Critique thread: Viewing/Watching

[OurManInTangier]

Sorry to be late everyone, I'll do my critque now and then when David has done his we can have a more open ended discussion. Its not as easy as the five of us sitting around over a coffee but with patience it can work quite well. I hope we can discuss these images at a little more length as I often find its easy to deconstruct an image but its just as interesting to know why the image was taken in that way and at that time.

David - I really like the moment that you've seen here. The daughter intrigued and looking into the scene whilst the father seems to have had enough and wants to move on. This is shown nicely by the timing and the slight motion blur in the image. There's a nice balance between the natural light on the father and, I'm assuming, artificial light within the temple.

I find the composition slightly awkward, having viewed your zenfolio whilst waiting for this to kick off I've seen some wonderful images which does leave me a little perplexed by this image. The man within the temple(?) and the sign are, to my eyes, distracting and lend little to the image. I would agree that I may have been tempted to go for a landscape shot, dropped to one knee and tried to get the girl, her fathers legs and hand and some of the temple interior - I suppose waiting for the other man to leave/move simply wasn't an option.

Monz - A beautiful family scene that has been observed quietly and photographed sensitively. The soft window light works very well for the subject and suits the black and white as we're not distracted by strong colours from the faces - each of which seems to tell their own feelings toward this newest arrival.

The boy on the left of the image is slightly distracting but I think that is simply because I can see the obvious crop or original frame - which is the mother/child and three closest children. However I'm glad you didn't go for that as I think the differing expressions make this a far more interesting image. My only real criticism is that it would have been good if you could have blurred the distracting plant and curtain a little more - the curtain I can live with but the placing of the plant and girls head is unfortunate.

Einolu - The sweep of the wall is wonderful and to have someone sitting there is a great bit of luck. The warmth of the colours ( not sure if its your scanner or not ) help to guard against the lonely chill of the scene itself. I love these sorts of shots, 'iml' does them really well, where the figure is small in the frame against an open and sprawling background. The wall leads your eye into and through the image, allowing you to stop at the sitting figure which is good.

I'm not sure about the overall angle though. I may have been tempted, if possible, to shoot lower and closer to the wall so that the figure is pushed into the top right third of the frame. You wouldn't see what they were looking at and the rest of the image would be the curving wall and repetetive lights.

Shadowfox - This has a very dreamy, romantic feel to it, maybe I'm being swayed by the pretty woman but I quite like the blurred movement of the woman against the sharp and framed background of trees, climbers and other plantlife. The wall could be that of a walled garden which also lends this a feeling of romantacism. I'm not sure whether the blur was intentional or simply too slow a shutter speed but I find the overall affect still quite pleasing. The black shape peeking out from behind her face is not so pleasing and I find it an uneasy element within the picture, I would also like to have seen a hint of what she is/has looked at as we don't really get an idea of it here.

Thanks to everyone for joining in and letting us share our pictures and thoughts. I hope that you'll give me a further insight into how and why you took your pictures once David has made his critiques as I for one find it very interesting and useful.

 

[David Noble]

Sorry for the delay, but people didn’t start posting comments until after I’d gone to bed. It is now morning here in Tokyo.


OurManInTangier:

Quite an effective composition, with the two stolid spectators positioned so symmetrically as a frame, and the asymmetry and blurring of the horse giving movement and depth. Reversal of the normal viewpoint (usually we want to see the event sharp, the audience as an afterthought) is also powerful. Subtle tonality and texture, especially in the foreground figures. There’s a sly humor here, and I think part of it actually has to do with the complete anonymity of the two watchers.

I don’t have much criticism. I’d like to see a version framed less tightly at the top, but I suspect this works better. I also wonder what it would have looked like at a different point in the horse’s leap...


Monz Ahmed:

This has the look and feel of a Renaissance painting in terms of the composition. The central group of four, the flanking attendants. The positioning and expressions of the central four figures around the new baby calls up all kinds of associations with Nativity scenes, probably aided by the headscarf and palm frond. Apart from these associations, and its classical composition, it has a wonderful warmth and immediacy.

It would be interesting to see a crop to the central group. The only thing that bothers me is the tonality—the harsh area of light from the window is distracting, and there is an awful lot of noise (grain?) in the shadow areas.


Einolu:

Great perspective. High positioning of the horizon line is very effective, and the wall has a great curve. Very nice interaction between it and the horizontal bands of sky, sea, surf, sand. Small as they are, the figures on the sand are crucial, and I like the dog looking off in the same direction as the main figure.

Compositionally, I think you nailed this one. I am less keen on the color. I wonder what this would look like converted to b/w. The graphic aspects are so strong (and the color range so narrow) that I don’t think you’d lose much, and might gain more focus and impact. The color may also be true to what you saw, but it seems to have a magenta cast to my eyes.....

Shadowfox:

Another strong composition. I like the framing effect of the branches, and the fact that the background is sharp enough to read all the differences in texture and tonality on th wall and foliage. The woman is nicely placed within the environment, and there is a quietly mysterious air to the whole picture.

As others have pointed out, the dark area framing the woman’s face is distracting. If we saw more, and it was not so hard to read as an arched doorway, it would actually work quite well to set off her face, but at first I couldn’t make out if it was some sort of scarf or veil and the inability to locate it in the picture plane bugged me. And finally, I am of mixed feelings about the out-of-focus central figure. A valid choice, but I think I would have liked some point of focus on her, even if other parts were thrown out by motion or DOF....


Thanks, everybody. It is very good to get feedback on images, and I think it is also a really good exercise to really look at other people’s work and to try and articulate what we see. I am glad to have the opportunity to do this with you.

 

[Monz]

Thanks for the comments everyone; time to comment on your own image now and open up the discussion. I’ll start:

"New Playmate"
I was visiting a couple with a new baby. As the "camera guy," I knew I would be expected to take some pictures. As I was going to be dealing with a new-born baby, I did not want to use a flash (for fear of distressing him or damaging the retina). I therefore chose a fast film (Fuji Neopan ISO 1600, rated at 1600) and a rangefinder camera (Leica M6). I positioned the mother and baby in a chair near a south-facing window. The room was quite cluttered, so I set about rearranging the furniture, moving any possible distractions. I left the Yucca plant because it was too much hassle to shift and also because I did not predict that in the final photograph, it would turn one of the kids into "Sonic" the hedgehog! Once mother and baby were comfortable, the other children came into the room. I just stood back, melted into the background and took several pictures with a 35mm ZI Biogon lens and a 90mm Elmarit-M. The posted picture was taken with the 35mm lens: it was cropped slightly (fireplace cropped out from the right) and I think I may have cloned out a small photograph from the wall with Photoshop. Simon, I thought about removing the leaves of the Yucca plant with Photoshop but that would be cheating and conscience got the better of me (!)

Neopan 1600 is not a film that I use much. What it gives you in speed, it takes away in tonal range (as David alludes to in his comments). Still, the Neopan got the job done on the day. After scanning the negative, I tweaked the image a little with the "curves" function in Photoshop to keep some details in the highlights of the lace curtains.

I gave a 5x7 print to the proud parents... they were very happy J

--
Monz

 

[David Noble]

Mine was taken with an Epson R-D1s and a CV 40mm 1.4 Nokton. It was the evening of New Year's Day this year and I was (along with hundreds of other people) visiting a local Buddhist temple, as is the custom.

The shot was taken on the veranda of the temple, outside the door leading into the main hall with the images, where the priests conduct services. It was a grab shot. I saw the father and girl and had about thirty seconds to take two shots. The first I missed focus on entirely. This is the second.

To me, it is actually the completely unanticipated turning away by the father (and the motion blur) that makes the image. The girl is in such rapt attention at all the gold and light, this kind of spectacular other world, and the father, being an adult and having seen it all before, is ready to go....and to drag the girl after him. But she's not going just yet.

Anyway, it was a lucky and in most ways unplanned shot.Not the most polished, but it caught something I liked.

--Monz, I hope my comment on your picture did not come across as negative. I was very moved by it. It has a really timeless quality.

 

[kully]

I think I took shadowfox's image in a completely different way to the previous posts.

To me it is the black "shadow like" thing which seems to be looking at the woman. Excellent, spooky.

I really liked David's photo too, the stillness of the watchers with the movement of the dad who didn't care (any more).

monz's image is a gorgeous intimate moment.

EDIT:

Just had another look at the entries before I closed the windows, shadowfox's is the one that carries on haunting me.

 

[shadowfox]

It is eerie to see how similar the comments on my picture are.

To me that's an indication that either the picture is so boring, that everyone is bored with it, or the picture evokes a certain strong emotion (good or bad) that goes far enough to elicit similar responses.

First, that picture is an honest to goodness street photography. I do not know the lady in the picture, it all happened quickly. The mysterious black "thing" is actually a statue that I intended to take a picture of. But the polite lady stopped short of entering the frame. I noticed her and gestured to let her pass me by. She did, by that time the camera was back in front of my eyes and I saw her *in* the frame.

Knowing that she'll probably be blurred because I was manual focusing on the statue behind her, I think to myself, now this could be interesting, and release the shutter.

When I scanned the negative, I was dumbfounded. The picture turned to have a very mysterious atmosphere in it. I like the foreground out-of-focus because without it, it'll just be another picture of a lady passing by. But with the sharp background, this image becomes a haunting one.

And the "timing" of part of the statue to provide a background to highlight the lady's feature is pure "luck" or you guys may say, "error" 🙂

Thank you for *all* the comments. This thread is very educational for me.

Kully, your comment in particular made my day 😀

Will

 

[einolu]

Thanks for all the comments. Forgot this in the initial post, but this image was taken with a 35mm lens on Velvia 100F. My general approch to to photography is to photograph how I see (why I like rangefinders so much), so I rarely get down on a knee or climb on top of something. Also why I stick to wider lenses, though I like 35mm the best. I think it makes for a more honest image.

David:

Yes, I think there might be some color cast to this that I did not intend. This was an initial scan and edit, I have yet to get around to rescanning it at a better resolution, reediting it, and getting it printed. I do want to keep it color though, since I the sky was a darkening blue and the sand and the concrete were a slightly red color that I think help out the composition and add to the overall feel of the image.

As for your image, do you think you would have framed it differently had you a wider lens?

Will: Interesting to hear how the image was taken.

🙂

 

[OurManInTangier]

My photograph was taken at a country show with an M6 and 50mm, I had borrowed it at the time from a friend and thought I'd try it out at a busy show.

What attracted me to take the picture in the first place was the old couple sitting resolutely in the cold and rain with their hats and anoraks determined to watch the horse jumping show. I think I have a thing for photographing the backs of couples, probably not a good thing. I had hoped that I could put the focus on them and the humdrum nature of spectating a sedate (my view) sport in suc conditions. The rest was just timing, luck and hoping I'd picked a decent aperture for the DOF I wanted.

I hung around and took another with the horse in a slightly different position, I shot earlier as he was mid jump but I didn't like the look. Both shots were the same tight crop, this was done simply to avoid getting half a shoulder of one spectator and the bum of another one in shot.

I'm not particularly keen on mine and am having a real problem with the direction and originality of my personal photos at the moment so this has been really good to hear other peoples criticisms/viewpoints on one of mine and the stories behind theirs.

 

[einolu]

simon, first thing that comes to mind about your comment about the tight composition is the work of winogrand (for whatever reason, my mind works in weird ways), which show me how much having partially cropped things at the edge of your compositions can help the image. i used to think things on the edges should be avoided, because i felt they were distracting, but have recently started changing my mind. at least in some circumstances.

 

[Monz]

.....
--Monz, I hope my comment on your picture did not come across as negative. I was very moved by it. It has a really timeless quality.

Not at all David 🙂 Thanks for your comments.
--
Monz