My View on other photographers work ( Critics corner)

 My thoughts on the extreme vast void of photography to day, and yesterday.

I will start with yesterday, starting with Fox Talbot . I wish now I Kept all my books from the 60 through to the 80s Books read. The Ilford manual of photography revised:  John Hedgco what a picture. through the eye. Books By heather Angel Like Close-up. Studio and lighting: secrets of still life By Gary Perweiler.
photographic composition by Tom Grill and Mark Scanlon. Nude photography. Pro lighting product shots:
Photographing women Beautifully ! : Wedding photography to day: ModernWedding and portrait photography. And many more that I now wish I kept.  Over all, the approach to photography has changed some what. More people are taking better pictures, as the skill is taken out by the use of modern  cameras. Sharper more well focused images.

Nevertheless, there are some that still cannot take a picture, if they tried.

Looking at many photographs, and those who show me there work. Its sad that digital photography is giving most, a clouded view on what is a good picture. Its seems in the art world, anything goes.
Yet from reading this course and other books. Those who manage to pull an image to bits and warp the thoughts of others, have come up with some funny but valid rules. Should there be? Here is a definite line that you cross to producing good photography or stay the other side taking snaps.

I am Now reading the Oxford History of ART!

Back in the 60. I must say, photography was exiting 70s much to explore. But what is in this book. I fail to think. What is pleasant or moving about some one showing there back side. OK photographing Nude has come a long way in Art. But Much is portrayed by the use of good subdued or high key lighting.
I Like to look at Art and photographs.
My self. I am a person of simple words. Like most things on this planet to day. Some one has to jump on the band wagon, And make a purse out of a sows ear. And get allot of credit for it.  Although I have an opinion on many subject like photography and art. Who and what one looks at as being wonderful to
taste may be of other personal taste to another.
I always found it funny when a person out of every day life shoots a picture displays is . And be fore you know its under the microscope.  With thousand of words and books on the subject.
What pleases one, may not the other. Yet if that image holds a key to capture peoples eye. Then its a master preference! A baby monkey could do just as well. Or an accident of spilt paint. Same in photography. From the simplistic, to the Damn right Obscure craziness of those who dare.

After so many years, and winter nights back in the UK, photography books was my way to pass time. Photography was still braking exiting boundaries.
Not forgetting magazines far more interesting with new ideas.


To days book are focused on photoshop. Underwater photography. Photoshop artistry: Camera Raw Studio skills . These are ref books. Of my own.

Now I focus on magazines Like Color for collectors of fine art photography: The same But in Black and white. So lets look at photographers  from the passed  David Baily Lord Litchfield.

These photographers broke new ground and set standards for others to follow.
Davids work: http://davidbaileyphotography.com/site/  First thing that come to minds is consistency and warmth. Some may say different . From Black and white through to colour. I love his work.  You see some rules that are broken. Like the man with his face resting in his hands looks like a long day in the hospital . And the time of day is late afternoon, in a hot country. It tells a story. yet the image is slight to the right facing out of frame. . .....   Yet taking this man and moving him back into the middle or to the left. makes it like any other. It takes away the mystique ness out f the hole impact you get.

At the end of the day , I was told I would develop a characteristic style.  If I gave randomly davids work to a famous Critique . Would he know who took it? Unless he's studied and has a mental image of this , then yes. but to day with the fast amount of photographers on earth. I wonder?

Lord Lichfield. http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=lord+lichfield&w=all&s=int&referer_searched=1
just some of his work . Basic Clean. With impact.

Well my view . He had a title and the money to play with. Obsession with women, An Envy to many. he produced Calendars and books. Photographs the royals and again broke into new ground. Sadly He scraped the digital world. before he died. I would say more, the king of amateurs. His work is not dramatic. But its a record of the time. He showed many different views on life. I  would not say, take it to the extreme.

More of a commercial and over looked approach. Many have done the same. Others Inspire s my self. as a goal. looking at digital photo magazine . I see the a ray of work heavily photoshopped. This to me is not photography.. Photography is painting and capturing with light. And recording what is there and how one sees the world. As to , an artist would do. But saying this. I find my own work now changing, from what we see each day to another view point. From that exploring all possibilities of angel and light shade contrast, mood. From the simple to the abstract. a person or a place. Now with digital, anything goes, and has become possible.
So many photographers. just where does one start.

Places to see photography : Flicker and Photo.net.

Lets start here http://photo.net/photos/l4ado by Leon Farado

Top line  photo left to right : 10 photos chosen

1st Left The man in the middle . OK a pleasing photo , some thing about the framing lines that distract me. I dont like the way he is sat. Its un appealing. Although he balances with the lanterns top L lamp;R
The hole image leans to the right . where as I would have taken this bringing the camera more to the right. So the eye feels more comfortable reading.

photo 2 Chinese Butchers:

Black and white work. Well in some scenes, but not in others. My thoughts as being a ex butcher my self is,  This lacks the main points . What are they doing. Well you can say , Let the imagination go. And they are splitting some carcass open with what looks like a samurai sword. In colour , this would be more obvious. As a black and white image. It could be toned down a bit more. For the kind of action, it lacks sweat and blood. The hand closes,t is to bright.

Photo 3 Girl on horse :

Nice lighting. A nice freshness feel. but to make this an amazing photo. It needs to be shot candidly, You can see its been set up from the the horse being roughly handled. and the direction of the horses face, un balances the composition.  the rains are held to tight to make it real . bit crewel.

photo 4: carp pond

I honestly Like this due to the contrasting grey and yellow lips. would be nice to see the Original, as a little to much crop on the top. Taking a shot turning the camera anti clockwise to bring those yellow lips a bit more into the picture .

Photo 5   The city

Nice tone .  Good photo lack of point of focus . Its an Athena type picture . Need something in the sky but still nice keeping it simple.

Photo 6 the Bridge:
Again nice photo. Could have been taken on a longer lens . and a little later blending the evening sky with the lights of the traffic.

Photo 7 The wall.

Interesting approach. Not my angle, but totally candid. Pleasing over all. But it would have been great to have shot it at a low angle .

Photo 8 girl in the wall

So many photos inspire others to take the same. I have done it my self.
Like fashion and music, we photographers face the wall our selves. By repeating what others have done. And history is catching us up.
Perhaps bring the subject to the right or left a little . Its OK.

Photo 9 Dragon Fly on cable:

I have taken many like this my self . And rejected them. If this is what pleases one as a picture then what have I been doing. ?  You tend to look more into the cable then the main subject. I personally disagree with the way this has been taken and would have taken in much closer.

Photo 10 gossip

I named this gossip, for the simple reason the men have not got eye contact in their conversation . The picture seem a mystery to what they have to say with an added humor or sarcasm reflected. A good story could be made from this photograph.


My dream To own one.    http://www.hasselblad.com/masters-2009.aspx

Assignment 1: Contrast

The task is to produce 8 pairs of photographs. Contrasting with one another, complimenting at the same time. 

Here I had to do more research into the type of images that apply to the art of photography. In doing so, I found  two books from the paper shop. Both dedicated to the art of photography. One in colour, the other in monochrome. 

These books gave me much inspiration to what is seen to be art. But I appreciated the rage of images, that the images the other photographers portray as art. From images that are abstract and simple, and also complimenting each other, in the way they have been laid out vier colour, shade shape and tone. Through to real life drama have been captured to be a pleasing image, that can be looked upon as artistic. Most making a statement and telling a story. 

Here I have chosen work that I have taken in the past, and work taken recently in this course.
This is my submission for the assignment. 

Heavy and light 

Heavy load 

The heavy load of felled logs, from the Borneo rain Forrest, that stretches up through the Kinabatan River. Not only heavily depletes the rain forrest but also erodes away the river banks.  As its heavy load displaces the water producing heavy wake. Hard to capture heavy, Unlike other photos I have seen, A person on scales or something of weight lifting. Here I tried to express that feeling I had when I saw this monstrosity grumbling down the river. 

Light 

Simply delightful but so hard to capture, butterflies on the mating (on the wing). This picture gave me that feeling of how delicate nature is.  How two butterflies also mate, yet in such a complex fragile way. It shows lightness. Weightlessness. 

Diagonal Rounded :

                            Diagonal:
 The rooms in the hallway of a Hotel.
 The lighting and the way each floor pulls its self from the camera. Giving depth and pattern.

Round:

 A water feature in Sydney.

I am always looking for pattern shape colour and texture and shade

 Although I would have like to of taken this picture at a later time. To show more tone with lower light Sadly the light was over cast as you can see the clouds reflecting in the swirl. This is a water feature .  I will turn it into Monochrome and see the effect ,

However it expresses round. 

Large.:
The national flower of Malaysia.

Hibiscus flower. Made from water bottles that got the worlds largest flower in the world. Record breakers. 

StelaMaris School Kotakinabalu. 

I like this photo taken on my 10-22 mm lens . I have changed this picture. This one showing scale against the pupils in the foreground.

Some how the picture balances with the grey sky in shape.  It was the best view point I could find. 

Small:
 An Orchid . Not just an Orchid, But the smallest in the world. found in the mountain range of Mount Kotta kinabalu. Not much larger then a pin head. taken with a 22-135 macro lens reversed. I like this as its one that I always look onto as a challenge .
Its so small, and the contrasting side lit flower stand out from the back ground.
 I have made a much larger picture of this. 

Many:
  Gold fish taken at the Crock farm KK
This picture amongst many I took impressed me with the sheer volume of carp. All fighting to get some pellets of food, as the food was thrown into the water. To capture the feeling of the rush.  Not rush hour its crush hour! 

Few gold fish taken in a pond at Lunkowei. I have seen chinese calendar paintings like this. This picture was cropped to get the balance more to what I was wanting.   

Much:
Mosque much more have attended the contrasting mosque below. Impressing how the less expensive place of prayer is more attractable then the expensive one. 

little . 

Pointed 

The end of my Japanese Katana Pointed and extremely sharp!

I do love Japanese swords. They are an Art in there own form. From each part made, Spiritual and deadly. yet so Beautiful . You have to own one to appreciate it. 

 

Blunt
The red Oak Boken A wooden sword, very blunt to be used in practice.
Totally contrasts the above. Yet respected in battle the same way.

 Rough is the sand stone taken at the tip of Borneo. The weathered face like shape pushing through the rock. Rough And hard. Appealed to me as artistic form of nature.

Smooth: 

 Photographed using a slow shutter, as speeding penguins flashed passed my view point .In an underwater aquarium.

 And abstract of smooth . 

Straight

Sand tracks made by a hermit crab. 

Again mother nature supplies .  I love the simplicity of the above and below pictures. Un touched by man, only the movement of the crab has unsettled the evenly washed sand. 

Curved 

Its funny how nature can provide even the works of art. The amazing things you can discover, if only you get up early and look. 

Light and dark. 

Finally after many other photograph that I would love to ad to this collection.

 The final contrast in one frame. 

Light feather contrasting with the Dark sand. And ironically heavy sand and light in weight. 

Taken early morning, as the hot Borneo sun rose. This feather untouched by my self, photographed naturally as it sits,

14 Cropping .

Chosen here are  3 photographs that I would crop to improve composition, to cut out un wanted areas,  to make impact.

The original photograph is nice as it stands. Nevertheless, I could not move in with out getting wet, so I took the shot, adding foreground to give depth. Some how, the flowers over power the photograph , So some cropping is required. Although I will lose size if this was to be enlarged.

This is how the image  was cropped :

End result

This result seems allot more balanced with the tree becoming dominant, leading down the river towards the other two trees.

The next red soft coral from Borneos Reefs.

Taken with an a640 compact in housing.

The over all picture is OK however , moving in closer, cutting out the blur.

 Bit of a job going through all my photographs. I chose this one as it had a number of options to crop. The main one being the boat. 

As it is, the setting is pleasing, taken at dusk.

Above you can see 3 possibilities. 

Here is the final crop. More focused on the boat its self. Yet still remaining tranquil. Framed by the rock and shadow.

13 Vertical, and horizontal frames

20 photographs.

Taking 20 photographs in the same area . Horizontally, and vertically.  Each subject having both formats.

This too was an interesting project. As I aways think when looking through the lens. What is best. The best way to frame the image or scene. How that the format alters the way we feel, and read the picture. Most landscapes are Horizontal, portraits mostly vertical. Using a little thought. Either format can be used to cut out unwanted parts of the scene. Or to increase the impact of the subject.
 In this exercise, 20 photos required of each format. Wow many photos . Back on the buss, camera bag limited with one lens 17-40 L

 I walked down the town.  shooting at anything, counting the shots, without much thought on fitting the frame. Just to see what the results would be. one Vertical one Horizontal.  

This one worked better, giving more depth. 

Although the bottom Horizontal works I could not help noticing  the mimic of cloud pattern to the picture on the building. Do you see that ?

This works well in both

This also works well  Vertical suitable for the subject

This tells  where they are, giving a little story of what is going on. 

This tells more what they are doing.

This take you right to the red sign and the person

Where this lets the eye lead from bottom,  into the picture.

The bridge works well in both vertical and horizontal 

This has less interest .

However this one has more depth

The cans , I feel is to more personal preference

Undecided This does not work ell at all.

More focused on the subject.

Its a set of chairs and table

Here we get a little story.

This is OK

Works well with the walk going into the picture.

To much bush both frames compose ok. 

A strong preference on the Horizontal

Here the bucket was included

More from tilting the camera vertically

The above works better , The below seems to give a telephoto illusion

This format give more scenic impression

This has lost it and the light area cuts the photo in half. To much shadow. Losing the mood,  taking the eye direct to the middle, with nothing ells

This works well in both as well. but as the people and lamp are more vertical . the vertical picture works better. However.  It can also make the lamp distracting.

More story a child playing for a picture to be taken.

A child playing . I like the relation ship here with the two fish. 

The fish alone works well here as a vertical format. 

As the fish is not filling the frame. this works well in both formats.