Andrew
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Post by Andrew on Jul 23, 2008 10:42:59 GMT -5
i dont have much (any!) in the way of pictures on my computer (thats a whole new thing to me) but one of my kids had this scanned at school (very basic scan- the actual print shows more detail-the faces particuarly) so i thought it might be interesting to see what you thought. i cant remember the film used, and was probably just a canon 620 or later model with an average canon walkabout zoom. i dont expect the odd lighting to appeal to everyone but i still find it interesting to look at on the wall...not sure if it disturbs me (the lighting that is) so i am always looking at it or whether i like it. it has my kids in it so i like it for that! anyway i most likely wouldn't take a picture in this fashion now but at the time i used to take quite a few with this type of lighting. sometimes i would soften the flash but in this case i think i was just having a day in the city walking around with minimal gear and used bare flash. from memory i set it up with a flash to the side on a slave (before all the wireless flashes) and triggered it with a flash on the camera but covered that flash so it didnt hit the subjects.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 23, 2008 11:01:25 GMT -5
Very nice shot--perfect lighting.
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Jul 23, 2008 11:02:56 GMT -5
Andrew,
I for one like it very much. It is the kind of picture to which one keeps returning.
Mickey
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Post by Randy on Jul 23, 2008 16:28:22 GMT -5
That's a great shot!
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jul 23, 2008 17:36:30 GMT -5
Andrew,
I don't very often wax lyrical over a picture, but I think this is a much better picture than you give it credit for. Not easy to analyse why without sounding like a photography lecture, but here goes:
First, the composition, fast becoming a dying art as we recently discussed. The composition here is classic, and almost text-book perfect. The two wide-base triangles, the steps and the kids, give it a firmly rooted stability that suits the relaxed reclining mood. What camera it was doesn’t matter. Cameras, fascinating and often beautiful things that they are, are basically only tools to produce the picture.
Then the lighting. Whatever you say I think it’s just right. And bugger the bare flash, that doesn’t matter either. It’s not harsh enough to kill the modelling. What matters is that it forms yet another triangle, and being all on the right hand side it brings your eye down from the top of the picture to the eldest, reclining, boy and from there your eye goes straight to the main subject - the three faces.
Wonderful expressions, and the notice adds a touch of piquant humour that tops it all off.
Lovely picture, one I would have been really proud to have taken.
PeterW
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Andrew
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Post by Andrew on Jul 23, 2008 20:19:03 GMT -5
thanks Wayne, Mickey, Randy ...i'm always a bit worried about showing a picture to someone but i was interested to know what others thought of this (not family whom would like it anyway just for the kids)so i'm glad you like it.
i very much appreciate your comments Peter- i would not of been able to explain it in such a succinct piece by piece way, i am glad you did i feel i understand it better myself now. i am not sure if i understood at the time or just did it, i just dont remember. i've been looking at it for a long time now and all i do remember was when i opened the packet to begin with, flipped through the pictures and put them down on a table, some people looked at them, and this one in particular. As i returned I remember some giggling at the 'dont sit on the steps' and others said they liked it etc until a guy that owned a photo studio looked at it and asked me why i hadnt filtered the flash and why i hadn't used fill flash in the correct ratio (i think he taught me the basics of flash studio photography) and so on..then as people do they started to nod in agreement. all i can remember saying was i didnt want to and that i liked it without any explaination---wish i gave him yours! lol
funny how little things can spark a memory! if you hadn't of mentioned the triangle of flash i would not have remembered placing a bag next to the flash. the flash was sat on a short wall and i remember putting the bag next to it on the right. hope i did it for that reason
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Post by nikonbob on Jul 23, 2008 20:57:39 GMT -5
Another me too here, I like it very much. Even though the subject is static the image has an energy. It may be due to diagonal lines as part of the triangles PeterW mentioned. Definitely a keeper.
Bob
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jul 24, 2008 5:40:32 GMT -5
Andrew,
I don't doubt that he was (is?) a very competent and successful commercial photographer because he gave his customers what they wanted - good likenesses with plenty of light.
We've got one in the town here (a New Zealander, btw) who sometimes leaves his shop and sets up a temporary 'studio' in County Square, a covered part of the shopping mall. He uses two flashes, fired backwards into white umbrellas, one for the main light and the other for fill-in, always set up in the same positions. He takes a lot of pictures of children with the parents fussing about making sure that little Tommy's hair is nicely in place and so on, and he seems to have endless patience with them.
His customers like him, and love the portraits he takes, but when you look at several framed examples he has on show you realise that they're all the same. All with plain backgrounds, no attempt to change the viewpoint, the lighting or the mood to suit the subject - babies or pensioners, they're all the same, assembly-line pictures to a tried formula.
Very competent, but to me after looking at a number of them they bring to mind the words of Tennyson:
"Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null".
PeterW
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Jul 25, 2008 18:12:41 GMT -5
I too would be proud to have made this one.
The expressions on your sons' faces speak volumes about child development and, perhaps, children's attitude to parental efforts with the camera.
Which brings me to a point that reinforces Peter's comment about the bland perfection of my countryman's portraits.
I'm reading an excellent book as part of my "day job": The Ride to Modernity: The Bicycle in Canada, 1869 - 1900 by Glen Norcliffe (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001)
Norcliffe is obviously interested in photography too, and makes excellent use of photographs as historical texts - there is plenty in his book to keep photo buffs interested. I was intrigued by his counter-intuitive argument that as interesting as outdoor candids and snapshots are, it is posed studio portraits that really make statements about a culture or society at a given time: subjects, poses, dress, and props were all carefully chosen, and can be read as texts by historians.
The modern "dust jacket" portrait described by Peter can still be read textually, but the story is often rather dull. I much prefer your outdoor portrait with its whimsical humour and, as I mentioned earlier, implicit comment on the relationship between photographer and subject.
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Post by herron on Jul 31, 2008 17:58:32 GMT -5
Andrew ... Interesting shots. That camera prop looks remarkably like one of the early Mamiya rangefinders ... but maybe I just have them on the brain!
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Andrew
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Post by Andrew on Aug 1, 2008 9:42:59 GMT -5
thanks Ron...i had a look at the link, i dont think i have any Mamiya...if i had to guess i might say it was a ricoh of somekind but i'm not sure
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