A factory

I like it, I think you caught the factory environment.

I like it as well but Im a newbiew so much studying to do and my major is environmental biology.

solveproblems said:

solveproblems wrote:

Click to expand...

I think these are very nice. They have very 'clean' uncluttered compositions with well judged exposures. Shooting into the light in the second image is very effective I think.

There is wonderful IQ and processing in all of the images. You have shown the capabilities of the Nex really well - excellent dynamic range.

Great shots.

Paul



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nt

Ok, a go at critiquing:

Firstly a nice set. I think these definitely fall into a documentary tradition, and I feel would work best in an editorial context, as opposed to gallery. Perhaps as part of a reportage piece, text would add to these rather than take away from.

I think as a set it's a mistake to mix colour and B&W. If you do this it makes a conceptual break, it's harder to consider the work as a whole. I think I can follow your choices, see why different images were chosen for their treatment. Processing is certainly one of your strengths, maybe you should reconsider the B&W images and try for a colour image that, in much the same way as the monochrome, is articulating light and structure. Maybe pare down the colour? There's nothing wrong with any of the images individually, but as a set I think here they would be stronger all in colour.

My only real hesitancy is in where the interest, conceptually falls. I feel little in the way of engagement with the workers. Watching documentary photographers work I'm often struck by how hard they work at talking with, building a relationship with their subjects. This can really come through in the photo. For me the line between street and documentary might fall somewhere around here: Rather than the cool, dissociated gaze that street often employs, documentary is necessarily interested, involved. I would say you need to decide where the focus lies, the environment or the personal. I believe you've chosen environment, photographing the workers as part of that environment. That's fine but I thin it's ill served by presenting an image of someone as the first photograph. That sets the tone and to focus on a person in this context sets off on the wrong foot. I'd start with the silhouetted workers in the doorway, a strong image that shows people, but people as and adjunct to the structure of the environment, and photographs people in a way that is de-personalising.

You may have done this and it just didn't work, but I think if you'd taken another group of images at a different focal length the change in perspective might have given a visual spike, leave the group richer. Of course, you might have lost a consistency that's pleasing in itself. A 50 equivalent might have just been enough of a change-up.

All in all a nice set and good work. Your colour processing is especially strong and considering the high ISOs, really clean and crisp, which contrasts nicely with the ambience of a factory.

Dear Brandon (?),

Thank you for your criticism, I think I agree with what you say. Processing is a minor problem, but the lack of engagement troubles me strongly. I visited the factory with a groop of schoolchildren, and photographing was not encouraged (although it was not prohibited), so I had to stay in the "street" paradigm.

With best regards,

Andrey

http://www.flickr.com/photos/solveproblems/

Excellent critique by BlankOo..Though I do like to see a mix of B/w and colour. Sod convention!

I think it's a great set, wonderful use of lighting.