Tom dinning
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I could watch people at work all day. This is someone stupid enough to enrol in my class.[
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Another point of view.
- Thread starter Tom dinning
- Start date
I could watch people at work all day. This is someone stupid enough to enrol in my class.[
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Leica M Type 240I could watch people at work all day. This is someone stupid enough to enrol in my class.
Enjoyable, Tom, but I don't like the idea of you standing behind me for so long.
Asher
Tom dinning
Registrant*
I wouldn't. Your not that good looking.
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Tom,
I returned to this image a number of times to see why it works as well as it does! Looks like that bold dash of blue gets one's attention, her curves pull you in and one is in a special world. Very good use of distortion. A perfectly corrected image would lose this magic.
Asher
Tom dinning
Registrant*
I tell the class to wear something bright when we go,out and about, like the old days of Kodachrome when you needed a red shirt on someone. This day was heading towards a cyclone that never eventuated. Some heavy seas and a fierce breeze added some interest to a very common and well used place. They needed to come home with a photo that described the scene as they described it to me a few minutes earlier, combining the elements and placing them in the frame so there was a connection establishes. When I spoke to this student afterwards, she told me she wanted to make the seas look bigger than they really are and to give the impression the waves were engulfing the jetty. She shuffled around for an hour until she got the shot she wanted. A well spent arvo.
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Might she permit you to post her photo or is this her picture?
BTW, what was that anamorphic lens you used?
Asher
BTW, what was that anamorphic lens you used?
Asher
Tom dinning
Registrant*
It's my picture, Asher, and you know I have no ethics when it comes to posting images of other people.
I don't talk technical stuff. Most days I don't even know what use. It's like playing music without being able to read a note, which is the case with me also.
I don't talk technical stuff. Most days I don't even know what use. It's like playing music without being able to read a note, which is the case with me also.
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Amazing, so many folks claiming not to be interested in technical details! However, you're no idiot-savant who plays brilliantly, while not knowing anything about the notes! We both know that you know every technical trick in the book. Hey, you could pick the right lens when so drunk that Christine appears as that the holy messenger from the Church.............
That picture, Tom, couldn't have been taken with any lens, not a chance! You used it by clear intent and the result was no chance but utterly expected from that well-honed choice you made. Now maybe that day was for wide open views and so a 24mm could be a nice pick. But using it so damn close to exaggerate her iliac crest and the glutei, was learned, reflex and magic!
"Not being able to read a note", LOL!
Asher
Tom dinning
Registrant*
You are right again, Asher. Some days I just wish you'd listen to the intent instead of correcting me. You're beginning to sound like my mother.
I don't know every technical trick in the book 'cause I haven't tried everything. I must admit if I don't know it I ask someone who looks like they know. For example, I might ask you to name a few mor muscles and bones I don't know when the occasion arises.
The point I was making is what you said. There is a point in one's skill development when the tools and the techniques become reflex to some extent. At this point I wonder if we are no longer conscious or even concerned about our actions, or even consider them as part of the process.
I remember seeing an interview with Carlos Santana many years ago and some dumb-arse reporter asked the inevidable question "Carlos, what do you think about when you play?" Carlos grinned through his cuban moustache and replied "The shopping list in my pocket. My wife asked me to get a pint of milk on the way home".
He may well have been joking but he was making a point.
So, what happens when we reach this point? Personally, I find I no longer want to discuss my efforts in terms of the technical stuff or the compositional arrangement. I want to talk about the content and how it relates to my life or ayone elses for that matter. This particular photo was about the place and the person and how it al came about. That seems important to me. The rest doesn't. Its like driving to a destination. Have you ever noticed how boring people are when they tell you which roads they took, how long it took to get here, how much fuel they used and how the latest model performed against other current models when you casually ask them 'How was your trip?' You pray the phone rings and there is someone telling you your house is on fire.
I'm only sharing this with you because its a relatively recent development. Over the past years I have enjoyed less about photography and more about the photographer and the reasons behind what they do. For most its about the gear and the art and the composition and all that stuff. What troubles me is I have no-one to talk to any more. I am beginning to feel like an Amish at a NASCAR meeting.
So, if there are any like minded people out there who feel the same way and fear they have gone mad, please let me know. I'd appreciate someone to go mad with.
Religious zealots and small children need not apply.
In passing, this is a shot I just took.
It seems appropriate to call it 'A#'
I don't know every technical trick in the book 'cause I haven't tried everything. I must admit if I don't know it I ask someone who looks like they know. For example, I might ask you to name a few mor muscles and bones I don't know when the occasion arises.
The point I was making is what you said. There is a point in one's skill development when the tools and the techniques become reflex to some extent. At this point I wonder if we are no longer conscious or even concerned about our actions, or even consider them as part of the process.
I remember seeing an interview with Carlos Santana many years ago and some dumb-arse reporter asked the inevidable question "Carlos, what do you think about when you play?" Carlos grinned through his cuban moustache and replied "The shopping list in my pocket. My wife asked me to get a pint of milk on the way home".
He may well have been joking but he was making a point.
So, what happens when we reach this point? Personally, I find I no longer want to discuss my efforts in terms of the technical stuff or the compositional arrangement. I want to talk about the content and how it relates to my life or ayone elses for that matter. This particular photo was about the place and the person and how it al came about. That seems important to me. The rest doesn't. Its like driving to a destination. Have you ever noticed how boring people are when they tell you which roads they took, how long it took to get here, how much fuel they used and how the latest model performed against other current models when you casually ask them 'How was your trip?' You pray the phone rings and there is someone telling you your house is on fire.
I'm only sharing this with you because its a relatively recent development. Over the past years I have enjoyed less about photography and more about the photographer and the reasons behind what they do. For most its about the gear and the art and the composition and all that stuff. What troubles me is I have no-one to talk to any more. I am beginning to feel like an Amish at a NASCAR meeting.
So, if there are any like minded people out there who feel the same way and fear they have gone mad, please let me know. I'd appreciate someone to go mad with.
Religious zealots and small children need not apply.
In passing, this is a shot I just took.
It seems appropriate to call it 'A#'
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Tom,
In a community, there are others who
- have not reached your state of elemental ease, where all the numbers and references are simply used without you being aware.
- wonder why the view they saw, does not have the same power and spirit as the scene they recalled
- would like to photograph for a particular vertical market needs, such as wedding or editorial or "ART".
Fahim can say "I'm a simple fellow with a point and shoot camera", but he's actually a very experienced veteran, with thousands of Leica images. Then there's you, Tom! You say you've lost interest in the technical crap and do things with a great freedom!
Problem is that letting go of technical parameters is fine for the two of you. Fahim meets people, one to one. He seeks to share and showcase their humanity. He does that well! Then you look at the world from your own unique viewpoint, well-honed over years of craft. I find your personal angle on life compelling and new to me yet it resonates with my own experiences. But you share your work for similar reasons, for fun or else they'd be unseen on a hard drive. Still, it's not much help for the novice who want's to do better. We cannot pretend that freedom of expression, laissez-faire and "letting it all go" is of much use except to the already skilled worker. By understatement, both of you obfuscate your considerable skills, as if it's they can arrive naturally like mountain stream water or kids chasing butterflies!
Enough folk want their pictures here to materialize the form, person or flower they saw in their mind. It's not so easy for everyone one of us to achieve this enough of the time! So, when one of us shares methods that could, might, should or would be used to get certain results, then that's really a generous reinvestment in our community. I do not call this "teaching", rather "focussed sharing" some of what we do reflexly much of the time. The skill is to know when it's needed and's appropriate!
So back to this picture, Another Point of view, what was the lens? It does make a real difference! The position you took to take the picture defined the perspective. but then the lens distorted that huge angle of view to pack it all into the camera. That's more than just "another point of view", as only a special lens could give this result from that position!
Asher
Tom dinning
Registrant*
Putting Fahim and me in the same post could cause another international oil embargo, Asher.
I'm tired. I don't want to " focus share" any more.
As for the lens, you've got this far, keep going and you'll have it figured. Then you'll be stuck with a lens and no imagination as to how to use it. It won't do well up,a ladder over a bit of flesh. Or would it?
I'm tired. I don't want to " focus share" any more.
As for the lens, you've got this far, keep going and you'll have it figured. Then you'll be stuck with a lens and no imagination as to how to use it. It won't do well up,a ladder over a bit of flesh. Or would it?
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Tom,
The imagination I have no short supply of and the lens I likely already own. You already photographed the flesh. Just was covered with fabric. But the bold subject is definitely not the landscape, but her body. It celebrates and accentuates just her womanhood as much as any nude study, except this is not neutral. You didn't need a ladder, as any closer you'd be fused, LOL! See how you presented her as just a casual snap, but it of course is much more than that!
You and Fahim, though utterly different enough to create spontaneous ignition, but you do do share the same cloak of simplicity.
Asher