[SI] ugly comments
 

- disclaimers:
I like gritty urban subjects; there's something appealing to me in the
devolved rawness of manmade structures, especially when it's
unintentional as a result of neglect, time, or just plain ignorance.
it's not the same beauty as nature, but it's somehow ticklish to my
brain.

- Colin Donoghue:
the guy's vest matches the fence-ish netting and the traffic cone. at
least there are some trees. by themselves there are a lot of visually
appealing elements but the mish-mash assembly is what makes this scene
ugly.

- Jim Kramer:
when I was young I used to stare at these on streets and parking lots
while on my way to/from school. this doesn't seem ugly at all and
tickles my love of urban grit. I wonder how well a slide of similar
subjects would come out...

- R. Schenck:
hard for me to tell what they're saying by just looking at the
picture. what did you use to capture this? I'm impressed that you
got both the background and the foreground to come out, although the
color range seems a bit flat... which is odd seeing as the background
is very high contrast.

- Tom Hudson:
the depth-of-field is perfect. what other little bits of kipple are
lying in those pools? what remnants of "modern" civilization are
slowly decaying in small piles behind that TV?

- Rich Pos:
amusing... looks staged? the figures converging to the stop sign is a
nice (intended?) touch to an otherwise stark composition.

- Ken Tough:
the glinting metal against the soft green background is a nice
contrast. this image conjures the ugliest thoughts to me of them all.

- Owamanga!:
a delorean? an ugly hack job, to be sure. I'd be curious to see what
the original image looked like.

- Alan Browne:
american-style ugliness... in canada! (PFK would work too.) I'd
argue the brick isn't ugly enough, but that's me.

- Bowser:
sprawl. grey, ugly, compressed. the composition seems too easy,
though.

- Aaron Grier:
the easter connection was completely unintentional.

- Ken Nadvornick:
how bleh. good composition. it looks a little under-printed, though,
like there should either be more contrast, or it should be just a tad
darker. the color tint does throw me off a little and add to the
mood; I converted to B&W and it doesn't seem nearly so sinister.

- Walt Hanks:
maybe those three ball doohickeys on the background powerlines count
as ugliness in an otherwise pleasant shot?

- Bob Hickey:
damn that's some nice grit. what is this a detail from? how far off
do the values represented vary from reality?
--
Aaron J. Grier | "Not your ordinary poofy goof." |
The United States is the one true country. The US is just. The US
is fair. The US respects its citizens. The US loves you. We have
always been at war against terrorism.

Aaron J. Grier wrote:

- Alan Browne:
american-style ugliness... in canada! (PFK would work too.) I'd
argue the brick isn't ugly enough, but that's me.

It's actually one of the oldest McD's in Canada. It has had its share
of makeovers, of course. The ugliness is not neccesarilly in the
visuals. I tried to find a good boulevard perspective (somewhat like
Bowsers) with a lineup of fastfood shops. There were a few, but the
image would have been cluttered to the point of losing the message.

Cheers,
Alan

--
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- Bob Hickey:
damn that's some nice grit. what is this a detail from? how far off
do the values represented vary from reality?

That's a doorway on Mercer St. It started out as a sickly creme a very long
time ago,. and looked bad enough as is, but that shade of red was unusually
revolting, so that's what I sent. I used a Rollei, which are particularly
good at that type of thing. I shot HP-5 for a shot that called for PanF, but
I ran out. Outside of that putrid color, there's no manipulation . Thanx
much for your comments.
Bob Hickey

- Bob Hickey:
damn that's some nice grit. what is this a detail from? how far off
do the values represented vary from reality?

That's a doorway on Mercer St. It started out as a sickly creme a very long
time ago,. and looked bad enough as is, but that shade of red was unusually
revolting, so that's what I sent. I used a Rollei, which are particularly
good at that type of thing. I shot HP-5 for a shot that called for PanF, but
I ran out. Outside of that putrid color, there's no manipulation . Thanx
much for your comments.
Bob Hickey

Bob Hickey wrote:
damn that's some nice grit. what is this a detail from? how far off
do the values represented vary from reality?

That's a doorway on Mercer St. It started out as a sickly creme a very long
time ago,. and looked bad enough as is, but that shade of red was unusually
revolting, so that's what I sent. I used a Rollei, which are particularly
good at that type of thing. I shot HP-5 for a shot that called for PanF, but
I ran out. Outside of that putrid color, there's no manipulation .

It's a wonderful shot. I think the dereliction is beautiful,
very appealing.

--
Ken Tough

"Aaron J. Grier" wrote:

- Ken Nadvornick:
how bleh. good composition. it looks a little under-printed,
though, like there should either be more contrast, or it should
be just a tad darker. the color tint does throw me off a little
and add to the mood; I converted to B&W and it doesn't seem
nearly so sinister.

Hi Aaron,

Thanks for all of the reviews, mine included.

Interesting, your comments regarding contrast/darkness. This print was made
using a variable-contrast paper exposed through a contrast grade #5 filter.
It highlights an optical illusion problem I frequently experience in the SI
and which has no reasonable solution for me.

Black and white photos (including these digitized SI likenesses) often
utilize their background display mount (or screen color) tones to help key
their shades of gray. B&W photos are normally mounted on white, or
off-white, museum boards. Alternatively, the SI "photos" are by default
displayed on a black background color.

Against a white background the tones in a photograph will appear to be
darker and/or richer than they really are as the pupils of the viewer's eyes
are reduced to accommodate the glare of the white boards. Against a black
background the opposite becomes true.

If you flip back and forth between the following two versions of my
submission, I think you will see the dramatic effect these two opposite
backgrounds have on the final appearance of the image. In both cases the
picture is the same one as was originally submitted:

http://mysite.verizon.net/kjnadvor/C...n/UglyDark.htm

http://mysite.verizon.net/kjnadvor/C.../UglyLight.htm

Since I manually print my original photos in a traditional wet darkroom they
are printed to look pleasing to me when displayed against a white mount
board background. I do not alter them to look good against the black
background of the SI where, I agree with you, they do look weaker.

Ken

"Lionel" wrote:

It might help to put a big white border around them in Photoshop
before submitting them.

Hey Lionel,

If such a white border did not come at the expense of those precious 800
long dimension pixels I would do so. But anything greater than the 800
limit get resized down to that limit for display. And the reproduced image
can suffer mightily in that process, especially if it's true scanned size is
only slightly over the limit.

I once inadvertently scanned to something like 804 pixels on an early SI
submission and the resulting downsized display image made the original photo
appear to have been enlarged through a snot-covered negative. Yuk...

(I kinda' suspect I'm the only SI participant anal enough for all of this to
make any sort of difference.)

Ken