Friday
Jan202012
Manners St
I once heard someone describe street photography as - making sense of the mess. Absolutely true!
4 Comments | Friday, January 20, 2012 at 9:55PM 4 Comments | Friday, January 20, 2012 at 9:55PM 4 Comments | Friday, January 20, 2012 at 9:55PM
Reader Comments (4)
Visual graphic elements are one thing, visual relationships are IMO the big picture.
As much as I'd like to agree with your statement IMO there's no relationship with the players (graphic elements) and while I have no idea of your intent Julian I really just see this as a snap from an experienced talented eye.
While each human graphic element may be strong your leading lines for example (not that I believe in that concept) unfortunately pokes a pole up the older woman's nose (IMO disturbing and annoying).
From a visual gestalt point of view the image doesn't work. If just two of the players for example formed a 'visual' relationship then that becomes the moment...
You know I love your work Julian (after all we've known each other since the early '80's), You have the greatness ...
Thanks Peter I appreciate your comments.
I don't see the pole in the way you do perhaps because it is in the distance. What attracted me was the man's hat and the person with the cell phone, and I waited for a balance. They were to be the connection but didn't work as i hoped (the lady appeared and stopped on cue to rescue the picture). The fact that there is no relationship between any of the players is interesting but doesn't matter and the leading line is surely the bright white line, which is perfectly placed. My intent is a thing I call human landscapes where (like trees in a real landscape) I try to balance the shapes and don't really care about people. Unlike a landscape everything in the street is moving very quickly and I have to dance around until I find a shooting path. Scenes like this appear and fail every few seconds. Personally I really like the finished photograph and it is very close to being a keeper.
But now you mention it I'll have to dust off Photoshop and remove the pole - joke folks!
Hope you are well - cheers
Very interesting and informative reply especially your comment regarding human landscapes (as shapes rather than interactive players). Now I understand your intent (understandably it has changed/evolved over the years).
The Photoshop debate is an interesting one. How much can one work up an image but still retain a sense of print purity? Back in the day when I was pro printing in the trad darkroom it was fairly common for photogs to ask for elements such as unwanted juxtaposed poles and of course unwanted highlighted areas to be removed or at least visually reduced.
Now that these things can easily be eradicated in P.S. (or whatever image editor) do we start crying foul because it's done digitally as compared to the trad darkroom method using bleaching, burning, dodging and the use of scalpels and dyes?
The way I see it, it's still fine art print purity as long as there's no major element removal (common sense prevails). The line crosses when the obvious designer compositing stuff takes over and that includes the pushed beyond belief HDRI stuff (an excellent tool of course to control the tonal range but terribly misused).
So, I wouldn't have a problem if you removed the dark pole by the older woman. I would take issue though if you removed the older man's head and replaced it from another frame with him looking at the younger woman (front left) with some sense of lust or whatever!
;-)
Part of my life is working for NZQA school art assessments. I see teachers encouraging kids to rescue weak photographs with PhotoShop rather than giving it another go with the camera. Sadly the kids believe the magic and make graphic designs or paintings out of their photographs, even when the initial photograph may have been strong. Occasionally a student will use the pure powers of plain old photography and it shouts out at the audience – this is real.