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Well, Olula, that rather depends. How about if Charlie Whaite had first said "I don't see what you're trying to do with these. I'm afraid I don't get them at all", and your father had replied:
Charlie - I would appreciate it if you gave a critique rather than an insult. Telling me that it sucks doesn't help me improve. Maybe you're right, maybe it does suck (I don't believe that, but I'd be willing to listen to your argument)... but unless I know why, then it doesn't really do me any good, does it? As for the subject matter: if you read the description above the photographs, read (or at the very least, skimmed) the linked thread, and watched the film that they were taken for, then perhaps that would make more sense. But even if they weren't meant to be narrative or cohesive, why does that make my choice of subject matter any less appealing? There are thousands of paintings of bowls of fruit hanging in museums all over the world, and they're all valued at thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars. This is fruit we're talking about here! Is fruit a particularly interesting subject matter? Not really. But it has potential... it has just as much potential as any other subject in the world. My photographs are also still lifes. Would you like me to photograph explosions or pretty sunsets? To me, that would be boring. It's been done so many times, and it's extinguished virtually all of it's possibilities. I think that still life is often times ignored in photography. People tend to go for the big things, the exciting things, and miss the small details. Look at the second photograph. You see the eraser pieces left by the eraser? And how that one corner of the eraser is rubbed off? It's so simple, and we probably see it everyday, yet how many times do you actually stop and look at that? Probably never. Now look at that photograph, isn't it beautiful? Apparently you don't think so, but I do. Oh, and about the focus - all of the focus here is intentional. If something is out of focus, it's because I wanted it out of focus (there are a few exceptions here, such as the second tweezer picture, which should have been focused slightly more on the tweezer). I'm not photographing tourists here... it's not a law that I focus exactly on the subject matter. In fact, I find that focusing directly on the subject matter creates a boring, flat image, and I don't do it often (the very last photo does this, and as I said, I didn't take that one). You complain the the composition isn't interesting enough... look at the 6th photograph, and look at the composition there. The edge of the sewing kit divides the photograph in half - most of the subject matter above it, and simply the needle and thread below it. That's not interesting composition? Could you give me an example of "interesting composition?" Because I can't quite see what it is you're complaining about. The only thing I could see as a valid complaint you failed to even mention, and that is the lighting on the second set of photographs. The reason for this is that they were taken at night, using yellow flourescent bulbs, and so they have a yellow tint to them. I think that on some of the photographs (specifically the souvenires and the keyboard), however, benefit from this traditionally "bad" lighting. Lastly, I would like to ask what experience you have in photography, professional or otherwise. I admit, I don't have any proffessional experience, but I have taken courses in photography and cinematography/filmmaking, and both filmmaking and photography have been hobbies of mine for several years. Were you a professional photographer, I would take your "criticism" more seriously, and if you were an amateur photographer, I'd like to see some of your work, to be able to judge whether or not your advice was worth listening to.
We come across this a lot when people post their novels here, and when people say things like "I don't think the character of Bob is consistent" or "I don't understand why Steve would suddenly do that", the writer *tells us what we have failed to understand*, and *how we should have read it*. That is, he tells us, the readers, why he, the writer, is right and we are wrong. He may, further, demand to know whether the critic is a professional writer, because unles s he or she is their comments have no value. At which point, frankly, there is no point whatsoever in trying to interact in a meaningful fashion with the writer, unless he is prepared to travel around the country explaining to everybody who ever reads him why he, the writer, did that and why the reader should accept it.
TeN told Smoothly that there was only one possible valid complaint about his pictures, which was that in some of them the lighting was off, and that therefore his critique, unless it was limited to "in some of them the lighting was off", was meaningless, and further that any negative comments he received were going to be rejected unless the person giving them could demonstrate a background in photography. You may have noticed that Jack Frost was not asked what his photographic credentials were before his positive comments were accepted, nor Whisky P.
Smoothly apologised for not being productive enough in his opening comments, but I cannot blame him for deciding that no critique he offered would be accepted by TeN unless it were glowingly positive. If you are not ready to accept any comment about your work that is not gushing approval, don't offer it for critique. |
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