A small try to get only that small ivy leaf in focus and use the wooden fence as a complement in softer focus for the rest of the image. I'd be glad to read any comments/critiques/suggestions.
Hi Linda, and excuse my late reply. Too much maths and heavy metal, you see! :-D
The food and the water of the plant, that's ourselves in this case. And while I see what's happening here I have my doubts if the current igredients of the food and the water are as "nutritional" as they should be.
Thanks Nick! Yes communication can be difficult at times. Much like photography because the human element enters in, and it's subject to interpretation.
I understand what you mean by wanting a forum that is serious about critiques. Nothing is wrong with that, and I'm sure there are others here who feel the same way. I appreciate your honesty, and say just keep doing what you're doing. A plant will not die if you keep giving it food and water....:))
Linda, I just try to put some things under the right understanding. This is not some kind of equating images with no composition to bad images. I don't say that no composition means automatically a wortless image. I only say: A macro is not good for its composition simply because this is not the right term to use. It can be good for its design, like many of yours do.
Language shouldn't make communication even more difficult than it already is, ey? Unfortunately we don't have any possibility to read minds, and we have to rely on language in order to be as sure as possible that we mean the same things. Or else any discussion that uses some certain terminology will be lead ad absurdum. How am I to communicate with you and all the other nice guys here, when I use some word of which no strict and shared definition has been made? I say this, you understand that, we talk without real underdtanding. That would be a real catastrophe.
A few simple words in poetry are indeed better than any kind of overkill. But you know, the thing is to first find those few simple words. And it seems that we don't find them in the fantasy descriptions of a too strongly "symbolical" artefact. In photography we find them there, where we can simply take an image that doesn't need any words more than perhaps its title.
A "beautiful image" - beautiful in the certain widespread and also "dull" sense - is not bad. It is often only empty. It doesn't transmit anything else than some kind of "joy". But I would be very very unhappy, and also rebellious of this or any other forum would be transformed to some kind of "wish list" for all we name "nice and beautiful". And unfortunately these tendencies are already there. We are not here to only celebrate some naive perception of what we think to be "nice". We are here to push the limits, to discover things, to expose them, and above all to confront each other with that kind of "truth" that burns itself as light through the lens onto film or CCD.
Or else this place will became just another disneyland-kindergarten, and eventuall it will... die!
I can do nothing else than trying to prevent this place to die that way.
Must get lost now! Will reply the other messages later on.
Thank you for your nice comment on my flower...and no it doesn't have anything to do with poetry. I agree with your thoughts on this...you have a lot of good insights Nick.
Nick I don't know what to say, I read every word and am just amazed at your mind and at how well you write, you are definitely very passionate about the way you feel. I can't disagree with any thing you've said, but it hasn't changed the way I feel.
I agree with what you say about composition, in the literal sense you are 100% correct, but, and I hate to use this word, *art* isn't literal, it's interpretation is subjective, and anyway, as I said in an earlier comment...my photography is not all about composition.
Yes I understand the way you feel about art too, and while I cannot argue or debate it, I cannot agree to the letter with what you say either, though in it's most literal sense and yes in terms of semantics, you are absolutely correct.
And yes, you're right about poetry too...I agree that poetry isn't always pretty and that it does expose, and invoke, and convey, and often awakens the senses...I totally agree Nick, but that does not mean that a few "simple" words attached to a "pretty picture" isn't poetic or poetry too. Granted it may not be perceived as scholarly, or worthy of being called literature, but it's still poetic. I agree we cannot exclusively connect "poetry" to "beautiful" pictures...:)
Obviously we think that poetry has to do something with sugar coated sights, but this is completely wrong and a devastation of anything intellectual for which poetry and arts stand for. Arts is not there for fulfilling some kind of wish for a sighing around. This is only the naive impression of all those who sit at sweet talks and confuse their own limits with the world of arts. Arts is a very very strong intellectual way for introducing thoughts, doubts, argues, reflections and so on.
Now, indeed an excellent image that you attached, and I thank you very much for that, but what does have this to do with poetry? What are the lines? What does it say except of some kind of a vague correspondance to my own impression of "beauty", "nature" and so on? Does it cause some sleepless nights to me? No, soon I'll see the next one in this style, I'll sigh, I'll say "it's nice", and the next day I'll simply pass it by. I don't think that somebody would sit and think and produce mental motion by the view of such a really beautiful but also content-poor image.
Poetry is way more than this kind of indefinite collection of "feelings" or "moods". Poetry and arts do not do only this. They expose and make visible what hasn't been seen before. And this is what we should really really think about when we steadily give our own selves the medal of artistic work. It's not that naive and it's not that easy.
For a metaphore, Space Odyssey by Kubrick is artistic work. The sugar coated hollywoodian E.T.-nonsense by Spielberg is only a waste of time and space. Yes, of coursem I can watch the latter and enjoy it too, but it doesn't say anything further than what a mass wants to see that never cared a bit about doing something else than being "enjoyed", "happy" and also so flat.
Linda, you don't have to surrender and there is no reason at all why all discussions should tend to some US-typical "agreement". That's not discussion, that's weak mind of diplomacy. A discussion is not only carried out in order to "agree". I assume that this verb is one of the most misused ones in our days. What's wrong with us? Why can't we just get that, that peace doesn't have to do with "agreement"? Anyway...
I did take that look at your flower images, and on some of them there is some small amount of composition work. Most of them are excellent exposures and very well designed too, but this is not composition Linda. It doesn't have to do with personal taste, it has to do with spectator-independend defininitions and nobody should think that this can be reduced down to some kind of personal opinion. You delightfully presented what the horns and the brass and the violins and the oboes play, but these images do not present what an orchester plays as a whole. Imagine something like separating what the third cello plays and listening to that without the rest of the instruments. Now, would that be the composition? Definitely not, since it is a *part* of the composition and thus cannot be equated to the composition itself, or else we would say that something is equal to one of its own parts, which immediately breaks down as impossible.
Of course there can't be anything against enhancing some special "instrument of the orchestra", i.e. going for some close-up inspection of a flower. This is also very nice to see for the spectator. But:
1) We should call things by name avoiding to fall into the traps of a too indifferent usage of words as description labels for entities, or else we end up talking thin air and believing that this is some kind of quintessence of "artistic attitude". There is meaning to such words like composition tec.
2) We should never exclusively connect "poetry" to what we name "beautiful" - that's a useless approach. There is much stronger poetry than the typical wave of romanticism about nature and "oooh, so sweet flowers". If we steadily stick to that we neglect all other streams. There can be much stronger a poetry into a scene of some old dusty road, even if the softies around would never care to understand. The second and very neglected side of the coin is de facto exactly that!
Very well said Nick. On a purely intellectual plane you are absolutely correct, and I agree intellectually, but I have to ask you this: What should we do with all the beautiful flowers that we see, how would you "design" a floral picture? Should we not take those pretty pictures, because there's no real composition involved? I think we need ornaments in this world. And nature provides us with such beauty...we should capture it..:)
Flowers also convey moods, like the sunflower, they always make me smile when I see them, or daisies they make me think of writing poetry, isn't that a part of what photography does, it moves people with some kind of feeling or emotion, not necessarily beauty, or joy, or even good, but some kind of something, something that moves a person, opens the eyes, or the mind, or the heart, something that makes one think, and sometimes something that is just pretty and peaceful where one can find rest.
I hope you find rest in the pretty flower...it's in my portfolio but I wanted to share it with you, this was taken last Summer while home visiting my family...:) All the best to you!! Linda
Well I see what you mean and while I agree I also disagree, but for the sake of world peace, I concede (wink) and put up my flag of surrender!!
In the larger sense of the word "composition" I agree with what you say in terms of complexity and putting several items together but then again take a look at my flower gallery if you will, you don't have to look at each one individually, but just the page as a whole and tell me if you don't see them as being composed, or compositionally placed within the frames. http://www.pbase.com/linda_bique/flowers
But I do see your point and when put that way a part of me agrees with you, but then we have to remember there are two side of a coin, and I can see them both...:) Thanks Nick!!
And before I proceed I must thank you here for the hints and kicks in my mind! Why don't we have more of that here? It would be tremendous!
Back to your image, the URL of which you sent, and for which I thank you too. That was according to your info the Nikon 60mm f/2.8D AF Micro, wasn't it? But anyway, imagine the leaf and the water droplets a bit higher, a bit lower, a bit to the left - whatever. Would that change anything? It would still be an excellent image, provided the main object still resides completely on the image and it has such a great definition. But this definition refers to the object itself - not the rest of the scene. The object stand alone in the frame of reference. There are no other objects that influence its own look by coexisting in the same importance level as the object itself. There is one protagonist and some secondary roles, and this makes the plot easier. More a question of story design than of story composition. The presence of the many equally important protagonists in a wide angle makes it impossible to escape the necessity of a plot that puts them into tight interrelation, or we end up with many isolated "macros in the distance", which is not really the sense of a wide angle, I guess. And this step of interrelating the many protagonists into a rounded up, consistent, integrated plot is the compositional part of it. Like "hearing" how the many instruments sound all together into a single song - I just say that since playing the electric guitar alone is always much easier than jamming with other guys, ey? ;-)
The points you referred to about macro or "minimalistic" photography, Linda, are actually not in the realm of composition. I still use only the strict definition of the word, which has inherently to do with complexity. Its the terminology that more or less means the "putting many things together". What you referred to is better defined by design - not composition. Which of course is another very important thing since the false design may ruin everything even if everything else is done brilliantly like for example lighting/focus/etc. This is what I mean when I say composition - the placing of the many entities into the "right" relationship between its other.
In other words it could be also compared to the work of a director of a theater play. Where to put the light sources, and where should be the chairs, and where should be the actors, should they stand or sit, where should they look and the like, you know. Now, when zooming to a single actor all that ceases to be. The whole depends then on other things but not on that kind of tight interrelation of the "many" to each other.
And as about that kind of simple and peaceful look of a macro of, say, a flower, I don't really see much of any necessary thinking. Put the first petal of a flower in the DoF, and it is nice. Put the second therein and still it is nice. It's more of the difficulty to choose which "niceness" one prefers. For example you image with the two flowers: I think that another background would be better, but still the second flower in the out of focus depth is nice. There is some kind of indifference into that and what one choses to include or to exclude.
Another good example would be a song and the antipodes of a solo (macro) to the whole composition (wide angle). Yes, of course we all know that Eddie van halen plays terrific solos, but if somebody has to do with music it is immediately recognizable that it is his songs where the solos are embedded. That's the hard poart of it. I can play similar solos but composing? Hehe, that's a different story. I am unable to produce something as catching. The melody is easy! Any sequence of notes is a melody. The harmony is the hard part since it embeds the melody in the frame that first allows the melody to evolve powerful in expression. I hope this makes the parallel clear that I try to describe?
Hello again Nick, and thank you for your comment and your in depth thoughts! I can't speak to film since I have never done any serious photography using film, and so I defer to your expertise on that subject…☺
Sorry for the confusion regarding my use of the telephoto lens, but I did not start out taking macros with the telephoto. I actually started with a Nikon camera and the 60mm Nikon macro lens, then I switched to Canon, and used the Canon 100mm f2.8 lens. I have earlier images in my portfolio taken with the macro lenses. I had many, many more but deleted a lot of them. Here’s a link to one of them: http://www.usefilm.com/image/851438.html
Nick, In reference to good/right result and the macro lens; I think it’s because of it’s design in terms of the narrower DOF that one has to use his/her skills to obtain the ‘right’ DOF in terms of getting all of the subject in focus and that involves the correct aperture, lighting, exposure, etc. to get the "desired" image. And I can see that you like more complexity in your images, and so yes, a non-macro lens would be more appropriate for your style. And yes, it is more difficult to compose an image with more elements, details, subjects, etc. but to say there is no composition when it comes to a macro…of course there is.
Sometimes it's even more difficult because you have only one subject, where do you place it within the frame to maximize its impact? What can you add to grab or move the viewer? I personally like completely out-of-focus backgrounds with lots of blurred color, (that choice for the DOF is not always easy), and so yes, they are “pretty pictures” and yes, sometimes perhaps boring. I have often felt this way in terms of my photography...boring. I love the Minimalist or “simple” compositions, but to imply that one does not have to compose or worry about aperture and DOF...I have to disagree, perhaps I am missing your point Nick?
And this does not speak to studio lighting where one controls the light and the background, shooting in a natural setting involves challenges not present in a controlled environment, but that’s another subject too.
I completely agree that there is a lot of skill involved in shooting more complex compositions…and I’ve enjoyed this discussion with you…thanks for making me think!
Thanks a lot for the idea and your work, Yazeed! Yes, it goes more contenplative this way - this is my impression! And it looks darker too, which seems to fit the mood weel.
Thanks a lot for the nice comment and the insight, Gustavo! What do you think about the background of the leaf? Yazeed pointed out that it influences the image - if I understood him right.
Thanks a lot for the nice and detailed comment, Linda!
Yes, it was B&W film as the information fields about the image indicate. Underexposure brought the darker tonality which seems to fit well the mood. The Kodak professional BW400CN is excellent for such things since it still preserves much of the strong contrasts.
I can understand your love for macros with the tele very well. Almost everybody starts with them, and in the meanwhile it seems to be one of the most popular kinds of photography, so that almost everybody stays with them for ever. There is almost no real composition for a macro - anything particularly taken for itself looks "nice". That's not a deal here.
A real macro lens does things much better in this domain, since the macro *has* to define its subject completely. The approach of a wide open aperture fails often, since it reduces the DoF to a minimum that is not enough for the complete object to be in the range of DoF. Macro lenses are just designed by keeping that in mind and so they have their advantages. Not to speak about the possibilities for points of view that aren't possible with a tele.
Of course the composition gets more and more important (and also unimaginably harder) when we come to wider angles. It is here that one proves skills, not in the macro range. A scene on the street can depend extermely sensitive on a bit more of this and a bit less of that, on the right focus, the right timing, the right light - you name it.
Anyway, I hardly do macros anymore since as the time was passing by I found them more and more boring, but when I do them I use the macro facility of my Tokina 80-200mm or the Tokina 28-70mm, the latter giving me the results that I find way better, especially in the wide angke range. But still when it comes to macros I miss my stolen Canon FD 100mm macro lens. (Sniff! :-( )
So, perhaps a different PoV would be more suitable, Yazeed? What kind of background would work better, background in highlight or in shadow? I don't really know..
Thank you very much for the nice comment and the suggestion.
Oh I love this one Nick...very eye catching image with perfect tones. An image that speaks more to the heart than the eye, really. I know very little about film photography, but I'm assuming black and white film was used here? Good use of framing, the rather subdued light fits the mood perfectly, giving it a more melancholic feeling.
Macros, one of my favorites, and I can tell you how I do them, which may not be the best way, but it's what I like. I prefer to use my telephoto lens (a love affair that will never betray and hopefully never end, haha) and zoom it all the way out, get as close to my subject as possible and still be able to and compose, aperture wide open and shoot. Usually that will do it. Composition is another story as you know. I have a macro lens, but rarely ever use it...once again loyalty to my tele. I doubt I've told you anything you don't already know. And I do love your shot of this lonely leaf.
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