Returned from Borneo trip

On Wed, 2 Apr 2008 15:36:03 -0700, thepixelfreak wrote:

[snip]
I did too! I thought that the narrow field of view was just a tad
overused until I read the posters comment about his new macro lens.

Thanks. A new toy! Plus in the rainforest there isn't much
"landscape" to shoot so I was naturally drawn to flowers and insects
as these were abundant.

--
Kulvinder Singh Matharu

Website : www.MetalVortex.com
Contact : www.MetalVortex.com/contact

Blog : www.MetalVortex.com/blog
Experimental : www.NinjaTrek.com

Brain! Brain! What is brain?!

On 2008-04-04 10:02:10 -0700, Rob Stanley
said:

for it to be truely constructive you need to find a positive for every negative

This is the only part of your post with which I disagree. When I taught
community school/adult ed. photo classes, I spent a lot of time on the
subject of criticism & self-criticism. It's very different in a
'neophyte' setting than it is in art school, and it's also different in
a face2face group than one that's online.

In nagging the class about 'no personal attacks' and 'state an opinion
*as* an opinion' I was constantly walking the line between objectivity
and political correctness. There will be times when the reviewer finds
*nothing* to like about a work of art. The trick then is to be honest
without being an attacker.

"You cropped the top of the subject's head, and I'd like to know what
you were going for there" is direct, honest and the speaker isn't
making himself an arbiter of perfection.

"I think I would have used a different focal length or aperture to get
both the foreground and the main subject in focus" is a constructive
suggestion and shouldn't put the artist on the defensive.

"A properly exposed photo has a histogram that looks like..." is
slathered with mistakes from the first phrase onward.

Any statement that assumes an absolute about art is erroneous -
including this one.
--
"Our ignorance is not so vast as our failure to use what we know."

On 4 Apr, 19:02, Rob Stanley rob.vm.ng@[remove-this]rob-
stanley.co.uk wrote:
Alfred Molon after much deep thought made the following comment/s within
rec.photo.digital :



In article , Rob Stanley
says...

either way, insteead of ridiculing the OP

Where am I ridiculing the OP?

/quote.
As usual your photos are too dark.
/quote.

hardly contructive criticism was it?

That's not "ridiculing the OP".

Besides you snipped away the part of my post where I explain in detail
what the problem is. That is constructive criticism, because the OP
obtains detailed information about the problem.

the OP has taken some very good images which you failed to mention/notice.
instead you decided to focus on the negative with *as usual your photos are
dark* followed by a long list of examples.. Even though you did make a
comment at the end of your post on the whole it was _NOT_ contructive in
the slightest, but ridicule in my book.

what you should have said is along the lines of *nice set of images,
however one or two of them appear to be a little dark etc..* and for it to
be truely constructive you need to find a positive for every negative and
you didnt manage to do that.

--
Rob
Life through my lenshttp://www.rob-stanley.co.uk

You put your stuff on the internet and you take what you get.
I also thought they were generally dark, but thats rainforests !

In article , Rob Stanley
says...

what you should have said is along the lines of *nice set of images,
however one or two of them appear to be a little dark etc..* and for it to
be truely constructive you need to find a positive for every negative and
you didnt manage to do that.

No. To be constructive you need to explain in detail what the problem
is, so that the OP understands it, and suggest a solution. This way the
OP has the opportunity to take corrective action.

I went into the details with the histogram, explaining that it is
heavily shifted to the left and that in some images there even are large
chunks of solid black etc. Then I suggested to use the histogram during
RAW conversion, which allows one to obtain a properly exposed image.
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus 50X0, 8080, E3X0, E4X0, E5X0 and E3 forum at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
http://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site

In article , Kulvinder Singh
Matharu says...
On Thu, 03 Apr 2008 10:37:49 -0700, John McWilliams
wrote:

[snip]
What people, what image?
http://www.metalvortex.com/myphotos/boa/footbridge.htm

That was taken with a wide-angle lens, and I wasn't quite sure if the
flash would have been useful but I didn't have much time to re-shoot
due to other people behind me trying to use the bridge. It was a
matter of a few seconds for that near "decisive moment"!

That is actually one of the images that I actually agree might need a
bit more work but I was a bit rushed to get all the images online for
my other travelers.

Did you use a polariser filter in Borneo?
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus 50X0, 8080, E3X0, E4X0, E5X0 and E3 forum at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
http://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site

"Tully Albrecht" wrote in message
news:2008040411062716807%tullyalbrecht@coxnet...
On 2008-04-04 10:02:10 -0700, Rob Stanley
said:

for it to be truely constructive you need to find a positive for every
negative

This is the only part of your post with which I disagree. When I taught
community school/adult ed. photo classes, I spent a lot of time on the
subject of criticism & self-criticism. It's very different in a 'neophyte'
setting than it is in art school, and it's also different in a face2face
group than one that's online.

In nagging the class about 'no personal attacks' and 'state an opinion
*as* an opinion' I was constantly walking the line between objectivity and
political correctness. There will be times when the reviewer finds
*nothing* to like about a work of art. The trick then is to be honest
without being an attacker.

"You cropped the top of the subject's head, and I'd like to know what you
were going for there" is direct, honest and the speaker isn't making
himself an arbiter of perfection.

"I think I would have used a different focal length or aperture to get
both the foreground and the main subject in focus" is a constructive
suggestion and shouldn't put the artist on the defensive.

"A properly exposed photo has a histogram that looks like..." is slathered
with mistakes from the first phrase onward.

Any statement that assumes an absolute about art is erroneous - including
this one.
--

But, some absolute statements, like yours, Tully, just have to be stated...

Take Care,
dudley

"Kulvinder Singh Matharu" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 3 Apr 2008 00:25:27 +0200, Alfred Molon
wrote:

[snip]
It's not a subjective issue. The histogram of a properly exposed average
scene (not one of for instance a dark room, or of a hill covered with
white snow under the sunshine) has a bell shape.

I don't think that I agree...it is subjective. I've had enough
comments from a lot of people to reinforce that view. I want my
images to appear the way I want them to appear. Others will choose
something different. Art of photography and all that!

If the peak of the bell is around 0 and the bell is cutoff (as was the
case in one of your images), it means that the photo is underexposed and
there are large patches of 0,0,0 black. Solid black areas are to be
avoided as are solid white (255,255,255) areas.

Well, solid black or solid white can and will be used. In general you
may be correct but I'm not one that does "general" and I think I have
my own look or style which has developed naturally.

"In general," noses tend to appear in the middle of faces and ears on the
sides of heads, but Pablo Picaso gained a certain degree of fame for
shuffling things around.

The latest SI mandate on point of view is one I quite like, because it
challenges me to produce a picture from my unique perspective. I guarrantee
it won't be shot light...

Take Care,
Dudley

Alfred Molon wrote:
In article Rob Stanley:
Alfred Molon wrote:

Where am I ridiculing the OP?

/quote.
As usual your photos are too dark.
/quote.

hardly contructive criticism was it?

That's not "ridiculing the OP".

Besides you snipped away the part of my post where I explain in
detail what the problem is. That is constructive criticism, because
the OP obtains detailed information about the problem.

Alfred, in reading this thread I get the feeling that most posters have
misunderstood what your saying. The way I read it, they are attacking things
you didn't say. I just wanted to let you know that I understand what you
said and you make sense to me. Don't them get you down.

Tully Albrecht wrote:
Rob Stanley said:

for it to be truely constructive you need to find a positive for every
negative

This is the only part of your post with which I disagree. When I taught
community school/adult ed. photo classes, I spent a lot of time on the
subject of criticism & self-criticism. It's very different in a 'neophyte'
setting than it is in art school, and it's also different in a face2face
group than one that's online.

In nagging the class about 'no personal attacks' and 'state an opinion
*as* an opinion' I was constantly walking the line between objectivity and
political correctness. There will be times when the reviewer finds
*nothing* to like about a work of art. The trick then is to be honest
without being an attacker.

"You cropped the top of the subject's head, and I'd like to know what you
were going for there" is direct, honest and the speaker isn't making
himself an arbiter of perfection.

"I think I would have used a different focal length or aperture to get
both the foreground and the main subject in focus" is a constructive
suggestion and shouldn't put the artist on the defensive.

Excellent advice. Thanks for that.

"A properly exposed photo has a histogram that looks like..." is slathered
with mistakes from the first phrase onward.

Yes, but that's not what he said. :-) He was talking about an "average
scene", without significant dark or light areas. I imagine he meant
something like a grassy landscape with blue sky. Sure, you take a big risk
in stating that the histogram for that image will have a bell shape, but
it's a very different statement to the idea you are criticising.

On 2008-04-04 18:23:01 -0700, "Wilba" said:

Tully Albrecht wrote:
Rob Stanley said:

for it to be truely constructive you need to find a positive for every
negative

This is the only part of your post with which I disagree. When I taught
community school/adult ed. photo classes, I spent a lot of time on the
subject of criticism & self-criticism. It's very different in a
'neophyte' setting than it is in art school, and it's also different in
a face2face group than one that's online.

In nagging the class about 'no personal attacks' and 'state an opinion
*as* an opinion' I was constantly walking the line between objectivity
and political correctness. There will be times when the reviewer finds
*nothing* to like about a work of art. The trick then is to be honest
without being an attacker.

"You cropped the top of the subject's head, and I'd like to know what
you were going for there" is direct, honest and the speaker isn't
making himself an arbiter of perfection.

"I think I would have used a different focal length or aperture to get
both the foreground and the main subject in focus" is a constructive
suggestion and shouldn't put the artist on the defensive.

Excellent advice. Thanks for that.

"A properly exposed photo has a histogram that looks like..." is
slathered with mistakes from the first phrase onward.

Yes, but that's not what he said. :-) He was talking about an "average
scene", without significant dark or light areas. I imagine he meant
something like a grassy landscape with blue sky. Sure, you take a big
risk in stating that the histogram for that image will have a bell
shape, but it's a very different statement to the idea you are
criticising.

OK, to avoid the impression that I'm arguing against a specific
statement made in this thread, try this:

"A properly composed photo will always follow the rule of thirds" is an
example of opinion expressed as absolute truth. When dealing with
creative judgment, There are no hard-and-fast rules. Instead of saying
"you blew your chance for proper composition in this scene because you
placed this model here and this one here" based on some rule learned in
art class, it would be both factually accurate and more constructive to
offer an opinion such as "I think this might look better with both
models on a line - so - and drawing the viewer into this part of the
scene" etc.

Ansel Adams was quite technical in his discussions about the choices he
made. Yet he includes many guidelines like this one:
"Various rule-of thumb instructions for the use of filters in recording
clouds have been published, but no adequate interpretation is possible
unless each subject is analyzed individually and the print is
thoroughly visuallized." (_Natural-light Photography_, 1952, p.66).

The photographer may thoroughly embrace Zone Sytems, densitometers and
histograms while retaining the essence of creativity, which is to
"break the rules" at will.
--
"Our ignorance is not so vast as our failure to use what we know."