On US 101

[Asher Kelman]

Compromise or not?

T
On the technique of composition - which wires, which poles, which lines, which shadows, which elements - I can only say this: it is always a compromise. Isn't life? Yes, the strong horizontal wire cutting the steeple is not optimally a part of the story, and yet, there it is. You take the bad with the good. This is the challenge of all objective photography: life is not perfect. That in and of itself, is one of the messages of objectivity. This is where I divert from the idealist, who might "erase the wire." (Or, in the first photo, erase the blue car). The shot which said the most to me, happened to have that wire in it. Let's call it a pimple, or a wart. And I say, ok, life has warts.

Life may have warts, Martin, but your photographs need not. You are already blessed or have earned the skill to pick interesting subjects to photograph and ideas to materialize therein. Do not settle for "Good enough!" when you have the capability to have your pictures rise above the pack. Your pictures can sell anyway, but there's no reason to hold back on presenting the very best.

Asher

 

[Martin Stephens]

Life may have warts, Martin, but your photographs need not. You are already blessed or have earned the skill to pick interesting subjects to photograph and ideas to materialize therein. Do not settle for "Good enough!" when you have the capability to have your pictures rise above the pack. Your pictures can sell anyway, but there's no reason to hold back on presenting the very best.

Asher

There's a misunderstand here. When I say it has 'warts', and I say' that's life', I am not saying I am settling for less than I can do here. What I am describing is the aesthetic principles of objective photography. We MUST live with the warts, because that's the reality.

(I am not commercial. I don't need to worry about selling anything.)

 

[Tony Psaltis]

I agree as far as the newer car, but I love the rustic flavor of this image. Takes me back in time.

 

[Robert Watcher]

Asher,
One more example of the objective approach. I try not to name things when looking through the VF and just accept what is there as form.

Martin Stephens: Untitledt​

As well, I like the lines, confusion, and mystery of this image. I first wondered if parts of it were a mirrored image (at the top). And then the more I looked, the thick white band running across the middle - looks initially like a design element or maybe a reflecting mirror. Then only after looking for a while did I notice the roof elements on the top left side (causing me to wonder what is there) - totally changing the perception of the white central graphical element, to being a fence barrier or maybe large curved wall of a building. Without the lines (both horizontal and vertical), such an image might not capture my attention as it did. The same focal compression method that you used in the church image, benefits this one as well.


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[Martin Stephens]

As well, I like the lines, confusion, and mystery of this image. I first wondered if parts of it were a mirrored image (at the top). And then the more I looked, the thick white band running across the middle - looks initially like a design element or maybe a reflecting mirror. Then only after looking for a while did I notice the roof elements on the top left side (causing me to wonder what is there) - totally changing the perception of the white central graphical element, to being a fence barrier or maybe large curved wall of a building. Without the lines (both horizontal and vertical), such an image might not capture my attention as it did. The same focal compression method that you used in the church image, benefits this one as well.


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Robert,
Your analyses are well appreciated. Taking the time you, and others do, is a real gift that a critiquer offers, and it is accepted with pleasure - good or bad.

That's a large water tank as a backdrop. Like many people, I love the personality of trees. I try to find them in their common context (like men at work?). Again, with warts and all. Here the chain link fence and wires must somehow be managed into the photo. In this case, it becomes a grid pattern. And yes, compression is crucial to this and a few other images too. Thank you.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Martin,

Perhaps there's a common motif: cris-cross of wires and nature/heaven.

Martin Stephens: Fence

Martin Stephens: Untitledt​

It could be that deep in your subconscious, you find a need to probe the meeting together of man-made disorder with things from nature or heaven. You misnamed the first, "Fence" and the second "Untitledt", perhaps because you are not really fully aware of what's driving your instinct for allowing these things to be compressed together in these two images. I may of course be mistaken, but this might be something you might review in your other images.

I think your work is meticulously honest but not actually "Objective" in the sense of being able to give strangers a true sense of that place in its milieu. for that a series of pictures might be needed. Rather I think that your pictures are factual, or "factive" in that you don't alter the pictures substantially from what your standard photographic technique delivers. So we don't see cloning, cleaning up wires or debris, local changes in lighting or acuity and the like. So all that is factive.

Being "objective" is what a scientist or forensic photographer has to be. It's not necessary either artistic nor creative, just discipline. As for your work, this is not easy to call. I think that you certainly show "objective" documentation of that tiny part of that area from where you decided to stand with one kind of sensor or film, the particular lens you chose and the means you selected to process the recorded data. All your choices are your own and this picture would not have been taken by anyone else if a 10 other photographers were dropped off at the site and told to take one objective photograph of the area. Likely as not, they would have made decisions unique to each individual!

The more interesting topic is what drives your unusual esthetic choices. You seem to be marching to a private rhythm from within and that's a gift people would kill for! The nature and clarity of this inner drive might be revealed as we see more of your work. To call it objective is to miss your own unique approach to things. Just keep working and sharing and the nature of your path might be clarified.

Asher

 

[Martin Stephens]

Or I misnamed them because I don't usually title photographs for the reason previously stated. I don't like steering the viewer with words.

The probing though, is of course correct. That's my ever present reason to photograph the world. Looking for relationships and explanations that can be revealed by the photograph. When I freeze a specific view, it's always a view the eye can't really see that way long enough to study. When I look at the church photograph 6 months from now, I will have new insights about it. Or, I'll go back and photograph it yet again (3 times thus far).

I think my arrangements happen both consciously and subconsciously. Somewhat like most of life unfolding.

 

[Martin Stephens]

This is a few miles farther north on 101, and here are some of the most stately eucalyptus trees in the area standing right on the side of the roadway.

Martin Stephens: More on 101​

 

[Martin Stephens]

I think your work is meticulously honest but not actually "Objective" in the sense of being able to give strangers a true sense of that place in its milieu. for that a series of pictures might be needed. Rather I think that your pictures are factual, or "factive" in that you don't alter the pictures substantially from what your standard photographic technique delivers. So we don't see cloning, cleaning up wires or debris, local changes in lighting or acuity and the like. So all that is factive.

Being "objective" is what a scientist or forensic photographer has to be. It's not necessary either artistic nor creative, just discipline. As for your work, this is not easy to call. I think that you certainly show "objective" documentation of that tiny part of that area from where you decided to stand with one kind of sensor or film, the particular lens you chose and the means you selected to process the recorded data. All your choices are your own and this picture would not have been taken by anyone else if a 10 other photographers were dropped off at the site and told to take one objective photograph of the area. Likely as not, they would have made decisions unique to each individual!

Asher

I'm certainly ok with anyone's description. It's part of their takeaway. For my taste though, "factive" implies a truth, a deduction. e.g. Here is the fact of the matter. My interest lies more with saying, "here is the matter, you find your own truth."

But that's semantics more than photography. So, I can play it either way.

I used objective as being in opposition to subjective. For example, the plastic arts are all about the subjective. I think photography's strength is in the opposite pole - the use of the objective.

Again, I don't concern myself "too much" with the words. They can be fun, but not as much fun as the photographs they refer to.