These are my picks of the best shots from Critique 1 and why I think they are interesting. Feel free to use any and all of these suggestions to make your own photos better.
Texture
The first couple of shots get tight in on the subject to explore it's texture. The first shot by Brittany Font is a brick pattern shot from very low down and close up. The light is made more intense by an increase in contrast. This photograph has those three prime ingredients; closeness, angle of view and dramatic light.
The next photo also by Brittany Font has a more interesting subject however. It wasn't until I saw that the third shot on her blog that I realized this was an old discarded or lost baseball.
You only need to pick the best single shot of a series such as this. Including all three gets into that ‘contact sheet syndrome’ mentioned at the very end of the handout "Photo Clichés". Also the third shot made it very easy to identify the subject in the photograph at which point it lost its mystery. There's a famous quote by the composer Claude Debussy where he says, "Never reveal your sources."
Structure
The next photograph of the bike by Megan Green retains some of its identity but that's okay because this is such a unique view that we see the structure of a bike in ways we never considered before.
The next shot, again by Brittany Font, has this little structure sitting in a garden. It's not quite a piece of sculpture and it seems like it might have even been made by the photographer herself. That adds interest.
But what is particularly nice in the photograph is the way the light changes the color of the leaves layer by layer from the top to the bottom of the plant. The interplay of the leaf light with the metal light becomes a wonderful visual experience.
Light
The next two shots, both by James Flynn, use light as its main subject. The first one is an almost abstract design of the light coming through window blinds. It is shot so close that the fact that they are blinds no longer important. It is the light that is beautiful.
The next shot of the overturned wineglass is also shot very close, from a unique angle of view, and with extraordinary light. This is very well put together, simple and elegant.
Industrial
The next several shots are set in a more industrial landscape. The first one by Loren McCarthy is a very minimal shot of just the corner of a building with space on the right side that allows the viewer’s eye to escape into the background. It's always good to leave a little space for your viewer to disappear into in a photograph. [There is an explanation about Native American Sand Paintings. Once the design is finished they break it a little so any captured spirits will always have a chance to escape. ]
This one is almost surrealistic because it is almost about nothing. It is shot at such an angle that you feel like you're almost suspended in mid air to see this thing this way. Very interesting.
The next it is another shot of an industrial building by Loren McCarthy, another blank wall of bricked up windows.
This one also has a unique angle of view and the contrast is tweaked to intensify the quality of light. Almost a little bit scary.
The next shot of the bridge by Julie Miller uses an almost symmetrical composition shot from the underside of the bridge to create an interesting contrast between light and dark.
This is a very difficult shot to expose with a regular camera because usually either the sky blows out or the shadows drop off. In this case the sky actually does blow out but it creates a glow in the process and since it's minimal and balanced on either side it creates a unique and eerie glow. [Actually Julie says that the glow effect was deliberately added with the SnapSeed App, a very versatile pice of software.] Again, another interesting angle of view with dramatic lighting.
The next shot by Loren McCarthy is much closer, with a unique angle of view looking down through a grate into a basement window.
I can't quite see what is going on in that basement but it still makes me wonder. I have always been fascinated but what things are hiding in people’s basements. [This might be because my grandparents, in an effort to keep the grandkids happily occupied, used to let us go down to their basement and told us there was money hidden down there. This story might not have much to do with photography but it is the kind of connection I am hoping you will start talking about and your commentary. If the personal stories that are conjured up in you as a viewer somehow line up with the personal stories of the photographer, then we have that experiential overlap that I call resonance, as mentioned in several handouts. That makes a successful and satisfying photographic experience for both the artist and the audience.]
The next two photographs get even darker, literally, because they are both shot at night. The first by Loren McCarthy of the corner of the building with boarded up windows with a strange diffused sidelight and beautiful toning. This is a photo of a place that is at once beautiful and scary. This creates an emotional push and pull that is quite stimulating.
The next photo by Jared Hirsch is of a similar structure but shot with a distinctly different and also unique angle of view that is impaled by a one-way arrow. Is this a sign of my impending doom? Or photographer with a good sense of humor? Either way this is a great little shot. The overlay of the two elements, the building and the sign, is totally constructed by how the photographer took the shot. If you had been there you probably would not have seen the same thing. This is what I mean by ‘personal vision’.
Landscape
Now we open up the photographic group to a more organic subject. The first photograph here by Jonathan Scott is a huge landscape with the city far in the distance with a series of curved pipes that form an almost geometric painting or even sculpture in the foreground. This is a beautifully constructed photograph that uses a very distant point of view, the opposite of the closeness riff, with an uncanny high viewpoint.
The next two photos by Megan Green and Rachel Wu both get very close to the ground and use the grass in the foreground as a strong visual element. When people try this they tend to get the grass out of focus and the photograph does not work, but these pull it off quite well. This makes it obvious that the photographer knows what they are doing.
Both photos have a sort of strange deserted feel to them. Be careful to not have the blown out white sunlight on the right go completely white. There needs to be some tonality even in the brightest whites. But the impact of that bright light at the far end of the perspective makes me wonder ‘what the heck is going on down there?!’
The next shot, also by Rachel Wu, has a dramatically side-lit tree and an empty space that moves us into a decidedly surreal vista. This is where mystery meets dreamland. The tree leaning in one direction countering the light post learning in the opposite direction is a nice visual touch. This relationship is totally created by where the photographer is standing.
The enhanced lighting in this shot of a fallen tree by Ashley Blubaugh is also quite surreal. This is almost an impossible site to behold. It is a visual contradiction of disaster in a sublime setting that is created by the quality of the light and the excellent toning.
Ashley Blubaugh takes us on an adventure into the night, this time peering over a fence that restrains our access to the place we are really trying to see that is off in the distance. Why is it that the thing we want the most is the thing we cannot have, while the things we can easily obtain seem to have less value?
Thomas Ashton takes a similar dimly lit walk into an abandoned industrial space that is both inviting and repealing. These kinds of spaces show up quite often in photographs and yet they're always intriguing. Why are we drawn to such places of dilapidation and dereliction?
Thomas Ashton places us in another location where we cannot decide whether we want to run in or run away. This emotional split is what is most intriguing in this work. [He says that many of his photos are dark like this, but he is not quite sure why. This is part of the value of shooting intuitively. It reveals some of our internal working so we can become more conscious and then add that info to our methods for further shooting. note: Thomas also uses the SnapSeed app to intensify contrast.]
Jonathan Scott's photo is the last in this series. It starts with a low angle of view that expands the foreground and pushes that back alley off into the distance. And the bizarre nighttime streetlight enhances the ambience of the locale. This photo also utilizes the emotional split between attraction and fear.
Portraiture
The last series of this post are all portraits or self-portraits. Thomas Ashton segues us from the dark environments of the street to a dark private space. The person almost gets lost in a sea of darkness but the stripes of light allow us to catch a glimpse.
The next shot by Ashley Blubaugh gets even more mysterious because it is only lit by some interior fixture. There is a face peering out from behind some sort of gridwork. A similar set of questions arise and go unanswered. Closeness and angle of view enhance the unique angle.
Brittany Font has us peering through a hole in something. Is it a stalker watching her? She almost looks like she is turning to see what is going on elsewhere. It all seems tenuous and a little unnerving (in a good way). [I once had a student photographically stalk his girlfriend for 2 semesters. He did not reveal his work to her until the end of that last semester. Yikes!]
Here Ashley Blubaugh's face is buried behind a mask of leaves with a shadow partially covering her face. Is this person stalking us or is she just being eaten by a bush?
Jared Hirsch presents a stunning portrait of a close-up of a face. The closeness to the subject and the dramatic lighting combine with the pensive expression on the face to present a beautiful portrait of a person who's feelings are being internalized. We gain a certain empathy for this person just through the presentation.
Loren McCarthy does a great job of breaking another rule by letting the top left corner blowout and cast a haze of softness that obscures our view of the face. The figure fits perfectly inside the frame and the toning softens the feel even more to present a really beautiful photograph. All of this information reflects on the perceived personality of the person.
Julie Miller has another great warm-toned shot where the eyes are cut off. The view is close and from a very low angle and the figure almost seems to be crammed into the visual frame. Again, all of the formal characteristic help to inform us about the personality of the subject of the shot.
Rachel Wu has a giddy little picture of this face bathed in sunlight with hair flailing on the ground. The smile in her eyes might be the best feature. It is the lack of information that keeps us involved with the photo.
Here, Lauren McCarthy hides behind a chest of drawers, revealing only half of her face. What is she thinking, and why is she hiding? This is whimsical but intriguing at the same time. The great toning enhances the value of the photo.
The final 2 shots by Thomas Ashton take us back to our world of mystery. The first is an extreme angle of view from the bottom of the stairs. This could be a simple shot of a guy or it could be the view from the eyes of his prisoner trapped in the basement. [We watch too much violence on TV, huh?]
The second shot is another close view from an extreme angle of view of a shadow created by dramatic lighting. Yikes! These remind me of the marquee I saw on the movie theater around the corner from my place, "Alfred Hitchcocktoberfest."
Additional notes:
All photos are posted at the ‘Extra-Large’ setting, centered on the page. Make sure you apps are not compressing your photos down to some small resolution. Anything below 1200 x 1600 pixels is not good. Quite a few of these are only 360 x 480! Yikes.
Thank for all your work on this topic. You should all go back an add some toning. You will have to hand in the best of these photos for your Final Reviews.
[hint: the level of your grade is related to the number of prints that make it to the Teaching Tips blog.]
• Loose the shots of singular objects, or anything centered. Your photos should have multiple points of interest to keep your viewer’s eye moving through the picture space.
Multiplicity
Some people talk about honing their photos down to one specific point of interest. I would suggest that this leaves your viewer with nowhere to go. I recommend setting up shots so there are several points of interest so you can guide you viewer’s eye through the picture space, and consequently, shift their mind from one subject to another, setting up relationships; between lines and curves, darks and lights, or between people and the emotions they evoke, or between specific ideas or ways of evaluating things. [physical, emotional, conceptual]
• Loose the animal pix. Some of them are pretty cool pix, but in the end they are still only cool pictures of animals, and that identifiability ruins it.
Generic vs. Specific
Almost everyone has a dog or cat, but this is one subject you will never see in an art gallery. It is too personal and too cute. These are the kinds of photos people share with their friends on-line but they are too generic and that is why these too become snapshots. This is not a photography class or a class in how to make better shots to share on-line. It is an Art class and we are interested in photos that one would see in a good gallery. [p.s. I I have a house full of cats and I take pictures of them all the time. But I would never display one as artwork, and I am not particularly interested in seeing shots of a cat belonging to someone I do not know.]
Personal vs. Public
Some of you speak of memories associated with the photos. Some of these memories are too specific and too personal. When they are so personal that no one else can access that information, then the photos become snapshots, and there is no communication. What has to happen is a blend of personal memory and public accessibility in an attempt to share life experience.
• There should be a payoff of some meaningful content that you want to share, something that might also be of interest to someone else. This could even be getting your viewer to contemplate something they have never seen before, or something they see all the time but have never bothered to actually stop to look at.
“Making art is not the ability to draw (or operate a camera) – it is about being able to see what other’s cannot.”
• You have to follow the same rules for self-portraits as you do for any other art photo; you should not be a singular object in a nondescript space, centered in the frame, easily identifiable. That defines a head shot and they are not interesting, just informative. Pictures of your feet are NOT self-portraits.
Photo Clichés (additional)
Avoid vintage cars or old trucks decaying in the woods. Refrain from shooting tabletop setups with toys or sic-fi figures.
• Don’t forget all of these tips when we move to the next topic. Everything builds on top of the previous.
Internal vs. External
Get out of your apartments and go photo hunting. First of all, indoor lighting is terrible and flat. Second of all you have to make a greater effort than that.
If you are driving in a car and see something you want to shoot, stop and get out of the car! Take the time to fully investigate your subject.
A Path to Success
I want to applaud everyone who noted what they felt they failed at, and then offered solutions on how to fix this. This is the most helpful commentary and true self-evaluation.
Thank you for all of the good work - - -
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