[Leica] Cuba Pictures: a valuable comment!

["Sander van Hulsenbeek" <vanhulsenbeek@wxs.nl>]

Dear LUGgers,

A couple of days ago I put some pictures on the LUG. The underquoted
reaction from John McLeod, copied with his permission, is so interesting
that I don't want y'all to miss it. It exactly describes the changes one has
to go through switching form SLR to Leica M camera's, i.e. switching from
more detached photography to - as I see it IMHO - a more engaged way of
making photo's.

This is my page:

http://home.wxs.nl/~sanderva/cuba.html

Comments are still very welcome!

(Please copy to the LUG and to:vanhulsenbeek@wxs.nl  )

Thanks for looking.

Sander van Hulsenbeek
Amsterdam, Holland

Mail from John McLeod:
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Hi Sander,

I enjoyed looking at the pictures on your site.  All of the pictures have a
very natural look, like a window unto the world.  Excellent light in all of
them.

If I were to be the critic I'd say the following.  It looks like your
emphasis in on composition, but primarily on the background or landscape.
Yet there are people in all the pictures.  It looks like you cling to the
background composition and wait for things to happen in the foreground.
This can work well if you're patient enough to wait for the _perfect_
foreground composition to occur.  Otherwise, as photographers, we must
decide between background vs. foreground importance and composition.

My point is that you are trying to do the hardest thing -- merging the
people in the foreground with the nice compositional backgrounds that you've
selected.  So at times your emphasis is not clear.  You want the people in
the picture, they're important to you, but you also want that background
composition to be just right.  If the people are your main interest in a
picture I might shift the camera just a bit to ensure that they are
compositionally where you want them.  Or, if the background and the light
are what the photo is all about, then I would either shoot without the
people or take many frames per subject to ensure that the subject is EXACTLY
where you want it in the composition.

Please understand Sander that I'm nit picking with all this.  The strength
of your approach is that the shots have a naturalness that might be lost if
you took my advice.  Sometimes it IS best when overall compositions have a
bit of tension in them.  Take the strong b&w shot of the boy on the bike.
There's the big car on the left and the boy is left of the sky opening.  I'm
not sure I'd want him plum in the middle of that sky but I would probably
prefer him to be a bit more to the right than he is.  It looks like you
framed your camera for the composition and he just rode into the picture.
But he rode in just to the left of "ideal".

Actually the more I look at the pictures the more I retract my comments.
The skyscape shot in b&w is composed beautifully, as is the woman on the
bicycle.  She is far left but the wires balance her out in the upper right.
The color shot of the men sitting in the bottom right has beautiful light,
but I think their bags distract and their expressions to some degree.  Take
away the bags, leaving them and their bike and just let them converse, not
looking at the camera, and a strong photo is even stronger.

John
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