touchel berne

Michael, I think this would have benefited from a bit of fill flash to increase the exposure without blowing out parts of the background and to stop motion just a bit.

This seems a bit overexposed to me (could be the mac gamma). It would be better if there were a stronger difference in tonality between the man's face and the background.

I've never been a big fan of postmodern irony. I was just surprised to find irony entirely absent from this work. I'm more interested in why there seems to be a pretty big push back to pictorialism. If it were being done by a few individuals I'd think of it as nothing more than a curiosity. However, find it a little frightening as a larger tendency because it feels like an aesthetic disengagement from the real world.

I think this one's a bit too distant from its subject.

We're going back to the beginning, it seems. I can't even find any post-modern irony in this piece (such as in the work of that Japanese fellow who inserts himself into famous paintings using a similar technique). This is a straight-up pre-raphaellite, symbolist piece from the end of the last century. I've seen this tendency cropping up in photo magazines, advertising shots, etc. What on earth does this mean? I don't want to demean this image, it's certainly well executed and pretty, but it's so much of a throwback that I just can't take to it.

Was this taken at dusk?

Posed or unposed? I do think it makes a difference: observation/recognition of something that's occurring and the imagination and construction involved in setting up a shot are completely different things. I don't think that one approach is inherently better than the other, though I do have a preference for the former. Observation is more perfectly a photographic approach.

 

In the current picture, I can't tell if it's posed or unposed, so it doesn't really matter very much. I like knowing, though, because it's one of the things that helps me understand a picture or a photographer. (There are gradations between posed and unposed, of course.)

 

I like this picture, but I don't think I would have pulled it aside like this. (Are the POW's getting less provocative so as to generate less controversy and name-calling, or is it just me?)

I don't think this photo is too vague. Not all conversations take place out in the open. This is a very literary picture, though it also works as an abstract. I like it.

You've done something pretty cool here, taken a photojournalistic subject and handling it in a way that emphasizes color and composition.

I'm impressed.

I see what you're trying to do with this, isolate the hands. I think it's a good idea, but that you took it a bit too far with both focus and exposure. The effect is a bit heavy handed. You've got ideas though, and that's the part of photography that's most often missed.

I love this idea, it's like a Chinese scroll painting. I've never seen anything quite like it. (I was unable to see the full height of the picture in the browser window at 1024 x 768 resolution, I suggest that it's a tad too large for the web.) Unfortunately the novelty of the form only suggests how off-handedly it's used in this photograph. You could have had two Phillip Greenspuns, one sipping lemonade while watching the other work. You could have had one working Phillip Greenspun and one Phillip Greenspun running off into the distance. These are kind of lame ideas, but they're what the form is suited for, I think. Very cool, I want to try this.

I like this one even better than I liked the boots. It's more successful in its abstraction. Very cool work.

I like this picture, just wanted to say so. I've become interested in the photography of Ray Metzger recently, he does a lot of interesting things with shadows. Especially allowing them to merge with concrete objects that have the same dark tone by printing them with a higher contrast. This picture reminded me of that, not because this is what you have done (you've retained what was probably more-or-less the original tonality), but because it seems like an interesting possibility for this particular picture. For me, personally, it's not a possibility that I'd really considered all that much before looking at Metzger this past week. A new tool, I guess. Anyway, this is an appreciative comment, plus a recommendation (if you're not aware of Metzger's work.)

I've never liked the term "candid photography," because it implies that the subject(s) of the photograph need to have been unaware that the photograph was taken. I guess the idea is that people are more likely to be themselves, to be in a 'natural' state of repose or activity if they are unaware of the photographer. I personally don't think this is the case. Personally, I prefer to say that I take pictures of people in situations - situational photography. Sometimes I do 'situationist photography' but that's something different altogether and would be very much off-topic.

 

I don't think that pictures in which the subject(s) are aware of the photographer are any less truthful than ones in which they aren't. They may be very different, but I don't think there's something intrinsically superior about candid photography.

 

The reason I said that I would be disappointed if I found out that this had been posed or contrived in some way (in my initial post WAY up on the top of the page) is that I think there's a big difference between saying: "Here is the world as it is, I have captured this slice of it for you with my camera," and saying, "Here is the world as I imagine it to be." I'm usually more interested in the world as it is than I am in the world as someone else imagines it. It makes me feel GOOD to know that somewhere in the world there is a woman sitting on a beach looking like she just came from a rainy-day funeral in Eastern Europe while other people hold conversations with birds.

 

As for arguments that the seagull could not have been posed: seagulls are surprisingly easy to manipulate using pieces of bread or popcorn. I had an interesting afternoon last summer with the seagull photographed above in Atlantic City, New Jersey. This wasn't a candid photograph.

 

 

 

 

This is a revised comment: it turns out that my suspicion that this photograph was faked was way off-base and for that I apologize. However, I still think this photo LOOKS fake, and I think that's a valid criticism. If a viewer looking at a photograph immediately questions its reality then there's a problem.

I like the composition, and the boots do seem poised to do something dangerous. I think the image is a little contrasty: there might not be enough definition between the top of the shoe on the right and the back of the shelf & also the heel of the boot on the left. Good shot.

Michael, you need to make more decisions. Try eliminating anything that's not essential to getting your idea across. But first, make sure that you have an idea. I can only assume that you found it emotionally powerful to be there from the context and from the fact that you've decided to post this picture here, but there's nothing in the photo itself that communicates this. Look for details. If the woman's profile is interesting to you, then try to isolate it a bit more, making sure to leave just enough of the context so that people recognize what's going on. Try harder.

This is an incredibly elegant photograph. So much is communicated with so little, like a perfect haiku. If their heads had been in the composition, it would have been too much information. As it is, it's just right. The body language and the details of dress alone would have been enough, but the inclusion of the American flag makes this picture excellent because it gives the thing context and some visual flair.

I love this one. This is really great. It's elliptical and mysterious, it suggests thousands of contradictory narratives - it's like a film still. I don't need to ask about this one, I get it. I'll be a little disappointed if I find out that it was set-up, but even if it was, it's still extremely imaginative. Thank you.

My first thought was that the man in the photo was a prisoner. Though, having been to Cambodia, I would have to say that everyone living there is in some way a prisoner of a country that went horribly wrong over the course of the 20th century - for many reasons including US policy during the Vietnam war. The economy there is so distorted that a small child can beg more money in an hour or two from a tourist than his or her family can earn in a week farming or doing anything else constructive to the economy. Especially around Siem Reap, where everyone I met under thirty seemed to be trying to get the official Angkor Wat tour guide certificate. The place is primed for international tourism - the road to Angkor Wat is the site of many hotels in construction. I like this photo a lot, I wish I'd taken it.