Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/09/05
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]George, I am glad to see you are putting up more scans. Nothing improves a photographer's work more than showing it to others, even if the feedback is sometimes sparse. I've found that sometimes you don't agree with the criticisms, but it makes you think about why you don't. A couple of thoughts about the Soapstone Valley, and these are newly acquired prejudices (postjudices?). A picture like this can always be improved by the inclusion of people, or animals, or anything except plain old scenery. I have hundreds of recordings of "what man or God hath wrought," but when you get down to it, after the angle has been chosen, there is no decisive moment that makes the picture great. Soapstone Valley has no context to me. I really am not sure what I am looking at. The tones seem ok, but I am not primarily a Black and white guy, so I can only go by my subjective feelings. The truck is terrific, but I REALLY want to see the whole truck. My grandfather had one just like it, except his was red (I think this one is not red, right?) The picture brought back memories of riding through the hills on rural North Louisiana on our way to go fishing. David Webb's Ford was never that shiny, it always had a thin layer of red clay dust on it. The picture could be improved hugely with the inclusion of people. It is clearly someone's pride. Even a posed shot would have made this a wonderful picture. I know you said it was a grab shot, but if a shot is worth taking and showing, then it is worth reconsidering, and working on a little bit. Finally, the bread shot. This does appear to be a difficult printing job. It would give trouble in Photoshop or a darkroom. As far as Piezo as a savior, I haven't a clue. My thoughts on the shot is that the mixer and things around give clues to what the shot is about, but it does not say "BREAD" to me. Too much ceiling and too little bread is shown. A lower angle with lots of product would do the trick here. Since you mentioned the controversial pinhole shot, I'll comment on it too. I once had a contract with a real estate firm to shoot the pictures that appeared in their ads in the newspaper. The goal was to show the building. When the minilabs came to town, they did not renew my contract, because they could give agents point-and-shoot cameras and realize their goal. Your pinhole picture looked like those real estate agents' efforts. I guess the direction I'm headed with this, is that if you want to experiment with pinhole, show us something that makes the pinhole picture different. What makes a photographer good, (as the saying goes, "I know good when I see it,") is the ability to throw away pictures. I'm getting more and more ruthless with my pictures, and if I don't love mine, people don't see them, that is not a criteria for quality photography, but I get lots more good comments that way. Finally, the effort you expend to make or print a photograph is totally unimportant to how good it is. There comes a time when you have the skill to do it, the light is right, you have the right film, and you are in the right place, and you choose the right moment to push the button. The amazing thing is, that the more you push that button, the more good pictures you'll come up with. Hope these comments help. Regards, Sonny http://www.sonc.com George said: > I probably wouldn't want to put up more scans if all I had to go on > was the discussion here, but as many of you know there's more > going on than that! In particular I'd like to thank the several hundred > people who took time to look at my Soapstone Valley scan, posted > about ten minutes after the controversial Leica pinhole shot, even > though -- rather surprisingly I thought-- nobody had anything to say > about the latter. > > The two new scans: > > http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=346741 > > and > > http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=346720 >