threading the needle

[Jim Jones]

h2oman -- I might never noticed the possibilities of that scene, but you did, and produced a photograph that invites a closer look. Congratulations!

[Heroique]

What audience am I looking to share with? And how far do I want to go in giving them what they want?

Just to underscore the tricky terms “audience,” "expectations," and “beauty”…

My audience of three (me, myself, and I) guide my landscape compositions, and I applaud myself when my work meets their expectations of beauty, especially on the best days when these expectations coincide with objective beauty.

These “best-day” photos (I wish they were more frequent!) seem always to have greater drawing power on other viewers who care little, very little, for my subjective, or their subjective (or commercial) preferences.

It’s the objective appeal that draws them. And their impartial view of beauty.

[Vaughn]

... I told him that if I had wanted him to see it, I'd have shown it to him!

You missed the hole of that particular needle.

[Heroique]

h2oman missed the hole of that particular needle.

Yes, as h2oman understands, it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of that needle. ;^)

[Michael R]

My observation is that there are lots of photos that photographers would be all over, when non-photographers would have a hard time figuring out what the merit of the photo is. And I don't think it is because those folks are ignorant. In fact, sometimes they may actually be exposing the emperor, so to speak. To me, a great photo would be one that both serious photographers and thoughtful non-photographer viewers would both enjoy.

Yes. This is what I was trying to get at in my earlier response.

PS There are details in the blacks on the print.

This kind of thinking is something to keep an eye on or keep in check, in my opinion. Ties in with my other comments. As long as the photographer is totally honest about it being important to him in the realization of a finished image, it makes perfect sense. On the other hand sometimes "shadow detail" seems more like an attempt to placate other photographers, or validate an image with technical skill. This is where the non-photographer view can be interesting. Whereas a photographer might (or might not) look for things like detail in the blacks, the layperson might react more viscerally - ie "I like it/I don't care for it".

Please note none of this is in reference to the picture you posted. I'm referring specifically to the comment about the detail/blacks.

[Vaughn]

And it could be those subtle blacks (and other aspects of the image) that those with untrained eyes are seeing that make them go "I like it!", but they may be unable to tell you why. Subtle changes in composition that take the image from static to motive in nature may go unnoticed, but the viewer may walk by the 'boring' image and spend a little more time in front of a 'more interesting' image. Or subtle changes in tonality might grab the viewer and have them staring at a static image (thinking Micheal Kenna).

And there are those like Brett who is more than willing to challenge the photographer and non-photographer alike, when it comes to blacks and their use.

[h2oman]

On the other hand sometimes "shadow detail" seems more like an attempt to placate other photographers, or validate an image with technical skill. This is where the non-photographer view can be interesting. Whereas a photographer might (or might not) look for things like detail in the blacks, the layperson might react more viscerally - ie "I like it/I don't care for it".

Totally agreed, and gets at that point that what photographers look for, the lay public might not care about at all. In fact, what some photographers look for, other photographers don't care about.

At the risk of sounding defensive, I added my comment because, for that photograph, about half of the appeal for me is the subtle detail in all the facets of, and vegetation on, the rock, so I wanted the viewers here to sort of see it the way I intended. I've tried making contrasty, Brett Westonish (written before I say Vaughn's last post) photographs, and they just don't fit my vision. But we've all seen some very powerful photographs having blacks with no detail.

Vaughn, you are funny! The particular reviewer was Mark Citret, a very kind, thoughtful man. I don't think he was saying he didn't care for the image, but was just reacting to it in an objective manner. And, truthfully, I responded with something more like "I purposely didn't want the top of the rock in the picture."

[h2oman]

FWIW, I have no one that I can have these sorts of discussions with in person, which is why I'm inflicting myself on all of you. It's no fun just stewing in my own thoughts all the time!

[johnmsanderson]

Shakespeare said it best;

HAMLET

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to
you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it,
as many of your players do, I had as lief the
town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air
too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently;
for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say,
the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget
a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it
offends me to the soul to hear a robustious
periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to
very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who
for the most part are capable of nothing but
inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would have such
a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it
out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.

First Player

I warrant your honour.

HAMLET

Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion
be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the
word to the action; with this special o'erstep not
the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is
from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the
first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the
mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature,
scorn her own image, and the very age and body of
the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone,
or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful
laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the
censure of the which one must in your allowance
o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be
players that I have seen play, and heard others
praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely,
that, neither having the accent of Christians nor
the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so
strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of
nature's journeymen had made men and not made them
well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

[Vaughn]

Thanks for taking my comment in the way it was intended! Humourous, yet thoughtful. I have shown with Mark (2-person show years ago) and have been able to sit down with him and chat. A good person...a rarity.

Your image is wonderful. Your composition does what you want it to do. I love the way my eyes do not slide off the rock into the lighter sea and sky. That is something a photographer or other visual artist might notice that an average viewer may not -- but still affected by it. You leave it to the imagination of the viewer how much further up the rock goes (while the foliage hints of it).

I see the possibilities Mark's comment raises. Moving the camera up to include the top -- perhaps barely missing the top of the frame to create visual tension. A completely different photograph.

And of course, whether one reconizes it or not, there is the phallic component to the image. Which tosses in another factor besides the visual appearance of shadows, contrast, tonality, the emotion of color, and all -- symbols and their intended and/or unintended affect on the viewer. And how the viewers' education in the use of symbols in art adds to the viewers' subconscience reaction to symbols.