Your Best Photograph from the Previous Month - Critique and Discussion Encouraged

[Tin Can]

My very first thought after viewing that image for the first time ever was,


Rear Window, By Hitchcock.

now I realize a bit more about the phrase...

[Bernice Loui]

Precisely Ken, this ability stir human emotions using what is essentially a flat 2D image that is most removed from our normal visual perception is remarkable in so many ways. In ways similar to listening to music, the more literate one becomes at the language of music, the more we can extract from that experience can offer. For any musical composer to create a stirring musical experience has much to do with using all available tools of that trade to compose and create what stirred the emotions of the musical composer. Reason why I'm trying so hard to press this with "fourmulas" of landscape compositions or "rules" is similar to learning how notes, tones, harmonies, rhythm and much more must go into an musical composition to have any ability to stir the emotions of it's audience.

Here is a image created decades ago (about 1995, been posted here before) that might have a similar feel to the Stieglitz image:


-What emotions are stirred when this image is viewed, even in a greatly reduced web transmitted form?



Bernice

I think Bernice is expressing how marvelous it is that somehow, a simple 2-dimensional photograph can convey not only literal information, but evoke feelings, deep and subtle feelings. It really is amazing.

There's the old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words, but some photographs transcend words and convey sensations that can't otherwise be expressed or shared at all.

Perhaps that's what Alfred Stieglitz was hinting about when he referred to his photographs as "Equivalents".

[Bernice Loui]

Richard Feynman: The Beauty of the Flower
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbFM3rn4ldo


Bernice

[Corran]

To use the music analogy for myself, what I am trying to get at with regards to compositional "formulas" or "rules" can be understood by listening and perhaps analyzing something like Anton Webern's compositions.



PS: my final thesis for Music Analysis was on the transition to serialism in Arnold Schoenberg's string quartets. "Rules" indeed.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Another B/W from Grand Canyon North, Toroweep area. BW conversion from Provia100F. 4x5, 90mm Schneider Super Angulon F/5.6@f/32.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

To use the music analogy for myself, what I am trying to get at with regards to compositional "formulas" or "rules" can be understood by listening and perhaps analyzing something like Anton Webern's compositions.



PS: my final thesis for Music Analysis was on the transition to serialism in Arnold Schoenberg's string quartets. "Rules" indeed.

I really find the type of music I listen too greatly influences who I am. Like when I listen to Metallica or Slayer vs Vangellis, Mozart, Bethoveen or Bach. I am the one whom nothing comes easy to, even photgraphy. What I see in my mind doesn't always get out of my finger tips. As you have looked at my photos you might have guessed there is some chaos involved as I don't seem to follow a defined pattern in my subjects. Or is there one there? Like, I am also into astronomy and started a MS in it, although as one would say sh&t happens so I didn't finish. But I am also doing astrophotography (just started in earnest. I will eventually produce 4x5 images of the Universe.

[DDrake]

PS: my final thesis for Music Analysis was on the transition to serialism in Arnold Schoenberg's string quartets. "Rules" indeed.

Corran,
I was lurking on the LF forums well before I started posting, and have read a lot of the longer threads. Frankly, I don't think there's much of an audience here for the photographic equivalent of Schoenberg (let alone the Ramones).

It is what it is, I suppose. I do appreciate the intent behind this thread, and hope it keeps going.

[Corran]

Ha! Indeed, LF photography here is often analogous to Bach, or perhaps Mozart. That includes me.

I'm a big fan of Minimalism, chiefly Adams, and I have spent long hours thinking about how a photograph could be made to synthesize a repetitive motif or rhythm and leave everything else out. I haven't figured it out yet myself, though I've seen a few photographs that almost could be an analogy to Adams.

I have a long time left to experiment and learn and hope to one day get there.

[DDrake]

Ha! Indeed, LF photography here is often analogous to Bach, or perhaps Mozart. That includes me.

I'm a big fan of Minimalism, chiefly Adams, and I have spent long hours thinking about how a photograph could be made to synthesize a repetitive motif or rhythm and leave everything else out. I haven't figured it out yet myself, though I've seen a few photographs that almost could be an analogy to Adams.

I have a long time left to experiment and learn and hope to one day get there.

Ah—John Adams. Had to look that up. I've heard a little Phillip Glass, but other than that my knowledge of Minimalist music is lacking.

You might look at the photographs of another Adams—Robert—specifically his book 'Listening to the River.' His sequences of photographs often have for me the sense of repetition and rhythm you mention. In fact, I thought at first that's who you were referring to, rather than a composer. 'Treeline' and 'Cottonwoods' also have that.

[Corran]

I will take a gander - I know of (Robert) Adams but have not studied him extensively.

If you have a minute, take a listen to (John) Adams' "Short Ride in a Fast Machine." Or, if you want the dissertation, listen to / watch "Nixon in China." I had the pleasure of seeing it live broadcast from the Met. Quite an experience!