35mm Film or Digital

Joe

I would put image A in a smallish simple frame and have it on my desk or sideboard.

I would use a large block mount for image B and hang it on a wall.

Both are stunning photographs of a woman with natural beauty and intrigue.

Something that occurred to me re the technical side of the debate - when considering the pictures you want to take, it is probably first and foremost the quality of the lens and then, with digital, the size of the sensor (crop factor).

If you want high detail or large size then, if you can not afford Canon 1DsMkII and Canon L glass, then you are still limited to analogue - 35mm or medium format. Otherwise, digital all the way - easier and cheaper and more learning potential.

As always, YMMV

They're both great photos Joe - B&W still has a wonderful 'something'.

The pose in 'A' looks a little unnatural, but uses nicely limited depth of field to emphasise Martha, who oozes some sex appeal for sure.

'B' is more 'arty' but (for me) less interesting or intriguing.

Thinking about my photo and the criticism it has received has made me concede that it's probably not a great photo.

I like it; but I think there are factors at play for the photographer that the dispassionate viewer does not experience.

I had long yearned to see Arizona, and the picture was taken early in the morning with hardly anyone else around.

That gave the place a very peaceful fresh and crisp resonance for me, which is transmitted back when I see the photo. In simple terms; it triggers a great memory and feeling.

A bit like the indefinable aspect of whether a certain piece of music grabs you or not. All sorts of emotions and experiences may or may not be fired-up.

Determined not to give up - is my photo better with the admittedly messy fore-ground cropped out?



John.

If joe's hypothesis is what I think it is, I wont be alone in prefering A, but thinking C is even nicer.

C

Mekon! You've turned poor Martha into a zombie! I prefer people to have pupils in their eyes.

J.N.,
Speaking purely as an unschooled snapper, I prefer the first one. There's a natural flow from foreground to sky, which seems to capture a feeling of the place rather than simply a representation of it. In the second one, it doesn't seem clear to me why there's so much sky or why you took the pic from where you did.

Damn, it worked like a charm on the people in the office.

5/5 fell for the pupil trick, albeit from a distance.

"That gave the place a very peaceful fresh and crisp resonance for me, which is transmitted back when I see the photo. In simple terms; it triggers a great memory and feeling"

That's it! That's exactly what you need to capture. The mistake everyone makes is that when you go somewhere really nice and look around and think what an amazing place this is, you just point your camera and it gets transferred to the film. In reality the awe-inspiring planet sized vista you were looking at in real life is now a 6x4 piece of paper and the glorious light and sense of place somehow got lost as it all went kind of flat.

Having said that, capturing how it felt like to be there is really, really hard. But by thinking along those lines -- and learning a few things by reading, practisig and looking at your near misses -- your photographs will get better. Indeed just thinking at all will make you better than 90% of all photgraphers.

"Determined not to give up - is my photo better with the admittedly messy fore-ground cropped out?"

I think you actually made it worse as it now looks very "chopped off" at the bottom and you have a nearly square picture that makes the composition look even more awkward.

I'm not sure there is much you can do to alter the picture too dramatically but I'd be inclined to lose a good chunk of the dull sky, some off the left and some of the foreground (the rock on the left bottom at least). The tree is meant to be the focal point so you want to emphasise that

Here's a quick Before & After:



(Note: I also tweaked the colours, upped the contrast slightly and sharpened it up a touch. If anyone disagrees with what I have done then obviously they need to adjust their monitor properly using an arcane process that there isn't space to explain properly here.)

Matthew

I was hoping for a larger sample size so I could test my hypothesis properly. (Sorry Mekon, it's not the one you were thinking.) But the few replies I've had bear out how I thought the votes would go; namely, that most non-photographers will prefer A and most photographers will prefer B. (By the way, I'm not trying to pass off either photo as a work of photographic genius. Both, in hindsight, have many flaws that I completely missed at the time I shot them. I posted them solely as examples of what I'm about to explain.)

This is what I think is going on and I admit it's speculation -- people who don't spend a lot of time worrying about photography and "art" prefer the straightforward conventionalness of Picture A. It's a shot you've seen before, maybe you've taken it before, perhaps it's someone you know. It's familiar and that's both enjoyable and comfortable.

But those that do take a lot of pix, professionally or not, prefer something more "out there" -- dramatic poses, dramatic expressions, angles, lighting, composition... whatever. (These sorts of pix can be really out there, as you know, but they still have to work as art. It's fine to experiment or push boundaries, but in the end the result has to have some aesthetic merit.) So, in that respect, I think B is more artsy and more out there than A. Of course, a big confounder in this is that Picture A has more flaws than B, so you may prefer B regardless.

Anyway, I think the reason why JN and perhaps other "non-photographers" like his shot of the tree and hill is that it's familiar and comfortable... and for JN it also has a personal connection -- he was there and he took the shot. The tree pix that Matthew posted, on the other hand, are more "out there" and, hence, more likely to be favoured by photographers.

quote:

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Both would be rejected in the commercial world and you would have to reshoot them.

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Which is why I'm thrilled that I shoot for me and my friends as opposed to clients.

Joe

Joe,

I think the flaw in your argument is that you can have very conservative, conventional pictures that can be appreaciated for being well executed "good" photographs even if the viewer doesn't like them becuase they are a poncey snapper who thinks pictures of nice trees and lakes are all-together too chocolate boxey.

On your little test I'm afarid I don't really like either of your pictures for the same reason which rather undermines your hypothesis slightly. Specfically in both cases I don't think you posed your subject very well (I think it's something you need to do a lot of, generally speaking).

In the first one she looks terribly uncomfortable almost like something is sticking in the small of her back. She also seems too old for that pose which is quite 'girly' rather than 'womanly'.

In the second one I get the impression that you were trying to do something 'sexy' or provocative and it doesn't quite work. She's not flung herself against the wire in the heat of some animal passion, she's just holding the wire in the way she's been asked to do by the photographer and this lack of passion makes it look rather fake IMHO.

Also the first one is such an awkward pose that I don't even think it's really that conventional. If you'd sat her cross-legged, hands folded on her lap and smiling then yes, very conventional, but not with this pose which is obviously trying to say something.

In both pics though it's very obvious her face photographs well and she can convey a "look". If you take her picture again I'd be inclined to focus more on her face.

Matthew

Matthew,

The problem with trying to make a hastily thought-out photographic point (or quickly and sloppily testing an ill-conceived hypothesis) is finding two suitable pictures that convey your meaning. Admittedly, the two pix I choose are not great shots nor are they the best examples of what I was trying to say -- that Picture A is more or less conventional (and is often preferred by non-photogs) and B is more or less artsy (and is generally preferred by photogs).

These pictures were also my first attempt at people shots -- if you recall, up to that point I was solely a bug, bear and bird man -- so these pix have flaws that are painfully apparent to me now, but weren't at the time.

Complicating matters all the more is that at the time Martha was 16 (I was as surprised as anyone when her father told me) and that her father (a friend from work) was right beside me the entire time, which made both of us uncomfortable -- me because I didn't want to come off as a pedophile and Martha because, well, her dad was right beside me saying, "Honey, please smile for Joe... you look angry. You want these pictures to come out nice, don't you?"

Joe

P.S. Ah, screw it. Just admire this shot Suzanne took of the kiddo. Now, there's art. ;-)

Joe,

That is a wonderful image, one that reminds me of a Gainsborough portrait. Do you do this sort of thing for a living?

Wolfe