. You could use a little more color saturation.

thank you