Benjamin
Registered Snoozer
HCB's decissive moment was about esthetics, when the composition snapped into place. It was not so much about the action although people usually get this impression, mainly because of this shot . However, pictures like this one or this one show that his pictures are not so much about action, as they are about composition.
just my 2 cents.
Your two cents may well suffer the exchange rate however.
Just my 5 pence, mind.
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Nikkor AIS
Nikkor AIS
It's true I'm a little weak on the computer side of the photographic chain. So I'm having help posting from a friend, the same one who helped me get the watermark on my photos in the first place. How that makes me a troll is beyond me. So far I've been letting the insults and bad manners roll off. I'm new to the Leica M system but have been shooting for over twenty years and I have been a member of the Nikon Café for several years. Check out my postings there to get a sense of where I'm coming from. You might consider checking out the Nikkor 300 2.0 IF ED AIS and Nikkor 800 5.6 If ED AIS tribute threads to see some of my work. And yes, I had friends help me post there as well. I think some might 'take a pill' when considering that while some of us oldtimers know their way around a Nikon D3 and a Nikkor 300 2.0 IF ED AIS, getting up to speed on the computer side (especially posting/linking) is a challenge for me. I'm sure I'm not alone in having this particular this skill set. However, those who are calling me a troll for starting a thread with watermark images should check themselves. I'll repond in my next post with some new work. Thanks to those members who have e-mailed me with their encourgement and support.
Gregory
Gregory
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Watermarks are typically embedded an image in such a fashion that they do not detract from the aesthetics but leave a trace back to the originator. These look like overt business advertisements, as you would use on a business card. They ruin the aesthetics, and make the image not worth looking at. This is a photography forum, we like looking at the images for the aesthetics and not as an advertisement.
That does not make you a troll. You are displaying your work in a manner that effectively ruins it.
That does not make you a troll. You are displaying your work in a manner that effectively ruins it.
coelacanth
Ride, dive, shoot.
Greg,
If you need help with putting subtle watermark on photo when your friend is out, feel free to drop me a line. I can do it real quick for you. Do you have a simple photo editing program like Photoshop Element or something? Your friend or myself or other members can make a layer of watermark (something like tiny text line at bottom right corer, etc) for you. You can drop that in front of your photo (but not the dead center) every time you get new stuff.
If you need help with putting subtle watermark on photo when your friend is out, feel free to drop me a line. I can do it real quick for you. Do you have a simple photo editing program like Photoshop Element or something? Your friend or myself or other members can make a layer of watermark (something like tiny text line at bottom right corer, etc) for you. You can drop that in front of your photo (but not the dead center) every time you get new stuff.
ferider
Veteran
Hi Greg,
I like the first photo, and the shot of the construction worker.
Glad you like your M3, it's still my all-time favorite camera.
Roland.
PS: echo'ing Sug, PM me if you need help reg. the watermark. Note also that a blue mark on an otherwise B+W photo is really easy to remove.
I like the first photo, and the shot of the construction worker.
Glad you like your M3, it's still my all-time favorite camera.
Roland.
PS: echo'ing Sug, PM me if you need help reg. the watermark. Note also that a blue mark on an otherwise B+W photo is really easy to remove.
Krzys
Well-known
The joke is that he is shooting C41 black and white. Get some Tri-x and dribble over your decisive moments.
Becoming
Established
It seems like some people are running the risk of losing sleep over this.
Who really cares if his watermark is that bad? It's awful and unnecessary, yes, but he's shot 12 rolls of film in two days. Better than sitting around moping over someone elses naive judgements.
'Insulted'? Please...
Who really cares if his watermark is that bad? It's awful and unnecessary, yes, but he's shot 12 rolls of film in two days. Better than sitting around moping over someone elses naive judgements.
'Insulted'? Please...
snausages
Well-known
Becoming
Established
Haha, agreed!
antiquark
Derek Ross
I agree, if the picture is good enough, there's no way a watermark could ruin it.
Attachments
So what has this thread proven?
It's easy to make a good photograph into a horrible image.
It's easy to make a good photograph into a horrible image.
DougFord
on the good foot
[FONT="]Is it just me or does the watermark accentuate the bokeh?
[/FONT]
[FONT="]Bokeh Czar[/FONT]
[FONT="]Bokeh Czar[/FONT]
Keith
The best camera is one that still works!
[FONT="]Is it just me or does the watermark accentuate the bokeh?[/FONT]
[FONT="]Bokeh Czar[/FONT]
It definitely seems to improve corner resolution for me as I get so frustrated trying to look at the centre of the image.
Gabriel M.A.
My Red Dot Glows For You
Actually, some intellectuals may find the green background distracting :angel:
KM-25
Well-known
I did a magazine assignment yesterday that started in the afternoon and ended after midnight in a howling blizzard 11,000 feet in the back country. The story is about a rough around the edges community of ski bums and Mtn. folk who live in teepees and ratty cabins with wood burning stoves high above the place of billionaires in a ski town. In the Winter, they have to use snowmobiles to get to their homes. In some cases, they ride the ski hill gondola with groceries and ski down into their little hidden part of paradise.
The images I got were great because the subjects had my word I would not be posting them on the internet, ever. The magazine also agreed with that process, print only. No watermark needed because no internet needed.
I shot it on Ilford 400 & 3200 black and white in a Hasselblad.
Not a fan of the shot in Walmart either, very detached, weak context and kind of disingenuous to the subject, looks like it was shot because you "could"....and now you are banned, shocker. These are people, not targets, think about the context of the person you are portraying on the internet.
The images I got were great because the subjects had my word I would not be posting them on the internet, ever. The magazine also agreed with that process, print only. No watermark needed because no internet needed.
I shot it on Ilford 400 & 3200 black and white in a Hasselblad.
Not a fan of the shot in Walmart either, very detached, weak context and kind of disingenuous to the subject, looks like it was shot because you "could"....and now you are banned, shocker. These are people, not targets, think about the context of the person you are portraying on the internet.
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larmarv916
Well-known
To get back to that "theme" of this thread..Decisive Moment. I would like to offer a couple of selections of text from the Book published in 2001 by Bulfinch.
Titled "Bystander- A history of Street Photography"
In the chapter 8 titled "Decisive Photographer" about HCB
Page 156 ( Left Column ) Paragraph 3 & 4 "These are the qualities that the picture from Seville has, and the ones hinted at in the French title for Cartier-Bresson's 1952 book. Images a la sauvette. "The Decisive Moment" is misleading as a translation, for the moment refferred to is that just before a decision is made, the moment of anticipation rather than conclusion.
A la sauvette is a colloquialism roughly equivalent to "On the Run" but, accoriding to a gloss on the phrase that Francoise Boas gave to Grace Mayer at the Modern, there is also an un translatable future element involved.
The instant being described is the one when you are just about to take off."
The Bystander book is really a great example of 2 writters chasing history and not myths. HBC was chasing the perfect geometric compositional moment...not action. One Page 157 the book goes on to say.
Page 156 "Ernst Hass came close to the mark, when he describbed Cartier-Bresson's work as "off compositions." Hass said that they were "perfect in their imperfection." same paragraph page 156..." Cartier Bresson's photographs a la sauvette are actions that are yet to be resolved. They are events that are inchoate. Stopped at just this point by the photograph, they remain forever irresolvable, equivocal , ambivalent."
In an interview with Le Monde...HBC commented on the famous shot of the man "Jumping Man" over the water..where we see the reflection and man at moment just "before" he lands on his reflection in the water. Pointing out that the most important details that "make the photo" are the dancers in the posters in the background mocking the man. The implied comment from that interview is that "chance" of getting the position of the man connected to that of the dancers is the real compositional point. Not the moment before he makes a splash.
In HCB's book " The Mind's Eye" on page 39 he makes a very interesting series of comments. HCB says.."I am constantly amused by the notion which reveals itself in an insatiable craving for sharpness of images. It this the passion of an obession? Or do these people hope by this "trompe l' oeil" technique, to get to closer grips with reality? In either case , they are just as far away from the real problems as those of that generation which used to endow all it's photographic anecdotes with an ...( wait for it ) intentional unsharpness such as was deemed to be "artistic".
I found this quote to be really stunning...so I guess we can be that HCB would not be interested in shooting with a Noctilux or the so fashionable zero depth of field. Most of geometry and the golden section were the real driving passion of his compostional needs.
So stoping action was not his real goal...and the decisive moment is grossly missunderstood. It was the moment when all geometrical elements come together in a balance.
Titled "Bystander- A history of Street Photography"
In the chapter 8 titled "Decisive Photographer" about HCB
Page 156 ( Left Column ) Paragraph 3 & 4 "These are the qualities that the picture from Seville has, and the ones hinted at in the French title for Cartier-Bresson's 1952 book. Images a la sauvette. "The Decisive Moment" is misleading as a translation, for the moment refferred to is that just before a decision is made, the moment of anticipation rather than conclusion.
A la sauvette is a colloquialism roughly equivalent to "On the Run" but, accoriding to a gloss on the phrase that Francoise Boas gave to Grace Mayer at the Modern, there is also an un translatable future element involved.
The instant being described is the one when you are just about to take off."
The Bystander book is really a great example of 2 writters chasing history and not myths. HBC was chasing the perfect geometric compositional moment...not action. One Page 157 the book goes on to say.
Page 156 "Ernst Hass came close to the mark, when he describbed Cartier-Bresson's work as "off compositions." Hass said that they were "perfect in their imperfection." same paragraph page 156..." Cartier Bresson's photographs a la sauvette are actions that are yet to be resolved. They are events that are inchoate. Stopped at just this point by the photograph, they remain forever irresolvable, equivocal , ambivalent."
In an interview with Le Monde...HBC commented on the famous shot of the man "Jumping Man" over the water..where we see the reflection and man at moment just "before" he lands on his reflection in the water. Pointing out that the most important details that "make the photo" are the dancers in the posters in the background mocking the man. The implied comment from that interview is that "chance" of getting the position of the man connected to that of the dancers is the real compositional point. Not the moment before he makes a splash.
In HCB's book " The Mind's Eye" on page 39 he makes a very interesting series of comments. HCB says.."I am constantly amused by the notion which reveals itself in an insatiable craving for sharpness of images. It this the passion of an obession? Or do these people hope by this "trompe l' oeil" technique, to get to closer grips with reality? In either case , they are just as far away from the real problems as those of that generation which used to endow all it's photographic anecdotes with an ...( wait for it ) intentional unsharpness such as was deemed to be "artistic".
I found this quote to be really stunning...so I guess we can be that HCB would not be interested in shooting with a Noctilux or the so fashionable zero depth of field. Most of geometry and the golden section were the real driving passion of his compostional needs.
So stoping action was not his real goal...and the decisive moment is grossly missunderstood. It was the moment when all geometrical elements come together in a balance.
tj01
Well-known
In 'Impassioned Eye' 2006, HCB explained that he couldn't even see through the plank fence, it was only big enough for the lens. The rangefinder was totally blocked by the fence. He didn't know what was he taking, let alone get the precise moment of the man jumping over the puddle.
Go watch the documentary, and he will tell you, in 1 word what he thought of that picture.
Go watch the documentary, and he will tell you, in 1 word what he thought of that picture.
larmarv916
Well-known
That is an interesting fact...the comments by HCB from the Le Monde interview were published in "Bystander" I would highly recommend the book if you can get it written by Colin Westerbeck & Joel Meyerowitz Published by Bulfinch. This books is a real indepth history with excellent example images of almost everyone of importance in street photography over the last century.
Instantclassic
Hans
It is obvious by the two last and greatly appreciated posts that "the dececive moment' taken from its original context of the french expression "images a la sauvette" is two different distinctions. No wonder the confusion riddles through our history of street photography.
And... Sharpness is indeed a bourgeois concept.
HCB would think bokeh would fall in the same category if he knew what would follow in the amateur photo discussions.
And... Sharpness is indeed a bourgeois concept.
HCB would think bokeh would fall in the same category if he knew what would follow in the amateur photo discussions.
TWoK
Well-known
The text in your shot ruins them. Any fully manual camera is SLOW to shoot with unless you took the time to prepare it before the shot.
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