New photos

[Ari]

Hi,
I have a new series, really a mini-project, up on my website; I was hoping to get some feedback, on any aspect, no matter how seemingly insignificant.
And I can take the heat, so dish it out, if necessary.
Here is the link:
http://www.aritapiero.com/the-last-jews-of-miskolc.html

Thanks, and happy new year.

I just realized this may be in the wrong section.
Sorry, mods, and please move if necessary.
Thanks

[lbenac]

Hello Ari,

Not sure if it just me but a few of the images look very sharp - IMHO - too sharp for the subject.

Edit: too contrasty might be a better term :-) that said I do not know anything about color...

My 2 cents.

Cheers,

Luc

[vinny]

most of those guys look really uncomfortable.

[C. D. Keth]

They're lovely photos, Ari, but I don't feel like I know anything more about those people after seeing the portraits.

[photobymike]

The portraits are good... a portrait has to mean something to the people you are taking the picture of.. and the family... i bet most people here on LF will not get it.... They are into "performance" pictures... photos that are appealing to anybody thats viewing.

I did my apprenticeship with a jewish wedding photographer 30 years ago.. Jerry Cohen ....He taught me the business of photography and how to photograph... bar mitzvahs, weddings, and even funerals. The photographs, portraits mean different things to different people. A jewish wedding is much different kind of photography than a Catholic or even a Baptist wedding. Different pictures with different techniques. Some people are into the place and the grandeur .. wide angle needed.... Baptist up close and personal....
Portraits are about getting to know what they expect to look like. Others might prefer a lot of retouching because they know what they wished they looked like.... Kind of hard to explain, but it has to do with the psychology of the person you are trying to capture with your camera. Look at Richard Avedon's work.... The people he photographed had egos that were huge and he photographed them like their poop didnt stink...LOL sorry could not help it

[Nathan Potter]

These are documentary images and seems to me to be well conceived. I like the idea. I like the individuals connection to their surroundings. That they are sharp and that some of the expressions are a bit vacant doesn't bother me so much.

I think if I had such an opportunity I would try make a stronger connection between the individuals and their surroundings. Perhaps a stronger focus on something in their life. There are some elements in the background that connect but some extraneous stuff weakens that connection. I think Keth has a point.

Good project and somewhat different than much of the stuff shown on LFPF - thanks for showing.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Noah B]

The contrast is a little high but the color and exposures look good. One thing that bugs me about these pictures are that all of the men are really rigid! It's harder to photograph men I think, because we're always on guard for a threat of some sort. I may be wrong about that, but I do know men don't give much emotion in pictures unless you really know how to get it out of them. It also depends on what kind of camera you're working with, the subject will react a different way if its a view camera as opposed to a dslr. Most importantly is how you talk to the subject and collaborate to make a good picture.

[Bill Poole]

I find them to be cool amd very carefully crafted place photos in which the people seem as much accents in the compositions as the subjects of them. (This is true of some of the images more than others.) I agree with some other reviewers that the subjects do not seem to engage the camera---but this is not necessarily bad and may have been your intent. If, in fact, this is to be a project, maybe select either color or black and white images for the final cut and not both. Hope this helps.

Bill Poole

[C. D. Keth]

The portraits are good... a portrait has to mean something to the people you are taking the picture of.. and the family... i bet most people here on LF will not get it.... They are into "performance" pictures... photos that are appealing to anybody thats viewing.

I guess we should ask what is the intended viewership of this series? If it's everybody, I think they are weak portraits but pleasing photos in many cases. If the intended viewership is a Jewish publication or something like that, then it may mean much more than it does to my heathen eyes. ;)

[Kirk Gittings]

The statuesque almost stoic, unemotional, guarded poses of the subjects intrigues me and in and of itself (given the title of the collection) leads me to view the work more as a collective portrait of the physical remnants of a culture rather than a series of related individual portraits. I think it is a very interesting start. I would be interested in a similar treatment of the surviving material artifacts of the culture paired with these portraits.

[Ari]

Thank you, everybody; some wonderful insights here and lots for me to think about.

I should have prefaced all of this by saying a few things:
There is a lot of space in many of the photos because I wanted to convey some sense of isolation, and in this sense, Kirk was right on in his assessment.
These are the last embers of a culture, and stoic does not begin to describe these men, so the poses (I wanted them this way) are ambiguous, aloof, uncertain, but, I hope, honest.
They are really the last of their kind in that part of the world; where once there were hundreds of thousands, there are now thirteen or fourteen (a few were too shy to have their photos taken).

I know that I failed to convey all I wanted in these photos, and I don't like to use a lot of words to describe what I'm doing, so a lot of pieces would seem to be missing.
Maybe a slightly more detailed background is necessary.
It is a project that, right now, is about a specific group in a specific location with a specific history, but should I be allowed to delve further into this, I'd hope that this would strike a more universal chord eventually.
But it is the first step of something larger, I hope.

Thanks again, and I hope to hear more.

ps - for those who care, everything was shot on a Wista RF, Grandagon 115, and Kodak Ektar film (one was shot on Fuji Acros).
Sharpening is courtesy of Weebly, and I have emailed them to ask if their settings have changed, or whether I can tone down the sharpening myself.

[Peter De Smidt]

It's a very promising start!

[john borrelli]

Just wondering if you are considering a multimedia approach.

For example, what if you asked these individuals the same series of questions the subject of the questions would pertain to their individual histories and your area of interest. Not sure if these people are english speaking, but if they were not, you could translate their responses and viewers could read them posted by each person. Another thing you could do would be to use those audio tour machine players with earphones(like they use in museum exhibits) and people could listen to recordings of their voices while exhibit viewers were reading the subject's responses posted by each photo. This would produce a similar effect to watching a foreign film with subtitles.

I think it could be interesting to listen to their voices without headphones too and their could be a number of ways to do this. Here you might have your images displayed in a large space with their voices playing off and on every few minutes, and their might be written translations by each photo. If adding voices was a good idea but people were not english speaking you could use your voice translating their words and viewers could listen to the subjects speaking through the audio tour machines. I like your photos and all the best, John

[dachyagel]

Ari, the lighting -- particularly the contrast, in some cases, between the subject and the background, is astoundingly good in this series (and unique, compared to a lot of what gets posted here at LFF). I especially like the way that the balance of the story that is being told in each photograph falls to the setting, not the subject, and I think that the similarities in the subjects' expressions points to their shared heritage and their unique perspective (as being the last of something, of anything).

Particularly good work -- but then I've enjoyed just about everything of yours that I've seen here and on your site.

Thanks for bringing us something here that's different -- and I wish you luck with exhibiting or publishing this series.

Cheers :)

[Ari]

Hello Ari,

Not sure if it just me but a few of the images look very sharp - IMHO - too sharp for the subject.

Edit: too contrasty might be a better term :-) that said I do not know anything about color...

My 2 cents.

Cheers,

Luc

Thanks, Luc; I have yet to hear back from Weebly, but I suspect that their settings changed in the last few months, around the time they added a host of new functions.
I didn't apply any general sharpening, just very specific sharpening, and subtly, to one or two faces to clean them up a little.


most of those guys look really uncomfortable.

Yes, they do; thank you, Vinny.


They're lovely photos, Ari, but I don't feel like I know anything more about those people after seeing the portraits.

I agree with you, Christopher; I have a lot of trouble telling a story in a single photo, or series, without resorting to a paragraph or two of blurb.
Without the introduction, though, you are right, they could be anyone.
I don't feel that these photos stand by themselves without the provided context.
Thanks

[Ari]

These are documentary images and seems to me to be well conceived. I like the idea. I like the individuals connection to their surroundings. That they are sharp and that some of the expressions are a bit vacant doesn't bother me so much.

I think if I had such an opportunity I would try make a stronger connection between the individuals and their surroundings. Perhaps a stronger focus on something in their life. There are some elements in the background that connect but some extraneous stuff weakens that connection. I think Keth has a point.

Good project and somewhat different than much of the stuff shown on LFPF - thanks for showing.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

Thank you, Nate.
I, too, agree with Christopher; the synagogue is my only link to these guys, they are shy and wouldn't invite me to their homes, unless I was hungry :)
But not for a photo. :):)
I thought to look for something outside that they have a stronger connection to in their personal lives, but that would take away the one thing that connects all of them.
The synagogue isn't where they pray (they do a pretty bad job of that :)), it's where they meet, talk, gossip and have breakfast.
So I think I chose the location well, but the individual locations were off the mark on several occasions, and somewhat repetitive.


The portraits are good... a portrait has to mean something to the people you are taking the picture of.. and the family... i bet most people here on LF will not get it.... They are into "performance" pictures... photos that are appealing to anybody thats viewing.

I did my apprenticeship with a jewish wedding photographer 30 years ago.. Jerry Cohen ....He taught me the business of photography and how to photograph... bar mitzvahs, weddings, and even funerals. The photographs, portraits mean different things to different people. A jewish wedding is much different kind of photography than a Catholic or even a Baptist wedding. Different pictures with different techniques. Some people are into the place and the grandeur .. wide angle needed.... Baptist up close and personal....
Portraits are about getting to know what they expect to look like. Others might prefer a lot of retouching because they know what they wished they looked like.... Kind of hard to explain, but it has to do with the psychology of the person you are trying to capture with your camera. Look at Richard Avedon's work.... The people he photographed had egos that were huge and he photographed them like their poop didnt stink...LOL sorry could not help it

Thanks, Mike.
Point taken.
I wasn't trying to make anyone look good, or better, just what they are, and (I hope) what they represent as a community nearing its end.


The contrast is a little high but the color and exposures look good. One thing that bugs me about these pictures are that all of the men are really rigid! It's harder to photograph men I think, because we're always on guard for a threat of some sort. I may be wrong about that, but I do know men don't give much emotion in pictures unless you really know how to get it out of them. It also depends on what kind of camera you're working with, the subject will react a different way if its a view camera as opposed to a dslr. Most importantly is how you talk to the subject and collaborate to make a good picture.

Thanks, Noah.
My Hungarian is terrible, so I could only grunt and gesture to direct them; I just had a few minutes with each person, but as to poses, I got what I was after.
They look pretty stiff sometimes which is usually not ok with me, but this time, I let t happen, as I felt it might enhance what I was after: a sense of loneliness and trepidation about the future.

[Ari]

I find them to be cool amd very carefully crafted place photos in which the people seem as much accents in the compositions as the subjects of them. (This is true of some of the images more than others.) I agree with some other reviewers that the subjects do not seem to engage the camera---but this is not necessarily bad and may have been your intent. If, in fact, this is to be a project, maybe select either color or black and white images for the final cut and not both. Hope this helps.

Bill Poole

Thanks, Bill.
I shot everything in colour (except one person-by accident in B&W), but some of the photos lent themselves to a monochromatic look, and I think that it helped a little, just for variety's sake.
My intention was all-colour, but that's what happens to the best-laid plans. :)


I guess we should ask what is the intended viewership of this series? If it's everybody, I think they are weak portraits but pleasing photos in many cases. If the intended viewership is a Jewish publication or something like that, then it may mean much more than it does to my heathen eyes. ;)

Thanks, Christopher.
It is everybody; I hope that the photos, or at least the story, would have some deeper resonance for some, not necessarily because of religion either.
It is also a step away from what I would have normally done, and which I feel would have been the safer route: namely, to do tight head shots of most of them, or everybody.
They certainly have great faces for that.
I wanted to try something different and challenge myself a little, and also use the wider perspective to give a feeling of being apart, or alone.


...leads me to view the work more as a collective portrait of the physical remnants of a culture rather than a series of related individual portraits. I think it is a very interesting start. I would be interested in a similar treatment of the surviving material artifacts of the culture paired with these portraits.

Thanks, Kirk.
You hit the bull's eye, a bang-on assessment.
I very much like your idea of including artifacts, and there are many.

[Ari]

It's a very promising start!

Thank you, Peter.
I hope it is just that: the start of a larger, further-reaching project of which I shall have a much better grasp next time around.


Just wondering if you are considering a multimedia approach.

For example, what if you asked these individuals the same series of questions the subject of the questions would pertain to their individual histories and your area of interest. Not sure if these people are english speaking, but if they were not, you could translate their responses and viewers could read them posted by each person. Another thing you could do would be to use those audio tour machine players with earphones(like they use in museum exhibits) and people could listen to recordings of their voices while exhibit viewers were reading the subject's responses posted by each photo. This would produce a similar effect to watching a foreign film with subtitles.

I think it could be interesting to listen to their voices without headphones too and their could be a number of ways to do this. Here you might have your images displayed in a large space with their voices playing off and on every few minutes, and their might be written translations by each photo. If adding voices was a good idea but people were not english speaking you could use your voice translating their words and viewers could listen to the subjects speaking through the audio tour machines. I like your photos and all the best, John

Thanks, John.
I love your idea, and my wife, who is Hungarian, would be perfect; her voice is much sweeter than mine :)
I wish I thought of these kinds of things; thanks again.


Ari, the lighting -- particularly the contrast, in some cases, between the subject and the background, is astoundingly good in this series (and unique, compared to a lot of what gets posted here at LFF). I especially like the way that the balance of the story that is being told in each photograph falls to the setting, not the subject, and I think that the similarities in the subjects' expressions points to their shared heritage and their unique perspective (as being the last of something, of anything).

Particularly good work -- but then I've enjoyed just about everything of yours that I've seen here and on your site.

Thanks for bringing us something here that's different -- and I wish you luck with exhibiting or publishing this series.

Cheers :)

Thank you very much, Chad; that's the lens you sold me, coincidentally, that was used on every photo: the 115 Grandagon.
In portraits, I find it always necessary to separate the person from the background; it gets harder when you use shorter lenses, so some PS was involved as well.
That's thanks to a very good teacher I had once.
And I like to bring some richness to colours, or tones, by painting (darken/lighten) with the history brush until I get something I like.
Thank you very much for your kind compliments.

[Jody_S]

I love the poses. I also got 'stoic', even 'defiant' from the poses. I found some of the compositions a little jarring, cutting off buildings such as to not be able to identify them. I suppose I could read a metaphor into that, but I'm not sure if that was your intention.

[David A. Goldfarb]

I like the poses. It suggests that this is just the way these guys present themselves to the camera and raises a question about why that is and what it means. If that's their natural stance, or their idea of how one is supposed to stand for a photograph, and you aren't posing them in this way, then it's interesting. It would be interesting to get to know them better and photograph them in other aspects of their lives, or to interview them and add a narrative element.

[Ari]

I love the poses. I also got 'stoic', even 'defiant' from the poses. I found some of the compositions a little jarring, cutting off buildings such as to not be able to identify them. I suppose I could read a metaphor into that, but I'm not sure if that was your intention.

Thank you, Jody.
I did more cropping on these than I have ever done before; I usually never crop.
I agree that some of the compositions are "abrupt", but I used the crop/composition that suited the subject best.
I'm looking forward to the days when subject and background are in perfect harmony/disharmony.


I like the poses. It suggests that this is just the way these guys present themselves to the camera and raises a question about why that is and what it means. If that's their natural stance, or their idea of how one is supposed to stand for a photograph, and you aren't posing them in this way, then it's interesting. It would be interesting to get to know them better and photograph them in other aspects of their lives, or to interview them and add a narrative element.

Thank you, David.
These are shy, unpretentious people, but full of character.
I always allow subjects to stand/sit as is their wont or inclination, and I ask them to change their pose only if it looks unnatural or forced to me.
So they are doing what comes naturally to them, with me correcting them only when something looks amiss.
Based on a previous critique, I am considering adding some kind of narrative.

[Peter De Smidt]

The narrative suggestion is terrific!

[andreios]

Ari, nice and interesting series - for me even more so since I grew up not that far from Miskolc - on the other side of the border in Slovakia and was at one time eagerly interested in the history of jewish community of my home-town. Your's is a very powerful way to re-tell both the history and presence.

[Ari]

The narrative suggestion is terrific!

I like it, too; my wife is happy to participate.
This would be like an interactive mini museum display.
Now I gotta figure out if Weebly can do that sort of thing.


Ari, nice and interesting series - for me even more so since I grew up not that far from Miskolc - on the other side of the border in Slovakia and was at one time eagerly interested in the history of jewish community of my home-town. Your's is a very powerful way to re-tell both the history and presence.

Thank you, Andreios.
Are you from Kosice/Kassa?
Did you ever find any information or start some kind of research?
Just curious, since there is a good bond between Miskolc and Kosice; just an example, the cantor in the photos also moonlights as a Palinka seller/distributor, and is in Kassa every week or so.
There are also many ethnic Hungarians on that side of the border.

[andreios]

Thank you, Andreios.
Are you from Kosice/Kassa?
Did you ever find any information or start some kind of research?
Just curious, since there is a good bond between Miskolc and Kosice; just an example, the cantor in the photos also moonlights as a Palinka seller/distributor, and is in Kassa every week or so.
There are also many ethnic Hungarians on that side of the border.

I'm sorry I didn't notice your response, Ari.
Yes, I grew up in Kosice. My kind of research was now some ten years ago, back when I was in high school. I remember that I got in touch with a member or two of Jewish community, they were very helpful, but honestly I don't remember actual information I got from them - should be able to dig them up if you were interested. Also, I have a friend who did a much more profound research on the history of local jewish community while working on his phd degree so if you wish to investigate more I might be able to get you in touch with him.

[Ian David]

Hi Ari
I really like the idea, and the photos look good. I like the contrast. Just two comments:
- I prefer the shots where the subjects are looking at the camera, because they look more natural to me. Some of the others look a bit like the subject was looking at the camera and then was told to look away just before you took the shot; they just look a bit less natural, but that is OK if that is what you wanted to capture.
- It is hard to see clearly on my screen, but it looks like some of the subjects have been dodged too heavily in order to increase the contrast, resulting in some haloing. This seems more apparent to me on the black and white portraits.

An interesting series! I look forward to seeing more!

Ian

[Ari]

I'm sorry I didn't notice your response, Ari.
Yes, I grew up in Kosice. My kind of research was now some ten years ago, back when I was in high school. I remember that I got in touch with a member or two of Jewish community, they were very helpful, but honestly I don't remember actual information I got from them - should be able to dig them up if you were interested. Also, I have a friend who did a much more profound research on the history of local jewish community while working on his phd degree so if you wish to investigate more I might be able to get you in touch with him.

Thank you, Andreios.
I would be quite happy to get in touch with your friend as summer gets closer.
My wife and I go back every summer to visit her friends and family, so I will get in touch with you.
It's very much appreciated, thanks.

[Ari]

Hi Ari
I really like the idea, and the photos look good. I like the contrast. Just two comments:
- I prefer the shots where the subjects are looking at the camera, because they look more natural to me. Some of the others look a bit like the subject was looking at the camera and then was told to look away just before you took the shot; they just look a bit less natural, but that is OK if that is what you wanted to capture.
- It is hard to see clearly on my screen, but it looks like some of the subjects have been dodged too heavily in order to increase the contrast, resulting in some haloing. This seems more apparent to me on the black and white portraits.

An interesting series! I look forward to seeing more!

Ian

Hi Ian,
Thank you very much.
Yes, some dodging/burning halos were inevitable, I suppose; good on you for catching them.
I tried as best as I could, but I was making it up as I went along; I started d&b because I found the shots lacked some contrast.
As for the poses, I always did one with the subject looking at me, and one with the subject looking away.
In the end, I chose the photo that looked the best.
I am sometimes more partial to subjects looking away; if they are good at posing, I feel it adds a nice, but minor, element of mystery to the portrait.

I am working on getting some funding through my website for continuation of the project; I really hope to continue it, and do better at it the next time around.
Thanks for the encouragement!