Previsualization

Bigelow's photos and FallisPhoto's open-mindedness have convinced me that dogged pre-visualisation is not the best approach. Best to keep an open mind, in photography as in life. FallisPhoto, did you pre-visualise the outcome of this discussion?
 
Dear Richard,

The other version of post-visualization is taking a REALLY DULL picture and making it half-way tolerable in the darkroom. There's a whole Californian school of photography based on this: derivative pictures of Yosemite, Big Sur and the like made tolerable by exquisite printing. Host pox et proper pox, one might say.

Cheers,

R.
 
Fallis,

I'm wondering, why do you even have a cull pile? I mean, If your film is so expensive and all, and you are able to "See" the final result beforehand, why even press the shutter on the bad ones?

Cheers,
Gary
 
gns said:
Fallis,

For all the talk about creativity, you really seem to be quite close-minded. I've repeatedly maintained that I don't believe one method of working is inherently better or worse than another, and that it is the results that count. With that in mind, I offered a link to this teacher and photographer's interesting views as a contrast or alternative to what a lot of people have posted. Your response to it is that it is "Utter nonsense", "Self-serving" and the "Exact opposite" of truth.

On top of that you are able to judge his work, likening it to the "Worst examples that wind up in my cull pile", based on viewing a few tiny jpegs in a 2 minute quicktime video. If you are right, I really need to see your work sometime.


Cheers,
Gary
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What is there that is interesting about his photos? Because honestly, I am just not seeing it. And I do have photos like that in my cull pile. Seriously. If I don't see any point to a photo and can't figure out why I took it, and it it doesn't interest me, I destroy the negative and any prints (if it ever got that far) to save space. Otherwise I'd be buried under stuff like that after 20 - 25 years. There is just nothing about those photos that grabs my attention. The only one that does, the beach shot, actually struck me as a good example of a ruined photo, kind of like if you were shooting a photo of a model and she chose that moment to sneeze. Well, there's a reason you don't see photos of sneezing models.
 
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Roger Hicks said:
I see what you mean, but there is also the question of internalizing visualization (I still don't see what 'pre' adds) and being familiar with movements.

AA's famous 'Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico' was as close as you can get to a grab shot with an LF camera. If you use ANY camera enough (LF, MF, 35mm or even digital), then you have an increasingly good idea of what it will do. I would not hold myself out as being a second AA but I can take an 8x10 inch portrait (with movements) a LOT faster and better than I could when I started, and I don't have to think too much about which movements I need when making architectural shots on LF either.

Then again, that's over three decades' practice. When I got my first 4x5, over a third of a century ago, I was flailing about with very little idea of what I was doing.

Cheers,

Roger
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Okay, you're faster. That is directly attributable to experience, as you yourself admit. It does not mean you have stopped making decisions in regard to each of those movements, it does not mean that you are just tweaking things randomly, and it does not mean that you have not carefully weighed the consequences of each adjustment. You don't have a piece of uber-plastic with integrated circuitry that takes all of the decision making out of your hands. You're just able to do it faster. That does not make it a "grab" shot. With the exception of the press cameras, view cameras just were not built for taking "grab" shots.
 
gns said:
Fallis,

For all the talk about creativity, you really seem to be quite close-minded. I've repeatedly maintained that I don't believe one method of working is inherently better or worse than another, and that it is the results that count. With that in mind, I offered a link to this teacher and photographer's interesting views as a contrast or alternative to what a lot of people have posted. Your response to it is that it is "Utter nonsense", "Self-serving" and the "Exact opposite" of truth.

On top of that you are able to judge his work, likening it to the "Worst examples that wind up in my cull pile", based on viewing a few tiny jpegs in a 2 minute quicktime video. If you are right, I really need to see your work sometime.


Cheers,
Gary
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I have strong opinions on what I do that are reinforced by 20+ years of doing it. This does not mean I am any less creative, and in fact has nothing whatsoever to do with it. I think this is pretty evident because no one else is doing what I do.

Neither does my lack of gullability when told really massive whoppers regarding a field I have a great deal of familiarity with have anything whatsoever to do with creativity.

If I were to post a series of photos that were just solid black, with a lot of commentary on why they are good photos and you didn't like them and said they were crap, would that mean you were not very creative, or would it just mean you didn't fall for my line of BS? Because that's what it would be -- pure, unadultrated BS, heaped in great steaming piles and glistening wetly in the moonlight.
 
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Anybody who takes a few minutes to look at FallisP's RFF gallery (thanks for posting those, FP) will quickly find there is no close minded-ness. No doubt a lot of experience and in a genre that does, IMO, require extensive "pre-visualization".

I still think that we all pre-visualize (in the sense of the original article posted), we differ in experience, speed, genre, and the desired degree of technical perfection.

You (generic you) do it often, for years, you internalize, pre-visualization and selection of technical parameters become intuitive. Until you can do it all in the fraction of a sec like HCB did (AND SAID HE DID).

Of course, if you simplify, and put less emphasis on focus (a "bourgois" concept) and exposure, "improvise" instead of compose, you can be faster.

If you want high quality landscapes, rigorous portraits, etc., planning and pre-visualization is a must, IMO.

IMO, the problem with the concept here at RFF, FP, is that "street" has become clichee. Planning doesn't fit.

I wish some of the great photographers we have as members, i.e. Todd, Gabriel, one of the Rays, Lzr, Thomas, or others would chime in ....

My 2 cents as amateur.

Roland.
 
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Quote: "What is there that is interesting about his photos? Because honestly, I am just not seeing it".

Of course you are not seeing it. The fact that you find it reasonable to expect to get anything from viewing that brief handful of postage stamp size images says a lot. Show me a photographer who's work you can "Get" from that sort of cursory view and I'll show you some pretty shallow work. If you are really interested, seek out the actual work or at least a book. He's a photographer who, like Winogrand or Friedlander, seems to be motivated by a keen fascination with how the camera describes the world. How it can create its own sense of order, or reveal it at least. It's often subtle and often humorous, and whatever it is about, it is also always about the light. Anyway, I'm sure you are not really interested. Surprising that you haven't seen it already if you've been interested in photography for "20+ years".

Anyway, this has gone way past tiresome.

Cheers,
Gary
 
FallisPhoto said:
Okay, you're faster. That is directly attributable to experience, as you yourself admit. It does not mean you have stopped making decisions in regard to each of those movements, it does not mean that you are just tweaking things randomly, and it does not mean that you have not carefully weighed the consequences of each adjustment. You don't have a piece of uber-plastic with integrated circuitry that takes all of the decision making out of your hands. You're just able to do it faster. That does not make it a "grab" shot. With the exception of the press cameras, view cameras just were not built for taking "grab" shots.
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All true -- except that it IS a grab shot; or at least, as close as you can get to grabbing when you're using LF and movements.

But isn't ALL photography, regardless of format, about learning what adjustments to make until they're all but automatic?

I'm not disputing the value of what you say. I'm just suggesting that a lot of people try to run technically before they can walk (or even crawl) aesthetically.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
All true -- except that it IS a grab shot; or at least, as close as you can get to grabbing when you're using LF and movements.

But isn't ALL photography, regardless of format, about learning what adjustments to make until they're all but automatic?

I'm not disputing the value of what you say. I'm just suggesting that a lot of people try to run technically before they can walk (or even crawl) aesthetically.

Cheers,

R.
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I'd agree with that, but a technically perfect shot is rarely going to be any good, unles you are also thinking about aesthetics. Both aspects are equally important. I'm not belittling the technical side of things, because it is also important, but it just isn't going to get you very far by itself.

For example, in this collage (warning, contains nudity):
http://fallisphoto.deviantart.com/art/Evolution-of-a-pose-20475410

I have assembled four photos I took of one of my models. I put this collage together in order to illustrate some of the most common problems to look out for when shooting nudes. The first three photos have some aesthetic problems, which I have described in the artist's comments (posted under the photo). The first three photos are blown up from the contact sheet I made from the shoot, which is why they are so grainy (they never made it to full-sized prints), and they are just there to illustrate things to look out for. The fourth photo was made from a full-sized print. It still needs a hair light at this point, and in the final print (not shown) it got one. From a technical viewpoint, they are all good. The exposure is good, no parts are cut off, the development of the film went well, and the printmaking went well. Aesthetically though, there are problems that need to be resolved. To some people, they are not obvious (as can be seen by the comments it has received). However, obvious or not, the aesthetic problems have to be addressed or the photo (though technically good) is just not going to be worth printing.
 
YrDdraigGoch said:
Fallisphoto,

I tried your link, only to be invited to become "A Deviant".
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Deviant art, one of the biggest fine art websites there is. Deviant = different, differing from the norm. You should have been directed to a quadtych of photos of a nude, in four different poses, with an analysis of why three of the poses don't work. That's what I get when I click on it.
 
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