[Leica] Paris, again...

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant)]

Steve Barbour showed and asked:

Subject: [LRflex] Re: Paris, again...

On Jun 28, 2008, at 7:06 PM, Ted Grant wrote:

> STEVE SAID:

> I wanted to capture the vertical lines of the bridge, the pont des
arts...leading the eye up river, toward the man and the woman, toward
Paris...(and also the sky was so drab)<<<

> Sorry mate absolutely no excuse. period!<<<<<<<

Ted offered bluntly:

> Straighten it up, as you are a far better photographer than the presented
"tilted" image. And I don't give a flying hoop what others may say. It's
either absolutely right or it isn't! And in this case it isn't absolutely
right! Fix it!

Steve asked:

>>just maybe we're talking about two different things Ted,

in any case I'm just not, I am not following you my friend...fix what
please? <<<

Good morning Steve,

First things first: The view, the moment, the angle are right on the button.
It doesn't get much better than it is! Your logic for taking the picture
isn't what I'm trying to point out because that part is as good as it gets.
And your reason for making the shot is right on the mark;

>> I wanted to capture the vertical lines of the bridge, the pont des
arts...leading the eye up river, toward the man and the woman, toward
Paris...(and also the sky was so drab)<<<

Ted returned with:

>>Sorry mate absolutely no excuse. period!<<

Now I see why the confusion, sorry, bad writing explanation on my part. :-(
Sometimes much easier face to face and quicker than writing.

As you pointed out, the sky was drab so I understand your slight tilt down
to cut some of the sky in the viewfinder creating the distortion in the
buildings right and left sides of the frame. This has nothing to do with the
immediate content of man-woman nor moment and positive logic for shooting
the photo. 

It's simply "technical camera handling" and fixing it in the darkroom.

This can be corrected by slightly tilting the paper easel upward or on
screen software to square the buildings to vertically correct lines before
printing. In this case it's so slight it's easily straightened without
losing the feel of the moment in the photograph. Or missing it when editing.

The other option in this case with the drab sky . "Keep the camera
absolutely straight, crop the sky later when making a print or onscreen
image.

I may sound like an old grouch about what some see as a "nothing hardly
noticeable vertical line" in holding the camera straight. But trust me I
learned little things like this from some of most hard assed photo editors
you could ever shoot for and they made me become a better photographer, as
it's the simple things that can slip by when editing our own work.

And certainly none of you have ever had Sandy Carter as a photo editor!!!
Because she can almost bring you to tears when she makes a point about the
tiny things I did wrong. Or I missed by not scanning the internal viewfinder
edges for little things sticking into the frame. OR.. Not holding the camera
straight. She's awesome when I've made some simple error, savage sometimes.
On occasion with a smile, but the tone of voice rattles yer inner bones!! 

Her response . "What? You don't want to be the best you can be?" OR, "Is
this one of your all time best photographs illustrating your photo
reputation?"  My response? "OK take it out." But we did have some great
battles. I always lost! :-) 

The worst part with her or any excellent photo editor is, when they point
out one has missed a tiny little thing and taken the edge off what would be
the perfect image! I wont go into the day while on a shoot I didn't use a
spot meter after she pointed it out! Then standing at the light table
editing later!

Steve, hopefully I've presented this correctly this time. If not let me know
and I'll phone you later today toward supper time and we can talk.

ted