Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/06/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Op 20-jun-06, om 21:00 heeft Arche, Harvey het volgende geschreven: > B.D. wrote: > Edit, edit, edit. I'm struck by how good some of your street stuff > is John - > really strong images that either amuse, bemuse, or confuse. But > then they > are surrounded by far too many images that are simply photos of > people on > the street. Any one doing serious street photography is going to > have dozens > and dozens of those throw aways for each gem; the trick is to throw > them > away. :-) > > B. D. > > > On 6/20/06 11:17 AM, "John Beeching" <johnbeeching@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Dear All, >> >> Some photos from my recent visit to Amsterdam. >> http://staff.bath.ac.uk/bssjrb/Photographic/dutch/dutch.htm >> >> Mostly 28mm Elmarit, one 35mm Summicron, one 90mm Elmarit. All Tri-X >> in Xtol 1+3. >> >> Comments and criticisms welcome, as always. >> >> Thanks for looking, >> >> John > > A couple of things. Great pictures, John, but overall not as > powerful as your recent 'May' posting, so in a way I'm in agreement > with B.D.. Some really terrific stuff scattered in there. > On the other hand, I tend to view what goes on here as a consensual > working space. Yesterday, and earlier this morning, I was thinking > a lot about how much crap I had building up in my galleries. I tend > to post a lot more junk than I might, in the clear light of reason, > actually want to be publically associated with. I think many of us > do. And I will continue do so (B.D., have you taken an axe to the > 'T-shots' yet? ;^)) because just airing the damn things gives me a > degree of perspective, or at least psychological distance, that I > wouldn't get letting them sit cluttering up my desktop. I don't > even need to get any feedback, its simply knowing the stuff is > getting tracked up by other people's eyes. > Winogrand, and apparently Henry Wessel, let their negs sit for a > year before looking at them in order to get that distance. Jeez, I > wish I had the time and their organizational ability (not to > mention eyes, insight, and artistry). > Meanwhile I've got a diaperload generating heat in Brian's servers. > And that's just wrong (even as imagery). What to do about it? I > decided this morning: Binge-Purge. Go about the business of posting > and eliciting criticism (next: a day at the dragstrip). But come > December, and the winding-down of '06, I'm going to streamline the > year's postings down to the, say, 10% of stuff I still think of as > 'keepers'. > Does this mean I'm advocating an indiscrimate, scatter-gun approach > to selecting what gets posted? Of course not. In that, the forum is > like the marketplace: after a while nobody even looks at a product > that sucks. Generally speaking, even if I put up a bunch of images > in a given post, there are probably fewer than 8% of the total from > the shoot that make that first cut. I'm willing to bet that John > shot 10x as many images in Amsterdam as we're seeing. > So, 'edit, edit, edit'? Yes, of course, but after - not before - > taking advantage of the tool that best helps me do it. > GOYA & Shoot, > Arche Here here, Arche. Well put. I just hope I'll find the time to do what you so excellently suggest.