paulfish4570
Veteran
the title of this thread should be brutally frank, not brutally honest.
using honest means everything said before was a lie ... 🙂
using honest means everything said before was a lie ... 🙂
Brutally honest critique thread
- Thread starter FrankS
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Hsg
who dares wins
This is a fantastic thread. Here's a picture I took about a year ago walking in Manhattan. For some reason (that I hope someone can help me understand) it is by far the picture with the most likes in my Flickr Photostream. I am open to critiques and comments 🙂
A Manhattan couple by Mahler_seele, on Flickr
Photography is not movie making, "a look" on its own does not mean anything when that "look" is not complemented with the rest for the picture.
Here you have an image with the main center of interest, the girl, smack in the dead center with her "look", which is due to as you say argument with the guy, but then so what? A couple were arguing so I took their picture... Is arguing on the street a big deal? What is so interesting about the argument of a couple - photographically?
This is a hurriedly framed shot with terrible framing and composition, with no aesthetic element at play.
If you measure your photography by flicker likes, you're wasting your time.
p.s. shooting film does not mean that one leaves the dust spots in the final image. there are dust spots all over this image.
Hsg
who dares wins
I went through a bunch of my work, looking for something to post here. I always come back to this one. Not sure if it's just my own preference or if it strikes anything with anyone else. I suppose this post will help answer that.
This picture has two layers, the shape and the buildings, and yet none of those have any interesting element to them, to me as a viewer.
Someone else might come along and project some psychological projection on to it, but photography is not psychology. We might be motivated by psychological motives but in the end what is in the frame has to have something tangible that stands on its own visually.
Hsg
who dares wins
To create a narrative for a still photo is always an assumption.
We don't know if they're a couple, we don't know if they're actually arguing, we don't know what actually the expression on the girl's face imply.
It is the job of writers and movies makers and so on to tell stories. Photographers should stick to the humble job of taking photos.
We don't know if they're a couple, we don't know if they're actually arguing, we don't know what actually the expression on the girl's face imply.
It is the job of writers and movies makers and so on to tell stories. Photographers should stick to the humble job of taking photos.
JChrome
Street Worker
nightfly
Well-known
You're flat out wrong here almost by definition:
"Street photography and documentary photography can be very similar genres of photography that often overlap while having distinct individual qualities.
Documentary style is defined by its premeditated message and intention to record particular events in history. The documentary approach includes aspects of journalism, art, education, sociology and history. In documentary's social investigation, often the images are intended to pave way to social change. Street photography is disinterested in its nature, allowing it to deliver a true depiction of the world.[8] Street photographs are mirror images of society, displaying "unmanipulated" scenes, with usually unaware subjects.[3]"
quoth Wikkipedia
Obviously, "true depiction of the world" and "unmanipulated" are problematic and ripe for discusssion but the general idea is more or less clear.
I would certainly cite Winogrand and Moriyama among the "best" in the field and neither do it. You say that Winogrand's photos show that he did, but you're saying it doesn't make it so and most of the photos of his I've seen, demonstrate exactly the opposite. In fact his compositions are such that many struggle with him because of the apparent chaos despite a more complex underlying logic to the frame.
Mccurry and Salgado aren't in the field at all.
You may very well prefer more consciously composed and manipulated street scenes because they conform more to your rule based aesthetics but that doesn't let you dictate the meaning of street photography.
"Street photography and documentary photography can be very similar genres of photography that often overlap while having distinct individual qualities.
Documentary style is defined by its premeditated message and intention to record particular events in history. The documentary approach includes aspects of journalism, art, education, sociology and history. In documentary's social investigation, often the images are intended to pave way to social change. Street photography is disinterested in its nature, allowing it to deliver a true depiction of the world.[8] Street photographs are mirror images of society, displaying "unmanipulated" scenes, with usually unaware subjects.[3]"
quoth Wikkipedia
Obviously, "true depiction of the world" and "unmanipulated" are problematic and ripe for discusssion but the general idea is more or less clear.
I would certainly cite Winogrand and Moriyama among the "best" in the field and neither do it. You say that Winogrand's photos show that he did, but you're saying it doesn't make it so and most of the photos of his I've seen, demonstrate exactly the opposite. In fact his compositions are such that many struggle with him because of the apparent chaos despite a more complex underlying logic to the frame.
Mccurry and Salgado aren't in the field at all.
You may very well prefer more consciously composed and manipulated street scenes because they conform more to your rule based aesthetics but that doesn't let you dictate the meaning of street photography.
Pherdinand
the snow must go on
Pherdinand
the snow must go on
i agree with that, kind of.
"Collaboration" is a big word, but there's a grey area between candid/hiding and everything-set-up type "collaboration with the subject".
An eye contact e.g. can make a shot stand out a lot.
I have -coincidentally- a short flickr series in my signature to illustrate what i mean. Not that those shots stand out or are extraordinary or something 🙂 but i like them and they would be much less without the eye contact.
Of course there are exceptions where it is not necessary or even detrimental to a photo if the subject takes notice of the photographer...
JChrome
Street Worker
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.
Pherdinand
the snow must go on
i think you're missing the point where a really good street (and some other) photo, if doesn't actually "tell a story" but it gives a feeling AND it makes the viewer at least wonder or think, what actually could be happening there.
Of course all this should happen without the photographer adding a descriptive title or text AND without the photographer asking for critique i.e. forcing the viewer to analyze and think. Coz that's cheating 🙂
Pherdinand
the snow must go on
hmmm...i wish my boss at work would share your interpretation of the word "collaboration", 😀
i don't mean to divert the discussion to semantics, and English isn't even my my strongest point, but collaboration is = "to work with you" so that's a bit pushing it. I wouldn't be surprised if people read that as closer to "set-up shot" than to "accepting your presence".
However,
in fact we all agree-
Grandmasters are grandmasters, no matter how they pulled those shots off,
And we all like good photography.
paulfish4570
Veteran
collaboration (with the enemy) merits a jail sentence or execution. 🙂
Sparrow
Veteran
Ah! Brutally FrankS! ... shocking
... Ned is probably sucking the humour out of that as I type ... 😀
Sorry Ned ... very pretty :angel: ... :hangs-head-in-mock-remorse-smiley:
Sparrow
Veteran
... fun sponge you too!!
Hsg
who dares wins
The issue is that we're concerned with the basics of what makes a good photograph.
You can waste years making and keeping photos that make you 'feel something' but that is your prerogative.
In my view, a photographer who is totally insulated in a bubble of self-congratulation will always live in fear and anxiety of being critiqued - one cannot make 'good' photos unless one learns what are 'bad' photos.
Sparrow
Veteran
... em, you accused someone earlier of splitting hairs earlier :embraced-face: ... how contrived is that? ... the subject must collaborate in a candid photo ... really?
nightfly
Well-known
You are very much walking back what you initially said.
I must have misinterpreted "asking" to mean "asking".
You really mean, not asking but merely acknowledging that the photographer exists.
I would say this doesn't happen either in many of Winogrands most well known shots. Some of William Klein's best work hinges on acknowledgement and collaboration, I'm thinking the kids pointing a gun at the camera at close range, but much is stick the camera in someones face and shoot first and ask questions later. The notion of consent of any kind is non-existent.
I think you are using this as a shorthand to filter a lot of admittedly bad amateur photography of backs, poor compositions and grab shots.
But having watched videos of people like Moriyama, Winogrand and Joel Meyerwitz work, I think your idea of collaboration is overstated. They occupy space, they don't hide their intent but their images often involve no consent or acknowledgement and are none the worse for it.
I must have misinterpreted "asking" to mean "asking".
You really mean, not asking but merely acknowledging that the photographer exists.
I would say this doesn't happen either in many of Winogrands most well known shots. Some of William Klein's best work hinges on acknowledgement and collaboration, I'm thinking the kids pointing a gun at the camera at close range, but much is stick the camera in someones face and shoot first and ask questions later. The notion of consent of any kind is non-existent.
I think you are using this as a shorthand to filter a lot of admittedly bad amateur photography of backs, poor compositions and grab shots.
But having watched videos of people like Moriyama, Winogrand and Joel Meyerwitz work, I think your idea of collaboration is overstated. They occupy space, they don't hide their intent but their images often involve no consent or acknowledgement and are none the worse for it.
RichC
Well-known
Complete and utter bilge!
What do you think painters did before the invention of movies, hmm? And still do, of course. Claude Lorrain spent his life telling stories in paint, like this one below titled "The Queen of Sheba".
Photographs likewise tell stories - whether you want them to or not. For some photographers this is the entire point of making (not taking) photographs. For instance, the photographer Gregory Crewdson creates single photos exactly like a movie director - spending millions of dollars to stage a single scene that is effectively one movie encapsulated in one frame.
Words and movies are better at telling stories than still pictures. This just means you have to try harder and accept the limitations of the medium if you desire to narrate using pictures. With books and movies a story is free to move in time, but the story in a picture is stuck in time like a fly in amber, so the past and future are implied - ambiguous and unknowable.
Artists like Lorrain and Crewdson deliberately and carefully depict scenes so that their storytelling is as effective as possible. Cartier-Bresson did this too. Everything revolves around a crucial moment that conveys the crux of the story: a moment known as the peripeteia.
The second picture is one of mine - not one I like anymore - but it's here as an example. The entire reason I made this picture was to tell a story - a tale about the framed photo I found in a junk shop, which had "Elsie, 1926" written its back. It's all staged, nothing you see is real: just props and dust from the hoover.
lewis44
Well-known
All you need to know is that Farah died last December at the age of 14. This photo was taken about a year earlier.
OK, now finish me off.
A simple shot that you can write a book about. Really Like it.
Sorry, no bad mouth from me.
Hsg
who dares wins
I think you need to calm down and relax.
Complete and utter bilge!
What do you think painters did before the invention of movies, hmm? And still do, of course. Claude Lorrain spent his life telling stories in paint, like this one below titled "The Queen of Sheba".
Photographs likewise tell stories - whether you want them to or not. For some photographers this is the entire point of making (not taking) photographs. For instance, the photographer Gregory Crewdson creates single photos exactly like a movie director - spending millions of dollars to stage a single scene that is effectively one movie encapsulated in one frame.
Words and movies are better at telling stories than still pictures. This just means you have to try harder and accept the limitations of the medium if you desire to narrate using pictures. With books and movies a story is free to move in time, but the story in a picture is stuck in time like a fly in amber, so the past and future are implied - ambiguous and unknowable.
Artists like Lorrain and Crewdson deliberately and carefully depict scenes so that their storytelling is as effective as possible. Cartier-Bresson did this too. Everything revolves around a crucial moment that conveys the crux of the story: a moment known as the peripeteia.
The second picture is one of mine - not one I like anymore - but it's here as an example. The entire reason I made this picture was to tell a story - a tale about the framed photo I found in a junk shop, which had "Elsie, 1926" written its back. It's all staged, nothing you see is real: just props and dust from the hoover.
