Keith
The best camera is one that still works!
Recently when I spent a day shooting at an old abandoned farm I took my friend Carol with me who did some pencil sketches while I wrestled with my Crown Graphic. The day was way too bright for me and I really don't enjoy shooting in these high contrast conditions ... the harshness of the end results always disappoints me.
There was an old gate arch that I kind of liked the look of and I set the camera up to photograph it in spite of the less than ideal light... Carol also liked it but drew it from a slightly diffrent pespective of course as she was sitting several feet to the right of me but a similar distance away. The camera and I really struggled to capture any essence of this structure and I don't particularly like the end result at all ... Carol's drawing done with a fine hard pencil made my photo look pretty crappy and she was also able to isolate the part of the scene that appealed to her and only draw that!
I scanned her drawing, which I might mention was done in not much more time than it took me to jigger around with a large format camera, and I'll post it along with my rather average pic which really suffers with lack of shadow detail in the exact areas that she chose to draw. I find it a really interesting comparison ... I can't draw to save myself but when I look at her simple but beautifully detailed sketch I wish I could!
There was an old gate arch that I kind of liked the look of and I set the camera up to photograph it in spite of the less than ideal light... Carol also liked it but drew it from a slightly diffrent pespective of course as she was sitting several feet to the right of me but a similar distance away. The camera and I really struggled to capture any essence of this structure and I don't particularly like the end result at all ... Carol's drawing done with a fine hard pencil made my photo look pretty crappy and she was also able to isolate the part of the scene that appealed to her and only draw that!
I scanned her drawing, which I might mention was done in not much more time than it took me to jigger around with a large format camera, and I'll post it along with my rather average pic which really suffers with lack of shadow detail in the exact areas that she chose to draw. I find it a really interesting comparison ... I can't draw to save myself but when I look at her simple but beautifully detailed sketch I wish I could!
craygc
Well-known
Keith,
Apart from returning for better lighting, and at the risk of ruining your image, you could always take away your friend's approach in your processing of the image...
Apart from returning for better lighting, and at the risk of ruining your image, you could always take away your friend's approach in your processing of the image...
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nzeeman
Well-known
interesting thread. i noticed one thing - when photographing large objects , trees building - if you want to make dynamic photo you have to isolate only one part of it - that makes them larger and more interesting - as soon as whole object is in photo it become slow and object start to appear smaller and loses its power...
mfunnell
Shaken, so blurred
Keith,
I know it doesn't help: your photo isn't awful (how's that for damning with faint praise) - and I really like Carol's drawing. You noted the light - and that's one thing a photographer can't really change, whereas Carol could imagine the light she wanted and "use" that. How unfair of her!
...Mike
I know it doesn't help: your photo isn't awful (how's that for damning with faint praise) - and I really like Carol's drawing. You noted the light - and that's one thing a photographer can't really change, whereas Carol could imagine the light she wanted and "use" that. How unfair of her!
...Mike
Bobfrance
Over Exposed
Keith,
Apart from returning for better lighting, and at the risk of ruining your image, you could always take away your friend's approach in your processing of the image...
Nice work.
Sparrow
Veteran
The thing is Keith, the human eye has a 1 element in 1 group lens with a field of view of around 140 degrees and a problem with flatness at the focus plane so it's bound to look different.
Oh and the brain runs a more advanced version of photoshop than your PC
Oh and the brain runs a more advanced version of photoshop than your PC
chris000
Landscaper
It would be nice to be able to draw (I can't either) but I think as an addition to photography not as an alternative. I think the different prespective of the artist is, at least in part, due to the complete freedom he/she has about how they are going to represent the subject. We photographers have fewer choices available, although I believe that perhaps that can itself sometimes be an aide to creativity.
But without good light ....
Possibly true, but in my case the Operating System is not what it once was
But without good light ....
Possibly true, but in my case the Operating System is not what it once was
slm
Formerly nextreme
I like the photo and what I really like is the presentation of the sketch and the photo together. You should team up more often like that, it's really interesting !
Cheers
Steven
Cheers
Steven
Keith
The best camera is one that still works!
I now realise that Carol went straight to the most asthetically pleasing part of the subject from her point of view ... and in hindsight she was dead right and I now think I would have been better off to have followed her lead! As nextreme said it was an interesting exercise and it gave me some insight in regard to trying to do too much with an image at times ... what is it they say K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid!)
N
Nikon Bob
Guest
I don't think it is a matter of the camera vs the human eye as you both saw the scene with your own eyes first. You liked on overall view and your friend liked a part of the overall view. You could have had a similar image if shooting from her position with some sort of telephoto lens to isolate that part. Everyone just sees differently the same scene. OTH, people who sketch or paint are not limited by what equipment the have with them at the time and post processing skills and are free to interpret how they like.
Bob
Bob
bmattock
Veteran
The camera is a much of a creative interpretive tool as the paint brush or pencil, if used properly.
The camera was originally seen as a literal transcription device, replacing the need for technical drawing. However, people being people, very soon it was being used in ways not imagined, to record people and scenes and events from unique perspectives and with artistic imagination. We talk about photo manipulation with tools like photoshop, but in the first days of photography, people were super-imposing negatives, cutting and pasting photographs, and using a variety of techniques to make the final result creatively different from the original scene recorded by the media used.
As photographers, many of us consider not just how to properly expose and record a scene, but what it is we wish to say and how we can say it using the tools we have available. Whether it is by use of a lens, an f-stop, a filter, a recording media choice, or various post-processing tools, we can be in control of our images and their creative presentation if we choose to be.
The camera was originally seen as a literal transcription device, replacing the need for technical drawing. However, people being people, very soon it was being used in ways not imagined, to record people and scenes and events from unique perspectives and with artistic imagination. We talk about photo manipulation with tools like photoshop, but in the first days of photography, people were super-imposing negatives, cutting and pasting photographs, and using a variety of techniques to make the final result creatively different from the original scene recorded by the media used.
As photographers, many of us consider not just how to properly expose and record a scene, but what it is we wish to say and how we can say it using the tools we have available. Whether it is by use of a lens, an f-stop, a filter, a recording media choice, or various post-processing tools, we can be in control of our images and their creative presentation if we choose to be.
uhligfd
Well-known
Dear Keith,
your two images deal with a totally different subject, though they can be seen from nearly the same spot. I wonder how a detail shot (as in your friend's drawing) would have looked in a photo; never mind the high contrast ... (Try a partial crop of that area, maybe, or return there on an overcast day ... )
What concerns me with your picture is the composition, the difficulty thereof: I wonder if a lower camera position might have "opened up" the through-the-gate view for a more pleasing impact, lead. I am also concerned with the various wooden beams that stick out of the pic: the belly high one going off to the right, but where to? the high one on the left, going nowhere, too?
For example, I have tried to cover much of the area beyond the right vertical post on my monitor and the view pleases me more if both to-the-right beams are cut, not just the one at belly height, for example.
Then I wonder about the amount of sky space above the top beam, maybe cutting it narrower would help ... etc.
But the main problem in the composition is its purpose: are we to want to walk and see through the "gate" or are we supposed to study the gate. Or both? Or neither
If and when you can clear that up, you will make a great picture, I think. And I do not think that there is much of a difference between what the eye sees, drawn or photographed. Instead the difference is all between our eyes, in our brain and our visualization, mastery of compositional purpose etc. Your friend could have drawn an iffy total view and you could have produced a beautiful details photo.
Now you both have to go back and work this out. Good luck!
your two images deal with a totally different subject, though they can be seen from nearly the same spot. I wonder how a detail shot (as in your friend's drawing) would have looked in a photo; never mind the high contrast ... (Try a partial crop of that area, maybe, or return there on an overcast day ... )
What concerns me with your picture is the composition, the difficulty thereof: I wonder if a lower camera position might have "opened up" the through-the-gate view for a more pleasing impact, lead. I am also concerned with the various wooden beams that stick out of the pic: the belly high one going off to the right, but where to? the high one on the left, going nowhere, too?
For example, I have tried to cover much of the area beyond the right vertical post on my monitor and the view pleases me more if both to-the-right beams are cut, not just the one at belly height, for example.
Then I wonder about the amount of sky space above the top beam, maybe cutting it narrower would help ... etc.
But the main problem in the composition is its purpose: are we to want to walk and see through the "gate" or are we supposed to study the gate. Or both? Or neither
If and when you can clear that up, you will make a great picture, I think. And I do not think that there is much of a difference between what the eye sees, drawn or photographed. Instead the difference is all between our eyes, in our brain and our visualization, mastery of compositional purpose etc. Your friend could have drawn an iffy total view and you could have produced a beautiful details photo.
Now you both have to go back and work this out. Good luck!
Pickett Wilson
Veteran
Exactly, uhligfd. A lower angle and different crop would have transformed the image from an artifact into a window, and I really like photographs as windows.
Keith
The best camera is one that still works!
Actually that all makes sense ... a slightly lower perspective and moving in closer to allow the timber beams to frame the shot would have given me the effect I think I was looking for ... which was to create a window.
Pity it's 200k away!
Pity it's 200k away!
uhligfd
Well-known
I just had another insight: how about retaking the pic with the wooden gate and film plane nearly parallel and setting the aperture wide open, while focusing just on the gate.
Then the view through the window gate would have been dreamy and only the gate sharp. This is where cameras beat the drawing by hand: with new means of expression.
You must take the return trip now, Keith! 200 km in pleasant company, what would stop you ...
Then the view through the window gate would have been dreamy and only the gate sharp. This is where cameras beat the drawing by hand: with new means of expression.
You must take the return trip now, Keith! 200 km in pleasant company, what would stop you ...
Keith
The best camera is one that still works!
This is where a dull day would have helped ... full sun and TX320 are a limiting combo with 1/500 fastest shutter speed!
Sparrow
Veteran
It would be nice to be able to draw (I can't either) but I think as an addition to photography not as an alternative. I think the different prespective of the artist is, at least in part, due to the complete freedom he/she has about how they are going to represent the subject. We photographers have fewer choices available, although I believe that perhaps that can itself sometimes be an aide to creativity.
But without good light ....
Possibly true, but in my case the Operating System is not what it once was
A pencil and paper has one huge advantage in that the artist chooses what to put in the picture, whereas the photographer is stuck with anything he can't exclude.
Agreed, but a blank piece of paper? a blank piece of paper can create anything, it is limited only by imagination
Ducky
Well-known
A team of assistants holding reflectors would have helped but that is photography in a different form.
Your comparison is interesting and helpful in judging a subject. Many times I am forced to crop in PS because I failed to see the subject properly at the time.
I'm assuming, always dangerous, that Carol has had art class training which most of do not.
In any case, thanks once again for a great thread.
Your comparison is interesting and helpful in judging a subject. Many times I am forced to crop in PS because I failed to see the subject properly at the time.
I'm assuming, always dangerous, that Carol has had art class training which most of do not.
In any case, thanks once again for a great thread.
bmattock
Veteran
One of Man Ray's 'photograms'
A blank piece of paper is limited in some ways too. But I agree that there are differences between drawing or painting and photography. I was not attempting to argue that they are the same. I was attempting to point out that photography is not as limited as some might think. This is a left-over remnant of the hated 'straight photography' crap introduced by those f/64 criminals.
Sparrow
Veteran
adams was at the end of long line of photographers who strived to prefect the art in a technical way, he came closer to the perfect print than anyone previously had and was an irrelevance who came along towards the end a long tradition that was fairly unimportant.
Sorry that's unfair he was irrelevant and parochial, and looks almost as out of date as some of the Nan Ray photos; his other work is, however, still fairly relevant
(I like the contentious stuff with someone who can take a joke )
Sorry that's unfair he was irrelevant and parochial, and looks almost as out of date as some of the Nan Ray photos; his other work is, however, still fairly relevant
(I like the contentious stuff with someone who can take a joke
)