What does it mean when you don't like any of the photos?

On Tue, 8 Nov 2016 07:18:28 -0800, Savageduck
wrote:

On 2016-11-08 05:35:24 +0000, Bill W said:

On Mon, 7 Nov 2016 20:27:22 -0800, Savageduck
wrote:
On 2016-11-08 03:21:06 +0000, Bill W said:

That's actually a serious question, and I welcome comments. There is a
former Lt. Governor and retired neurosurgeon living around here, and
he is a collector of many things. Every year, he opens his house (he
actually lives there), and the public can wander through the whole
giant place to look at his stuff. I finally went, and took a couple of
hundred photos. They all suck. Every one of them. Or it's just me. I
don't know. This is them:

https://www.flickr.com/gp/48982192@N05/Q04062

I know that no one is going to look at all of them, but if you're
bored, and want to critique some photos, here's your chance. Every one
of these photos just leaves me cold, and I can't figure out why. I
admittedly forgot the lens I wanted, and had only the slowest, most
useless lens for this purpose, but still. It's not just the subject,
it's the IQ, it's everything. I got sick or processing them, and
sorted by ISO, flash on/off, indoor/outdoor, and batch processed most
of them that way, and just touched up some of them at the end.

What I'm wondering is if these photos just have a subject that doesn't
lead to appealing photos, or if there is something I missed in
processing. The photos were all meant only as a documentary record of
a very cluttered house - cluttered with faded, dusty things, but like
I said, not even one of them holds any interest for me.

Where did I go wrong? Is there anything that could help these photos?

I don't think that you went too wrong. The problem is the location in
its entirety. What you have is a picker's/hoader's cluttered junk pile.
There is no organization to the collection so there is little hope of
isolating much of interest. The cars could have been worthwhile, but
they are just parked too tight, and as a display they are difficult, if
not impossible to capture their individual character. In the end, there
is just no way to do anything other than document how not to assemble
and display a coherent collection. This is a non-museum of tasteless
clutter, and there is little hope for 99% of these shots.
Out of all your shots I only saw one which had some promise after a
little tweaking on my part.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1295663/FileChute/30713824242_E.jpg

That's an improvement, but I'm trying to wean myself off
micro-contrast and too much sharpening. I'm not sure why, though.

What too much sharpening? There is none that I applied.

I was mostly kidding, but I also wasn't saying that it was sharpened
too much. What my poorly worded sentence was meant to say is that I
think I might be routinely sharpening some photos for no good reason.
With these, I batch sharpened based on ISO.

Working on a JPEG of your original Flickr file, which already had
compression artifacts, so additional sharpening was furthest from my
adjust plan. All I did was adjust exposure/contrast/curves, dealt with
as much of the blown highlights through the window as I could with that
JPEG, and add a vignette.

On a quick look, I had mistaken at least some of what you did do with
sharpening.

On 11/8/2016 10:23 AM, Savageduck wrote:
On 2016-11-08 08:27:22 +0000, Bill W said:

On Tue, 08 Nov 2016 21:07:42 +1300, Eric Stevens
wrote:
On Mon, 07 Nov 2016 21:35:24 -0800, Bill W
wrote:
On Mon, 7 Nov 2016 20:27:22 -0800, Savageduck
wrote:
On 2016-11-08 03:21:06 +0000, Bill W said:

That's actually a serious question, and I welcome comments. There
is a
former Lt. Governor and retired neurosurgeon living around here, and
he is a collector of many things. Every year, he opens his house (he
actually lives there), and the public can wander through the whole
giant place to look at his stuff. I finally went, and took a
couple of
hundred photos. They all suck. Every one of them. Or it's just me. I
don't know. This is them:

https://www.flickr.com/gp/48982192@N05/Q04062

I know that no one is going to look at all of them, but if you're
bored, and want to critique some photos, here's your chance. Every
one
of these photos just leaves me cold, and I can't figure out why. I
admittedly forgot the lens I wanted, and had only the slowest, most
useless lens for this purpose, but still. It's not just the subject,
it's the IQ, it's everything. I got sick or processing them, and
sorted by ISO, flash on/off, indoor/outdoor, and batch processed most
of them that way, and just touched up some of them at the end.

What I'm wondering is if these photos just have a subject that
doesn't
lead to appealing photos, or if there is something I missed in
processing. The photos were all meant only as a documentary record of
a very cluttered house - cluttered with faded, dusty things, but like
I said, not even one of them holds any interest for me.

Where did I go wrong? Is there anything that could help these photos?

I don't think that you went too wrong. The problem is the location in
its entirety. What you have is a picker's/hoader's cluttered junk
pile.
There is no organization to the collection so there is little hope of
isolating much of interest. The cars could have been worthwhile, but
they are just parked too tight, and as a display they are
difficult, if
not impossible to capture their individual character. In the end,
there
is just no way to do anything other than document how not to assemble
and display a coherent collection. This is a non-museum of tasteless
clutter, and there is little hope for 99% of these shots.
Out of all your shots I only saw one which had some promise after a
little tweaking on my part.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1295663/FileChute/30713824242_E.jpg


That's an improvement, but I'm trying to wean myself off
micro-contrast and too much sharpening. I'm not sure why, though.

Heh heh! Someone accusing Savageduck of too much sharpening. :-)

I was going to warn him that Peter might mention that...

Peter would never have noticed that, but he would have been sure to find
something else, and make a comment which would have left us scratching
our heads.


Nope. some might get splinters in their fingers.

--
PeterN

On 11/8/2016 10:23 AM, Savageduck wrote:
On 2016-11-08 08:27:22 +0000, Bill W said:

On Tue, 08 Nov 2016 21:07:42 +1300, Eric Stevens
wrote:
On Mon, 07 Nov 2016 21:35:24 -0800, Bill W
wrote:
On Mon, 7 Nov 2016 20:27:22 -0800, Savageduck
wrote:
On 2016-11-08 03:21:06 +0000, Bill W said:

That's actually a serious question, and I welcome comments. There
is a
former Lt. Governor and retired neurosurgeon living around here, and
he is a collector of many things. Every year, he opens his house (he
actually lives there), and the public can wander through the whole
giant place to look at his stuff. I finally went, and took a
couple of
hundred photos. They all suck. Every one of them. Or it's just me. I
don't know. This is them:

https://www.flickr.com/gp/48982192@N05/Q04062

I know that no one is going to look at all of them, but if you're
bored, and want to critique some photos, here's your chance. Every
one
of these photos just leaves me cold, and I can't figure out why. I
admittedly forgot the lens I wanted, and had only the slowest, most
useless lens for this purpose, but still. It's not just the subject,
it's the IQ, it's everything. I got sick or processing them, and
sorted by ISO, flash on/off, indoor/outdoor, and batch processed most
of them that way, and just touched up some of them at the end.

What I'm wondering is if these photos just have a subject that
doesn't
lead to appealing photos, or if there is something I missed in
processing. The photos were all meant only as a documentary record of
a very cluttered house - cluttered with faded, dusty things, but like
I said, not even one of them holds any interest for me.

Where did I go wrong? Is there anything that could help these photos?

I don't think that you went too wrong. The problem is the location in
its entirety. What you have is a picker's/hoader's cluttered junk
pile.
There is no organization to the collection so there is little hope of
isolating much of interest. The cars could have been worthwhile, but
they are just parked too tight, and as a display they are
difficult, if
not impossible to capture their individual character. In the end,
there
is just no way to do anything other than document how not to assemble
and display a coherent collection. This is a non-museum of tasteless
clutter, and there is little hope for 99% of these shots.
Out of all your shots I only saw one which had some promise after a
little tweaking on my part.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1295663/FileChute/30713824242_E.jpg


That's an improvement, but I'm trying to wean myself off
micro-contrast and too much sharpening. I'm not sure why, though.

Heh heh! Someone accusing Savageduck of too much sharpening. :-)

I was going to warn him that Peter might mention that...

Peter would never have noticed that, but he would have been sure to find
something else, and make a comment which would have left us scratching
our heads.


I don't highly sharpen everything.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/97242118/DSCN2673-ir%20cropped.jpg



--
PeterN

On 11/8/2016 3:53 AM, Davoud wrote:
Bill W:
That's actually a serious question, and I welcome comments. There is a
former Lt. Governor and retired neurosurgeon living around here, and
he is a collector of many things. Every year, he opens his house (he
actually lives there), and the public can wander through the whole
giant place to look at his stuff. I finally went, and took a couple of
hundred photos. They all suck. Every one of them. Or it's just me. I
don't know. This is them:

https://www.flickr.com/gp/48982192@N05/Q04062...

The quality of the photos looks OK to me, but the subject is a junk
heap. A garish, kitschy collection that looks like one of the squalid
dwellings Dickens so famously described‹perhaps that of Krook, the rag
and bottle merchant in "Bleak House." Or the front yard of a mobile
home deep in Appalachia (but without the "Trump" sign). And is somewhat
reminiscent of the Hearst "Castle," the consummate proof that money
can't buy good taste.

...Where did I go wrong?

Picked a subject that even Ansel Adams couldn't have made anything of.
AFAIK he didn't photograph Hearst "Castle," either.

Actually aren't there some quite effective photos showing the random
nature of that collection; or am I thinking of images from Citizen Kane?