What sells my work is appeal, content, lighting, and dreams. I’m not following a plan or a drawing made by an art director and when push comes to shove, every photographer is my competitor. All photographers want to be praised for their work, no matter how ill composed it may be.
Like it or not, a digital camera works exactly the same way a film camera does. Both use a shutter and an f-stop to expose a chip or a film. Reading about how to expose either artfully is the same, so get on with it. READ
Jan
On Aug 17, 2012, at 11:25 AM, H wrote: Jan you make a lot of sense. I shoot for a living too and the thought process of "work" is much more complex than my "snaps" There is plenty competition out there... Especially here in Santa Fe NM and I have to use every tool in the box to keep ahead of the pack. But I wonder if most pf members have such high aspirations. I don't think one can judge a neighborhood cook-out as you would a Chef of the year competition. Constructive criticism requires careful consideration of not only the heart of the photograph, but also the heart of the photographer. Of course I have never been an "artist" but rather a craftsman or technician so it's a little out of my league to be talking about this stuff.
Sent from my iPhone
Every time I write something I get pounced on. I am critical of about 99% of photographs being taken today. This is due in part to the equipment used to take them and partly due to technique. With the advance of digital, photographers have become lazy. They appear to believe that the camera can do anything and everything for them including focus the camera, set the correct DOF and ideal shutter speed, and yet nothing could be further from the truth. Manufacturers set their products to produce a ‘good enough’ picture, and if one is going to shoot on P or A, you get what somebody else wants, not what you prefer.
So for this week’s comments, the daisies are not evoking anything for as this is a case where the camera needs to be on a tripod and the lens needs to be a macro type lens. The ‘Dogs” is really about legs and a bum and the photographer is afraid to say so, and the cathedral shot is crying out for a tripod and more careful management of the DOF. I could see it if the pew immediately in front of the camera were sharp and the rest of the church OOF, but this image is not taken with a sufficient F-stop to produce a focused shot at the apparent point of interest. The face in the tree is nice, but not a great shot. It seems to me that what is missing from all of these shots is planning, vision, perhaps a tripod for spotty lighting conditions like a church, and more control of the cameras. If you want compose a photo, compose it carefully and take the bloody camera off NORMAL. IF you need to shoot with a slower shutter speed in the church for e example, brace yourself on the pew in front of you, sit down, and take the shot where you control the DOF.
The world is not set for AUTO photography. Good photographs take vision and work. Doesn’t anybody read how to books any more? Get a John Hedgecoe or (God forbid) an Ansel Adams book on technique and READ IT. A Samsung manual is not a good place to discover tips on how to make good pictures. And as far as Photoshop is concerned, you cannot make garbage into a great shot with PS anything. If used to be said that you can’t make a sow’s ear into a silk purse and that goes to photographs too.
There i a lurker on this list named Palma Brozetti and Palma made a wonderful shot of Market Street in the snow and it so obviously completed the tasks of good composition and exposure that it is a great shot. I’m sure she steadied herself, perhaps used a tripod and was careful with the exposure The ‘je ne c’est quois’ in her picture of Market St is what is missing from this week’s gallery selections.
Yes, I know I’m being a bit harsh, but I do photography for a living and to stand out, you have to stand out. This does not mean that I think I’m the best photographer out there, as I am firmly convinced that there is no ‘best’ photographer. But if you treat the making of your images like they could be great art, then success will come. What I am waiting for is for somebody to win a Pulitzer Prize with an iPhone camera. I’m sure it will happen. Canon and NIkon used to be the biggest sellers of cameras, but now it’s Apple.
Jan Faul
OOF - Out Of Focus DOF - Depth Of Field
Interesting. Nobody said a word about my feedback. I'm fairly sure it was sent, as I received it back from the list. That's fine, I suppose, but a bit discouraging; a bit like trying to carry a conversation with a cliff face. In fact, as far as I could tell, nobody else said a word about this week's offering. Ah, well. perhaps next time. Andrew On Sat, August 11, 2012 5:19 pm, asharpe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: On Sat, August 11, 2012 8:27 am, Andrew Davidhazy wrote:
The PhotoForum members' gallery/exhibit space was updated August 11,
2012. Authors with work now on display at:
http://people.rit.edu/andpph/gallery.html include:
Elson T. Elizaga - Extraordinary Claims
Beautiful portrait. Since the text is so large, it is the subject,
though. This looks like a good commercial ad, but it detracts from the
very nicely lit portrait of the boy. I will say, however, that without the
text, the boy may very well look simply very unhappy, and not quizzical at
all, especially since it looks a bit wet under his left eye, as if he had
recently been crying.
John Palcewski - Dogs
Well, Jan mentioned you like butts, and here's one, albeit on an amputee.
Without the title, the butt's the subject. However, with the title, it
becomes rather an amusing photograph, since the titular dogs are really not
interested in the photograph, and are themselves on their way out of the
frame.
Scott Thurmond - Needs work
A good idea, but the composition is too static. Perhaps it would be
improved by black and white (or much more saturation, to draw attention to
the emblem still proudly sitting on a rather sad carcass), or maybe
slanted, or maybe off center, I'm not sure.
Bob McCulloch - Daisies
Pretty flowers, shot with a wide aperture. It is simply a pretty picture,
and needs something more to be something more. A wider aperture (or
longer lens) to further blur the background and isolate the subject would
help; the background blur is distinct enough to be a bit distracting.
Dan Mitchell - Cathedral
There's something HDR'ish about the photo, yet the windows in front are
totally blown out. The verticals are mostly vertical, and that's good, and
I'm wondering what's going on in front with a long line of folks in the
center and spectators on the side. A wedding? A funeral? A baptism? Seems
like a small affair, though, dwarfed by the number of empty seats. So the
question becomes, what is the subject? The tall arches are the most
distinct and easy to see, and look as though their exposure was adjusted
in post. So, that's the subject for me. If that was the intended subject,
that's good.
Yoram Gelman - Bark Gargoyle
My favorite this week. This is something I would have photographed. It
might as well be in black and white, and perhaps should be, except... for
the green sprout growing out of his head. I like that, and would hate to
see it go. But perhaps in black and white, increasing the green in the
conversion process would turn the sprout white, making it more obvious.
Also, the circle of light at the top right is distracting and makes my
eye jump back and forth from the great face and the blurry light. You
could easily crop it off with no loss to the photograph. But these are
nits; I could be convinced that the light is the moon, and this fellow is
a wood gnome that only comes out in the moonlight.
Andrew
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http://andrewsharpe.com
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