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>>>>> Challenge 65: Angles - Part 2 <<<<<

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JimH

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Hello everyone!

Welcome to part 2 of the official thread for Challenge 65: Angles.

A recap of the original thread's Orignial post:

Angles

Acute angles, Obtuse angles, Right angles, Complementary angles, Supplementary angles, Vertical Angles, Alternate interior angles, Alternate exterior angles, Corresponding angles. Hey, I found all of that at a mathematics site. I even know what some of it means.

But this challenge is not about math or geometry unless you want it to be. What I've got in mind is the visual aspect of angles. Particularly as they relate to how we see things.

Angles are everywhere. We use or feature them in our photos without even thinking about it. And that's fine. Sometimes you can think too much about things and spoil the flow.

But I'm hoping this challenge theme will stimulate us all to come up with some interesting ideas featuring angles as a prominent theme in our photographs.

I also thought this might be a nice compliment to the previous challenge theme of "Round". Not that circles are not related to angles, of course, but I think you get the idea :)
So let’s see some angles, everyone. And most of all, have fun!

Challenge Rules: http://www.pbase.com/cslr_challenge/image/46610487

CSLR Challenges FAQ: Everything you wanted to know
http://www.pbase.com/cslr_challenge/faq

Galleries can be found here: http://www.pbase.com/cslr_challenge/cslr65_angles

Challenge Starts: Friday, April 7th 2006 0:00 UTC
Challenge Ends: Tuesday, April 18th 2006 23:59 UTC
Voting Begins: Wednesday April 19th 2006 0:00 UTC
Voting Ends: Thursday April 20th 2006 23:59 UTC

So far we've got some nice angles in the galleries.

There are a couple more days to get your entries in, and everyone is welcome to participate!

--
Jim H.
 
...I love the fact that these Challenges force me to process images.

Be that as it may, after some very gracious words from Grant, I wrote a rant of sorts, here:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=18066165

Hehe, I hate to let a good rant go to waste...and, looking for Orthodox Chruch services for someone (if you can help, why not?)...I happened to run across an angular image that...plainly needed to be re-worked.

Here is that effort at seeing the whole of the Thing placed in Exhibition:

http://www.pbase.com/cslr_challenge/image/58776322

Best Wishes,

Traveller
 
Hello all.

I have moved all of the oversized photos to the Pending gallery now.

Normally, I would not be so hasty, but since I won't be in town or near a PC for at least a day and maybe two days, I figured I'd do it now.

If you know how to get ahold of any of the victims of this terrible oppression, please let them know that their photos have been moved and that all they need to do is to resize them, replace the photo in "Pending" with the resized shot, and then move that photo back into the proper gallery.

If you do this by going into "Edit This Gallery" in Pending and then putting a check mark in the "select" box for the photo, and then using the "Move selected items to another gallery" feature, sending the photo to either "cslr65_exhibition" or "cslr65_eligible", not only will the new photo be placed into the gallery, but all of the comments will be preserved and move right along with it too.

A lot of good photos are in Pending. Let's get 'em resized and moved back where they belong :)

I will try to look back in on things as soon as I have access to an internet connected PC.

Thanks everyone!

--
Jim H.
 
Can I deputize you to watch the galleries and keep order around here while I’m out and about? That’d be really neat :)

Thanks

--
Jim H.
 
...you duty was not brutal, just necessary.

And you handle this difficult task with a certain sepf-depreciating charm.

People are already fixing their images and reposting.

Best Wishes,

Traveller
 
...Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges...lol

Certainly, Jim, I'd be honored to hold the fort down as you move deep into the South...Victor way.

I think Techno or a dozen other people would be better suited, but I will just call on them to head out into the dusty street, Pistolas at hand, at the ready.

Between all of us, everything will be Okay...We'll even get the Voting Thread set up.

But who turns on the Voting Booth? Jack? Or is it automatic?

Still, not to worry.

Have a Great Trip....but be sure to vote...lol

Best Wishes,

Traveller
 
...I just tired to send you a private email with the normal apologizes for intruding on your time...but it bounced back.

Should I try again or forget it?

Best Wishes,

Traveller
 
Traveller said:
...I love the fact that these Challenges force me to process images.

Be that as it may, after some very gracious words from Grant, I
wrote a rant of sorts, here:
Click to expand...
I read it and to a point I agree with you. There are loads of great travel, journalistic and sports pics in the challenge galleries when barely get a glance. Lots of stuff going on in them, stories being told and yet they get passed over for the barebones artistic photos.

I don't agree with you on cropping. I hardly ever crop my pics...maybe a tad after I've straightened a crooked horizon, but what you see in the final piece is the scene I looked at through the viewfinder.

And I never crop to the point where I couldn't get a good, detailed 12x8 from it. That would be a total waste of my lovely camera.

Thanks to you and Richard for your wonderful words about my Jaunty Angle pic. I traded Bry ten minutes of wearing my hat for a portrait shoot.

I feel like I've barely participated in this challenge, my mental energy has been elsewhere (wedding shoot) for the past few weeks, so I was happy that I actually found time today to shoot something for the eligible gallery rather than just choose something that fit the theme from the pics I've taken over the weekends.

Cheers,

Gayle
--

'We don't make a photograph with just a camera. We bring to the act of photography all the books we have read, the movies we have seen, the music we have heard and the people we have loved.' Ansel Adams



http://www.shot2shot.com
http://www.pbase.com/gayleknowles/
 
...proved my point.

It doesn't have to be travel or landscapes that contain a richness of detail, a simple, but extremely well executed, Portrait can have a wealth of beautiful and fine detail.

One of these days I promise myself that I'll do something like this myself.

Thanks for the inspiration.

Best Wishes,

Traveller
 
I really do like that one.

I read your rant, and I have my ideas about all of this (gee, imagine that!).

I have never taken any art classes (except in jr. high school) or really even done any study of art principals or technique. So my concepts of all of this are based on - well, I'm not sure what they're based on, actually.

But it has been my observation that people are really drawn to a painting or photograph which contains mainly one bold theme or element. And the more “busy” one makes a photo, the more it can detract from the impact of the shot if it’s not done carefully.

Now that's not to say that a lot of fine detail in a shot is bad. But it's just that it seems to be the case that if you can emphasize one major theme or element, the photo tends to "work" better.

Landscapes obviously benefit from a lot of fine details, and really, other shots can too. But it seems like one still always does best to try to reduce or condense things into a fairly simple and bold pattern. The fine details need to enhance that main theme.

Maybe the fine details need to be in “harmony” with the main theme. You don’t want to have dissonance unless it’s part of the plan.

If you have “medium” details, then perhaps they need to echo the main theme in some way or “play in tune” with it so that they add to the overall theme. I think that often a good photo will be seen to have one main dominant theme.

Maybe the human brain is comforted or soothed when things are obvious. A lot of fine detail to support the main theme is good so that the longer you look, the more fun things your mind can find to entertain it. But it’s as if we want to feel that we understand things right away and then have the fine details there to allow us to continue to explore and find new elements – but not have them contradict the main theme.

I’m just guessing about all of this. I’m sure there is some kind of psychological theory for what makes art “pleasing”.

But I have to say that I don't usually think about any of this when I'm taking a photo. I mainly just look through the finder and try to make what I see be pleasing to me. If I’m pleased, then maybe others will be. And the same goes for cropping and processing later.

If you like what you see immediately, then you’ve got to be on the right track.

Maybe the best of all situations is to have a good, bold main theme but have it be supported by a lot of fine details to keep the viewer interested.

I tend to think in terms of music as an analogy for most art, I guess.

And it seems to me that although I frequently find that I like a musical piece right away, often the ones that I end up loving deeply are ones that I didn’t care for immediately. Perhaps the extra complexity of such music is hard to come to terms with right off but once I’ve had a chance to hear it a number of times, I come to appreciate the more obscure patterns in the piece.

The same should be true for a photo or painting, but the problem is that just like with music, most folks won’t force themselves to look at something that they don’t “get” right away. You need a strong, simple melody to suck them in and then you can blast them with the intricate details once you’ve already gotten their attention.

I remember the first time I ever listened to Beethoven’s 9th symphony. I had heard the famous and much abused “Ode to Joy” theme, of course, and (dating myself here) I’d heard one excellent melody from the 2nd movement every night as the theme for the nightly news. And based on that, I knew that this had to be an awesome work.

And sure enough, when I checked out an LP version of it from the local library, I found that I immediately wanted to hear the familiar themes from it. But after listening to the whole thing over and over, I came to love other, perhaps more subtle parts of it even more. This is one of those cases where for whatever reason, just thinking about it brings tears to my eyes. Pretty odd, but true.

So maybe a photo needs to sucker the viewer in with a strong, simple theme and then wow them with fine details after the first assault has them in it’s grip.

To me this is a lot like trying to figure out why people even like music. What is it about a sequence of sounds that can be so appealing? And what is the difference between a piece that is catchy, but “wears out” in a hurry versus a piece that takes some getting used to but ends up being a long-term favorite?

I tend to think that our minds enjoy “being in on” the joke. We immediately like hearing something that is simple or obvious enough to let us hear the pattern immediately. In essence, we enjoy following along in our mind when we know the pattern ahead of time for some reason. And a simple pattern is easier to follow.

But then, if the piece is going to give some lasting pleasure, it needs to have many levels of subtle detail to give us something to learn as we continue to listen. So a really great piece has both the obvious and the obscure. All in harmony.

In a photo, perhaps the obvious gets us to like the shot immediately and the fine details are there to be appreciated as we “learn” them after a longer look. But as with music, the fine details need to be in harmony with the main theme.

And this is what I like about your shot “At 9:01am On One Lovely Day In Oklahoma Were Tears ”. There is a very strong and dominant theme that grabs my eye immediately. Yet there are subtle and fine details that please me the longer I look at it.

The overall shape grabs the eye. But the patterns of the different lights get me next. Then finer and finer details are visible. But they do not obscure the main pattern. They are in harmony with it.

I have one small niggle with it, but I’ll put that in the gallery where it belongs :)

Darn 6,000 character limit!!!

--
Jim H.
 
I knew I could count on you :)

The voting booth takes care of itself. We just need to be sure that everything is ship-shape in the galleries at the critical moment when the voting begins because the booth finalizes things based on what it sees at that moment.

So this should not be a problem.

Thanks again to Traveller and everyone!

--
Jim H.
 
I knew I could count on you folks!

Oops, I better get in gear and hit the road now! Thanks again everyone.

--
Jim H.
 
To be completely frank, the reason I presented an image without my face was because at the time I did the shoot, I was lacking on sleep, and my eyes were not very presentable. There's more to it than that, of course, but that was what ultimately made me choose a close-in framing.

I'd like to give you a better portrait than I did, but I have some dilemmas that I'm unsure how to fix.

The self timer is nice, but 10 seconds is really far too little time to move to the right location (I have to make sure I sit right at the plane of focus), get in proper position, make sure my beard and hair are properly positioned, keep the folds of my shirt from making ugly shadows, direct my face in the proper direction, and finally, acquire the right expression on my face. That last item is virtually impossible given everything that comes before it. I don't have an infrared release, but I do have a long bulb release, which I don't think can work with the 10D.

Then there is the question of lighting. I have to imagine the effect of the lighting setup because I can't be the subject and photographer at the same time, adjusting pose by what I see through the viewfinder. OTOH, digital allows for a fairly instant feedback mechanism.

I may recruit my daughter to help with a replacement, in which case she would be entered as the photographer instead of me (perhaps this is a whole nother subject needing discussion). She has had significant lighting training in a stage context and knows how to use various lighting schemes to achieve different things.

--
http://www.pbase.com/victorengel/

 
Jim,

I'm surprised you didn't mention that the way these challenges run we simply don't have time to acquire more than a cursory glimpse of most of the pictures. So there's naturally a pressure toward choosing images that have an immediate wow factor.
--
http://www.pbase.com/victorengel/

 
I guess you're right @ PS not being dedicated to printing.

That's cool that QI is updated so frequently. I guess they're really on the ball. Thanks for the user group link.

P.S. oooooooh, I liked those {{{{{direct hugs!}}}}}} and that's one fine leg in eligible :-)

LOL! Glad to amuse. :)

Lonnit

--
Please visit my gallery at http://pbase.com/lonnit

and offer your comments. Tell me what you like and what you don't, and why. I welcome all opinions. :)

 
...once in a while. This wasn't particularly targeted at you...but was used to advance an idea.

Which, I confess, may or may not be valid. Still, even or maybe especially, in art galleries or museums I gravitate toward and spend the most time with paintings that have a lot going on...so I suppose it natural that I would feel the same way about photography.

But....I do appreciate the simple, the clean, the striking...Grant and the Challenges have taught me that. And for this I am emensely grateful.

Best Wishes,

Traveller
 
I am wondering if this was targeted at me, and if so what are you appologising for?... You never took up any of my time, if anything I took up yours. About the email, for yourself and others that may want it, it be razadams at g male dot com.

About the 70-200 F/4 I had a 2.8 is version at my disposal, all I had to do was press the buy now buttton, and I could not. It was on a 10D for 2300NZD and I figured after selling the 10D I would still be paying quite a bit for the lens, and more than I could afford. I secided that for my needs F/4 would be ample, well I hope it will be. Pics from it look really nice, good colours and bokeh, so I am looking foward to it. On another note I have also decided to sel lthe Bigma, and purchase a 400mm F5.6 L prime, I am sick of the softnes sof the bigma. I figure if I am going to spend time photographing, I want the images I get back to be sharp, and good enough to hang on the wall. Here is an example of why I would like to change. Anyway I am glad the f/4 (70-200) gets your vote and I hope it ties in well with the Tamron 28-75.







Lata
Richard
--
Art is in the eye of the beholder
My opinion is one of many, and probably differs greatly from the norm.

 
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