bill sullivan

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Simone: My barber has a sign in his shop. It reads: "What is that haircut really saying?" It is meant to be funny of course, but I often think about it when I look at my photographs and photographs taken by others. With my barber's funny sign in mind, I think: What is that picture really saying?

 

You make an excellent point, and I share your concern. We of the age of fast shutter speeds and heavy glass on our cameras tend to focus on the technical aspects of using our cameras and software. Our images can be sharp and well composed, yet they can somehow fail to tell us "the story." I for one have seen too many photographs that look like they were taken by someone who was speeding down the highway in an air-conditioned car, stopped to take a picture, and then sped off again. If I am not oversimplifying too much, it is hard to tell a story when you don't stop, slow down, and find out what the story is, and then make up your mind to tell it.

 

Since I am by profession a writer, and only an amateur (at my own insistance) picture-taker, I also happen to think that good photos can be helped by well-written titles. Lately I have had occasion to place my photographs beside articles in a publication, and I think each helps the other. But that perhaps is another story.

 

Thank you for a couple of good questions.

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Simone,

 

Your first question is: I find some very good reportagists are totally ignored or receive very low ratings, and do I think this is good or bad? My answer is, I think it is bad. Asking us to evaluate photographs on "aesthetics" and "originality" ignores the fact that the photograph may have other virtues. On the other hand, I have thought about this a lot and I don't know what else Photo.net might do.

 

As for your second question, I found some photographs by Gianni Berengo Gardin on the Internet. Wonderful work. I have a couple of thoughts about your "images with no story." One thought is that many photographers today are indeed taking pictures with a story. Mostly they are in the "street" category, but stories appear in other categories as well. The other thought is that America, ever since its settlement by Europeans, has always been a land of wide open spaces. Artists (painters, water colorists, photographers, etc.) have always pictured the glories of these wide open spaces, story or not. Maybe it's an American thing. So yes, especially in Photo Critique Forum areas such as nature, landscapes, and closeups, photos without stories are normal.

 

Those are my thoughts.

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I would like to take this opportunity to say that my favorite Photo.net forum is the one called No Words. Somebody proposes a theme, you dip into your archives for something that matches the theme, and wordlessly you send it in. I have yet to finish the Sontag tome (and when was it published? 30 years ago? 40?), but it is a work of criticism (and you don't have to be a photographer to write photography criticism -- I'll give her that). I guess my approach to art has always been: If you want to make art, make your damned art, and stop talking about it. (Ditto for a craft). I guess that may make you wonder what I think about a forum called Philosophy of Photography. What I think is: Stop talking, start taking pictures.

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Something else to try is LAB color mode under the Image menu. Select the Lightness channel. If you like it, or choose to work with it using Curves, Brightness/Contrast or whatever, you will have to select and copy it, then open a new PS file (which will be in RGB mode), paste and save.

I think you need to provide more information. Where and in what month did you make this fine photo? Approximately how large is the bird (in inches)? Did you take it to be an adult or an immature bird? Both Savannah and White-Throated look like good guesses. I agree with the guy who suggested you get a field guide.

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