Very Low Light Stuff

[Guest stnami]

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.........all this thread shows is what the camera cannot do ........something that has been flogged to death.

[jaapv]

"Flogged" used intentionally?

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[Guest stnami]

"Flogged" ...........Yea stuff that you Europeans/British enjoyed inflicting upon the colonies of old

[jaapv]

Spoken like a true transportee...

[jaapv]

"So am I missing the point? If so, what is it that you see in them?"

 

they are atmospheric, they don't provide an image but give you atmosphere disregarding the technical quality .... this is what an image should do .... have the onlookers look once again, and that is exactly what these image do..... So yes your missing the point here :-)

 

You have draughtsman/technical sketchers whom can draw you an exact representation of anything you want... these aren't artists, they are good, but definitely not artists..... like some of the M8 crowd here, it's not hard to take a perfect picture given the rights gear.....

 

See this Aussie bloke always in and out of threads, I forgot his name .... look at his gallery, it's brilliant.... it has me come back to look at it often.... this I consider good photography... no let me rephrase that, this I consider art.... taking shots of mountain ranges is so easy, and with mountain ranges I mean the whole range of 80% of current day photography,these so called street shots, people etc. all so very, very bland .... seen it, done it .... boring, boring, boring

 

(not stepping on anyones toes now am I ... it's not my intention)

 

and one last thing a remark as "I think you've managed to produce 4 shots that show up the precise limitations of the M8" is totally out of place, as if one shoot always shoot up to the technical standards of any camera .... Technocratic springs to mind here... as well as Boring, boring, boring

 

see where I'm getting at?

 

Sorry, there is no art without craft and no craft without technique. Why do you think the great painters first spent years learning to draw, half their life learning to paint and the other half perfecting their technique? Trying to fob off bad technique as "deep mysterious art" is just being pretentious. (In general, without any reference to the shots of the OP btw!)

[dpattinson]

Sorry, there is no art without craft and no craft without technique. Why do you think the great painters first spent years learning to draw, half their life learning to paint and the other half perfecting their technique? Trying to fob off bad technique as "deep mysterious art" is just being pretentious. (In general, without any reference to the shots of the OP btw!)

 

true - but so is conflating technical excellence with artistic merit. Sharp, well exposed boring photographs are still boring (in general, with no reference to any particular photographs - although god knows i have plenty of them).

[Guest stnami]

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Spoken like a true transportee...

......the expected response from the last of the great white hunters.

 

Sorry, there is no art without craft and no craft without technique

Not all art has to fit within that one dimensional criteria so maybe you could benefit with a more comprehensive outlook on the arts in particular the contemporary art of today

ps some painters learn to paint sooner than some learn to pull teeth:)

[asfeir]

The same picts with Dfine that I find better than Noise Ninja

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[jaapv]

......the expected response from the last of the great white hunters.

 

Hunters don't flog -except maybe a house once in a while...

Not all art has to fit within that one dimensional criteria so maybe you could benefit with a more comprehensive outlook on the arts in particular the contemporary art of today

ps some painters learn to paint sooner than some learn to pull teeth:)

 

Nonsense. For example Karel Appel " I'm just messing about" Look at his early work, academically sound, excellent technique.

 

First walk, then run. You must know the basics before being able to break out of the box.Know one dimension before you are able to move another. I do not believe in the theory that if you have enough chimpansees hammering away at typewriters that a work of litterary value will automatically appear.

[Guest stnami]

.. this learn to walk is a very tired old educational concept most have moved on from this way of thinking

[Peter Branch]

I think there is a danger of confusing technical capability and competence with operating technique. Having been to this hotel a couple of times my overriding recollection is stygian gloom and these pictures convey the mood perfectly.

 

However they demonstrate all too well a failure to deal with a very common problem at this type of event associated with people standing around in groups facing inwards. It is a candid photographer's nightmare as you can't see any of the faces and that is what people who pay for such pictures want to see. The solution in my experience, and I have done a lot of this sort of thing, is choice of position and concentration on a limited number of people. All the pictures contain examples were a number of more selective pictures taken from different positions so that peoples’ faces were better shown would have been preferable. In this context a Leica M is normally ideal being small, fast and, even with the original M8, relatively quiet.

 

For all the undoubted quality of the 24mm Elmarit the photographer would have been better advised to have used a 28mm Summicron.

[jaapv]

true - but so is conflating technical excellence with artistic merit. Sharp, well exposed boring photographs are still boring (in general, with no reference to any particular photographs - although god knows i have plenty of them).

 

Which I do not do. But I make a distinction between an artist deliberately expressing himself by breaking the rules - which is the hallmark of interesting art- and a punter not applying technique because he cannot bother to learn.

[jaapv]

.. this learn to walk is a very tired old educational concept most have moved on from this way of thinking

Ok. So you produce the work you show us because you are constitutionally unable to handle a camera I suppose?

[Gentleman Villain]

.. this learn to walk is a very tired old educational concept most have moved on from this way of thinking

 

If we were to truly move away from this "way of thinking"... mankind would be back to drawing stick figures in caves within 3 generations

 

......the expected response from the last of the great white hunters.

 

Be careful not to provoke...There are still a few left...and hunting is much simpler now due to the invention of race specific biological weapons

[danyves]

 

For all the undoubted quality of the 24mm Elmarit the photographer would have been better advised to have used a 28mm Summicron.

 

Or went much nearer with the 24mm.

 

On the way to take such photographs see David Alan Harvey on Basic Instinct :

 

road trip

 

Going inside, and not at just polite periphery, which I know can be more easily said than could be done in such situation with constraints.

[thehouseflogger]

Peter - thank you for your advice, I am glad you have been there before and see what I mean.

 

I see what you mean about the shift to a narrower lens, it would bring the subject closer and crop out distracting side events. The problem with the room here is that it was very packed with over 80 people and moving around was difficult.

 

I also had in the back of my mind that my brief was to take shots of as many different people as possible - ideally it would have been a good idea to find an area opposite a table lamp and see what came my way, but the groups were fairly static - because they couldnt move!

 

I tried about 10 minutes of flash and became very self conscious and very unpopular!

 

Thanks again

 

Guy

[Isabelle Lenatio]

walking and running .... I see the transgression, but most don't ever get beyond crawling

[wattsy]

I do not believe in the theory that if you have enough chimpansees hammering away at typewriters that a work of litterary value will automatically appear.

 

Is that because you don't believe the rather uncontroversial point that given an infinite amount of time, anything that is possible will happen, or is it that you don't believe that a work brought about by accident can be art? In other words, does The Tempest as written by Shakespeare have more literary value than the exact same arrangement of words as written accidentally by our chimpanzee friends?

[bill]

There are, IMO, two ways of breaking a "rule"; ignorance and intent. Breaking a rule by ignorance - let's keep this simple - might be to place the main subject of your photo centrally, because you have no understanding of the Golden Mean.

 

Breaking a rule intentionally requires an understanding of that rule - what it is, what it means, why it is, and what the likely consequences of ignoring it are. Experience and training should not teach blind adherence to rules, but do give us the wherewithal to bend - or break - them if we wish in a consistent, practical and aesthetically pleasing manner.

 

Creative, passionate and meaningful art seldom comes from following the rules, but in it's execution it may require an understanding of them to deliver a durable and practical finished product.

 

Regards,

 

Bill

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[wattsy]

true - but so is conflating technical excellence with artistic merit. Sharp, well exposed boring photographs are still boring.

 

Agreed. You only have to look at any of Robert Frank's books - I was looking at Paris (Steidl) only yesterday - to see how unimportant technical excellence can be. None of the photos are remotely sharp and the exposures are all over the place yet nothing is lost because of this. I can't see how any of the photos would be any more compelling had they been shot with sharper lenses using 'better' technique. In fact, looking at the book made me feel a bit embarrassed to think how much money I've spent ensuring I have the latest ASPH wunderlenses.