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When craftsmen or even skaters are tested for their skills, they are often asked to make something standard - in the case of skaters, they have compulsory figures. In a way, it's too bad that the same is not required of hobby and amateur photographers. It is in photography school.
Think about it. Your assignment is to make another Pepper # 30. Sure the world doesn't need one, but think about it. First you need a suitably funky pepper, then some sort of setting for it, you need to light it or find the natural lighting that will give that pepper the roundness and the glow and the gorgeous highlights, and you need to compose the image suitably.
What has happened when I have tried that experiment in years past is a technically competent aesthetically horrible image, looking more like an illustration in a scientific text on breeding than a piece of art.
When you take on an assignment which has a 'gold standard' with which to compare your efforts, it is downright easy to see where you failed. You can then try again and keep doing it till you get quality that is at least similar to the 'master' image you chose to copy.
I think you will find it time well spent.
It's too bad that some of the 'art' photographers featured in Camera Arts didn't do this first, then we'd get to see their avant garde and alternative process images at their best.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
What Do We Really Want From Photography?
I would suggest that "why we photograph" and "what we want from photography" are not the same and that further, a study of what we want from our photography and an analysis of other peoples goals and how practical ours are given our circumstances could be very useful.
A good answer to why we photograph might be one of the following:
a) a burning need to create
or
b) I like messing with cameras
or more likely a bit of both, in varying ratios to suit our personalities.
An honest look at what we want from photography might include any of the following:
1) to be recognized as a craftsman or artist, anyway a skilled photographer
2) money - money to justify expensive equipment (see above - playing with toys) or to actually supplement income (in which case forget the expensive toys).
3) to have some nice photographs, to look at
4) to improve our skills, at whatever level me might be now
5) fame - which isn't necessarily the same as recognition
6) to make some really great images, whether anyone else sees them or not.
And I dare say you can add your own suggested goals either observed or experienced.
I have a portfolio case of matted silver prints, probably about 35 of them, representing some of the best work I did BD (before digital). I doubt more than a dozen people in the world have ever seen them (except one workshop). The portfolio rarely sees the light of day, even to me. I suspect that a lot of photographers were the same before digital and the internet.
This can tell us quite a lot about both drive to photograph and goals achieved. There were a lot of happy photographers before the internet, who like me seemed to get satisfaction from photography without fame, money, recognition or even the social aspects of photography. While it is tempting to suggest that nowadays the main goals are fame and fortune, in fact I suspect that the vast majority of photographers might dream of same, but realistically aim for different, more realistic goals. It's a bit like being 58 and pot bellied (not to mention any names, but there's a mirror in our hall) and wishing you had some gorgeous model, star, stud or being of ultimate desire to your taste) at your beck and call. You know damn well you're lucky to have the aging spouse you have, and if you were honest with yourself, having to keep pace with someone like the above dream would be far more trouble than 99% of us would be willing to put out.
Fame and fortune in photography are no different - they are high maintenance, demanding, rude, all consuming and downright fickle. Most of us aren't willing to put up with high and mighty gallery owners, pushy clients, deadlines, marketing, more time spent matting and framing (because we can't make a profit if we get someone else to do it) than we do photographing. We become experts at packaging and mailing rather than composing.
Most of us have jobs which provide a steady income, and which in fact allow us to buy the lovely tools we use). We have houses that need maintained, families who need attention, and probably a life style which we aren't willing to sacrifice to achieve either fame or fortune.
It's a miracle of no small proportion that I, a busy family doctor; have had as much recognition as I have. Largely it's been luck, a certain amount of nerve to put myself forth to be judged, and no small coincidence that I happen to be able to write (even if I can't spell) and to explain things fairly clearly.
The vast majority of photographers are satisfied to produce some nice images, and if every so often someone else gets to appreciate them, so much the better.
A more realistic set of wants might be the following:
i) to always be improving
ii) to have some sense of this progress and where we are. It's not so much the recognition we desire as the assurance that we are doing good work, and how else do we achieve this other than to ask someone else for their opinion?
iii) to create a select few images images which in some small way add to the medium
A good answer to why we photograph might be one of the following:
a) a burning need to create
or
b) I like messing with cameras
or more likely a bit of both, in varying ratios to suit our personalities.
An honest look at what we want from photography might include any of the following:
1) to be recognized as a craftsman or artist, anyway a skilled photographer
2) money - money to justify expensive equipment (see above - playing with toys) or to actually supplement income (in which case forget the expensive toys).
3) to have some nice photographs, to look at
4) to improve our skills, at whatever level me might be now
5) fame - which isn't necessarily the same as recognition
6) to make some really great images, whether anyone else sees them or not.
And I dare say you can add your own suggested goals either observed or experienced.
I have a portfolio case of matted silver prints, probably about 35 of them, representing some of the best work I did BD (before digital). I doubt more than a dozen people in the world have ever seen them (except one workshop). The portfolio rarely sees the light of day, even to me. I suspect that a lot of photographers were the same before digital and the internet.
This can tell us quite a lot about both drive to photograph and goals achieved. There were a lot of happy photographers before the internet, who like me seemed to get satisfaction from photography without fame, money, recognition or even the social aspects of photography. While it is tempting to suggest that nowadays the main goals are fame and fortune, in fact I suspect that the vast majority of photographers might dream of same, but realistically aim for different, more realistic goals. It's a bit like being 58 and pot bellied (not to mention any names, but there's a mirror in our hall) and wishing you had some gorgeous model, star, stud or being of ultimate desire to your taste) at your beck and call. You know damn well you're lucky to have the aging spouse you have, and if you were honest with yourself, having to keep pace with someone like the above dream would be far more trouble than 99% of us would be willing to put out.
Fame and fortune in photography are no different - they are high maintenance, demanding, rude, all consuming and downright fickle. Most of us aren't willing to put up with high and mighty gallery owners, pushy clients, deadlines, marketing, more time spent matting and framing (because we can't make a profit if we get someone else to do it) than we do photographing. We become experts at packaging and mailing rather than composing.
Most of us have jobs which provide a steady income, and which in fact allow us to buy the lovely tools we use). We have houses that need maintained, families who need attention, and probably a life style which we aren't willing to sacrifice to achieve either fame or fortune.
It's a miracle of no small proportion that I, a busy family doctor; have had as much recognition as I have. Largely it's been luck, a certain amount of nerve to put myself forth to be judged, and no small coincidence that I happen to be able to write (even if I can't spell) and to explain things fairly clearly.
The vast majority of photographers are satisfied to produce some nice images, and if every so often someone else gets to appreciate them, so much the better.
A more realistic set of wants might be the following:
i) to always be improving
ii) to have some sense of this progress and where we are. It's not so much the recognition we desire as the assurance that we are doing good work, and how else do we achieve this other than to ask someone else for their opinion?
iii) to create a select few images images which in some small way add to the medium
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
What Do You Need To Back Up?
I'm enjoying the new series on backup strategies at Outback Photo and it got me thinking.
I have three kinds of images.
a) those from film negatives
b) raw files which are then edited in Photoshop
c) stitching jobs which come from several raw files and are then edited in Photoshop.
If I have the negatives, then I only have to decide if the edited version took enough trouble to create and would be a great deal of trouble to recreate and is therefore worth the trouble preserving.
With images from a single raw file, the obvious thing is to back up the raw file and redo the editing. Now, Ansel Adams did exactly that with every print he made, and arguably styles of printing change, we get better at editing and so perhaps there are advantages to not having the edited version to recreate.
With stitched images, I'd need to remember which original raw files were used to create the stitch (currently that would be difficult for me), or I'd need to save the stitched image (which is the same size as the edited image) so I might as well save the edited image.
There are some edits which were so complex that recreating the edit would be next to impossible and there is enough about the edit that I would be lothe to lose it.
Lastly, since often disasters befall entire hard drives, not just one or two images, if I lost all my edits and had to start over, each edit taking hours of work, would I be willing to take that risk.
Given that hard disks fail and the issue is not if but when, it sounds like I need the following:
1) an absolutely reliable way of preserving the raw files since anything that took out both the edits and the raw files would mean total loss of images - NOT ACCEPTABLE.
2) a pretty reliable way to protect the edited images so that the odds of loss of many edited images is low. I would interpret this as a hard drive detached from the power between uses to store all edited images and two backups of raw files, one onsite, the other away (that could be with a relative or at the office or even online). Any really tricky edited images and stitches should perhaps be saved the same as raw files.
By raw files, I mean those raw files which have led to useful edited images. Whether there is a role for saving the hundreds if not thousands of raw files which never inspired you enough to do anything with them is a whole other matter. People sometimes quote the newspaper photographer who happened to capture a picture of someone completely unknown but who years later becomes famous or infamous and suddenly that old image becomes important. Frankly, if I haven't found a use for a raw file within a couple of years, it isn't very likely that I ever will, and the simple fairly reliable backup will be just fine thank you.
Risk Analysis
The risk of a hard disk failure should be considered 100%. It may well be that most times you buy a new computer before a hard disk fails, but frankly that's mostly luck, like seeing storm clouds and not taking your umbrella.
The risk of a power surge getting past your rudimentary power bar is basically the risk of a nearby lightning strike. While such risks vary with climate and power grids, you should plan that once in your life you are going to have a power surge that destroys any storage device currently hooked to the electrical grid.
The risk of losing both the computer and the hooked up backup drive and the disconnected backup drive isn't zero. All you'd need is something to go wrong in doing the backup which said problem gets propagated to the backup before it gets disconnected - not impossible, so you don't have to think house fire.
I'm a family doctor. My medical records are irreplaceable. My income depends on them staying intact. If your income depends on your images, then you need a pretty darn full-proof system to protect them and in that situation you probably won't have time to re-edit your images so all decent edited images need saved connected, disconnected and off site.
One issue I struggle with is whether it's easier to back up all raw files securely or to select out only those that pertain to important images for backup - all my edited images that come from a single raw file retain the raw file number so it wouldn't be impossible to search out those. My stitched images don't, and I have a lot of them - so this is a problem, meaning that saving all raw is certainly easier, if not as cheap. Easy beats cheap every time for me!
It's possible to break down backups another way.
Always backed up - basically we're talking a raid drive or similar, and while that will help in the future, won't deal with the 4 drives I have almost full already. I'd need a big expensive raid system to deal with those. But it's probably more important to start backing up continuously with new images and do intermittent backups of the old stuff.
Intermittent backups - if it's nightly, then I don't want to be plugging and unplugging a drive - as likely to cause problems as fix with all that wear and tear, shaking and static. So nightly backups need to be kept plugged in. A suitably big backup drive(s) is what's needed. If it has redundancy, so much the better, though arguably redundancy in a backup isn't needed.
Occasional backups - given the concerns of long term stability of dvd's, not to mention the hassles of burning a hundred of them, this really means an unpluggable hard drive. How often you do this comes down to how much time you are willing to commit to do it, and how much work you are willing to lose in case of a power surge sneaking past your protection.
How do I do it? Badly and not often enough, but at least I do have a system.
Raw files are offsite and backed up seldom - I should do this monthly.
Edited images are backed up and then unplugged - again it should be monthly
As for continuous backup - well it hasn't happened yet and sooner or later it's going to cost me. Raid systems are cheap enough that I will do something to correct continuous backups within the next month or so. As I'm running out of drive space, a new large raid system seems the way to go.
Nightly backups, well if I back up new work continuously, this isn't as needed but as I'm constantly editing old images, I guess I'm going to do a nightly backup of changed files on the existing drives.
Sure is a hell of a lot more complicated than throwing your negatives in a drawer - though the number of famous photographers who lost negatives to processing errors, floods and darkroom fires is pretty impressive, even after the days of nitrocellulose film stock. All my wedding pictures succumbed to a humid basement in Kentucky.
I have three kinds of images.
a) those from film negatives
b) raw files which are then edited in Photoshop
c) stitching jobs which come from several raw files and are then edited in Photoshop.
If I have the negatives, then I only have to decide if the edited version took enough trouble to create and would be a great deal of trouble to recreate and is therefore worth the trouble preserving.
With images from a single raw file, the obvious thing is to back up the raw file and redo the editing. Now, Ansel Adams did exactly that with every print he made, and arguably styles of printing change, we get better at editing and so perhaps there are advantages to not having the edited version to recreate.
With stitched images, I'd need to remember which original raw files were used to create the stitch (currently that would be difficult for me), or I'd need to save the stitched image (which is the same size as the edited image) so I might as well save the edited image.
There are some edits which were so complex that recreating the edit would be next to impossible and there is enough about the edit that I would be lothe to lose it.
Lastly, since often disasters befall entire hard drives, not just one or two images, if I lost all my edits and had to start over, each edit taking hours of work, would I be willing to take that risk.
Given that hard disks fail and the issue is not if but when, it sounds like I need the following:
1) an absolutely reliable way of preserving the raw files since anything that took out both the edits and the raw files would mean total loss of images - NOT ACCEPTABLE.
2) a pretty reliable way to protect the edited images so that the odds of loss of many edited images is low. I would interpret this as a hard drive detached from the power between uses to store all edited images and two backups of raw files, one onsite, the other away (that could be with a relative or at the office or even online). Any really tricky edited images and stitches should perhaps be saved the same as raw files.
By raw files, I mean those raw files which have led to useful edited images. Whether there is a role for saving the hundreds if not thousands of raw files which never inspired you enough to do anything with them is a whole other matter. People sometimes quote the newspaper photographer who happened to capture a picture of someone completely unknown but who years later becomes famous or infamous and suddenly that old image becomes important. Frankly, if I haven't found a use for a raw file within a couple of years, it isn't very likely that I ever will, and the simple fairly reliable backup will be just fine thank you.
Risk Analysis
The risk of a hard disk failure should be considered 100%. It may well be that most times you buy a new computer before a hard disk fails, but frankly that's mostly luck, like seeing storm clouds and not taking your umbrella.
The risk of a power surge getting past your rudimentary power bar is basically the risk of a nearby lightning strike. While such risks vary with climate and power grids, you should plan that once in your life you are going to have a power surge that destroys any storage device currently hooked to the electrical grid.
The risk of losing both the computer and the hooked up backup drive and the disconnected backup drive isn't zero. All you'd need is something to go wrong in doing the backup which said problem gets propagated to the backup before it gets disconnected - not impossible, so you don't have to think house fire.
I'm a family doctor. My medical records are irreplaceable. My income depends on them staying intact. If your income depends on your images, then you need a pretty darn full-proof system to protect them and in that situation you probably won't have time to re-edit your images so all decent edited images need saved connected, disconnected and off site.
One issue I struggle with is whether it's easier to back up all raw files securely or to select out only those that pertain to important images for backup - all my edited images that come from a single raw file retain the raw file number so it wouldn't be impossible to search out those. My stitched images don't, and I have a lot of them - so this is a problem, meaning that saving all raw is certainly easier, if not as cheap. Easy beats cheap every time for me!
It's possible to break down backups another way.
Always backed up - basically we're talking a raid drive or similar, and while that will help in the future, won't deal with the 4 drives I have almost full already. I'd need a big expensive raid system to deal with those. But it's probably more important to start backing up continuously with new images and do intermittent backups of the old stuff.
Intermittent backups - if it's nightly, then I don't want to be plugging and unplugging a drive - as likely to cause problems as fix with all that wear and tear, shaking and static. So nightly backups need to be kept plugged in. A suitably big backup drive(s) is what's needed. If it has redundancy, so much the better, though arguably redundancy in a backup isn't needed.
Occasional backups - given the concerns of long term stability of dvd's, not to mention the hassles of burning a hundred of them, this really means an unpluggable hard drive. How often you do this comes down to how much time you are willing to commit to do it, and how much work you are willing to lose in case of a power surge sneaking past your protection.
How do I do it? Badly and not often enough, but at least I do have a system.
Raw files are offsite and backed up seldom - I should do this monthly.
Edited images are backed up and then unplugged - again it should be monthly
As for continuous backup - well it hasn't happened yet and sooner or later it's going to cost me. Raid systems are cheap enough that I will do something to correct continuous backups within the next month or so. As I'm running out of drive space, a new large raid system seems the way to go.
Nightly backups, well if I back up new work continuously, this isn't as needed but as I'm constantly editing old images, I guess I'm going to do a nightly backup of changed files on the existing drives.
Sure is a hell of a lot more complicated than throwing your negatives in a drawer - though the number of famous photographers who lost negatives to processing errors, floods and darkroom fires is pretty impressive, even after the days of nitrocellulose film stock. All my wedding pictures succumbed to a humid basement in Kentucky.
Monday, June 09, 2008
More On What Makes A Good Image
Seems to me that a photograph is like an ambassador, representing the thing or the idea that the photograph is about. Said representative can mumble and shuffle his feet, lie to the listener, not know his facts or refuse to be helpful. The print represents the idea in a somewhat similar way.
You might say that an image is about this particular piece of rust, but in fact it stands representative of all pieces of rust and more specifically the best pieces of rust, the rust that is really interesting in shape or colour, in composition, uniqueness and in it's surround.
If you photograph a winding path in the woods, it stands in for all winding paths and if it isn't twisting enough, or if the view is blocked by an unfortunate placing of a tree, or if there are distracting elements in the image, then it can't do a good job representing all winding paths. Oh sure, it can act as a representative of one particular path, and for someone contemplating hiking down it, they might want to see it, but for those enjoying the image, it isn't enough to represent only the one path. it needs to be the path of all paths, a path so well lit and presented that it makes a connection with lots of viewers.
Just because you take the best possible picture of a particular gorge, it doesn't necessarily mean you have the archetype image of a gorge - this one simply may be lacking, at least at the time that you photographed it.
Sometimes representing 'what it is' isn't good enough. The image needs to work in a different plane. I remember a Paul Caponigro image of an apple and it reminded me of an astronomical picture - stars, galaxies and clusters. The rust may not be the most famous, dramatic, wonderful rust around, but if it looks like John Lennon, then it's going to become famous. If it looks like Aunt Ruth, on a bad day, well maybe not.
What does this mean in choosing what to photograph? It means that we should be asking ourselves whether this particular scene from this position at this time, is capable of making an image which will stand representative of all similar scenes. If it can't - if you know you have seen better, and can't improve this one, then just maybe it isn't worth photographing, no matter how well you composed and exposed.
Mind you, if you are insecure, you could decide that none of your possible images is that good and so you don't take any pictures and end the day frustrated. If you know it's the best you can do and if the subject matter and it's presentation are the best you can find, then you have done all you can and since none of us can predict 100% the effectiveness of an image beforehand, why not shoot it anyway. In fact, usually the shooting is the fast part of the whole process. I'm just glad I'm not responsible for an 8X20 sheet of film (one of only a dozen I carry for an entire day's shooting).
You might say that an image is about this particular piece of rust, but in fact it stands representative of all pieces of rust and more specifically the best pieces of rust, the rust that is really interesting in shape or colour, in composition, uniqueness and in it's surround.
If you photograph a winding path in the woods, it stands in for all winding paths and if it isn't twisting enough, or if the view is blocked by an unfortunate placing of a tree, or if there are distracting elements in the image, then it can't do a good job representing all winding paths. Oh sure, it can act as a representative of one particular path, and for someone contemplating hiking down it, they might want to see it, but for those enjoying the image, it isn't enough to represent only the one path. it needs to be the path of all paths, a path so well lit and presented that it makes a connection with lots of viewers.
Just because you take the best possible picture of a particular gorge, it doesn't necessarily mean you have the archetype image of a gorge - this one simply may be lacking, at least at the time that you photographed it.
Sometimes representing 'what it is' isn't good enough. The image needs to work in a different plane. I remember a Paul Caponigro image of an apple and it reminded me of an astronomical picture - stars, galaxies and clusters. The rust may not be the most famous, dramatic, wonderful rust around, but if it looks like John Lennon, then it's going to become famous. If it looks like Aunt Ruth, on a bad day, well maybe not.
What does this mean in choosing what to photograph? It means that we should be asking ourselves whether this particular scene from this position at this time, is capable of making an image which will stand representative of all similar scenes. If it can't - if you know you have seen better, and can't improve this one, then just maybe it isn't worth photographing, no matter how well you composed and exposed.
Mind you, if you are insecure, you could decide that none of your possible images is that good and so you don't take any pictures and end the day frustrated. If you know it's the best you can do and if the subject matter and it's presentation are the best you can find, then you have done all you can and since none of us can predict 100% the effectiveness of an image beforehand, why not shoot it anyway. In fact, usually the shooting is the fast part of the whole process. I'm just glad I'm not responsible for an 8X20 sheet of film (one of only a dozen I carry for an entire day's shooting).
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Locomotive
I headed to Edmonton to visit my dad (age 86) and decided to make a weekend of it by taking the rural route to Edmonton, visiting Stettler, home of Alberta Prairie Railways
. I spent a pleasant hour photographing locomotive 41 and chatting with the fireman in the cab.
They offered to remove the rag for me but I insisted on leaving it in situ - there's a lot of cleaning and oiling of these beasts and it seemed appropriate.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
What Makes An Interesting Photograph?
In the past I have written that in choosing a subject to photograph, first you must have an interest. Then I wrote that that interest could simply be in discovering interesting compositions and unique subjects or view points. Then I wrote that sometimes the interest comes from working on a project for a time and learning to appreciate the subject (as happened with my Independent Machinery series). After that I wrote about the worth of the individual image which isn't part of a project, or at least, is the only or one of a few images resulting from a project (like Pepper # 30).
Of course, all of the above relates to the viewpoint of the photographer. Given that we are the photographers, I felt this was entirely justified. However, should we wish to have an audience for our images, it doesn't hurt to talk about interesting from the point of view of the audience.
I have also written about the elements of great photographs but now I want to discuss in a more general way what makes a photograph interesting to viewers.
It's incredible the variety of images which are shown in galleries or sold or whose creator becomes famous.
Often photographers don't 'get' photographs of the mundane. We admire the work of Walker Evans, but when someone like Stephen Shore shows images of modern streets we can't understand the point of the image. Oh, we can see the images are well composed and so on, but in the end, it's just a picture of a street. We tend to discount the fact that this street image is representative of and illustrates modern society - life in the burbs or whatever and that images which show this especially well will be admired and appreciated in the future, and someone needs to take them now - before they change.
I remember years ago seeing an image by George Tice, of a gas station with a water tower in the the background, taken late in the evening. Sometimes photographers make their reputations based on capturing the quaint and disappearing before it's gone. This is what David Plowden has done. Is he any more clever than someone who has the foresight to capture similar images while they are still ordinary, when every street looks like that?
In my book in writing about levels of skill, I talked about the picture of your nephew which could be very ordinary, or catch him being uniquely himself or when he was especially cute, bad, mad or whatever, or catching him in a fashion which stands in for all the kids who ever had a temper tantrum. We admire the latter image but tend to discount the same when it's applied to other aspects of our lives like our gas stations, corner groceries, bingo parlors or whatever.
Since some people have become famous selling work of this type, clearly some people find it interesting and are willing to pay money for it. This would suggest that many of us photographers are very poor judges of what our audience might like. Editors already knew this and that's one reason why they usually insist on making the selections of images for publication.
Perhaps we should therefore not worry too much about what types of images would do well and simply photograph what catches our fancy. Maybe we should leave the externally imposed assignments to the professionals who when assigned to photograph toilets at least have the satisfaction of taking a pay cheque home at the end of the day and who's working reward comes in accepting the challenge and successfully tackling it.
If we make some assumptions.
1) you belong to the human race. If you don't then the following may not apply to you.
2. you are not insane, hugely perverted or a sociopath. (you might need help with this one)
3.your life is not totally unique and unprecedented, not to say freakish.
On that basis, it is reasonable to conclude that whatever you find interesting to photograph, someone, and likely several someones; share your interest or are at least curious about your interest or at least appreciate your interest and will enjoy whatever work you happen to think is significant.
I may not be interested in mud bogging, or even approve of it, but that doesn't mean that I couldn't appreciate a really good series of images about mud boggers and their lives.
So, go ahead and photograph cutlery, candle stick holders, weirdos, rocks or whatever and if you are technically competent and know a bit about composition and presenting your subject well and can make a half decent print, more than a few people are going to appreciate what you do.
It may not make you rich or famous, but that takes lots of luck, a huge ego, more luck, the right contacts, a politically correct subject matter, more luck, brass balls (or the female equivalent), a tad extra luck, and impeccable timing. Oh, and usually it takes all your time including that which would normally be given to your job or your family, all your energy, and did I say luck?
Of course, all of the above relates to the viewpoint of the photographer. Given that we are the photographers, I felt this was entirely justified. However, should we wish to have an audience for our images, it doesn't hurt to talk about interesting from the point of view of the audience.
I have also written about the elements of great photographs but now I want to discuss in a more general way what makes a photograph interesting to viewers.
It's incredible the variety of images which are shown in galleries or sold or whose creator becomes famous.
Often photographers don't 'get' photographs of the mundane. We admire the work of Walker Evans, but when someone like Stephen Shore shows images of modern streets we can't understand the point of the image. Oh, we can see the images are well composed and so on, but in the end, it's just a picture of a street. We tend to discount the fact that this street image is representative of and illustrates modern society - life in the burbs or whatever and that images which show this especially well will be admired and appreciated in the future, and someone needs to take them now - before they change.
I remember years ago seeing an image by George Tice, of a gas station with a water tower in the the background, taken late in the evening. Sometimes photographers make their reputations based on capturing the quaint and disappearing before it's gone. This is what David Plowden has done. Is he any more clever than someone who has the foresight to capture similar images while they are still ordinary, when every street looks like that?
In my book in writing about levels of skill, I talked about the picture of your nephew which could be very ordinary, or catch him being uniquely himself or when he was especially cute, bad, mad or whatever, or catching him in a fashion which stands in for all the kids who ever had a temper tantrum. We admire the latter image but tend to discount the same when it's applied to other aspects of our lives like our gas stations, corner groceries, bingo parlors or whatever.
Since some people have become famous selling work of this type, clearly some people find it interesting and are willing to pay money for it. This would suggest that many of us photographers are very poor judges of what our audience might like. Editors already knew this and that's one reason why they usually insist on making the selections of images for publication.
Perhaps we should therefore not worry too much about what types of images would do well and simply photograph what catches our fancy. Maybe we should leave the externally imposed assignments to the professionals who when assigned to photograph toilets at least have the satisfaction of taking a pay cheque home at the end of the day and who's working reward comes in accepting the challenge and successfully tackling it.
If we make some assumptions.
1) you belong to the human race. If you don't then the following may not apply to you.
2. you are not insane, hugely perverted or a sociopath. (you might need help with this one)
3.your life is not totally unique and unprecedented, not to say freakish.
On that basis, it is reasonable to conclude that whatever you find interesting to photograph, someone, and likely several someones; share your interest or are at least curious about your interest or at least appreciate your interest and will enjoy whatever work you happen to think is significant.
I may not be interested in mud bogging, or even approve of it, but that doesn't mean that I couldn't appreciate a really good series of images about mud boggers and their lives.
So, go ahead and photograph cutlery, candle stick holders, weirdos, rocks or whatever and if you are technically competent and know a bit about composition and presenting your subject well and can make a half decent print, more than a few people are going to appreciate what you do.
It may not make you rich or famous, but that takes lots of luck, a huge ego, more luck, the right contacts, a politically correct subject matter, more luck, brass balls (or the female equivalent), a tad extra luck, and impeccable timing. Oh, and usually it takes all your time including that which would normally be given to your job or your family, all your energy, and did I say luck?
Monday, June 02, 2008
Live View
The combination of live view and a large and tilting LCD screen is a powerful combination and one I am looking forward to. It makes working low a lot more comfortable, not to say drier. It makes working overhead possible. It's not uncommon to find that the camera is at eye level, but it's aiming down so you still need a step stool to see in the view finder.
Likewise, there are awkward positions like a low camera looking up that need a contortionist to access the viewfinder, or at least someone younger, thinner, fitter and more flexible than me (that includes a lot of people to be fair).
This could be the return of the waist level finder for a different view point and less obvious photographing.
Initial presentations of live view have not been perfect, but it's clear that things will improve - autofocus while using live view for example, blackouts when taking the picture so following a subject is problematic.
Live view brings live histogram, what about live zones. Anyone interested in checking focus anywhere within the image. With my tilt/shift lens, this would be immensely valuable. As it happens, I haven't used that lens on my 40D, but sure will when my main camera has live view.
There are comments on the net about increased noise when the sensor is allowed to run hot because of using live view but I haven't come across any actual test - how long and how much - would be good to know.
Spot metering in live view would be a treat, being able to set one or more 'spots', each with a + or - X next to them indicating where they are placed relative to each other and to middle gray.
Mind you, I'm still predicting the demise of the optical viewfinder entirely - it's just a matter of quality and responsiveness - once those issues are taken care of, SLR's won't be SLR's any more - no mirror, no blackout, no pentaprism, tilting viewfinder. It wouldn't take much. The resolution on my Panasonic FZ50 electronic view finder isn't bad so double the resolution in both width and height would be downright awesome (4X as many pixels). Panning would have to be better and blackout during exposure would have to be minimized - I don't see these as difficult to achieve.
Likewise, there are awkward positions like a low camera looking up that need a contortionist to access the viewfinder, or at least someone younger, thinner, fitter and more flexible than me (that includes a lot of people to be fair).
This could be the return of the waist level finder for a different view point and less obvious photographing.
Initial presentations of live view have not been perfect, but it's clear that things will improve - autofocus while using live view for example, blackouts when taking the picture so following a subject is problematic.
Live view brings live histogram, what about live zones. Anyone interested in checking focus anywhere within the image. With my tilt/shift lens, this would be immensely valuable. As it happens, I haven't used that lens on my 40D, but sure will when my main camera has live view.
There are comments on the net about increased noise when the sensor is allowed to run hot because of using live view but I haven't come across any actual test - how long and how much - would be good to know.
Spot metering in live view would be a treat, being able to set one or more 'spots', each with a + or - X next to them indicating where they are placed relative to each other and to middle gray.
Mind you, I'm still predicting the demise of the optical viewfinder entirely - it's just a matter of quality and responsiveness - once those issues are taken care of, SLR's won't be SLR's any more - no mirror, no blackout, no pentaprism, tilting viewfinder. It wouldn't take much. The resolution on my Panasonic FZ50 electronic view finder isn't bad so double the resolution in both width and height would be downright awesome (4X as many pixels). Panning would have to be better and blackout during exposure would have to be minimized - I don't see these as difficult to achieve.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
Improving Images, Accepting Criticism
NOART wrote a very effective criticism of the above image.
Let me try to critique this image.
George, my reactions to your images are quite different, and I do like many of them. This one looked too busy in small, so I clicked to see the large version.
My first reaction was very positive, but after a minute or two of looking, I was not so sure any more.
Obviously a lot of care has gone into choosing the image crop (mostly in camera, I assume), and the composition looks very well balanced. The darker stump on the left balances well with the two larger ones on the right. I find it good that the parallax distortion has not been corrected -- the not quite vertical tree trunks start a nice arch that is continued by the very light needle tree in the lower left. This arch is nicely picked up by the two large stumps on the right and returned back into the image by the thin branches in the upper corner.
While traveling along this arch I notice the interesting water swirls, but the dark stump in the lower middle of the image stops me dead in my tracks. Obviously there is nothing you could have done about it, but I find its presence nonetheless unfortunate.
OK, so now I've looked at the entire image. What it is about? What is the main subject? Do I want to look at it any longer?
That's where I'm left hanging in the air. The entire image is in focus and the entire image is almost equally bright. The arch that I was talking about exists because of the shapes in the image, but not because of the tones. There is no depth. Due to the uniform sharpness and brightness, all elements of the image appear to be at the same distance from the viewer (which of course is not true). And they appear to have equal importance, which too is not true.
I suspect that the original image had more tonal depth and maybe even more focus depth (this might be a blend of several images). I read your blog regularly and know that you go to great lengths to bring the tones and the focus under control, but I think for this image you've gone too far.
Apart from this main critique point, I'm also slightly bothered by the alignment of the dead tree trunk (second from left) and the needle tree behind it.
Overall, I'd say I like the image, but not enough to bookmark it and come back to it later. (But I have bookmarked several of your other images.)
Do you care to critique my critique? I'll be happy to hear your thoughts about this image.
My own assessment of the image, before reading NOART's comments was nice, but hardly great, simply the best I could do on the day, and with nothing better to post, it was marginally acceptable for showing on the blog.
Having now read NOART's comments, I have to agree. First, it does need to be seen larger, second, there is an evenness to tonality which makes the image harder to 'read' and less effective. The black stump I have mixed feelings about - certainly there's nothing else quite like it in the image.
Frankly, I may be simply trying to work on an inherently mediocre image, but I thought I'd play with some of NOART's ideas on the image and while the result still isn't a great image, I do think it shows substantial improvements, enough that it's worth showing the difference that a little editing can make.
Here's my thoughts on the 'new and improved' version.
Pretending that the original version never saw the light of day, I'll comment just on what I see in this new version.
This is an image in which there are several good elements, but they don't quite come together. The waterway would have been better had more been seen, a def. pathway through the woods. The stumps on the right would have been better without those branches in front on the far right. The only thing balancing the stumps on the right are the dark trees further back on the left and given the different nature of them and the higher position on the print, I don't think they do an adequate job in this balancing act.
Overall, even in a goodly size, the image is just too busy. Though it was photographed in the rain, there is absolutely no sense of atmosphere in the image, nothing to suggest the weather.
In the end, while I can improve the image, it is flawed at a fundamental level and I should probably stop trying to rescue it.
This raises some thoughts about the value of having spent 4 hours in the rain, if this is the best I could do. The following points occur to me.
1) practice is never wasted. The work on that day, will pay off sometime in the future.
2) getting out in the rain and enjoying the forest and streams, floods and the brilliant fresh green of spring growth in the rain is never wasted.
3) I got some exercise and fresh air - never to be sneezed at.
4) You can never predict whether today is going to be the day. The only way to ensure failure is to not go out in the first place.
5) Who says failure is such a bad thing. Imagine if you never ever lost playing chess, I suspect it just wouldn't be as interesting.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Possible Magazines For Submissions
Thought I'd start a list of photography magazines which accept and show fine art photography, along with brief comments, as needed.
If you have any magazines to add to this list, as long as they accept general fine art submissions (eg. not Ducks Unlimited), and especially if they do a fairly decent job showing portfolios or single images, then add your comment to this entry. I will republish the list with additions and corrections as needed in the next week or so.
Lenswork - the magazine is black and white only, is known for it's beautiful printing, only does typically three photographers per issue and for many of us, is the ultimate goal of being published in a magazine. Lenswork Extended is the DVD version of the magazine. It accepts colour submissions. The images are pdf's and display large and detailed and look much nicer than the usual small web presentations.
Camera Arts - I'm afraid I don't 'get' this magazine. The images are often kitchy, heavily dependent on technique over image or use trickery as an end in itself. Black and white reproduction is very poor, there being nothing resembling black anywhere. Colour reproduction is significantly better.
Outdoor Photography - is a mass market magazine more interested in articles and products than in images, but they do show some work.
Popular Photography - not normally thought of as a showcase for fine art.
Phot'Art - great reproduction but quite biased to fashion. Fair number of other portfolios too though so could be worth while.
Photo Life - this issue has a very nice portfolio of David Burdeny's seashore images.
Silvershotz - coming along nicely, decent black and white reproduction and I believe they have opened their publication to digital these days.
Black And White - hard to get in as they no longer accept unsolicited submissions - you either win a place based on one of their contests or you get invited.
Focus - you have to be famous to get in free, the rest pay a significant fee for the privilege of being published, which taints the whole idea of being accepted (are you accepted for your skill, or your money). The publisher is very pushy. Perhaps he has the right idea, and I confess I went for it a couple of years ago, but have had second thoughts ever since, and as for his claims of it going out to collectors and generating business for you - I have heard from several people that this is not the case - you are very unlikely to make back the cost of entry (which is > $1000).
Black and White Photography (U.K.) - under new editorship with Elizabeth Roberts after declining a bit in quality over the last year or two but still a very nice magazine, decent reproduction, the ads at the bottom of the readers page are truly horrible so hopefully they will clean up those soon, they even accept small portfolios for the readers pages, showing a single photographer over a few pages.
Outdoor Photography (U.K.) - good colour reproduction, nice looking magazine, a lot of content, unlike the average American magazine, largely about landscapes and wildlife. It's the same publisher as Black and White Photography and they don't seem to do any monochrome, leaving it for the sister magazine.
If you have any magazines to add to this list, as long as they accept general fine art submissions (eg. not Ducks Unlimited), and especially if they do a fairly decent job showing portfolios or single images, then add your comment to this entry. I will republish the list with additions and corrections as needed in the next week or so.
Lenswork - the magazine is black and white only, is known for it's beautiful printing, only does typically three photographers per issue and for many of us, is the ultimate goal of being published in a magazine. Lenswork Extended is the DVD version of the magazine. It accepts colour submissions. The images are pdf's and display large and detailed and look much nicer than the usual small web presentations.
Camera Arts - I'm afraid I don't 'get' this magazine. The images are often kitchy, heavily dependent on technique over image or use trickery as an end in itself. Black and white reproduction is very poor, there being nothing resembling black anywhere. Colour reproduction is significantly better.
Outdoor Photography - is a mass market magazine more interested in articles and products than in images, but they do show some work.
Popular Photography - not normally thought of as a showcase for fine art.
Phot'Art - great reproduction but quite biased to fashion. Fair number of other portfolios too though so could be worth while.
Photo Life - this issue has a very nice portfolio of David Burdeny's seashore images.
Silvershotz - coming along nicely, decent black and white reproduction and I believe they have opened their publication to digital these days.
Black And White - hard to get in as they no longer accept unsolicited submissions - you either win a place based on one of their contests or you get invited.
Focus - you have to be famous to get in free, the rest pay a significant fee for the privilege of being published, which taints the whole idea of being accepted (are you accepted for your skill, or your money). The publisher is very pushy. Perhaps he has the right idea, and I confess I went for it a couple of years ago, but have had second thoughts ever since, and as for his claims of it going out to collectors and generating business for you - I have heard from several people that this is not the case - you are very unlikely to make back the cost of entry (which is > $1000).
Black and White Photography (U.K.) - under new editorship with Elizabeth Roberts after declining a bit in quality over the last year or two but still a very nice magazine, decent reproduction, the ads at the bottom of the readers page are truly horrible so hopefully they will clean up those soon, they even accept small portfolios for the readers pages, showing a single photographer over a few pages.
Outdoor Photography (U.K.) - good colour reproduction, nice looking magazine, a lot of content, unlike the average American magazine, largely about landscapes and wildlife. It's the same publisher as Black and White Photography and they don't seem to do any monochrome, leaving it for the sister magazine.
Value and Significance Vs. Choice Of Subject
Do we value some photographs more than others because of the choice of subject matter? For example, given that we are human, are images of people inherently of more significance (we're not talking money here) than, say, a landscape? Is a landscape inherently more significant than, say a picture of a plastic candle holder (see Andy Ilachinski's images in the current Lenswork)?
Presumably Andy thinks there's as much value in the images from the candle holder, as must Lenswork since they included them (I happen to think they are extremely nice). I suppose we could argue that the only truly significant images are those of suffering, but clearly that's both absurd and unhealthy. Can you imagine if every one of the images you hung in your house was a 'Migrant Mother' type or even worse, a war image?
Arguably Ansel Adams and his landscapes has had every bit as much effect on policy and public sentiment, as Robert Capa and his war images, perhaps more. Brett Weston is as known for his patches of rust as his nudes and grand landscapes.
Pepper # 30 has no social value, other than as a beautiful image. Rembrandt's paintings were ordered by rich merchants, of their wives so the significance of the person to us is non-existent. Clearly the value or significance of the work is in the work itself, not what it represents.
Conclusion: plastic candle holders are fair game, as is absolutely anything else you care to photograph.
One of my all time favourite images is Bob Carlos Clark's 'two forks facing', an image of cutlery he rescued from the bank of the Thames River.
It may be that the significance of the rust or pepper or forks lies in their allegorical representation of something else - the pepper representing the female back and bottom, the forks perhaps a couple facing each other, perhaps making love. But the rust? And there are other examples in which the beauty is in the image and there are no obvious allegories. Mind you, given what people can do with ink blots, anything is possible.
Presumably Andy thinks there's as much value in the images from the candle holder, as must Lenswork since they included them (I happen to think they are extremely nice). I suppose we could argue that the only truly significant images are those of suffering, but clearly that's both absurd and unhealthy. Can you imagine if every one of the images you hung in your house was a 'Migrant Mother' type or even worse, a war image?
Arguably Ansel Adams and his landscapes has had every bit as much effect on policy and public sentiment, as Robert Capa and his war images, perhaps more. Brett Weston is as known for his patches of rust as his nudes and grand landscapes.
Pepper # 30 has no social value, other than as a beautiful image. Rembrandt's paintings were ordered by rich merchants, of their wives so the significance of the person to us is non-existent. Clearly the value or significance of the work is in the work itself, not what it represents.
Conclusion: plastic candle holders are fair game, as is absolutely anything else you care to photograph.
One of my all time favourite images is Bob Carlos Clark's 'two forks facing', an image of cutlery he rescued from the bank of the Thames River.
It may be that the significance of the rust or pepper or forks lies in their allegorical representation of something else - the pepper representing the female back and bottom, the forks perhaps a couple facing each other, perhaps making love. But the rust? And there are other examples in which the beauty is in the image and there are no obvious allegories. Mind you, given what people can do with ink blots, anything is possible.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Out In The Rain
Walked the dog between rain storms but when it came to heading out to photograph, it just got wetter and wetter. Camera held up fine, more than can be said for me, but a hot bath later and I'm just fine, thank you.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Projects Are All Very Well, But...
These days, many editors require photographic projects, a unifying theme to the images, some times even to the point of accepting weaker images just because they fit with the theme, even when the photographer may well have dozens of stronger images at home which will remain unseen because they aren't part of a project.
I certainly understand why an editor would do this. The publication looks better when all the images from one photographer are from a single project or at least theme. The ability to produce dozens of strong images on a single topic says a lot about the abilities of the photographer.
I would point out however that many of our greatest photographers did not work this way much or all of the time. Pepper # 30 is much loved. Ever see Peppers 1 - 29. I suppose you could include Edward Weston's other vegetable images but I have only ever seen fewer than a dozen vegetable images from him - ie. good enough to be published. That won't even get you in the door of Lenswork, for example.
I love 'Chez Mondrian' by Kertesz, but I have not seen any of his other images that remotely look like this image or are on the same theme. Instead his publications show a wide variety of subjects from street photography to 'shot from my window' type work to people.
Other well known photographers definitely did projects or worked within themes. Edward Weston could and has done entire books from nudes. Others did or do nothing but projects.
I guess that for those who don't photograph to an agenda or do projects, the hope would be to come up with enough really strong images that they can do a book, though even there publishers like themes so one may be self publishing which basically won't work if you don't have a reputation which you aren't going to get if you don't get published. Hmmm.
There's always the readers pages in photo magazines but as that generally results in only a few images at best, it really tends to reinforce the message 'these were the only good images'. Black and White magazine from U.S.A. accepts small portfolios of images - 8 if I remember rightly, while Black and White Photography (U.K.) published my badlands images a few years ago based on a submission of only a dozen or so images - but all one theme.
Has anyone had success getting published or shown in galleries without a strong theme or without a specific project?
I wonder what editors think about this - since clearly their needs are not necessarily ours, entirely reasonably.
I certainly understand why an editor would do this. The publication looks better when all the images from one photographer are from a single project or at least theme. The ability to produce dozens of strong images on a single topic says a lot about the abilities of the photographer.
I would point out however that many of our greatest photographers did not work this way much or all of the time. Pepper # 30 is much loved. Ever see Peppers 1 - 29. I suppose you could include Edward Weston's other vegetable images but I have only ever seen fewer than a dozen vegetable images from him - ie. good enough to be published. That won't even get you in the door of Lenswork, for example.
I love 'Chez Mondrian' by Kertesz, but I have not seen any of his other images that remotely look like this image or are on the same theme. Instead his publications show a wide variety of subjects from street photography to 'shot from my window' type work to people.
Other well known photographers definitely did projects or worked within themes. Edward Weston could and has done entire books from nudes. Others did or do nothing but projects.
I guess that for those who don't photograph to an agenda or do projects, the hope would be to come up with enough really strong images that they can do a book, though even there publishers like themes so one may be self publishing which basically won't work if you don't have a reputation which you aren't going to get if you don't get published. Hmmm.
There's always the readers pages in photo magazines but as that generally results in only a few images at best, it really tends to reinforce the message 'these were the only good images'. Black and White magazine from U.S.A. accepts small portfolios of images - 8 if I remember rightly, while Black and White Photography (U.K.) published my badlands images a few years ago based on a submission of only a dozen or so images - but all one theme.
Has anyone had success getting published or shown in galleries without a strong theme or without a specific project?
I wonder what editors think about this - since clearly their needs are not necessarily ours, entirely reasonably.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Now This Is Experimenting
So:
- I really like it.
- It's just Photoshop Trickery.
- Anyone could do it.
- But I'm the one who did.
- Am I just kidding myself?
- Would I dare submit such an image for a show, contest or publication?
- Why the hell not?
- But what if they think it's completely tacky? Gimmicky? Trash? Without Merit?
- Should I care?
-
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