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1HuxleyTheCat
I took some images this evening of some Folio Society Limited Edition books which I have. My light source was a church candle as I particularly wished to try and capture the textures in the bindings. Also for that reason, I've chosen to present them in monochrome. I'm not sure if the experiment is entirely successful, so please feel free to critique.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/135703194@N04/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/135703194@N04/
3affle
Yes, indeed, those are lovely, Fiona. The leather of the Bestiarum is spectacular; I thought at first that the vellum shots were less successful, but the effect of the monochrome is to make one look a little harder, and in fact the grain of the binding is caught with some subtlety. What are the limits of the technique for capturing texture, do you think? Your copy of the Scottish play, a little lower in the photostream, for example, is letterpress on a rough paper - would a page of that come out well? I hope you didn't get wax on your books.
As I strayed through the photostream, it was a picture of a literary location, rather than a book, which took my eye - the complex reflections of Lenin's train, no longer heading To the Finland Station, but trapped in a museum, hard to get a clear sight of, rather like his philosophy now. I am no photographer, but this one strikes me as technically pretty smart.
Edited to try to make the touchstone work, which it didn't, but may now. this has happened to me before.
As I strayed through the photostream, it was a picture of a literary location, rather than a book, which took my eye - the complex reflections of Lenin's train, no longer heading To the Finland Station, but trapped in a museum, hard to get a clear sight of, rather like his philosophy now. I am no photographer, but this one strikes me as technically pretty smart.
Edited to try to make the touchstone work, which it didn't, but may now. this has happened to me before.
4HuxleyTheCat
>2 wcarter: Many thanks, Warwick!
>3 affle: Thank you, Alan. I suppose any offset light-source would have a similar effect, but I didn't want to use anything as harsh as a torch. I was happy enough with the results to experiment a little further, so I can certainly try and take some images of paper with a heavy texture next time. No, no issues with wax, but orange fur was hell on my black background cloth :-)
Ah Lenin's train, which indeed arrived at the Finland Station, and that's where the photo was taken. The only technical challenge was trying to cut down the reflection as much as possible - ideally one would use a polarizing filter, but I didn't have one available. The train was something which I very much wished to see when I visited St Petersburg last year. Apparently it used to be an object of pilgimage for Russians, but these days hardly anyone bothers to go and see it. My guidebook said that it was in a glass case between platforms at Finlandski, but when I got there the situation was the same as at any mainline terminus in the UK, i.e. access to platforms was via ticket barriers. I looked along the platform where the book reckoned it should be but could see nothing. My Russian being extremely limited, this presented something of a problem. I eventually found a small poster in Cyrillic which had a picture of a steam train. I took a quick snap, found a member of station staff and showed it to him. He escorted me across to a little booth and waited while he said something to the rather severe-looking lady within, who promptly made a phone call and gestured to me to wait. After a few minutes an armed security guard appeared... who kindly escorted me across the station concourse, through the barrier, and then pointed out the way that I could exit when I had finished. All done with two words, 'Pazhalyusta' and 'Spaasiba', plus the international language of gesture.
>3 affle: Thank you, Alan. I suppose any offset light-source would have a similar effect, but I didn't want to use anything as harsh as a torch. I was happy enough with the results to experiment a little further, so I can certainly try and take some images of paper with a heavy texture next time. No, no issues with wax, but orange fur was hell on my black background cloth :-)
Ah Lenin's train, which indeed arrived at the Finland Station, and that's where the photo was taken. The only technical challenge was trying to cut down the reflection as much as possible - ideally one would use a polarizing filter, but I didn't have one available. The train was something which I very much wished to see when I visited St Petersburg last year. Apparently it used to be an object of pilgimage for Russians, but these days hardly anyone bothers to go and see it. My guidebook said that it was in a glass case between platforms at Finlandski, but when I got there the situation was the same as at any mainline terminus in the UK, i.e. access to platforms was via ticket barriers. I looked along the platform where the book reckoned it should be but could see nothing. My Russian being extremely limited, this presented something of a problem. I eventually found a small poster in Cyrillic which had a picture of a steam train. I took a quick snap, found a member of station staff and showed it to him. He escorted me across to a little booth and waited while he said something to the rather severe-looking lady within, who promptly made a phone call and gestured to me to wait. After a few minutes an armed security guard appeared... who kindly escorted me across the station concourse, through the barrier, and then pointed out the way that I could exit when I had finished. All done with two words, 'Pazhalyusta' and 'Spaasiba', plus the international language of gesture.
6JuliusC
Thank you for this post, as I said in the other thread these turned out great. I will now have to experiment myself with using a candle as a light source. I've used a flashlight before flashing it back and forth but never thought of using a candle.
8HuxleyTheCat
I've uploaded a few more from a couple of evenings ago, this time mostly a selection of the Folio Nonesuch Dickens, and some are in colour this time.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/135703194@N04/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/135703194@N04/
9affle
>8 HuxleyTheCat:
Handsome, as before. Is there an explanation, for the non-phototechnical person, why the monochrome appears to show detail better than colour? And as an answer to my earlier question, thank you for the open page of the letterpress Shakespeare, which does indeed show the texture of the paper rather well. Since asking it, I have dipped a toe - well, two toes - into the Grimpen Mire of the FS letterpress set, and have been admiring the Zerkall mould-made first hand.
Handsome, as before. Is there an explanation, for the non-phototechnical person, why the monochrome appears to show detail better than colour? And as an answer to my earlier question, thank you for the open page of the letterpress Shakespeare, which does indeed show the texture of the paper rather well. Since asking it, I have dipped a toe - well, two toes - into the Grimpen Mire of the FS letterpress set, and have been admiring the Zerkall mould-made first hand.
10Django6924
>9 affle:
Partially for the same reason an engraving or a woodcut is sharper than color painting--contrast. The eye perceives variations in light and dark as having greater contrast than variations in color, and contrast is one of the primary criteria of sharpness. When the motion pictures were experimenting with color in the 1920s and 1930s, the early color prints seemed flat and less sharp than the black & white films people were used to seeing. It was Technicolor that came up with a process which used dye transfer methods to apply the three primary subtractive colors (yellow, cyan, magenta), not on a clear film base, but on a black and white print of the image. The silver emulsion image produced the contrast needed to make the image appear sharper than the color print alone.
There is also the issue of the sensors used to record the image, and this is the case whether the image is captured digitally or on film. The light striking color sensors has to register on three separate areas as it is physically impossible for the red, green, and blue sensors to occupy the same physical space. (Granted, we are talking about variations in position which are very minute). As a result, at the edges of the variations in color you don't often have a sharp break between the adjacent colors, but more of a mosaic effect. Now digital cameras record color, and not just light and dark, so a monochrome of a digital image is simply an interpolation of this mosaic, but depending on the algorithms used, this can have the effect of turning some of the recorded data off and others on, creating greater spatial resolution, hence more contrast and apparent sharpness.
It is needless to point out that the receptors in our eyes function in a very similar fashion, so even though color images register much more detail, they appear less sharp than a black & white image because the monochrome image strips things down to the basics, so to speak, so you are only dealing with contours and edges without the distracting additional details of hue and saturation.
Partially for the same reason an engraving or a woodcut is sharper than color painting--contrast. The eye perceives variations in light and dark as having greater contrast than variations in color, and contrast is one of the primary criteria of sharpness. When the motion pictures were experimenting with color in the 1920s and 1930s, the early color prints seemed flat and less sharp than the black & white films people were used to seeing. It was Technicolor that came up with a process which used dye transfer methods to apply the three primary subtractive colors (yellow, cyan, magenta), not on a clear film base, but on a black and white print of the image. The silver emulsion image produced the contrast needed to make the image appear sharper than the color print alone.
There is also the issue of the sensors used to record the image, and this is the case whether the image is captured digitally or on film. The light striking color sensors has to register on three separate areas as it is physically impossible for the red, green, and blue sensors to occupy the same physical space. (Granted, we are talking about variations in position which are very minute). As a result, at the edges of the variations in color you don't often have a sharp break between the adjacent colors, but more of a mosaic effect. Now digital cameras record color, and not just light and dark, so a monochrome of a digital image is simply an interpolation of this mosaic, but depending on the algorithms used, this can have the effect of turning some of the recorded data off and others on, creating greater spatial resolution, hence more contrast and apparent sharpness.
It is needless to point out that the receptors in our eyes function in a very similar fashion, so even though color images register much more detail, they appear less sharp than a black & white image because the monochrome image strips things down to the basics, so to speak, so you are only dealing with contours and edges without the distracting additional details of hue and saturation.
12HuxleyTheCat
>9 affle: >10 Django6924: Thanks, Alan, for the interest, and Robert for the explanation, to which I'll add a few comments.
"Black-and-white photography is accepted as a stylized medium; values are intentionally accented or subdued in reference to their "photometric-equivalent" value. There is little or no "reality" in the blacks, grays and whites of either the informational or expressive black-and-white image, and yet we have learned to interpret these values as "real"." Ansel Adams
Today, digital photography is all about manipulation. The vast majority of photographic images which are taken using current technology, consist of compressed data files (think CD or mp3 in audio) to which in-camera (or smartphone) software has automatically provided a certain set of 'tweaks' (sharpening, colour temperature, contrast etc) to produce the image which we see. A smaller number of photographs are shot in RAW, which is uncompressed, and needs the 'tweaking' to be done via some form of external software programme in order to produce the final image. These RAW data files are full of the potential to be manipulated in a myriad of different ways in order to accentuate or detract, to highlight or to blur. The simple fact, is, when working ('tweaking') a B&W we have far more latitude to push the tweaking and produce results which we still perceive as 'real' (re. the Ansel Adams quote) than if the image was viewed in colour, and the software which I use allows me to extract more detail (or at least to extract more easily) in terms of texture than the software which I use for colour images. Am I adding in anything which isn't there? No, all the data is there in the uncompressed file, I am simply choosing to highlight certain elements of it and the software allows me to do that.
"Black-and-white photography is accepted as a stylized medium; values are intentionally accented or subdued in reference to their "photometric-equivalent" value. There is little or no "reality" in the blacks, grays and whites of either the informational or expressive black-and-white image, and yet we have learned to interpret these values as "real"." Ansel Adams
Today, digital photography is all about manipulation. The vast majority of photographic images which are taken using current technology, consist of compressed data files (think CD or mp3 in audio) to which in-camera (or smartphone) software has automatically provided a certain set of 'tweaks' (sharpening, colour temperature, contrast etc) to produce the image which we see. A smaller number of photographs are shot in RAW, which is uncompressed, and needs the 'tweaking' to be done via some form of external software programme in order to produce the final image. These RAW data files are full of the potential to be manipulated in a myriad of different ways in order to accentuate or detract, to highlight or to blur. The simple fact, is, when working ('tweaking') a B&W we have far more latitude to push the tweaking and produce results which we still perceive as 'real' (re. the Ansel Adams quote) than if the image was viewed in colour, and the software which I use allows me to extract more detail (or at least to extract more easily) in terms of texture than the software which I use for colour images. Am I adding in anything which isn't there? No, all the data is there in the uncompressed file, I am simply choosing to highlight certain elements of it and the software allows me to do that.
13affle
>12 HuxleyTheCat:
This is also illuminating, thank you, Fiona. I knew, of course, from all the fourteen settings on the dial on top of my camera, and all the intimidating options on the little screen, that there were tweaking possibilities, but 'auto' is a lot smarter than I am. I was encouraged to look up RAW files in the manual: they make their bow on page 77, a lot further on than I ever read when the camera was new. Do you get more satisfaction from capturing the data eg in using candlelight, or presenting them in the way you describe? For a snapshot person like me, it's clearly nearly all the former - bar the occasional bit of cropping, as the software does all the presentation.
This is also illuminating, thank you, Fiona. I knew, of course, from all the fourteen settings on the dial on top of my camera, and all the intimidating options on the little screen, that there were tweaking possibilities, but 'auto' is a lot smarter than I am. I was encouraged to look up RAW files in the manual: they make their bow on page 77, a lot further on than I ever read when the camera was new. Do you get more satisfaction from capturing the data eg in using candlelight, or presenting them in the way you describe? For a snapshot person like me, it's clearly nearly all the former - bar the occasional bit of cropping, as the software does all the presentation.
14HuxleyTheCat
>13 affle: For me it's a homogeneous process. I will 'see' an image, or have an image in mind, then do my best to capture it at the picture taking stage, and then, in the processing stage, try to realise as closely as possible those things which made me want to capture that image in the first place - quite often I will be walking around and see something in Black and White in my mind's eye. I love the whole process, from thinking about and researching the capabilities of the equipment (Gear Acquisition Syndrome is as insidious as FAD!), going out and taking pictures (if I take my camera then I am far more aware of the world immediately around me than if I don't have it), getting home and eagerly transferring the files to see what I have and then the whole process of working on them. It's a wonderful blend of technology and art, and for myself, someone who is very 'arty' without any artistic ability whatsoever, it is a way of producing something which hopefully has some visual merit. All that probably sounds pretentious, but what it boils down to is that digital has been a total blessing for me, as it gives me almost complete control, from first to last. The latitude of RAW combined with the capabilities of modern cameras, mean that the technical precision of shooting with film is not required - being a lazy individual, this is very good news for me, as I was never into the discipline of writing down the exact exposure and circumstances of each shot in a little book, which is what made my better half a much better technical photographer than I will ever be.
15Django6924
I normally don't post links to other websites, but in view of affle's original question, and the subsequent discussion about B&W versus color photography, I hope Fiona won't object. The subject mattered has fascinated me since I was an adolescent, and continues to fascinate me:
http://twistedsifter.com/2015/11/colorized-photos-from-the-1920s-discovery-of-ki...
http://twistedsifter.com/2015/11/colorized-photos-from-the-1920s-discovery-of-ki...
16HuxleyTheCat
>15 Django6924: A most interesting read, particularly as I recently read the Folio Society edition of The Tomb of Tutankhamun, which is profusely illustrated with Burton's photographs (in the original b&w of course) and which has an accompanying volume of recently taken colour images of many of the artifacts. Particularly given the conditions under which he was working, Burton's photography is exceptional, and I don't think that the colourisation really adds anything by way of my understanding of what the scenes and artifacts look like, but they have certainly been very well executed, and are a far cry from the hand-coloured photographs which the term colourisation tends to conjure, but which undoubtedly have a big charm. Something struck me though: having read through the book, and being absorbed by the original photographs, the volume of artifact images - which I turned to at certain points when individual objects were being described in detail - came as such a wonderfully vibrant contrast, that it really added to my experience of the book, and I'm not sure if the colourised images had been used in the book itself, whether I would have had that same feeling. That's not a criticism of this project, far from it, as I applaud the rationale, it's simply an observation.
Like you, Robert, I have been fascinated by the subject matter since I was a youngster, my interest being particularly piqued by my older brother being able to see the original artifacts (including the death mask) at the British Museum exhibition on a school trip - oh how I envied him! (even with his description of queuing for hours, and the rather scary stories of 'the curse' which was supposed to afflict anyone who dared to look at the mask - kids eh!). I was too young to go, and those objects never leave Egypt these days. I'd love to visit that NY exhibition.
Like you, Robert, I have been fascinated by the subject matter since I was a youngster, my interest being particularly piqued by my older brother being able to see the original artifacts (including the death mask) at the British Museum exhibition on a school trip - oh how I envied him! (even with his description of queuing for hours, and the rather scary stories of 'the curse' which was supposed to afflict anyone who dared to look at the mask - kids eh!). I was too young to go, and those objects never leave Egypt these days. I'd love to visit that NY exhibition.
17Django6924
Fiona, I agree: I applaud the execution of the colorization, but find that the color interferes, not only with the appreciation of the detail revealed, but also with Burton's considerable skill and artistry.
As for the rationale--that color is how the archaeologists experienced the excavations and discoveries--all I can say is while I know that is true, it does not change my own particular perception of the experience. Many events in history have for me their greatest reality in the B&W images I have seen, and even when color images of the same events are available, they seem less real--or perhaps just less memorable--than the B&W records. This thought particularly struck me back in the early 1990s when I saw a documentary culled from the 16mm Kodachrome movies George Stevens and his film crew shot in Europe during WW II and released as "D-Day to Berlin." Fascinating though the footage is, it did not seem real, somehow. I thought of Bosquet's comment on the Charge of the Light Brigade: "C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre."
Of course I grew up at a time when most movies, television, and newspapers and magazines were B&W, and that has surely conditioned my thoughts; most of the under-30 age group today seems to find B&W almost unwatchable.
As for the rationale--that color is how the archaeologists experienced the excavations and discoveries--all I can say is while I know that is true, it does not change my own particular perception of the experience. Many events in history have for me their greatest reality in the B&W images I have seen, and even when color images of the same events are available, they seem less real--or perhaps just less memorable--than the B&W records. This thought particularly struck me back in the early 1990s when I saw a documentary culled from the 16mm Kodachrome movies George Stevens and his film crew shot in Europe during WW II and released as "D-Day to Berlin." Fascinating though the footage is, it did not seem real, somehow. I thought of Bosquet's comment on the Charge of the Light Brigade: "C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre."
Of course I grew up at a time when most movies, television, and newspapers and magazines were B&W, and that has surely conditioned my thoughts; most of the under-30 age group today seems to find B&W almost unwatchable.
18ironjaw
What a good discussion. I never knew the distinction between colour and b&w was such.
Fiona thank you for this initiative. You've rekindled my interest in photography. Back in college I had a film camera and took b&w portraits but never really got into the theory behind it and heavily relied on the auto dial.
I would love to learn more about photography.
I just find today's conversations about taking 2000 photos on a holiday from colleagues amusing . It's beyond belief that people are documenting everything with their cameras without taking a moment to pause because they have a digital camera.
Fiona thank you for this initiative. You've rekindled my interest in photography. Back in college I had a film camera and took b&w portraits but never really got into the theory behind it and heavily relied on the auto dial.
I would love to learn more about photography.
I just find today's conversations about taking 2000 photos on a holiday from colleagues amusing . It's beyond belief that people are documenting everything with their cameras without taking a moment to pause because they have a digital camera.
19affle
>15 Django6924:
Thanks for the link, Robert. I can imagine, as a usually casual viewer of photographs, being deceived by the colourised versions seen on their own, perhaps because as well as having the colour they seem to have been modernised, as it were, by rather brighter lighting. A keen photographer friend (semi-flippantly) distinguishes his pictures as 'art' or 'narrative'; here we are clearly in the realm of narrative, very well done by Burton, and because we know the colour is not really part of the narrative, there is a sense of fake rather than enhancement, however painstaking the research to authenticate the colour choices. A side track: what research led the creators to the colour of the lining of Lord Carnarvon's overcoat? And why on earth did the noble lord need an overcoat as well as a three-piece tweed suit? Not how I remember the temperature in the Valley of the Kings… Overall, this thread is encouraging me to think harder about viewer perception issues in looking at photographs. Thank you.
Thanks for the link, Robert. I can imagine, as a usually casual viewer of photographs, being deceived by the colourised versions seen on their own, perhaps because as well as having the colour they seem to have been modernised, as it were, by rather brighter lighting. A keen photographer friend (semi-flippantly) distinguishes his pictures as 'art' or 'narrative'; here we are clearly in the realm of narrative, very well done by Burton, and because we know the colour is not really part of the narrative, there is a sense of fake rather than enhancement, however painstaking the research to authenticate the colour choices. A side track: what research led the creators to the colour of the lining of Lord Carnarvon's overcoat? And why on earth did the noble lord need an overcoat as well as a three-piece tweed suit? Not how I remember the temperature in the Valley of the Kings… Overall, this thread is encouraging me to think harder about viewer perception issues in looking at photographs. Thank you.
20scholasticus
>18 ironjaw:
Exactly, Faisel!
I'll freely admit I used to be in that camp - I'd go on a week-long trip and return with 3000, 4000 photos. My truncated trip recently - thank you kindly, terrorism(!) - I only took about 2100 photos, and many of these were duplicates just so I can pick the best one of the lot.
Not too bad for 4 weeks in Europe as that works out to only about 67 photos a day on average, I must say. I actually made a rule of NOT taking photos at all on my first day in each city, with some exceptions - i.e. if I was visiting a museum, etc. that day that I would not return to again, such as the Orangerie on my first day in Paris. (I am definitely returning there next fall, as I was incredibly taken by Monet's Water Lilies, even though I had seen it a million times in photos and DVDs. Ditto for Renoir's Jeunes filles au piano.)
Best commentary on this was when I told people that when I changed planes in Amsterdam and I told KLM I was coming from Paris (this was 15 November), they moved me up to first class. The very first comment 99% of people have made to me is, 'Did you take pictures?!' Geez, people. Just because I didn't take a damned picture of this or that doesn't mean I wasn't there! I know full well I was in first class on KLM, believe me. ;)
Loved it. Don't regret not taking 10 billion photos. Much more fun just looking at things with my eyes, thankyouverymuch.
And now that I'm home, I've realised something else. The act of not taking a picture also makes something even more personal, as it's not something you can share as easily as a photo. Certainly, I can describe my experience wandering about the Tuileries Gardens before and after visiting the Orangerie, but it's not the same as showing a photo (of which I have none, merely because I had been intending on returning to the gardens on the day I visited the Palais Royal and Louvre).
Exactly, Faisel!
I'll freely admit I used to be in that camp - I'd go on a week-long trip and return with 3000, 4000 photos. My truncated trip recently - thank you kindly, terrorism(!) - I only took about 2100 photos, and many of these were duplicates just so I can pick the best one of the lot.
Not too bad for 4 weeks in Europe as that works out to only about 67 photos a day on average, I must say. I actually made a rule of NOT taking photos at all on my first day in each city, with some exceptions - i.e. if I was visiting a museum, etc. that day that I would not return to again, such as the Orangerie on my first day in Paris. (I am definitely returning there next fall, as I was incredibly taken by Monet's Water Lilies, even though I had seen it a million times in photos and DVDs. Ditto for Renoir's Jeunes filles au piano.)
Best commentary on this was when I told people that when I changed planes in Amsterdam and I told KLM I was coming from Paris (this was 15 November), they moved me up to first class. The very first comment 99% of people have made to me is, 'Did you take pictures?!' Geez, people. Just because I didn't take a damned picture of this or that doesn't mean I wasn't there! I know full well I was in first class on KLM, believe me. ;)
Loved it. Don't regret not taking 10 billion photos. Much more fun just looking at things with my eyes, thankyouverymuch.
And now that I'm home, I've realised something else. The act of not taking a picture also makes something even more personal, as it's not something you can share as easily as a photo. Certainly, I can describe my experience wandering about the Tuileries Gardens before and after visiting the Orangerie, but it's not the same as showing a photo (of which I have none, merely because I had been intending on returning to the gardens on the day I visited the Palais Royal and Louvre).
21affle
>20 scholasticus:
I hope you'll share the odd word picture of your travels, Greg, perhaps on the thread where you asked for advice, or elsewhere.
I hope you'll share the odd word picture of your travels, Greg, perhaps on the thread where you asked for advice, or elsewhere.
22scholasticus
>21 affle:
Oh, I have plans to do that, though it'll likely wait to January given how close we are to Christmas. Might get one or two up over the hols, though, but don't count on it.
Oh, I have plans to do that, though it'll likely wait to January given how close we are to Christmas. Might get one or two up over the hols, though, but don't count on it.
23HuxleyTheCat
>18 ironjaw: >20 scholasticus: I think two things are being a little conflated here. The ability to take pictures in this day and age is ubiquitous, and apparently there is an insatiable appetite to document every moment of one's life and lay it open for others to see. Perhaps that is what drives many with the multiple thousand images from a holiday and, perhaps too, that it is the same impulse which leads to so many folk sitting at a concert, play or sporting event, and watching the entire thing on the screen of their smartphone. To my mind, those people separate and isolate themselves from the experience that they have paid to see and be a part of. The flip side of this is that personally I often feel a far greater awareness of my surroundings when I do have my camera, in that I am actively looking for things, small or large, which are interesting or aesthetically appealing, or meaningful to me in some way. Sometimes I am torn: if I go to a museum in a city which I am unlikely to visit again, I have to be very conscious of taking in those artworks which I wish to see, and 'also' being aware of the opportunities which may present themselves for an interesting photograph - one of my favourite photographic subjects is the interaction of people with art. Earlier this year I unexpectedly got the opportunity to attend the European Rugby Cup Final, which took place in London between two French teams. I knew it would be a colourful affair and that it would provide plenty of opportunities for some good photographs. I came home with about 300 shots, and many are among my favourite of my photographs of people: there's the young boy riding on his dad's shoulders with the flag of Toulon streaming behind him and looking for all the world like a 21st century denizen of Les Miserables; there's the very large West Indian security guard with a smile that would melt icebergs; there's the two men of Clermont-Ferrand in a joyful embrace; in one image the victorious supporter is quietly tasting satisfaction; while in another the loser contemplates the meaning of defeat. Those things sum up the day and in many ways sum up the game I love, and if I didn't have my camera I don't think I would have noticed them and I certainly wouldn't have them etched in my memory. As for the game itself, my camera went in my bag and I watched it with my own eyes.
>19 affle: The amount of words written about the artistic (or otherwise) nature and merit of photography would fill multiple libraries. My own view is that while some images fall easily into narrative/documentary categories while others are clearly more artistic, it is altogether possible to have both those qualities within a single shot.
>19 affle: The amount of words written about the artistic (or otherwise) nature and merit of photography would fill multiple libraries. My own view is that while some images fall easily into narrative/documentary categories while others are clearly more artistic, it is altogether possible to have both those qualities within a single shot.
24scholasticus
>23 HuxleyTheCat:
Very good points and well-taken Fiona. I would add that there's also another dimension, that of convenience. With 'old-fashioned' (as people my generation unfortunately say more often than not!) film cameras, you had to be even more thoughtful about which opportunities to capture and which to turn down. This isn't an issue with digital cameras, so you can take a photo literally at any moment you have your camera/phone handy. This, to me, undercuts the point of thoughtful photography in terms of learning about composition, &c - and I freely admit that I am still very much a beginner in this regard, though there is one particular photo (out of several) from my trip that turned out quite well, so I just may be brave enough to post it on here in the coming weeks. It's a photo I took at the Basilica of Saint-Denis so of course medieval stained glass is involved, but - surprisingly enough given my general dislike of nineteenth-century neoclassical sculpture - the monument to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette features prominently as well. Oddly enough, I thought of Carlyle's 'French Revolution'(!) when I took this photograph. (Sorry, Louis and Marie Antoinette!)
That's also what I felt in terms of places I knew I would visit only once: that tug between seeing what I wanted to see and being open to spontaneity. Granted, I should say that I much prefer photos without people, so architectural photos are the lion's share of the photos from my trip. I'm such a misanthrope, I know. ;) Perhaps I'll rectify this one of these years.
Very good points and well-taken Fiona. I would add that there's also another dimension, that of convenience. With 'old-fashioned' (as people my generation unfortunately say more often than not!) film cameras, you had to be even more thoughtful about which opportunities to capture and which to turn down. This isn't an issue with digital cameras, so you can take a photo literally at any moment you have your camera/phone handy. This, to me, undercuts the point of thoughtful photography in terms of learning about composition, &c - and I freely admit that I am still very much a beginner in this regard, though there is one particular photo (out of several) from my trip that turned out quite well, so I just may be brave enough to post it on here in the coming weeks. It's a photo I took at the Basilica of Saint-Denis so of course medieval stained glass is involved, but - surprisingly enough given my general dislike of nineteenth-century neoclassical sculpture - the monument to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette features prominently as well. Oddly enough, I thought of Carlyle's 'French Revolution'(!) when I took this photograph. (Sorry, Louis and Marie Antoinette!)
That's also what I felt in terms of places I knew I would visit only once: that tug between seeing what I wanted to see and being open to spontaneity. Granted, I should say that I much prefer photos without people, so architectural photos are the lion's share of the photos from my trip. I'm such a misanthrope, I know. ;) Perhaps I'll rectify this one of these years.
25HuxleyTheCat
>24 scholasticus: Please do share the photos from your trip Greg.
In some ways I'm glad I learned photography pre-digital, as, from a technical perspective, using a film camera was undoubtedly more difficult and some things will have stuck, but the advantages of being able to immediately see one's results and freely experiment are huge pluses. In terms of learning composition, studying art is always going to be more beneficial than a camera's user manual. Personally I learned a lot from reading about the medieval illuminators and some of what I learned has filtered into my photography - perhaps not in a formal way, such as applying the rule of thirds etc, but I think subtly.
I used to feel exactly the same about taking pictures of people, but it has to be said that people do make endlessly fascinating subjects, and once that initial reluctance to 'intrude' was broken, I became very happy to take pictures with people as subject - always being very careful to do so with respect.
In some ways I'm glad I learned photography pre-digital, as, from a technical perspective, using a film camera was undoubtedly more difficult and some things will have stuck, but the advantages of being able to immediately see one's results and freely experiment are huge pluses. In terms of learning composition, studying art is always going to be more beneficial than a camera's user manual. Personally I learned a lot from reading about the medieval illuminators and some of what I learned has filtered into my photography - perhaps not in a formal way, such as applying the rule of thirds etc, but I think subtly.
I used to feel exactly the same about taking pictures of people, but it has to be said that people do make endlessly fascinating subjects, and once that initial reluctance to 'intrude' was broken, I became very happy to take pictures with people as subject - always being very careful to do so with respect.
26affle
I'm much more comfortable thinking about colour and form in painting than in photography, so I hope you'll forgive an off-topic, but related to the discussion above, recommendation for a rather wonderful little - one room - exhibition on just that at the Courtauld in London. Bridget Riley was much influenced by Seurat, and the exhibition shows Seurat's well-known painting of the Bridge at Courbevoie from the Courtauld's collection, a copy it of made by Riley when she was exploring his technique, a pointillist landscape of her own, and four more paintings from a twenty-five year period as Riley develops her ideas on colour and form from those pointillist beginnings into her characteristic geometry and stripes. Worth a look if you're near, and as a bonus you can look round London's best small gallery.
27HuxleyTheCat
There's always so much to do in London - three exhibitions at the BM currently on my 'must see' list - then there's the RA, the Maritime Museum, The Photographers Gallery, The Saatchi Gallery, I just read about a Helmut Newton exhibition in Fulham, the list is endless.
28HuxleyTheCat
I've added a new batch of Folios (plus) by candlelight: https://www.flickr.com/photos/135703194@N04/
30HuxleyTheCat
>29 affle: To my shame I had to google her...
32HuxleyTheCat
>31 affle: I love the IoW; visiting is like being in a timewarp.
I can't remember where I saw it, but just a few days ago, I was looking at something which posed the question concerning how many famous female photographers there were. Off the top of my head I could only name three, which is a bit of a rubbish state of affairs really, as I know that there are, and have been, a considerable number of very talented women behind the lens.
I can't remember where I saw it, but just a few days ago, I was looking at something which posed the question concerning how many famous female photographers there were. Off the top of my head I could only name three, which is a bit of a rubbish state of affairs really, as I know that there are, and have been, a considerable number of very talented women behind the lens.
33Django6924
Fiona, you should be able to name Rose Covarrubias....
34HuxleyTheCat
>33 Django6924: My ignorance knows no bounds.
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