Don't Tell The Wife!

[cowanw]

r.e.
I sympathize with the gist of your argument.
However I think that if you are offering a really useful critique you should expand your comments on the photo. Simply to describe it as the worst form of kitsch offers nothing positive to build on.
Do you have suggestions to improve on the waterfall/nude subject or is there nothing more in that subject that is worth ever again photographing?
What could Nick have done to move it beyond kitsch for you to a photo that interests you.
So as not to be a hypocrite I will add this.
I like this photo.The foreground trees are lighter in tone which I like. The other main light areas are the right waterfall and the nude. And the balance of these three areas seems out of balance to me. You can burn the nude a bit on the print.
The pool of water is blurred by the shutter speed. and this makes the lower foreground look unsharp. Maybe some of it should be cropped.
I have a feeling that placing the nude under the left waterfall might have been better balanced.
But there is certainly another picture if you crop right down to the nude.
Your second photo has real possibilities a a study of texture. I am thinking crop the very top out of focus grass and have great fun with picking the correct grade of paper to make this the best it can be.
Regards
Bill

[Nick Wood]

I figure that riooso is right. If not, this is a tall order. What happens here is that people either say nothing or engage in a form of mutual congratulation. There is no such thing as actual criticism, even when asked for.

So I'm going to make an exception. Only because you asked. In my opinion, educated or not, the first photograph is the worst kind of kitsch. The second photograph evokes the response, who cares?

OK, I said what I think. I didn't do it to insult you, I did it because you asked, and out of a rare, for this site, expression of honesty. I did it because I think that it might be nice to be able to post photographs here and get an honest response. Have you noticed that not a single person who has responded to this thread, thus far, has actually said anything about the photographs? If I don't bother posting photographs of my own, it is in part because the usual routine here is that people post stuff that ranges from bad to fair, and people either say nothing or do oohs and aahs about photographs that aren't worth a glance, let alone a second look. As far as I can figure out, this site is one of the most technically proficient of the photographic fora, but one of the most aesthetically deficient. The basic idea seems to be, if it is large format, it is by definition good, even if it looks basically like just a big snapshot, devoid of content or form, that could just as easily have been made by a 12 year old 40 years ago with a Kodak Brownie or yesterday with a digital point and shoot. The really funny thing is this. The people who make these big negative photographs that have no content then engage in religious wars about whether photographers who use these big negatives to make big prints are any good, especially if said photographers, such as Ed Burtynsky, actually have customers or, like Jeff Wall, not only have customers, but do something that doesn't look like Ansel Adams. Evidently, the basic idea, if you make big negatives, is to make small prints. Or better yet, contacts, which puts one in what is evidently an exculsive club of true artists. And meanwhile, there is nothing going on on this site that consitutes criticism, unless one is into the mentality of a mutual admiration society.

By the way, your kitsch is actually progress compared to a 2007 19th century Julia Margaret Cameron or 20th century Ansel Adams or Paul Strand knockoff, which are the stock in trade of this site. There are a zillion of those in the archive to your one piece of kitsch. So your photograph is actually special. That said, my personal view is that there's more interesting low-def cell phone video on YouTube.

I fully expect that I shall now get jumped on. That's cool.

I respect your honesty.

I realised the waterfall picture was going to be kitsch when I was taking it, though in my mind more for the umpteenth 'blurred water' shot than anything else (like the umpteenth Yosemite landscape!). We were having a bit of fun; she's never posed for a photograph before, and I've never attempted such shots. I'm going to print it purely for personal reasons rather than aesthetics - I'm proud of her for giving it a go.

As the subtitle for this particular forum suggests, I'm simply 'sharing my recent plunge into LF'. After all the faffing about getting the various bits of kit together it's been an achievement just to start using the camera movements, and finally producing some negs (without screwing up a single sheet).

As you suggest, I believe the main emphasis of these fora is towards technique rather than critique. Consequently I was more after 'less back tilt for the rocks' or 'N-1 for the waterfall' type comments.

Nick

[Mick Fagan]

I think the picture with the waterfall is one with very good possibilities.

My first thought is that there is a very good panoramic picture in the bottom 1/3. By cropping out the foreground water where you can see the rocks and by cropping the top until you reach the bright part of water about 2 metres above the model's head.

With the format you are now working in you can judiciously crop and still have reasonable sized enlargements without it being too noticeable. This selective enlargeability, is realistically one of the better reasons for using this format.

When you do a print, I think you should be able to control the contrast far better than what I see on my screen.

Mick.

[George Kara]

My thoughts:

The technical quality of the photo is acceptable. The issue has more to do with composition. Some cropping may generate a more interesting image. Obviously the figure is the primary point of interest. Forgive me for taking liberty with your shot.

I never listen to those who insist cropping is somehow inferior. Its just not true.

The craft is in taking an acceptable shot. The art is in composition and vibe.

[John Voss]

The basic idea seems to be, if it is large format, it is by definition good, even if it looks basically like just a big snapshot, devoid of content or form, that could just as easily have been made by a 12 year old 40 years ago with a Kodak Brownie or yesterday with a digital point and shoot. The really funny thing is this. The people who make these big negative photographs that have no content then engage in religious wars about whether photographers who use these big negatives to make big prints are any good,.

No, it's not that "if it is large format, it is by definition good,", but rather that if it's large format it belongs here in this forum. And you're right in some cases (as would be the case on a digital p&s site) that there may be a number of images that don't merit much attention other than that they were made with equipment that conform to the site's reason for being. But to indict with so broad a brush is presumtuous and just plain inaccurate. Since this forum has no gallery as such, take another look at people's websites. There's some extremely fine photography going on.

[Ash]

A flick through the posts, without picking out any in particular shows what you'll always see.

The people who...

...praise for the sake of praising;
...argue/moan for the sake of arguing/moaning;
...make some good points and are lost in the mass of the rest of us;
...try and wade in past their depth and be pretentious and fail


I will probably fit in the last


I think that you can share a photograph you are proud of, and so long as you still like it after it has been ripped apart, then that is all that matters. I can see so much wrong in the photo's I take, but as long as I enjoy looking at them, and so does whoever is in them (if portraits or part of an event in life, like a trip) that is all that matters.


I got some out of focus portraits I took of a friend. They are the first portraits I ever set out to take - and they are pretty shoddy to look at - but I still give them a look and it takes me back to the moment I took them, developed them, and in this case printed the 35mm negs onto 5x7.

I agree there is no real critique here. Picture post threads are difficult to navigate or comment on.


To stick on topic. I don't see anything special in either image. The one with your spouse is nice, I can sense the enjoyment you both must have shared taking the shot, even if it is JUST a nude on a waterfall. The second image looks like a bunch of lines to me. It's not framing anything clearly but maybe I'm not looking close/far enough to see it properly.


Don't be discouraged by bad feedback. I don't bother sharing my photo's on forums any more. I have a link to my blog and it's there for people to look at. Nobody really contacts me to say one thing or the other. I don't mind that. It means I get on with things and so long as my page counter ticks over a few hundred or 1000 views in a month, I know people care to return to see my shots. That's all the encouragement I need.

[George Kara]

I think it great when someone asks for honest comments. Most here won't BS you, or say something is good unless they mean it. Joking around is OK as well. We are suppose to be having fun!

R.E., your comments are not over the top at all although they are not very descriptive.
I personally try and explain my viewpoint with a fair amount of detail.

I have also found that some LF photography lacks energy and is quite static. I suspect this has to do with the difficulties of squeezing off the shot after you have had to fiddle with the gear.

That being said, I suggest you take a look at the shot on this thread by Mr. Smiegel(sp).
http://www.largeformatphotography.in...ad.php?t=25483

The particular photo does everything I dont like in LF. This shot also happens to be one of my all time favorite photos! I tried to buy it off him but have been unsuccessful so far.

This shot is static with a centered figure in the lower half. The tree pretty much cuts the photo in half. Doesnt sound promising? Well this photo is full of animal intensity and was shot by a guy who knows just what rules to forget. I feel like howling every time I see it.

Frank Petronio has also done some very fine work with non-pro models. He has some work of a girl with a terrific Deer in the headlight expression. Again conventional thought states that the person shouldn't look uncomfortable, stiff, or scared. Frank uses what is suppose to be a flaw very effectively.

Its really very little to do with technical, to me its all about soul.

In summary, I am very partial to the figure and there are some shutter clickers here who do some very fine work. There is certainly alot to be learned from this community.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Jesus.....some guy just started using a LF camera, is exited about his results and wants to share with us his recent success, and some of you &$&%$ can't wait to put him down. I would have been proud to have done just as well with my first few negatives! And I suspect those of you could not wait to slam this guy could not even do as well even after years.... Yes, the composition could have been better, yes the pose could have been less akward....but for someone just starting this shows negatives well exposed, which I think it is what he wanted to show us.

PS... r.e. why don't YOU shows your work, which I am sure it is not schtick....maybe we can learn something.

[r.e.]

I realised the waterfall picture was going to be kitsch when I was taking it... We were having a bit of fun; ... I'm going to print it purely for personal reasons rather than aesthetics - I'm proud of her for giving it a go.

Then I guess that I am the only person in this thread who saw exactly what you were doing and didn't hesitate to say so. If you are going to do that, just say it up front, and aesthetically, my advice would be, don't settle for kitsch, go for camp. And if it is about having fun, don't ask people what they think, because if what you are doing is having fun with your wife and being deliberately kitschy (and preferably campy), for personal reasons rather than aesthetic reasons, it doesn't matter what they think.

If you want to say, my wife and I had a great time making a kitsch nude photo at a waterfall and I want to know whether it is exposed, developed and scanned properly, then hey, why not?

If that is your question, it might be easier to address if one knew how you scanned the negative and whether you did any manipulation in the scanning software or Photoshop before you posted it. On that question, I shall defer to people who are more confident than I am that one can assess a negative technically from a .jpeg postive compressed to a few kilobytes for the web.

Cheers.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Then I guess that I am the only person in this thread who saw exactly what you were doing and didn't hesitate to say so.

Did you actually read what he posted in response or are you just a natural A........? How about reading....

As the subtitle for this particular forum suggests, I'm simply 'sharing my recent plunge into LF'. After all the faffing about getting the various bits of kit together it's been an achievement just to start using the camera movements, and finally producing some negs (without screwing up a single sheet).

The guy had a good time ad at the same time took a more or less good pic. He is probably doing better with his photography just starting than you the "expert" are doing.....

What an as.........!