[Leica] Re:First PAW

[robertmeier@usjet.net]

Ted,

I very much appreciate your taking time to really look at my picture and
then to write out your very perceptive comments.  I have found that few
people are able and/or willing to do that.  In particular, your thoughts on
making the picture straight are of great interest to me, because I first
shot it that way, straight, and printed it.  And then I went back to the
same spot and shot it again, crooked, at just enough of an angle, I thought,
to make it look wrong, and to make the viewer uncomfortable with it.  I
wanted the tension that injects into a picture.  I experimented with
differing degrees of angles, through the viewfinder, and ended up with what
I thought was just the right amount of angle to complement the way the
writing trails off at its own angle.

I was also, of course, playing with the idea of relativity in a visual form:
the angled lines form triangles and trapezoids that pair off with each
other, but not as mirror images.  I also wanted to use the receding zone of
a greater and greater out-of-focus image as another aspect of the idea of
relativity.  As far as the lack of a person in the picture, which someone
else complained about, I waited til the coast was clear to take the picture,
because I have found that as soon as you put a person in a picture like
this, that figure becomes the center of interest and the reference point for
everything else in the picture, which I did not want.  So, at the risk of
making the picture less interesting, I kept it free of a figure.

Robert


>G'day Robert,
Given the exposure and aperture selection look OK, the composition is well
executed, strong foreground use of the of lettering..........

>Other than the one error, the camera isn't held straight!!!!! :-(

>Yep and I'm already prepared for possibly you or others to come back
telling
me it's an "art photo" so therefore it's OK to hold the camera the way it is
here. Nope! And if you did hold the camera in this fashion to create an art
form it isn't well executed either. It's still just crooked.

>There is a major difference between "creating art and poor camera
handling."

>In art, the camera would more than likely be on a much wilder angle and
probably shot with a wider angle lens to create the max effect of
distortion. In this case if it's art, it's by accident of holding the camera
upper left corner down to the left slightly and forward slightly.

>The result we see here is probably because of your concentration on getting
the lettering right and not having a peek at the corners of the viewfinder
to keep the camera squared away. Making max use of the minor distortion
created by a 50mm lens held in this fashion compared to say  35, 28, 21, 15
or 12.

>You're on the right track OK, tilting downward for distortion effect, but
the bottom edge of the viewfinder should be straight across inline with the
concrete pad separating line as a guide to keeping squared away.

>If you go by this again I bet if you re-shoot it with camera squared off
and
tilted down a slight bit more you'll increase the impact of the picture by
strengthening the letters even more so.

>Hopefully you'll not be one of the people who ask for comments and then
become all ass twitchy because someone actually makes a constructive
comment.

>I also realize you may completely disagree with me and that's cool, because
that's life and we all see differently. So in that case please accept mine
as merely a different opinion. Thank you.
ted



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