Brutally honest critique thread

Ned Bojic said:
Oh yes! Asking people to kiss or to stand there or whatever else is a comon practice among the best street shooters.

The thing is, the viewer will NEVER know.
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... and you subscribe to deceiving your viewers? You think it proper to knowingly, deliberately deceive your audience?... I can't be bothered going back to see if you used 'integrity' or 'authenticity' or 'legitimacy' earlier, but I expect you know where I'm going ...

... anyway, agreeing with others is not, necessarily a weakness I found 🙂
 
JChrome said:
Thanks for the feedback here. I'm happy to at least evoke something so that's the beginning of a win for me.

So do you believe that if he were lighter then he would cease to look accidental or cease to be an obstruction? Or both?

I am basing a new series of photos off of this image so I really appreciate the feedback.
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I'm not certain what I would want the man to look like; the word that comes to mind is 'texture,' I want him to have more texture. Presence. Less shadow, more spirit/ghost? Well, I am not certain how you see the person, what you want from the shape.

I'll briefly comment on what I see in this 'brutally honest' thread. When asked to critique, I act from the position that people are trying to achieve something in their photos. And as a teacher or a critic, I will respect that they do have an intention. The image may be far from successful, and it's partly the teacher/critic's position to pull out the glimmers of intention as they see it manifested in the work and give these elements respect. Respecting the intention does not mean that the image per se has to be treated with respect.

If you aren't willing to look, and if you aren't willing to treat the photographer's intention as deserving of respect, then I wonder what people are trying to do? This isn't grad school. It's a mix of mainly amateur people who takes pictures. Are you proud of showing how 'brutal' you can be? That's just sad. Pull your hand away from your crotch and spend a little time to actually look and think about what people are trying to do, and find a way to be both respectful and articulate; give them something they can USE when you trash someone's image.

Well, enough. I'm out of this thread. Nice try, FrankS, there are some good moments in this thread.
 
Hsg said:
I think you need to calm down and relax.
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.. clever argument sir, ... you certainly got me thinking with that one
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RichC said:
Yes ... gosh was I fuming, Hsg! I even kicked the cat! 😡
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It is my opinion that still photos cannot tell a story. If you disagree with my opinion then there is no reason to get angry because my opinion has no value. I'm not an authority on the medium of photography. I offer my critique because it helps me learn and also it might be helpful to others.
 
Hsg said:
It is my opinion that still photos cannot tell a story. If you disagree with my opinion then there is no reason to get angry because my opinion has no value. I'm not an authority on the medium of photography. I offer my critique because it helps me learn and also it might be helpful to others.
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... it seems cruel to ask, but have you by any chance ever read Susan Sontag's On Photography?

As many people find it is a wonderful source of quotes and concepts for defending otherwise indefensible positions adopted in this area ...
 
Sparrow said:
... it seems cruel to ask, but have you by any chance ever read Susan Sontag's On Photography?

As many people find it is a wonderful source of quotes and concepts for defending otherwise undefinable positions adopted in this area ...
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The only photography book that I have read, repeatedly, is The Complete Photographer by: Andreas Feininger.

I have watched the 6 part documentary, The Genius of Photography.

That is my photographic, theoretical, education.
 
Sparrow said:
... then you are at least honest ... if uneducated
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Not reading Susan Sontag's and he's uneducated???

I read that book and now I feel uneducated because of it. Wish I hadn't bother.
More nonsense than any "educational" value for me as a photographer.

My opinion, of course.
 
Hsg said:
It is my opinion that still photos cannot tell a story.
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I'm in agreement with this, and I think there is some well reasoned support for this argument in Sontag's "On Photography;" I'll further opine that Winogrand's technique and philosophy reflect this truth at the implementation level.

The most a still photo can do is provoke a narrative in the viewer's mind, but this is always the viewer's overlay and extension of the photograph's formal content. If the photograph's content is structured in a certain way, the chances increase that many viewers will arrive at similar narrative overlays - and in practice, the resulting "agreed" narratives tend to the facile.

An example from my own shooting:

12145672173_71efd38314_z_d.jpg


Just about every commentary I've had on this photo is the same; peoples' "guess" on "what's happening," their constructed narratives, are very similar. But its still the viewer telling the story.

Hence the various takes on the photos posted in this thread. One that has received a lot of discussion, and a fair bit of kudos, is the Manhattan couple. I'm in the minority (I think, not going to go back and tally up the sides) that feels this photo fails on numerous formal levels and the woman's expression is too ambiguous, without being intriguing, to carry the image past those failures. I've spent enough time in NYC that a crabby-looking lady on the sidewalk just can't catch my eye.

On the other hand, a less well-recived photo in this thread (again, to the best of my recollection) was the suburb shot with the wide street and tree branch shadows in the foreground. As a shooter who experiences daily frustration with the paucity of visual opportuninty on suburban streets, I think this is a great shot, and a really solid example of the incredibly fleeting nature of "solvable" scenes in that environment.

p.s. above image is posted to illustrate my point, but, also fair game for brutal critique. Really enjoying this thread...
 
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On whether it matters whether the subject is caught candidly or is aware of being photographed, let's critique some pictures. IMO this makes no difference at all re: the greater or lesser strength of the image; neither is inherently Better or Worse.

Also I'll be surprised and even a bit disappointed if none of them 'tell a story' or suggest a narrative to the viewer:


Re-posting four oldies ... by thompsonkirk, on Flickr


5843374924_38a493fc63_b by thompsonkirk, on Flickr


6310323859_44233f0ba4_o by thompsonkirk, on Flickr


Reposting four oldies ... by thompsonkirk, on Flickr

IMO it would be nice if folks could get past discussing what they think are the Rules, and talk about what they actually see in the images offered for critique.

Kirk

(PS about Sontag: I re-read On Photography not long ago and found that if I put aside all the negativism and her being caught up in snarky Deconstruction, I could read lots of her observations as making pretty good sense. I'm not urging anyone else to read it again, though.)
 
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Hsg said:
It is my opinion that still photos cannot tell a story. If you disagree with my opinion then there is no reason to get angry because my opinion has no value. I'm not an authority on the medium of photography. I offer my critique because it helps me learn and also it might be helpful to others.
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In response to
RichC said:
Yes ... gosh was I fuming, Hsg! I even kicked the cat!
mad.gif
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🔺 Where's the irony smilie when you need it...!?​
 
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