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zosia zija
{K:11106} 5/2/2003
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great!
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paul durrant
{K:1047} 2/12/2003
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they don't come along like this too often do they? you've managed to capture that precise moment when the finger and bird lined just right. the only other thing i would say has to do with the two guys faces. having no experience at all in shooting people with dark skin i guess it must be difficult to expose for it. not that you've done a bad job but the one on the left is a bit difficult to see.
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Jeff Cable
{K:3599} 11/30/2002
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Wallace, I am delighted to learn that you understood what I had intended by my original comments posted with reference to this image.
This imperfect medium that we are using for our communication (stripping us of our inflections, facial expressions, our body language and the opportunity to pick our way through the potential minefield that is human communication) is partly responsible for Altaf's misconstruction of my personal viewpoint. We are blinded by this electronic medium in several ways and pressing the send button will always have some consequences.
Epilogue... our brief comments can take on a life of their own when dissected. Explaining them in some detail may be helpful in strengthening those comments or it may serve to devalue them. As a student of photography, I feel that the comment dissection from Altaf may reflect poorly on the person who has made the comment (albeit unintentionally). This is likely to be the case when the person who has made the comment has no professional locus and is, like myself, merely a photographer in embryo. The possibility exists because of the fact that Altaf is a professional photographer, the editor, the moderator, the site owner and the final arbiter of what Usefilm.com displays and how its corporate image is projected. Notwithstanding those facts, the possibility will be ever present when those with the specialist knowledge are dealing in a public forum with those who are perceived to have little or no specialist knowledge.
My personal opinion of your work in general (and this image in particular) remains unchanged. This is despite the fact that I do not have the same experiences as Altaf, or the other professional photographers that abide here, to draw on. To my mind it is far more preferable to be asked about where one's opinions are based and how one arrived at them... rather than having assumptions made about one's personal motivations and intentions from a few lines of text.
Cheers!
Jeff
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Wallace Rollins
{K:149} 11/29/2002
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Jeff, I'm sure Al is correct in his remarks but please be assured that I took your comments as you intended them; as high (perhaps excessively high) praise. This has always been one of my favorite images and I'm very gratified by the response it's received here. Thank you all very much.
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Jeff Cable
{K:3599} 11/29/2002
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Whoops! Silly Me. No offense taken Altaf. :) I certainly had not intended to belittle Wallace, cast a slur on him
personally or try to demean his work in any way. You have rightly guessed that I was paying him a compliment... in the highest terms (that I felt his image deserved). My own photographic knowledge is nowhere near as good as I would like it to be and my previous experience of dynamic images like the one in Wallace's submission is that one outstanding exponent of this type of image was Cartier Bresson.
At the risk of being tedious, I could have used any of many other exponents of this technique as an example. The example I chose was my shorthand way of conveying my intended message. Without assuming anything about the make-up of the Usefilm membership and their overall knowledge and skill level, I fell into using a cliche that would have (to my mind) some significance for a lot of people.
The essence of the image, submitted by Wallace, that spoke to me was not a reason for me to try to ascribe his work to Bresson. For all I know he may never have seen that work. I was not trying to take up a position that would subsume all of this type of image into some inherent quality of 'Bressonness'. Please accept my apology and I hope that you will also accept that it was a form of shorthand to help me to express my feelings about Wallace's image. It is to my lasting shame that my form of words was bad enough for you to assume that I was putting every image that had people in it into a pot that was labelled Cartier Bresson.
After many years of making mediocre images, I am just beginning to gain a small measure of photographic vision. This is in part due to my enrollment on a formal 3 year course of photography and partly because of my membership of Usefilm. It is as valuable to be able to critique the work of others as it is to have ones own work evaluated by those with greater knowledge. Part of that value to me lies in learning how to see and what to comment upon. My personal bete noir is the vapid comments that may make a photographer feel good but do nothing for a better understanding. My comments are being made from a viewpoint that is slowly changing and may even be improving. I may make more comments in the future that have one appearance while in reality they will be different to the impression given. I would ask for the necessary latitude to speak as I feel... until I have learned how to be better.
Cheers!
Jeff
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jeff lynch
{K:4770} 11/29/2002
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Well then.....a Wallace Rollins decisive moment it is! Wallace, once again you have nailed one man. The comp and tones in this one are great. You have a good eye and a talent for pulling the trigger at just the right time. A good capture here.
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al shaikh
{K:15790} 11/29/2002
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Jeff, no offense intended (I'm serious) but calling it a Bresson moment, really detracts from the fact that this is Wallace's Photograph. I've seen it done a lot on different sites, anything with people in it becomes a "bresson" moment. I realize he is a great photographer, but to take all of street photography in its vastness and attribute it to a single photographer is a bit over the top. I realize you were paying Wallace a compliment but to people that are a real fan of this genre, there is so much more great street photography out there that it just feels wrong to lump it into one person.
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Jeff Cable
{K:3599} 11/29/2002
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Superb! A Cartier Bresson decisive moment. The movement of the pointing finger and the bird passing by make this a wonderful tableau. There is a strong sense that these people know each other very well. Old friends, indeed. The tonal range, film and lens choice work really well together Wallace and I aspire to this standard of image making. I rate it 10 because of the elegance of that moment in time frozen on film and because that is all the scale allows. Excellent work and I wish I had taken it.
Cheers!
Jeff
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