Critique please... "Tsunami"

[mgd711]

Not just a critique but also please how do I improve...

I consider myself to be a reasonable photographer but one thing I've never been able to do is tell a story through photography. I look at other people work and I'm often amazed in how they do it. It's the one area where I really want to be excellent at, taking a series off images and putting them together into a meaningful depiction off events. I've had various project's in my mind for years but always at the last hurdle they always fall. Lack off time, commitment and more often than not... confidence in being able to do it. A single image I can take without too much trouble, but to take a series and capture it I just fall apart.

Below is a series off images I shot in March, the first 3 on one day and the next 9 a week later. Please critique these all together (however amateurish they may be) and offer some guidance on how to improve.


Before the Tsunami... but after the earthquake

Slight light leak as the lens was not locked!

After the tsunami...

 

[mgd711]

Continued...

After the tsunami...

 

[Keith]

As photographs they are great individually but for me they don't tell a story and I'm having difficulty quantifying what's missing ... people maybe?

The shots I see you take of the the locals in the Phillipines really grab me and I think you relate to your subjects really well. I think that's your strength as a photographer and as dramatic as these images may be they don't tell me anything about you where as your people shots definitely do.

Just my two cents as they say. 🙂

 

[Out to Lunch]

My two cents: the Japanese tsunami exemplifies that with the availability of real-time video, photography is obsolete as far as 'news' is concerned. The post-tsunami photography that sticks to ones mind is close-up, dramatic and personal...few landscape shots like the ones you published above.

 

[Ranchu]

Needs intimacy. my 2c. I wonder what is written in that waterlogged book, and I have a feeling the burned out truck might have a face whose expression I could read if I could see it just a bit better. Sounds simplistic, but 'stories' are stories of people, as Keith said. If they're not in the picture, how are they connected to it, who were they before, what were they doing...

 

[mgd711]

Keith, there is no people here as the area had been closed by the Japanese Self Defence Force, I shouldn't have been wandering round here but as the ship was alongside the key it was easy to go for a wander. Generally I never take pictures unless there is people in them but there was no one here.

Peter, photography may well be obsolete for 'real time news' but it still doesn't stop me from trying to copy the style of photojournalist's of old.

Ranchu, the water logged book contained manifest's for the cargo we were loading at the time off the tsunami. I didn't think it was particularly relevant. I take your point that stories are off people but in some off the towns just south off us there were no people left yet I've seen some interesting photo essay's from these area's.

How does one develop the skill off producing good photo essay's?

 

[Out to Lunch]

Mike, as I mentioned above: get close and personal. Cheers, Peter

 

[Pablito]

This part is true:

The post-tsunami photography that sticks to ones mind is close-up, dramatic and personal..

James Whitlow Delano has done some powerful post-tsunami work, in b&w... He has long shots too but they are very, very dramatic - the worst sort of damage.

 

[Pablito]

check out his work:

http://jameswhitlowdelano.photoshelter.com/gallery-slideshow/G0000_4r5cQJ0QqQ/?start=

 

[Ranchu]

Hell if I'm any kind of authority on how to develop that skill, I muddle along as best I can, myself. What I'm trying to suggest is something similar to thi though. I hope it might help.

"Pathos is often associated with emotions, but it is more complex than simply emotions. A better equivalent might be appeal to the audience's sympathies and imagination. An appeal to pathos causes an audience not just to respond emotionally but to identify with the writer's point of view - to feel what the writer feels. So, when used in tragedy, pathos evokes a meaning implicit in the verb 'to suffer' - to feel pain imaginatively or vicariously. Pathos is often employed with tragedies and this is why pathos often carries this negative emotional connotation. Perhaps the most common way of conveying a pathetic appeal is through narrative or story, which can turn the abstractions of logic into something palpable and present. The values, beliefs, and understandings of the writer are implicit in the story and conveyed imaginatively to the reader. Pathos thus refers to both the emotional and the imaginative impact of the message on an audience, the power with which the writer's message moves the audience to decision or action."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathos

 

[Keith]

Mike, as I mentioned above: get close and personal. Cheers, Peter

I think this is a valid comment!

I realise there were restrictions in place but I feel you could have been more intimate with what you were photographing ... people or no people! Even when there's no one there, there's always going to be the spaces where they should have been!

That devistated tanker was a story waiting to be told IMO ... you just finished up with a photograph of a damaged truck with no other really significant pieces of the jigsaw being shown. I think moving in really close with a much wider lens would have been very effective here ... a 21mm or even a 15mm maybe to try and get some perspective of the environmental surrounds.

 

[Luna]

How does one develop the skill off producing good photo essay's?

Look at how other people do it.

http://www.lightstalkers.org
http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com
http://www.mediastorm.com
http://www.reportagebygettyimages.com
http://vervephoto.wordpress.com
http://www.viiphoto.com

 

[mgd711]

It's a good point Luna and the first link you have is... Lightstalkers, the subject off my thread yesterday. I've studied some off the great's in photography since I was a kid but I'm still unable to do what they did... Lack of confidence, lack of direction? I don't know, thats why I'm asking.

Get closer, personal... When there's people around I think I do, the situation above is different though. I've posted that to my blog over the past few day's and it's the first time I realised I may have created a small photo essay but lacking in confidence and direction (as I can never find the time to meet up with my PJ friends) I posted it here for your feedback.

Ranchu, thanks for the quote on "Pathos", I'm going to stick that in my camera bag and use it as a measure for future work.

The meter I have always used is Robert Capa's "If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough." However that has not solved my inability to produce photo essay's.

 

[Out to Lunch]

Close and personal does not necessarily include the need of humans in your frame. Cheers, Peter

 

[maddoc]

Mike,

that topic is difficult to photograph becuase you have to be involved while trying to keep neccessary distance. I think part of the "best" photos of what happened in North-East Japan coast area have been taken by Junku Nishimura. "Best" because he managed very good to establish a close relation of what he wanted to document. Of course, being Japanese was one of the key factor.

Being close, not only physically, is the most important here, IMHO.

 

[GSNfan]

Lets look at these images differently.

Had these images were the only record of the post tsunami destruction of a small area, they'd be sensational and quite significant historically. Their 'aesthetics' as photographs would have been completely forgotten for their sheer descriptive power... Everyone would have praised them and they would have been published all over the place.

But unfortunately that is not the case, not because these photos are not doing what they're supposed to do, but simply because the aerial video footage of tsunami in action and other images of houses getting ripped and on fire while floating on a tsunami wave, not to mention even small stories such as a dog protecting another injured dog while they're rescued, those video images have pushed the scale so far above anything possible with a simple still photo that those video footage could be compared to a tsunami and still photographs to splashes in a bathtub.


There is a video footage of the tsunami where people are on a high ground and in front of them, very nicely framed between the trees, the whole town is getting destroyed by the tsunami wave, people are screaming and the horror is simply unimaginable and yet all of that was captured by a frightened onlooker.

Its nice to be nostalgic and play the PJ and take photos like PJs of the past, but the more important question is who's looking at them, and who're your audience.

 

[Ranchu]

I haven't seen any video of the tsunami, just stills.

 

[dct]

Tsunami movies

Tsunami movies

I haven't seen any video of the tsunami, just stills.

I don't know if you're joking, but if it's true, you are really missing some impressing records. This and similar video snips were in our local news coverage for many days.

 

[dct]

Lets look at these images differently.

Had these images were the only record of the post tsunami destruction of a small area, they'd be sensational and quite significant historically...

...Its nice to be nostalgic and play the PJ and take photos like PJs of the past, but the more important question is who's looking at them, and who're your audience.

Agree 100 %. But even with these facts in mind, the initial poster could have improved his photo story, by going down into some details, after starting with the wide/tele shots. As already mentioned here, there is no need of people for telling an inside story. I see a few good starting points:
- one of the crushed vehicles
- a partly destroyed house
- some stack of litter

I'm shure you would have found many interesting frames. Not only for very wide angle, but also for close ups.

But what am I teaching here? I've to do first myself exactly what I'm telling here... 😱😡
Thank you for the initial post. It seems I'm replying to myself. I have similar problems as you and reflecting yours, it helps me see my photo errors!

 

[mgd711]

Lets look at these images differently.

I think your missing my point. I'm not asking for a critique on the images but a critique on there connectivness (my made up word 🙂 ), are these images connected, are they able to convey any sense off a story? Or am I totally barking up the wrong tree.

What I want to be able to do is to create a story with a series off images. I'll admit these are nothing compared to the video's I've seen or the video's we shot from the bridge off the ship as we were spun round like a toy boat in a bathtub.

This is my first attempt to do this type off thing, there is plenty of Pro's and gifted photographers here, advice please.