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What are you doing when you take a picture?

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Fri, 09/03/2010 - 13:55
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It occurs to me that, from one picture to the next, pictures come from different places in the photographers hearts and minds. In other words, something makes each picture happen, call it a "driver,", and those "drivers" probably vary a lot across pictures and photographers.

The other thing that would seem to vary a lot would be the impact or purpose the picture eventually serves. Sometimes, when the picture does what the photographer intended, the driver and the impact may be roughly the same thing. Other times, pictures are happy (or perhaps unhappy) accidents, when the impact of the photo is different (or more or less) than the photographer intended. (My guess is that most good shots are a mixture of plans and happy accidents.) Other times, I guess, the driver may have little to do with any intended impact of the photo. Sometimes we take shots with little concern as to what they say, who may see them, or the impact they may have. My guess is that some of these are pretty good pictures.

I'm also thinking that we are often doing more than one thing with any given picture.

I thought it might be interesting to list things we do when we take pictures, either drivers or impacts. I'd be interested in what you may think about all this.

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Mon, 12/13/2010 - 05:03
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This sounds like a clever idea -- adding your id to your file name as an added way of tracking use of the file. Just to see, I google my screen names art.wannabe or art_wannabe. I got links to some of my shots on Flickr. I see no pattern to which shots show up that way. In Response to Re: Creating sometthing of value: What are you doing when you take a picture? : [QUOTE]This just made me think of something related in terms of cultural enrichment as some of my photography might be considered to be a form of anonymous art (although nothing of National Geographic quality by any standards) in that I never sign it (visibly) except for putting my username as part of the file name when uploaded. At the old site where file names were preserved I found this to be quite an advantage in terms of use for discovering new websites that I never would have known existed otherwise. By simply googling my username using Google's image search, knowing that few people ever thought or bothered to change these file names when 'borrowing' them I have found some of the most interesting websites and all these websites thus far have used these 'borrowed' images respectfully. By the way, Google image results will vary from computer to computer as well as the locations searched from, as well as time too. Although most photographers would get a bit testy finding their pictures 'borrowed', I on the other hand have found it to be quite entertaining as well as useful, and in fact even enjoy the hunt. I have been constantly amazed by all the websites I have discovered this way - one of the many reasons I left all my old photos over at the old site. The world is a big place filled with a cornucopia of websites. Finding the good ones through my username is like having a good metal detector at a gold mine as it sure beat panning through multiple tons of worthless rubble and waste in hopes of finding any worthwhile nuggets. In Response to Creating sometthing of value: What are you doing when you take a picture? : Posted by Java55[/QUOTE]
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Mon, 01/17/2011 - 06:40
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Speaking of folks returning...
I see Saskia is back again with her warm welcome for the newbies here and she has yet to post a single photo here for them to return votes on...
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Sun, 12/05/2010 - 08:53
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This just made me think of something related in terms of cultural enrichment as some of my photography might be considered to be a form of anonymous art (although nothing of National Geographic quality by any standards) in that I never sign it (visibly) except for putting my username as part of the file name when uploaded. At the old site where file names were preserved I found this to be quite an advantage in terms of use for discovering new websites that I never would have known existed otherwise. By simply googling my username using Google's image search, knowing that few people ever thought or bothered to change these file names when 'borrowing' them I have found some of the most interesting websites and all these websites thus far have used these 'borrowed' images respectfully. By the way, Google image results will vary from computer to computer as well as the locations searched from, as well as time too. Although most photographers would get a bit testy finding their pictures 'borrowed', I on the other hand have found it to be quite entertaining as well as useful, and in fact even enjoy the hunt. I have been constantly amazed by all the websites I have discovered this way - one of the many reasons I left all my old photos over at the old site. The world is a big place filled with a cornucopia of websites. Finding the good ones through my username is like having a good metal detector at a gold mine as it sure beat panning through multiple tons of worthless rubble and waste in hopes of finding any worthwhile nuggets. In Response to Creating sometthing of value: What are you doing when you take a picture? : [QUOTE]I'm thinking that many artists are ambitious. They want not only to create something good, they want to create something of value -- something people would pay money for and count themselves lucky. This goal is different from that of increasing the cultural wealth of the world, which might as well be done anonymously. Value implies a hierarchy (of things more or less valuable), and a context of narrative-like associations (esp. whether the artist is "good" enough to have produced something of value). Posted by Art_Wannabe[/QUOTE]
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Thu, 12/02/2010 - 09:27
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That's a good point. I was thinking of the artists who were also self-promoters, e.g., Rembrandt, Picasso, but there were also plenty who starved themselves while growing their art. In Response to Re: Creating sometthing of value: What are you doing when you take a picture? : [QUOTE]In Response to Creating something of value: What are you doing when you take a picture? : I'm guessing if the artist makes his or her living only through their artwork then capitalism comes into play strongly here starting out as a means of survival but sometimes spoiling into an obsession and adding to cultural wealth becomes a secondary goal if it is even considered. Those who produce works of art solely for their cultural value are often poor or little known outside their circles of influence and often are not discovered by the rest of the world until after they have passed on. It's the way of the world - such a pity but its been like that since man first walked the planet. Posted by Java55[/QUOTE]
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Mon, 11/29/2010 - 19:54
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In Response to Creating something of value: What are you doing when you take a picture? : [QUOTE]I'm thinking that many artists are ambitious. They want not only to create something good, they want to create something of value -- something people would pay money for and count themselves lucky. This goal is different from that of increasing the cultural wealth of the world, which might as well be done anonymously. Value implies a hierarchy (of things more or less valuable), and a context of narrative-like associations (esp. whether the artist is "good" enough to have produced something of value). Posted by Art_Wannabe[/QUOTE]I'm guessing if the artist makes his or her living only through their artwork then capitalism comes into play strongly here starting out as a means of survival but sometimes spoiling into an obsession and adding to cultural wealth becomes a secondary goal if it is even considered. Those who produce works of art solely for their cultural value are often poor or little known outside their circles of influence and often are not discovered by the rest of the world until after they have passed on. It's the way of the world - such a pity but its been like that since man first walked the planet.
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Mon, 11/29/2010 - 14:30
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I'm thinking that many artists are ambitious. They want not only to create something good, they want to create something of value -- something people would pay money for and count themselves lucky. This goal is different from that of increasing the cultural wealth of the world, which might as well be done anonymously. Value implies a hierarchy (of things more or less valuable), and a context of narrative-like associations (esp. whether the artist is "good" enough to have produced something of value).
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Fri, 11/12/2010 - 22:34
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While on the topic of interesting discussions/posts, I found something equally as interesting recently at the North Carolina Museum of Art blog about the naming of works of art as the same principles can be applied to naming photos too. Check out 'Name Dropping' (posted October 13, 2010) at http://ncartmuseum.org/untitled/ [/QUOTE] Interesting content at that ncart page.
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Sat, 11/06/2010 - 20:56
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In Response to What matters: What are you doing when you take a picture? : [QUOTE]http://photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00Xc5w Here's an interesting discussion. Posted by Art_Wannabe[/QUOTE]They make some good points - its not all about the camera, its all about preserving memories, and I wholeheartedly agree. While on the topic of interesting discussions/posts, I found something equally as interesting recently at the North Carolina Museum of Art blog about the naming of works of art as the same principles can be applied to naming photos too. Check out 'Name Dropping' (posted October 13, 2010) at http://ncartmuseum.org/untitled/ Just a thought... if this site (your voice) was just a tad more user-friendly I might consider posting an untitled photo and let the viewers decide upon a name just to see what others perceive as an appropriate title but alas I think the cliff's edge is now so far up its out of sight.
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Fri, 11/05/2010 - 15:13
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http://photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00Xc5w Here's an interesting discussion.
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Wed, 10/27/2010 - 10:26
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I'd say the Mona Lisa changes the world. Just by being there, the painting makes the world a better place. Images can do that. Even modest images increase the wealth of the world modestly.
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Thu, 10/21/2010 - 14:31
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It's just great fun snapping shots and perhaps showing them to friends.
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Tue, 10/19/2010 - 06:55
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I think you're right in calling out clutter as a big issue. I've heard that it's the number one complaint of photographers when critiquing each other's work. In Response to Re: Creating an open sense of space: What are you doing when you take a picture? : [QUOTE]In Response to Creating an open sense of space: What are you doing when you take a picture? : When using a lot of background in my photos the main problem I need to watch out for is background clutter. Sometimes I will be able to zoom just enough to remove background clutter along the edges if thats where the clutter is located, but if its throughout the background this only leaves me with a tight crop option where the subject fills the frame (and hopefully without anything important having those most distracting chopped off edges). Occasionally I will find those shots where there are holes in the subject area where related backgrounds can add to a photo even if it contains a bit of clutter, just to long as the holes are small, but on other occasions where I desire a lot of background and zero clutter, blue sky as a background often works out quite well in that it looks good and definitely makes the subject really stand out. Posted by Java55[/QUOTE]
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Tue, 10/19/2010 - 06:55
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I think you're right in calling out clutter as a big issue. I've heard that it's the number one complaint of photographers when critiquing each other's work. In Response to Re: Creating an open sense of space: What are you doing when you take a picture? : [QUOTE]In Response to Creating an open sense of space: What are you doing when you take a picture? : When using a lot of background in my photos the main problem I need to watch out for is background clutter. Sometimes I will be able to zoom just enough to remove background clutter along the edges if thats where the clutter is located, but if its throughout the background this only leaves me with a tight crop option where the subject fills the frame (and hopefully without anything important having those most distracting chopped off edges). Occasionally I will find those shots where there are holes in the subject area where related backgrounds can add to a photo even if it contains a bit of clutter, just to long as the holes are small, but on other occasions where I desire a lot of background and zero clutter, blue sky as a background often works out quite well in that it looks good and definitely makes the subject really stand out. Posted by Java55[/QUOTE]
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Mon, 10/18/2010 - 21:27
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In Response to Creating an open sense of space: What are you doing when you take a picture? : [QUOTE]One of the things I'm thinking about these days is creating an open sense of space in a picture, to give the viewer something to relax into. Generally this means including more background, which presents its own challenges. Also, I'm thinking that anything cropped by the edge of the frame is more likely to be seen as background -- as something other than the main subject. A shot of a barn where the walls and roof all but fill the shot could have an in-your-face tight feeling. Of course, zooming out might create a more open feeling as you include more sky and land (which are cut off by the frame and seen as background). Surprisingly zooming in so that the edges of the walls and roof are no longer visible might also create more of an open feeling because the walls and roof would come to be seen as background, and the subject might become the door in the side of the barn. So framing controls what is seen as subject and background, which contols the sense of space. What do you think? Posted by Art_Wannabe[/QUOTE] When using a lot of background in my photos the main problem I need to watch out for is background clutter. Sometimes I will be able to zoom just enough to remove background clutter along the edges if thats where the clutter is located, but if its throughout the background this only leaves me with a tight crop option where the subject fills the frame (and hopefully without anything important having those most distracting chopped off edges). Occasionally I will find those shots where there are holes in the subject area where related backgrounds can add to a photo even if it contains a bit of clutter, just to long as the holes are small, but on other occasions where I desire a lot of background and zero clutter, blue sky as a background often works out quite well in that it looks good and definitely makes the subject really stand out.
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Sat, 10/16/2010 - 21:13
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One of the things I'm thinking about these days is creating an open sense of space in a picture, to give the viewer something to relax into. Generally this means including more background, which presents its own challenges. Also, I'm thinking that anything cropped by the edge of the frame is more likely to be seen as background -- as something other than the main subject. A shot of a barn where the walls and roof all but fill the shot could have an in-your-face tight feeling. Of course, zooming out might create a more open feeling as you include more sky and land (which are cut off by the frame and seen as background). Surprisingly zooming in so that the edges of the walls and roof are no longer visible might also create more of an open feeling because the walls and roof would come to be seen as background, and the subject might become the door in the side of the barn. So framing controls what is seen as subject and background, which contols the sense of space. What do you think?
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Fri, 10/15/2010 - 06:38
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Robert Frank, one of the major American photographers from the mid-20th century, used to talk about saying something that is true. I don't think he ever said he wanted to tell the truth, as that would perhaps be too ambitious.
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Wed, 10/06/2010 - 13:12
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Apparently photog skills are like a muscle that weakens with disuse, so even the best need to practice. But even when you are just learning, practicing can help you envision what a shot will look like as an image with the settings you have chosen and the editing you can apply.
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Sat, 09/25/2010 - 17:52
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Once I posted a picture of Hondo, a chimp at the NC zoo. He was sitting on top of a hill in the dim light. I thought he looked thoughtful, but to some he perhaps looked sad. When I realized you could see the fence in the picture, I took the shot down because I was worried some would see it as an anti-zoo message. Images are so strong. Even pictures of horrible things can be seen, even if only from a distorted perspective, as an endorsement of what they show. I'd hate to encourage anyone to do anything distructive or hurtful.
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Fri, 09/24/2010 - 22:23
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In Response to Relating foreground and background: What are you doing when you take a picture? : [QUOTE]In Response to Re: Leaving things out: What are you doing when you take a picture? : Thanks! I'll see what I can find on that. I'm interested in the ways foreground and background can relate to each other. Posted by Art_Wannabe[/QUOTE] As for photo sites to browse, Imagestation.com was one of the absolute best before they went belly-up as there used to be lots of people from nearly every country on the planet posting there and many had selected to post there albums into public galleries for all to see. Unfortunately Imagestation.com is no longer around, but Pbase is a good one, although you might have to sift through tons of travelog photos that folks had snapped while on vacations and such (not quite as candid as Imagstation was), and then there is Flickr which seems to have a good selection but is harder to nativigate. As for Shutterfly this one might be promising but I have not really checked it out enough yet to know how easy or difficult it is to navigate by countries. Hope this helps in your quest for finding photos to browse through in search of content as it relates to backgrounds.
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Fri, 09/24/2010 - 21:58
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Instead of building webpages to take screen shots of and then reconstructing into one long tall picture, I figured that with my much smaller collections of related photos, I would upload the very best of them in sequential order as a complete grouping when things are slow around here as its much easier this way. By the way, I just uploaded a whole sequence from my Edwin's Village collection - not all of them mind you but just the best of them. Now I feel somewhat accomplished having taken care of one more of my many groupings of related photos and having been able to place them all in sequential order too. Now I can relax ...for awhile.
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Fri, 09/24/2010 - 07:54
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In Response to Re: Leaving things out: What are you doing when you take a picture? : [QUOTE]In Response to Leaving things out: What are you doing when you take a picture? : On a sidenote, if you have ever browsed through photo albums from Asia, especially Chinese photo albums, some of these photographers are true masters at using backgrounds to relate to their subjects!! Posted by Java55[/QUOTE] Thanks! I'll see what I can find on that. I'm interested in the ways foreground and background can relate to each other.
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Thu, 09/23/2010 - 22:35
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In Response to Leaving things out: What are you doing when you take a picture? : [QUOTE]The story goes that photography is not like painting. In painting, the palette starts out blank and everything is intentionally added in by the painter. Painting is the art of inclusion. In photography the palette is this jumbled world, so the photographer has to intentionally leave things out. Otherwise the picture is unfocussed and too busy, and the viewer does not know where to look or is distracted from the main subject. Photography is the art of exclusion. Do I believe that? Sort of. But leaving things out is one thing people are doing when they take a picture. Posted by Art_Wannabe[/QUOTE] With me this goes both ways. Often if the background is full of clutter that has nothing at all to do with the subject I will try to fill the frame with the subject and limit any clutter that is in the background. On the flipside, if the background has a strong relationship to the subject I will often try to include the background as well, but determining just how much of the background to include before risking the subject getting lost amongst the background can be problematic on occasions. In these cases I will often shoot multiple photos at various distances or zooms and then run them through a repeating slideshow deleting out the ones that are eyesores first, and then going through the final stages of selecting 'The One' that has 'The Look', or at least the best 'Look'. On a sidenote, if you have ever browsed through photo albums from Asia, especially Chinese photo albums, some of these photographers are true masters at using backgrounds to relate to their subjects!!
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Thu, 09/23/2010 - 21:38
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In Response to Re: I think I may have solved a long-standing problem: What are you doing when you take a picture? : [QUOTE]In Response to I think I may have solved a long-standing problem: What are you doing when you take a picture? : Sounds like you are on your way to developing your own web page. You've sure got the content! I didn't know that MS paint could save in TIFF format. Posted by Art_Wannabe[/QUOTE] Just to think I posted over 1400 photos over at the old Share.Triangle.com site, but these were only a fraction of what I once had in my 'photoblogs' before Imagestation.com went belly-up. I do have the content to choose from indeed, but some of it is becoming quite dated already as I type, except perhaps for my virtual tour of Occoneechee Mountain State Natural Area, the annual Occaneechi-Saponi Powwows, and perhaps the annual crank-ups at Ole Gilliam Mill Park. Those custom tags over at Share.Triangle.com sure saved me a lot of work back then I must say! As for editing, creating page layouts and converting all those pictures and texts into a well designed webpage to make multiple screen shots of as I scroll downwards and then to stitch all these screen shots together into a single tall photo of a webpage for each subject, now this would indeed take some time and patience as I think I would need to be a saint in training to have the patience to plug away at this for such a long time in my limited spare time... I could take the easy way and simply cut and paste my texts from my captions with each photo but I think the text content would be much too choppy and quite often redundant too... so I think that option is out. Hmm... Oh, as for saving in .TIFF (or any number of other formats) while using MSPaint there is a draw-down menu to choose from when you select 'save as'. Also MSPaint has other great uses too. When I am going though my photos and find one that I really like for uploading here, I open it in MSPaint and then select 'save as' to give it a new file name, and from the draw-down menu select .JPG (which the original photo is in anyway) and the saved copy looks no different than the original even down to the indiviual pixels as well as the clarity - no noticable deterioration to the photographs whatsoever, but for some unknown reason the file sizes are often reduced quite substantially - dont know exactly why but it sure saves time for uploading (plus one doesn't need to worry about that file size upload limit here either) and as for disc space saved on my PC now that really adds up to a lot of saved space when one accumulates a lot of photos before it comes time for pruning! Of course however when I save the originals to double CDs for double backups they are straight out of my camera without any tampering just in case there is something that I dont know about that I would not want to be missing - I have no idea what that could be except perhaps the number of colours used, or extra camera data (such as geotags, etc) that gets encoded into the photos?? Clueless
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Thu, 09/23/2010 - 07:14
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The story goes that photography is not like painting. In painting, the palette starts out blank and everything is intentionally added in by the painter. Painting is the art of inclusion. In photography the palette is this jumbled world, so the photographer has to intentionally leave things out. Otherwise the picture is unfocussed and too busy, and the viewer does not know where to look or is distracted from the main subject. Photography is the art of exclusion. Do I believe that? Sort of. But leaving things out is one thing people are doing when they take a picture.
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Thu, 09/23/2010 - 07:07
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In Response to I think I may have solved a long-standing problem: What are you doing when you take a picture? : [QUOTE]Ever since I have started posting photos here I have been trying to keep groups of them together so that their storyline can be more easily followed (with limited success), but if there are a lot of photos this could create problems for others as their photos might be scrolled off the first page or beyond, depending... but only if the photos are posted individually. A solution: I can create a webpage the same width as the previews here and post as many resized and sharpened pictures with texts as I want, and add a small header at the top and bottom of each screen view when scrolling downwards. Then as I align each header to the top of the page as I scroll downwards, a screen shot can be made and saved in MSPaint as a .TIFF file. Then after copying the whole webpage in a series of screen prints pasted and saved into MSPaint as .TIFF files, I can open up a really large image in MSPaint and then delete out the image and leave behind a large remaining white space. Then in this large white space I can paste each .TIFF file into a series of seamlessly stacked images until I have the whole webpage converted into one very tall picture. Then dragging in the white borders up to the edge of this long tall picture of a webpage, it can then be saved as a single tall photo in .TIFF as a master file, and then a copy of the same could be saved as a .JPG file to post here. Although the thumbnail may look like nothing more than a thin vertical line, when opened to see the preview size one will have a picture of the whole webpage to read and scroll downwards through to see all the pictures nested into the texts (in any font, or font color, etc) along the way, and perhaps even complete with a background color too. Of course no animations or links will work as screen prints are only pictures snapped of what's on your screen but the idea does seem to be quite promising! I may need to title these tumbnails as 'Web Print: (subject of web print)' just so people will know what it is so they might open it. Hmm... might be a lot of work but I think it may be worth the time. And of course if the N&O wants a larger copy of one of the photos on one of these web prints I will have one to send to them if they so desire. Posted by Java55[/QUOTE] Sounds like you are on your way to developing your own web page. You've sure got the content! I didn't know that MS paint could save in TIFF format.
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Thu, 09/23/2010 - 07:05
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In Response to I think I may have solved a long-standing problem: What are you doing when you take a picture? : [QUOTE]Ever since I have started posting photos here I have been trying to keep groups of them together so that their storyline can be more easily followed (with limited success), but if there are a lot of photos this could create problems for others as their photos might be scrolled off the first page or beyond, depending... but only if the photos are posted individually. Let's add story telling to the list of things people are doing when they take a picture.
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Tue, 09/21/2010 - 20:43
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Ever since I have started posting photos here I have been trying to keep groups of them together so that their storyline can be more easily followed (with limited success), but if there are a lot of photos this could create problems for others as their photos might be scrolled off the first page or beyond, depending... but only if the photos are posted individually. A solution: I can create a webpage the same width as the previews here and post as many resized and sharpened pictures with texts as I want, and add a small header at the top and bottom of each screen view when scrolling downwards. Then as I align each header to the top of the page as I scroll downwards, a screen shot can be made and saved in MSPaint as a .TIFF file. Then after copying the whole webpage in a series of screen prints pasted and saved into MSPaint as .TIFF files, I can open up a really large image in MSPaint and then delete out the image and leave behind a large remaining white space. Then in this large white space I can paste each .TIFF file into a series of seamlessly stacked images until I have the whole webpage converted into one very tall picture. Then dragging in the white borders up to the edge of this long tall picture of a webpage, it can then be saved as a single tall photo in .TIFF as a master file, and then a copy of the same could be saved as a .JPG file to post here. Although the thumbnail may look like nothing more than a thin vertical line, when opened to see the preview size one will have a picture of the whole webpage to read and scroll downwards through to see all the pictures nested into the texts (in any font, or font color, etc) along the way, and perhaps even complete with a background color too. Of course no animations or links will work as screen prints are only pictures snapped of what's on your screen but the idea does seem to be quite promising! I may need to title these tumbnails as 'Web Print: (subject of web print)' just so people will know what it is so they might open it. Hmm... might be a lot of work but I think it may be worth the time. And of course if the N&O wants a larger copy of one of the photos on one of these web prints I will have one to send to them if they so desire.
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Mon, 09/20/2010 - 07:41
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I had a couple family members who were not really getting along, and who only did things together rarely. Every time I saw them together, I took a shot and circulated it among all the other family shots. After a while they seemed more comfortable doing stuff together. Maybe I played a part in that. I've also had family members not too sure about me, but when I gave them pictures of people they love dearly I think it became harder to count me out. My being nicer, especially dropping the sarcasm, probably helped too.
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Mon, 09/20/2010 - 07:33
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Is it tuna? In Response to Re: Conundrum: What are you doing when you take a picture? : [QUOTE]In Response to Re: Conundrum: What are you doing when you take a picture? : Hint: a steel can is its armour shell (the way we often see it dressed up while at the grocery stores) - I think I gave away a hint for an amusing title (thinking in terms of Minor White). Posted by Java55[/QUOTE]
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Fri, 09/17/2010 - 21:32
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In Response to Re: Conundrum: What are you doing when you take a picture? : [QUOTE]I get fishing under the bridge and a Hawaiian recipe. Other than that I can't make it out. Can i have another hint? Posted by Art_Wannabe[/QUOTE]Hint: a steel can is its armour shell (the way we often see it dressed up while at the grocery stores) - I think I gave away a hint for an amusing title (thinking in terms of Minor White).
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Fri, 09/17/2010 - 16:15
#31
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I got a book about Minor White (his real name) and finished it a few weeks ago. He used to say he wanted a picture of what something is and also a picture of what else it is. I'd say that his body of work is so consistently fantastic across a wide range of subject matter, so I guess that philosophy worked for him. In comparison, Ansel Adams is so fantastic in Yosemite, but take him out of there and his style gets diffused. Just saying...
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Fri, 09/17/2010 - 16:08
#32
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I get fishing under the bridge and a Hawaiian recipe. Other than that I can't make it out. Can i have another hint?
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Wed, 09/15/2010 - 21:56
#33
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I was just noticing on the way in that little attention was paid to what was in the waters below the bridge and apparently the means used previously for fishing it out from the waters will not work as it would generate complications beyond the initial boundries of the original settings when they were first established. I have heard that Hawaiians consider it to be an exceptional delicacy especially when topped off with pineapple plus a small amount of mustard and brown sugar added (and then wrapping in foil and baking at about 400 degrees for 35-40 minutes). As for a photograph of this delicacy in all its glory, I am not sure how well it would be received in the continuous 48 but I feel relatively certain that it would be received quite well at the Big Island. Interesting... I am guessing the Captain has taken leave for a vacation there? Art, since you're the best food photographer we have here would you like to have the honours of capturing a whimsical image of this main ingedient while outside of its armour shell? I believe that in a proper setting befitting for the mood you just might be able to create a winner that would top the charts on every continent! ;)
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Wed, 09/15/2010 - 17:18
#34
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I think I get about half of what you are saying, and that half I agree with!
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Wed, 09/15/2010 - 17:17
#35
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Sometimes you see something that is beautiful and you want to share it, or maybe use the beauty of the object to make a beautiful picture. Or maybe you feel that creating something beautiful increases the overall value of the world, and is a worth goal.
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Tue, 09/14/2010 - 23:00
#36
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Ah, unexpected content and the chaos of controversial results generated by singularities induced by the choice of the time coordinate, which are not present for physically admissible observables... (see page one). Now jumping back here to page two again... Art, I see your point. I have heard the same things about titles myself. There were times that I had captured an interesting or amusing shot but really could not arrive at a decent title so I either named the picture 'Untitled' or gave it a really off the wall name such as 'Spot On!'. See: http://www.triangle.com/your_photos/?id=16828386 Seventy-three men sailed up from the San Francisco Bay Rolled off of their ship, and here's what they had to say...
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Tue, 09/14/2010 - 09:01
#37
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Gabe, good point. Even when mood is our main goal, sometimes the shot is carried by unexpected content. Java, I've heard that the title should not matter and I've heard the title is a central part of the picture. I'm sure one can mess up a shot with a title that completely ruins the mood, but other than that, I'm not sure about mood and titles. How directive the title should be is also a good question. Honestly, sometimes I feel like titles can be too directive, and they get in the way of my exploring the shot. Maybe it depends on the other goals of the shot. If a goal is to say "Hey, look at this!" why not title the shot exactly what it is? As a digression, I think I've misled people with titles before, asking people to look for things that they can't actually see in the shot, but that I wish were there. I entitled one shot something like "My neighbor's house reflecting in a raindrop." Unfortunately, you couldn't really see the house, so it ended up being a fake out, and an annoying one too I imagine. Same with "the photographer reflected on the head of a bee."
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Tue, 09/14/2010 - 04:15
#38
Anonymous
Well I think that mood is the important thing. But I think we should be really very much attentive cos sometimes we get really good postures or view. So we should be always clicked on. ___________________________________________________________________________________ gabrial24 [url=http://www.motorhomeinsurance.org]Temporary Motorhome Insurance[/url]
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Mon, 09/13/2010 - 23:31
#39
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With me, mood is one of those things most often used when I am not shooting documentary photos as with documentary photos information content is the main objective, but with photos shot for mood content sometimes the captions can be used to help guide the viewer towards the desired mood although there are circumstances where the less there is in the caption the more room there is for a variety of moods to emerge. Sometimes even the type of English used in the captions can help convey a mood too, such as the use of Archaic English, the Queen's English, or American English (and the many dialects thereof for all these) just to name a few.
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Mon, 09/13/2010 - 09:02
#40
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For some photographers, mood is apparently the most important thing. I don't know how I feel about that ;), but often I try to be aware of the mood a shot is creating, as when I took a shot of a sunflower farm. Let's see if this shortcut works. http://www.triangle.com/your_photos/?id=18247108
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Mon, 09/13/2010 - 08:50
#41
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No prob going ont a tangent. Again, it's very good news from NZ, and an interesting story.
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Sun, 09/12/2010 - 14:45
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Update: After reading over the news from NZ this morning and looking over a few pictures from the outdoor interdemoninational mass held at Cathedral Square (meanwhile looking over the background in hopes of seeing The Chalice), I was quite surprised to see they even had a photo of the Wizard of New Zealand having shown up there too! I was like... What?(!!!) Afterall, I haven't heard much about him in nearly a decade (and his website hasn't changed much in all this time either) except about 5 years ago I heard that his house got burned down by an arsonist and since then developers had built condos over the site. As for the Wizard himself, he's actually quite harmless but he has such an unusual notoriety that he adds a large splash of extra spice to this city, unlike that of any other city on the planet. In fact, I'm thinking the movie producers for the Lord of the Rings series probably got the idea for doing all their filming at New Zealand because of the Wizard's 'theories' about middle earth that were posted on some back pages at his website since the mid-1990's. Ah, that Kiwi spirit never ceases to amaze me! Oh, and also after watching a video of the mass at Cathedral Square too, I finally saw the Chalice in the background and it was completely intact too. So all is looking considerably better than what I had imagined when the news first came out. The main problems now seem to be all the folks who either lost their homes or have had severly damaged homes and finding enough places for these folks to stay until their homes can be repaired or rebuilt, plus a lot of the shops in the older brick biulding near the centre of town and how their businesses will survive all this. By the way, I think this tangent and all that followed could have been posted as another topic, but I had no idea at the time this tangent got started that it would have progressed for as long and far as it did from the main topic from which it sprang. Sorry about that.
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Sat, 09/11/2010 - 20:44
#43
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In Response to Re: Off Topic (O/T): Woot! GOOD NEWS!! : [QUOTE]That's wonderful news! Posted by Art_Wannabe[/QUOTE] Most definitely - never knew I could feel so good!! Plus reading the news I found out that the cathedral at Cathedral Square survived completely intact, and I am hoping (dont know anything yet) that much of the public artwork there did too (thinking mainly of the wheat sculpture called Flour Power in the City Mall which is within eyesight of The Chalice at Cathedral Square). The coolest photo with both of these in the same shot I have seen yet was taken from the top of a parking deck overlooking Cathedral Square, but the most absolutely stunning photo I've seen is one she took from below The Chalice with only the blue sky as a background! From what I have read thus far in the news things are looking a lot better than when the news first hit the airwaves when there were still a lot of unknowns. One thing I will be looking forward to seeing are some photos from the upcoming annual World Buskers Festival that will be coming up in January (which is during their summertime). Sad thing, in Raleigh public art is limited although its got a lot better recently since City Plaza came into being but as for having any kind of buskers festival things would have to change a whole LOT before anything even remotely resembling a buskers festival could ever happen as it seems that buskers dont exactly receive a warm welcome in Raleigh ...yet. ($40 for a permit?!) ...and besides being $40 in the hole from the start, on days when there's not that many people on Fayetteville Street for the muzis to receive tips from for their performances, they too have to contend with the panhandlers who will even try to scalp money off these poor muzis too! If anything the buskers should be allowed to perform for free and the good ones will naturally receive better tips and return often, but its the panhandlers that are really the ones that should be required to pay a $40 permit as it would sure fix that problem in a hurry especially once they start getting caught without permits by undercover cops dressed in bluejeans and tee shirts.
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Fri, 09/10/2010 - 07:54
#44
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That's wonderful news!
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Thu, 09/09/2010 - 20:32
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*does happy happy dance!!* Finally got an e-mail back from my friend at Christchurch, NZ and she fared quite well considering what others have experienced just to the north and in the city centre... only a crack in the basement wall and a burst pipe in the street - took a couple of hours to clean up after the quake shook things off the walls and sent other things flying about before the power went out. She said the whole experience was quite surreal. Many workplaces did survive as opposed to the shops in the older building near the centre of town, but where she works it has been short staffed as many have lost or damaged homes or are not ready to leave them yet. Anyway things are slowly (and I mean very slooowly) getting back to some resemblence of order, plus the good thing is that no lives were lost in this 7.1 earthquake! On a sidenote, I'm hoping to hear of someone who shall remain unnamed performing solo alto sax during the twilight hours sometime soon, rolling off a few verses of Amazing Grace in the acoustics at Cathedral Square. Personally I think this would be MUCH more than just a memorable event for those who happen to be there :)
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Sun, 09/05/2010 - 06:34
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I once posted a shot of my daughter holding a butterfly by its wings. She had a way of doing it that didn't harm the butterfly, but I thought is was a disturbing image. It made me wonder about the nature of innocence. I guess the type of disturbing image depends on the goals of the photographer. If the expression is serious, it could be political, religious, artistic, or maybe cathartic type of photo. If not, it could be a kind of prank, akin to playing "look" at the dinner table. Speaking of seriousness, I recently heard a criticism of Roger Miller's songs, that he wasn't serious, that he was just joking around. I found it a little startling to hear lack of seriousness as a criticism. I guess the speaker was looking for an emotional connection, and couldn't make it with jokey songs. I also wonder if we are living in especially earnest times. I guess photos could also be criticized for not being serious enough, but I haven't heard that one yet.
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Mon, 09/06/2010 - 01:40
#47
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Unless you are Diane Arbus, portraiture is all about making your subject look good. Therefore, it qualifies as one of the things I sometimes try to do when I take a picture.
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Sun, 09/05/2010 - 06:34
#48
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I once posted a shot of my daughter holding a butterfly by its wings. She had a way of doing it that didn't harm the butterfly, but I thought is was a disturbing image. It made me wonder about the nature of innocence. I guess the type of disturbing image depends on the goals of the photographer. If the expression is serious, it could be political, religious, artistic, or maybe cathartic type of photo. If not, it could be a kind of prank, akin to playing "look" at the dinner table. Speaking of seriousness, I recently heard a criticism of Roger Miller's songs, that he wasn't serious, that he was just joking around. I found it a little startling to hear lack of seriousness as a criticism. I guess the speaker was looking for an emotional connection, and couldn't make it with jokey songs. I also wonder if we are living in especially earnest times. I guess photos could also be criticized for not being serious enough, but I haven't heard that one yet.
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Sun, 09/05/2010 - 22:16
#49
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In Response to being disturbing : [QUOTE]I once posted a shot of my daughter holding a butterfly by its wings. She had a way of doing it that didn't harm the butterfly, but I thought is was a disturbing image. It made me wonder about the nature of innocence. I guess the type of disturbing image depends on the goals of the photographer. If the expression is serious, it could be political, religious, artistic, or maybe cathartic type of photo. If not, it could be a kind of prank, akin to playing "look" at the dinner table. Speaking of seriousness, I recently heard a criticism of Roger Miller's songs, that he wasn't serious, that he was just joking around. I found it a little startling to hear lack of seriousness as a criticism. I guess the speaker was looking for an emotional connection, and couldn't make it with jokey songs. I also wonder if we are living in especially earnest times. Posted by Art_Wannabe[/QUOTE] Concerning the times we live in I see what appears to be a mix consisting of absolute charades to pure earnesty, and all points inbetween and with politics (often cleverly and subtly mixed with religion) taking top position where the confusion factors from viral propagandas as well as truths and twisted truths spread through e-mails and making it into the mainstream medias is such that its getting difficult to tell the absolute charades from pure earnesty. The Good Book said there would be times like these... On a sidenote concerning disturbing images, I found a sight in the woods today that produced quite a shocking photo -- the skull of a buck (I propped up on a small stump nearby for the photo) that had been scalped for his antlers and with the rest of his body remains still nearby where the skull was found. This I found to be totally disturbing that someone would kill just for this buck's antlers! If it were for food (thus no body with the skull) I could understand this a bit easier, but just for the antlers is totally savage if you ask me!
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Sun, 09/05/2010 - 07:38
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In Response to Re: random shots : [QUOTE]Sorry to hear about your friend. I hope everything is okay. Posted by Art_Wannabe[/QUOTE] Thanks. NZ internet connections have always been a bit slower compared to here due to capacity shortages relative to all the bandwidth used but at least the news media there has high priority and can get the news out reliably and quickly. At the New Zealand Herald's website - http://www.nzherald.co.nz/ - people's photos are starting to show up and from what I can tell things aren't quite as bad as I had first imagined, although still quite bad by anyone's standards - just not the total mess I was anticipating as many structures did survive and people seem to be faring much better than those in other areas of the world that were never prepared for earthquakes of this magnitude, so I feel confident that all is relatively well by comparison, but still a huge mess to contend with. *sigh of relief*
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