Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/12/15

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Subject: [Leica] Re: Comment - Criticism - Merciless Mirth...what ever...
From: Guy Bennett <guybnt@idt.net>
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 08:03:54 -0800

b.d.

a couple of thoughts on the photos you posted at

http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=76808


overall, i like the feeling and mood you capture in the pictures: light,
informal, familial, fun. i also like the idea of documenting "daily life"
and the little, seemingly unimportant events that fill it. i'm convinced
that these details carry as much weight (unconsciously, perhaps) as the
"big events" in our lives, and subsequently think your "day in the life"
project is a wonderful one.

many of the photos are fine portraits (sorry to refer to them only by
number, but didn't see any titles - 119779, 119882, 119884, 120045), and in
others you captured some great expressions (119839, 120046), all of which
bring the pictures to life for me. these and the pix of the kids together
(119790, 119816, 119836) were the strongest, to my eye.

the images that worked least well for me were those showing family members
grouped on or around the couch - they didn't have the impact of the closer,
more portrait-like images, and lacked the interest of some of the
activities presented in other photos (kids whisking batter, baby looking at
himself in mirror, mom holding baby + talking on phone).

my one general criticism would be the composition of some of the shots. i
imagine you're catching these images "on the fly" so you probably don't
have a lot of time to worry about it, but in some cases i felt that had the
image been framed slightly differently, it would have had more impact.
also, i would echo what one lugger wrote: the cut-off heads in some of the
images were a bit disturbing, especially as in most cases, it looks as
though this could have been avoided by reframing the shot and/or moving
slightly in relation to the subject. another growing pet-peeve of mine is
wide-angle distorsion, which got to me in a couple of the shots (especially
when it stretched a head here or there).

thanks for showing your work. it's good to see what luggers are up to when
they're out taking pictures.

guy