Sparrow
Veteran
... and what about the symbolic reincarnation of those trees as a shed?
.......... 😉
.......... 😉
Brutally honest critique thread
- Thread starter FrankS
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 509
- Views 39K
steve kessel
steve kessel
I pass on that
Sparrow
Veteran
... sorry, but 'ironic juxtaposition'? ... the opposite of being opposed?
nongfuspring
Well-known
That depends, something very aesthetically mediocre but rich in content can be poetic. Even something as bland as an ad in the second hand classifieds can be evocative; "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." Aesthetic beauty has a lot to do with craft but is can often be incidental in art.
BTW, I'm more or less with you on the bottles, but I'm glad members of the forum have such vivid imaginations.
RichC
Well-known
That's why I like making photographs: creating art that marries aesthetics with documentation. Of all the mediums, photography (still and moving) does this the best.
Some of my artist friends are more interested in concepts and ideas than objects, and look at me uncomprehendingly when I say something like "it's not very attractive is it?" Some artworks need to be unaesthetic - for example, if you did a project on family snapshots it wouldn't be right if the "snaps" were beautifully composed - but often there is no good reason for an artwork not to be visually appealling. In fact, there are good reasons why it should be aesthetic: take paintings - as you know, we understood them by applying centuries of visual conventions and learnt ways of looking at pictures. If you ignore all that in your photograph, there's a good chance the viewer will walk right past it, either not noticing it or even being repelled!
Concept is central to my photographs. But I would like my photographs to be enjoyed by everyone - not just folk into Sontag or Baudrillard! This is a photo from my current project on the lost River Fleet in London that references ideas related to the French Situationists - but I hope it can be enjoyed simply as a picture.
Sparrow
Veteran
Yes, yes but the aesthetics needs to be appropriate to the purpose of the art, be it overt, or even ironic (sorry steve 🙂 ) that surely is the humanity of it? the communication one of us with the others must have something to do with all this otherwise what's the point.
This I Am a Camera thing, in the Isherwood sense, applied to photography just seems a subversion of art into documentary ... which simply completes the circle again
Vivid imaginations .. I've written too much of that stuff to not notice it
Sparrow
Veteran
... by paragraph, 1 yes very much so, 2 probably too convoluted to cover anything but a very small section of photography ... and 3 sounds very interesting, how is it going? ... I am myself typing this at the moment as a displacement activity, I should be doing the rhyming bit of my latest thing
mdarnton
Well-known
I really disagree with this. In my experience, no one ever complains of the added value of any picture being done well instead of poorly. Except maybe for the current fad of really bad technique in collodion photography.
A huge proportion of my work is basically high-level snapshots. Take a look and see if you can say that it doesn't work.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mdarnton
When I was a newspaper photog I brought that same idea to that work--some people felt that small town news photos were, by the nature of it, boring, because the situation was boring. Wrong.
Really these are just various forms of documentary photography. Because some people do it poorly, and some other people accept that, it does not logically follow that poor is good.
paulfish4570
Veteran
this page of this thread is wonderful ...
Hsg
who dares wins
I'd appreciate a critique of this photo I took a couple of years ago.
zauhar
Veteran
Like the sense of space, and the way the pose of the backhoe echoes the form of the building. My impulse is for a slightly tighter crop.
Not an exciting image, but interesting.
P.S. This is for Hsg's photo just above, forgot to quote
Not an exciting image, but interesting.
P.S. This is for Hsg's photo just above, forgot to quote
thompsonks
Well-known
What, a critique on this thread? Didn't you know it's for arguing about Eggleston?
Kirk
Kirk
The Meaness
Well-known
HSG,
you have a giant "arrow" that starts on the right, through the middle of the frame that points to nothing (well, trees and water) on the left. That might be the point, but if it is what are you trying to say?
you have a giant "arrow" that starts on the right, through the middle of the frame that points to nothing (well, trees and water) on the left. That might be the point, but if it is what are you trying to say?
Sparrow
Veteran
I'd appreciate a critique of this photo I took a couple of years ago.
... it's a cathedral to commerce, the central division of the horizon and the hopper on the left give it a lofty triangular composition in the top bit ... like ely cathedral soaring out of the fens, I can't get past the conflation of that really
mdarnton
Well-known
HSG: for me the visual balance is really uncomfortable; too much weight in the upper half, nothing in the lower, the top cropped too tightly, so that the towers don't have any air, with too much water/empty space at the bottom. That's just an academic comment, though. Basically, I don't think there's a picture there, at least the way you've done it. I suspect you are thinking of it intellectually, without considering the raw visual aspect at all. That's a real common problem. The clouds vs bottles photo someone posted earlier has the same problem: a lack of visual dynamics. Balance, flow, drive, force. Too much head, not enough heart. That's from my own perspective, anyway.
Worst for me, though, is the tilt to the left. I notice that a lot of people can't hold a camera straight, but there's no excuse for not straightening it out later!
Worst for me, though, is the tilt to the left. I notice that a lot of people can't hold a camera straight, but there's no excuse for not straightening it out later!
lawrence
Veteran
I'd appreciate a critique of this photo I took a couple of years ago.
It's a wonderful building but I don't think the photo quite captures this. It would have been better to concentrate on just the building rather than include the water in the foreground and the various bits and pieces to the sides. I know from experience that it's very difficult to capture the almost dreamlike quality of buildings like this. Probably best to use large format or the digital equivalent.
nightfly
Well-known
Too much water not enough building.
Would rather see it with more space around the top of building and much less foreground. I assume you would have too but couldn't get as close as you would have liked.
It reminds me of a shot I took that I really wanted to work better than it did:
Would rather see it with more space around the top of building and much less foreground. I assume you would have too but couldn't get as close as you would have liked.
It reminds me of a shot I took that I really wanted to work better than it did:
I'd appreciate a critique of this photo I took a couple of years ago.
Sparrow
Veteran
but ... my very first thought was this silo used in the defence of Stalingrad ...
Ranchu
Veteran
The last part of what I said was deleted, which basically chopped off a good portion of my view. What I said-
"I think you have to first accept the terms of the photo as a given, then you can work out if it's good in those terms. Otherwise you're just critiquing fashion or culture."
So it looks like we approach things nearly oppositely.
🙂
Hsg
who dares wins
Thank you all for your feedback.
As Zauhar said this is a boring photo but at the same time its interesting. That is how I feel about it. Its not the sort of photo I usually take but this one caught my attention since I have photographed this building quite often and yet this is the only photo, that for me at least, is a decent portrait of this building.
The reason the building is on the top of the frame has to do with me wanting to keep the verticals straight.
I can take this shot again and again so next time I'll try with a 4:3 aspect ratio and that should give some 'sky' to the building.
As Zauhar said this is a boring photo but at the same time its interesting. That is how I feel about it. Its not the sort of photo I usually take but this one caught my attention since I have photographed this building quite often and yet this is the only photo, that for me at least, is a decent portrait of this building.
The reason the building is on the top of the frame has to do with me wanting to keep the verticals straight.
I can take this shot again and again so next time I'll try with a 4:3 aspect ratio and that should give some 'sky' to the building.
