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

[Bernice Loui]

Indeed, learning demands change. Difficulty is balancing critique with development of personal image making style. Looking back it took me about a decade of burning LOTS of film in formats from 35mm to 8x10 before any individual style began take hold. This was aided by help from artist friends and spending many hours at various museums studying and observing the work of other artist.

Plus, all that this must be balanced with technical skill, theoretical knowledge back up by understanding of some of the science behind how this all works.

Dissonance of any of the above will result in lesser ability to produce expressive and creative works.



Bernice

It also can lead to growth. It _can_ do a lot of things. 'Can' is a very weak word. You can win the lottery. How likely is that?

[DDrake]

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!

Listened to this a few times since you recommended. Much brighter and melodic that I was expecting--reminds me a little of Copland, which is not a criticism. For some reason, I was expecting more atonal and dissonant.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

My thoughts on creativity is that everything can help, it is up to us to pick out what will help us and discard the rest and to try and avoid the temptation to please everyone all of the time.

[Corran]

Listened to this a few times since you recommended. Much brighter and melodic that I was expecting--reminds me a little of Copland, which is not a criticism. For some reason, I was expecting more atonal and dissonant.

Yeah definitely some Copland influence. I like the rhythmic focus but without the atonality of some other Minimalists, though that has its own charm.

I recently bought a Philip Glass record and enjoy that a lot, though some of it is quite dissonant. We have a vintage vinyl shop in one of the local antique markets and he always finds really neat electronic music records (as in, early tape and musique concrète stuff). I'm fairly sure I'm the only one who buys them.

Speaking of dissonant, though not necessarily intentionally - I once performed in a children's concert where we discussed with a coliseum full of schoolchildren Minimalism and Riley's "In C." Then the orchestra went on to perform it, but with the thousands of children who were instructed to bring along their recorders. Imagine, literally thousands of children playing recorders. A unique sound...

[DDrake]

Got through about 50 sheets last month, all ~30 minutes drive from home (or less). Narrowed it to eight I think have the most potential, and then picked one.

Side note: For purposes of critique, please ignore the softness. Image are much sharper at every step in my workflow, with more subtle tonalities, until I post here from Flickr. Not sure what I'm doing wrong with the export.



Sun setting on an apartment complex behind the John Deere dealership, Highway 95, Moscow, ID.


DIY 4X5 / Fujinon 135mm f/5.6 / FP4+ in Xtol

[CreationBear]

I'll be very interested in what feedback this elicits as well--I suspect that this is a photo that depends on the scale of its output (e.g. a 16x20 print) to "work," especially since the tractor dealership doesn't automatically "pop" at web sizes. FWIW, this would be great vantage point to explore in color--a 75mm lens, a 1:2.5 aspect ratio and "John Deere green" might be a winner.

[Corran]

The empty sign next to the "Private Property" sign has some potential IMO.

But your main image - you've got some New Topography vibes in that. The slight clouds on the upper left for me take away a bit. Personally I would prefer to either see no clouds, or a nice set of clouds that add the image.

Overall I think the image by itself perhaps is not as interesting as a series documenting the area in some way (growth, gentrification, natural vs. manmade, something like that). It seems like that's what you've started with the series of images? I guess the question for me is, what are you trying to show the viewer in this image?

[DDrake]

Thanks for the input, CreationBear and Bryan. And thanks, Bryan, for starting this thread—in my opinion, it deserves more traffic than it seems to get.

CreationBear: your thoughts re: scale and color are interesting, and make a lot of sense. Here's a reference image, taken at the same time with a m4/3 digital camera:


Bryan: Yeah, I pay attention to several photographers that were part of the New Topographics show. And you're right: as with the work of those photographers (far more skillful than I am at present), what I'm interested in capturing makes little sense as single images.

"What are you trying to show the viewer in this image?" opens up a big can of worms, not least because it implies (attempted) communication between photographer and viewer is a requirement for photography (or art in general). I don't believe that's necessarily the case. On the other hand, if photography is not attempting to show the viewer something—not attempting to express or communicate—it makes it harder for the photographer to evaluate whether the images are working or not. Harder—not impossible.

As I mentioned on another thread, I haven't been working with photography of any sort that long. I'm trained as a sculptor and architect, and regard my practice in those disciplines as analogous to research in the sciences—that is, experiment and exploration—rather than expression and communication. The expressive fallacy in the arts imagines we have an intuitive grasp of everything essential about what it is to be human and in the world, and the only trick is to acquire the skill to appropriately express that knowledge. I'd argue art-making (like science) can be a process of paying attention, with various media functioning as tools to look more deeply. Communication with a viewer (such a passive word, 'viewer') is secondary, or irrelevant.

Obviously, being a composer, you've thought through similar issues, and I appreciate and take seriously your remarks regarding my efforts. But in general, I'm coming to the conclusion that while these forums are an excellent resource for ascending the learning curve associated with LF photography (I need all the help I can get, in that regard), most members have a specific focus with respect to the kind of image-making they are interested in, and comment on. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but in terms of seeking input beyond the technical, it may make sense for me to look for a better fit, in terms of conceptual critique.

[Corran]

Thanks for the input, CreationBear and Bryan. And thanks, Bryan, for starting this thread—in my opinion, it deserves more traffic than it seems to get.

CreationBear: your thoughts re: scale and color are interesting, and make a lot of sense. Here's a reference image, taken at the same time with a m4/3 digital camera:


Bryan: Yeah, I pay attention to several photographers that were part of the New Topographics show. And you're right: as with the work of those photographers (far more skillful than I am at present), what I'm interested in capturing makes little sense as single images.

"What are you trying to show the viewer in this image?" opens up a big can of worms, not least because it implies (attempted) communication between photographer and viewer is a requirement for photography (or art in general). I don't believe that's necessarily the case. On the other hand, if photography is not attempting to show the viewer something—not attempting to express or communicate—it makes it harder for the photographer to evaluate whether the images are working or not. Harder—not impossible.

As I mentioned on another thread, I haven't been working with photography of any sort that long. I'm trained as a sculptor and architect, and regard my practice in those disciplines as analogous to research in the sciences—that is, experiment and exploration—rather than expression and communication. The expressive fallacy in the arts imagines we have an intuitive grasp of everything essential about what it is to be human and in the world, and the only trick is to acquire the skill to appropriately express that knowledge. I'd argue art-making (like science) can be a process of paying attention, with various media functioning as tools to look more deeply. Communication with a viewer (such a passive word, 'viewer') is secondary, or irrelevant.

Obviously, being a composer, you've thought through similar issues, and I appreciate and take seriously your remarks regarding my efforts. But in general, I'm coming to the conclusion that while these forums are an excellent resource for ascending the learning curve associated with LF photography (I need all the help I can get, in that regard), most members have a specific focus with respect to the kind of image-making they are interested in, and comment on. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but in terms of seeking input beyond the technical, it may make sense for me to look for a better fit, in terms of conceptual critique.

David,

I appreciate your thoughts and comments that are more about "art" and not technique stuff. This is all very interesting, especially coming from a working artist, regardless of medium.

Certainly some/all members here will have their individual biases and concepts of photography, but I will note that we have many members here who are working artists, teachers, and generally learned about not only photography but also art.

Personally, I have had many interesting and long-winded conversations on these topics with my mentor(s), both with regards to photography as well as music and other things. Anyway, and this is just my opinion, I believe that communication is an essential part of the art process. Certainly there's lots of nuance in the specifics of that, but I just don't personally agree that one should divorce the work and the viewer/intent.

I understand we may have very different and opposing viewpoints here. With that in mind, I am curious then (and I hope I do not offend with this question): If you believe communication to a viewer is irrelevant, what would the point be of showing any image? I also would love to understand your intent for this image, and also, sharing images in general (be it here or, say, in a gallery).

This is all very interesting to me. Thanks.

PS: the color image is more interesting in my opinion. The color helps, especially the pop of green as CB mentioned.

[Jim Jones]

To me the photograph stands alone as well composed and well printed with no need to communicate any significant social or intellectual content. It looks much better than the little color image.