Re: [Leica] DAS Picture of the Week XXX

[Dante Stella <dante@umich.edu>]

Wow! I'm gratified that after how many pictures someone finally had
something negative to say (nice pun!).

- --  The scan *is* bad - I have managed to bust out all of the little tabs
that hold the negative carrier together, so the centers of the pictures
are getting soft - and looking at that again from my office, PC gamma does
not do much to enhance the perception of focus in dark areas.  In the real
neg, the center is sharper than the box in the corner.

- --  The composition is deliberate.  I suppose it could have been done with
a 90, or from a lot closer (maybe 5 feet instead of 7), but then you lose
sight of the fact that compositionally -- it's really a pile of humans and
instruments in the middle of the Bourbon Street. It's exactly what I saw,
from the angle I saw it.

- --  From a philosophical standpoint, I am not sure I subscribe to (1) a
view that pictures need to tell a particular story; or that (2) closer is
better.  Sometimes you just like the way a scene looks, maybe the late
afternoon light with its soft colors, the blur of an f/1.4 Nikkor, maybe
the shapes, maybe the impression.  These guys didn't have a message
(other than five chords), so why would I impose one on them?  If you got
much closer, you would lose the context in which the picture was taken and
you would lose sight of the setting ("who are those two homeless guys?!").

Dante


On Fri, 9 Nov 2001, George Day wrote:

> Dante,
>
> Not sure whether critiques are solicited or desired in public or not, so
> here goes.  First of all, nice light. Where were you?  Could be any American
> city, I suppose, but for some reason reminds me of my neck of the woods --
> San Fran.
>
> Anyway, I think this image could easily be improved in a few ways.  You've
> got a nice subject -- the musicians are charismatic and plainly enjoying
> themselves.  Your composition is a little loose, though. Getting in closer
> would help bring out their faces and reduce clutter around the margins of
> the image.  As it is, we're looking at the musicians from the average
> distance of a passerby, and that makes it hard to tell their "story," if you
> get my gist.  Remember Capa's order: if your pictures aren't good enough,
> you're not getting close enough! I might also play around with vertical
> angle (perhaps shoot from an even lower angle) and lateral angle,
> concentrating on an interesting juxtaposition of foreground and background.
> You've got great light and lots of interesting elements there, so the
> question was just getting it tight and making it unique.  Last, check focus:
> maybe it's just the scan (it probably is), but the box in the far right
> foreground seems sharper than the subjects themselves.
>
> Nice effort and thanks for sharing!
>
>
>
>
> on 11/8/01 9:32 PM, dante@umich.edu at dante@umich.edu wrote:
>
> >
> > Greetings:
> >
> > http://www.dantestella.com/photo.html
> > (none of the internal links are set up yet)
> >
> >
> > 50/1.4 Nikkor LTM
> >
> > Dante
> >
> > --
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>
> --
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