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Recent scoldings......

Jim Galli

Member
FernandSpiderGrass.jpg

fern & spider grass

There has been some discourse about what we say or mostly don't say about each others photographs. I question this. We all see so differently and what is important to me is so un-important to you. I question the value. I look at about 90% of the work posted and to my troubled brain it's just a color snap shot. Should I say so? You look at my pictures and scratch your heads. It's out of focus? It's soft? Did he do that on purpose? Why? Who would want to look at a picture like that? So mostly you're nice and move on, as I also do. So much of this is preferential isn't it? There's really no right and no wrong to any of it. I've learned long ago not to try to change people in matters of the heart.

Done with a 135mm Hugo Meyer Atelier Schnellarbeiter f3 Petzval lens / Speed Graphic 4X5 / shot wide open on HP5 film.

I think it sings.
 

Jim Galli

Member
words are fun. Atelier Schnellarbeiter. Atelier is french for artists workshop, or we would say studio. Schnellarbeiter is german for fast worker, quick worker. So when this lens was made, f3 was lightning fast. I enjoy understanding.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
FernandSpiderGrass.jpg

fern & spider grass

There has been some discourse about what we say or mostly don't say about each others photographs. I question this. We all see so differently and what is important to me is so un-important to you. I question the value. I look at about 90% of the work posted and to my troubled brain it's just a color snap shot. Should I say so? You look at my pictures and scratch your heads. It's out of focus? It's soft? Did he do that on purpose? Why? Who would want to look at a picture like that? So mostly you're nice and move on, as I also do. So much of this is preferential isn't it? There's really no right and no wrong to any of it. I've learned long ago not to try to change people in matters of the heart.

Done with a 135mm Hugo Meyer Atelier Schnellarbeiter f3 Petzval lens / Speed Graphic 4X5 / shot wide open on HP5 film.

I think it sings.
Hi Jim,

People get miffed to the nth when they only get one type of picture. We need a spectrum of styles and to stimulate us. Even those we pass imprint our brains and must effect us.

I do go on, I guess, railing about razz ma taz color as it's an easy way to make a poorly constructed image catch the eye. The converse is true. Removing the color will often improve an awful picture if there's some redeeming structure to it!

This picture is impressive to me. My immediate reaction was that my heart turned upside down. That's a visceral response to the form of it. The floating of the larger leaf in front of the diverging leaves set deeper in 3D space but draw in just 2 dimensions. In OPF, our job is to enjoy such works and try to expand creative possibilities for each other.

So again, thanks for showing your work. Most folk are going to be inhibited from commenting. Others enjoy the work and move on. No one wants to say something that exposes their ignorance. I tread with trepidation.

We are so barraged with hype about even illumination, lack of barrel or other distortion and so forth that we end up with images drained of artistic individuality and character. So I among many others treasure your contributions and speaking for our silent minority, thanks!

Asher
 
Today I really am enjoying this image. I am not going to describe what I see in it or what I get from it because it will make no sense to anyone but me. Just rest assured that I do feel something when I look at it, and it is a good feeling by the way, and it will be in my memory banks forever. Tomorrow I may look at it again and not like it at all. Who knows and who cares really? My initial take will always be there for me to draw on when needed. I find my "feelings" about a photo, or a person, or a television show or movie, or whatever, have more to do with my emotional and spiritual state of mind at the time of seeing, watching, or meeting, than the subject being examined or watched or dealt with. It's one of those first impression kind of situations. If I see a photo or a movie or meet someone that I just do not get, or understand, or like, for whatever reason, I don't think there is anything that can be said or done that will ever change my mind completely in the other direction. That could possibly just be a defect in my brain or a flaw in my character but it's there nonetheless.

Today I like your photo and I am glad to have seen it. It added something new and unexpected to my existence. Thank you for that. Tomorrow may be a different story. If I see it again I will let you know.
James Newman
 

Mike Shimwell

New member
Jim, I like it and I like your description. I often feel that you have mastered composing for your lenses drawing pallette. Also, I've not really got along with HP5 in 35mm, but it looks so different in large format.

Is this a scanned print, or a scanof the neg? I'm interested in the colour and tonality of the pic.

Mike
 

Jim Galli

Member
Thanks all. Yes, this is a neg scan. HP5 was always on my don't bother list until I started using the Pyro Chatecol developers. Then it came to life. But I think I still would skip it in 35mm as it is pretty grainy.
 

Rachel Foster

New member
Ah, well, exposing ignorance. I'm fine with that, but I realize as someone with a lot to learn (who is actually quite comfortable with acknowledging said ignorance) my opinion is not valued by most. So, I say little about other images.

On the other hand, I learn a great deal from comments on my images, so I post and am grateful for whatever input I get, whether I agree with it or not.

I like your image, Jim, but what is more important is that you like it.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Ah, well, exposing ignorance. I'm fine with that, but I realize as someone with a lot to learn (who is actually quite comfortable with acknowledging said ignorance) my opinion is not valued by most. So, I say little about other images.
Rachel,

We don't aim at the "most" people, just some or even one or two and that would be fine. You for certain know that like is not sufficient. What do you like? You can't say? Then what do you feel? When you report that, you already have helped everyone since we now have a better idea of the sentiments that a work evokes. This is a contribution you can make without getting into areas where you are not "expert", whatever that might mean. To me it's a cop out and frankly unfair to just post and not give feedback to other photographers.

On the other hand, I learn a great deal from comments on my images, so I post and am grateful for whatever input I get, whether I agree with it or not.
. Of course you do, we all appreciate attention to our efforts. Now here's the rub. why should Cem, Nicolas, Jim or anyone else comment on you work when if you ignore theirs?

I like your image, Jim, but what is more important is that you like it.
Why?

It's obvious Jim likes the picture or he wouldn't have posted it, LOL! What's important is that we react to all creative work so we stimulate a broader and open approach to making images that work. Without being engaged, the brain will not assign much relevance so we shortchange ourselves. The edge of art comes from the temperature of the furnace and the fury of the hammer at the anvil.

So here I am giving another scalding!

Asher
 

Jim Galli

Member
What I enjoy is the learning process. When I focused this on the ground glass I did not see the phenomenon that appeared in the inverted scan. I wanted to shoot wide open so I did the best I could to balance the elements I could and could not get into focus. The main part of the looming leaf I knew would be out of focus (which breaks a mainstay rule to never have foreground elements out of focus), but I wanted the blades of the spider grass plant to grab your eye and give you an anchor or at least a starting point. What I discovered later is that the elements in focus behind the big leaf can be seen through the area of defocus. That transparency was a pleasant surprise. This neg has enough problems that I probably won't ever get serious about it, but I've got a whole new possibility to explore as a result. That's what makes it fun for me.
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
Hello Jim,
This image doesn't work for my eye for the following reasons.

1. It looks carelessly executed, rather like an error. It's hard to imagine, for example, that you really intended for that fern frond, which occupies half of the image, to be so badly out of focus. Or for the shallow focus plane to land back there in the chlorophytum leaves.

2. Speaking of those leaves, their general dishevelment presents a chaotic feeling that, unfortunately in this case, is destructive rather than constructive. That is, they're not doing anything to move the mind or the eye; they're just there, bent and fighting with each other.

Flora images are all about emotive response. At the most baseline level they must appear to be the result of deep premeditation. Focus must be precisely placed to create a compelling composition. Screw this up, or overlook its importance, and it's over for that shot.

The vintage of camera or lens used to record an image is only relevant or interesting to the extent that it enables the photographer to achieve results. But I don't care that you used such an old rig for this. I'd much rather see you use a more contemporary camera and devote yourself entirely toward results rather than means.

{Addendum} I wrote my response while you wrote yours, Jim. So I had not yet read your remarks when I wrote mine.
 

Jim Galli

Member
Hello Jim,
This image doesn't work for my eye for the following reasons.

1. It looks carelessly executed, rather like an error. It was. damn, found out.


2. The vintage of camera or lens used to record an image is only relevant or interesting to the extent that it enables the photographer to achieve results. But I don't care that you used such an old rig for this. I'd much rather see you use a more contemporary camera and devote yourself entirely toward results rather than means. the reason I made the picture was that I was going to offer the lens for sale and wanted to have something to show what a creative user could expect. The fact that it works at all, even if only for me, is of course, a happy accident. I fear for me to approach my photography with all the intenseness you've described would spoil my fun.


{Addendum} I wrote my response while you wrote yours, Jim. So I had not yet read your remarks when I wrote mine.

Thanks for an excellent critique! I very much appreciate it. jim out.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
................

Flora images are all about emotive response. At the most baseline level they must appear to be the result of deep premeditation. [/url]

Ken, what's the basis for thinking this way? Where does the "deep premeditation" arise. Furthermore, how would one know whether or not there had been "deep premeditation" anyway as this might occur beyond our knowledge where much of our cerebration takes place.

Focus must be precisely placed to create a compelling composition. Screw this up, or overlook its importance, and it's over for that shot.
You are really against disorder while I'm, open to it. Obviously you are mostly correct. But is order and definition all always required for focus? I don't think so.

The vintage of camera or lens used to record an image is only relevant or interesting to the extent that it enables the photographer to achieve results.
This again is self evident, or else we are just using LF has a sentimental habit only. I believe that it's the return to the image of disorder and uncertainty that provides room for our imagination to start working, bring our own ideas to fill in the gaps and make sense of things.

Now how do we differentiate artistic disorder from laziness, lack of skill, poor insight, haphazardness alone and absence of worth? Yes, that's the big question?

I'm glad you call us to task. I can only report my feelings and they are positive. But then I look to art as sometimes being a gymnasium for my own imagination. So I could be totally wrong just bring my self centered point of view to what may be merely a picture made out of focus with no clear subject and a mess.

Well, I can then just resort to my personal experience and say it was agreeable and so I find value.

After that, we cannot discount what you warn us about. Res ipsa loquitur, but to each of us differently this time! Not a very good language, such "art" must be then when things meaning can vary so much. I can only conclude then that such work might not have meaning and merely serve as a fascinating distraction for those susceptible, myself amongst them.

Asher
 

Rachel Foster

New member
Asher, I'm willing to give critiques but don't want to offend. I'm just not sure folks are that open to hearing my critiques.

Now, since this is about Jim's image, what I like are the juxtaposition of the "sharper" curves on the bottom with the "flatter" curves on top. It renders a complexity while still giving the eye a place (or two) to focus before moving on to other of the image.

I also like the black and white. B&W makes the shapes and shades most prominent, while color can overpower and distract from those aspects. This image seems (to me) to be all about shapes, so B&W is a good choice.

I do, however, think the image might be even better with a different crop. The upper vegetation feels disproportionate. I wonder if less of that leaf might give a more pleasing composition, feel more "balanced."

Ok, there you go. Want more?
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
Ah good! I was hoping for some constructive discussion on this.

Re: "Flora images are all about emotive response. At the most baseline level they must appear to be the result of deep premeditation."
I offer the work of two photographers, each featured in LensWork in recent years, to make my point.

Guy Gagnon's "Fragile" collections, and Tom Baril's "10 Flowers" collection. These works exemplify products of what I suspect was "deep premeditation". Tom and Guy clearly studied their subjects' nature and chose compositions, lighting, and camera settings that would evoke emotional reactions from viewers. I do not criticize Jim's image for not looking like Guy's or Tom's. Rather, my criticism in this regard was grounded principally on the observed supposition that his image was not the result of any such consideration and, further, that his adoration was powered principally by the camera and lens he used to capture the image.

Re: "You are really against disorder...."
You're very mistaken. In fact as I write this I'm up to my ears in a project inspired by mid-20th century abstract expressionist painting. Chaos can be very engaging (as I hope to demonstrate). But there is a difference between chaos and careless, the latter of which is generally visually counterproductive.

In the end I certainly bow to anyone's right to like anything (legal and harmless). I would not have offered a peep if Jim had not explicitly solicited opinions.
 

Rod Witten

pro member
Ah good! I was hoping for some constructive discussion on this.

Re: "Flora images are all about emotive response. At the most baseline level they must appear to be the result of deep premeditation."
I offer the work of two photographers, each featured in LensWork in recent years, to make my point.

Guy Gagnon's "Fragile" collections, and Tom Baril's "10 Flowers" collection. These works exemplify products of what I suspect was "deep premeditation". Tom and Guy clearly studied their subjects' nature and chose compositions, lighting, and camera settings that would evoke emotional reactions from viewers. I do not criticize Jim's image for not looking like Guy's or Tom's. Rather, my criticism in this regard was grounded principally on the observed supposition that his image was not the result of any such consideration and, further, that his adoration was powered principally by the camera and lens he used to capture the image.

Re: "You are really against disorder...."
You're very mistaken. In fact as I write this I'm up to my ears in a project inspired by mid-20th century abstract expressionist painting. Chaos can be very engaging (as I hope to demonstrate). But there is a difference between chaos and careless, the latter of which is generally visually counterproductive.

In the end I certainly bow to anyone's right to like anything (legal and harmless). I would not have offered a peep if Jim had not explicitly solicited opinions.

Ken,

Could you share with us the emotion that you experience viewing Gagnon's plants. While I see technically excellent black and white images, I can't get beyond the fact that they appear to be dead plants and it's an artificial presentation.

Rod Witten
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
In the case of Guy Gagnon's images the subject, at least to me, is the contemplation and celebration of the remarkable forms that nature can conjure. Seeing "death" is an interesting reaction.
 

Rod Witten

pro member
In the case of Guy Gagnon's images the subject, at least to me, is the contemplation and celebration of the remarkable forms that nature can conjure. Seeing "death" is an interesting reaction.

Ken,

Thanks for revealing your impression. The process of "Death" was not something I saw. Maybe a better description would be dried or artificial plants. However, I certainly agree that the form is remarkable, whether real or not.

Rod Witten
 

Bill Miller

New member
"The Scoldings"

Jim Galli;68967 There has been some discourse about what we say or mostly don't say about each others photographs. I question this. We all see so differently and what is important to me is so un-important to you. I question the value. I look at about 90% of the work posted and to my troubled brain it's just a color snap shot. Should I say so? You look at my pictures and scratch your heads. It's out of focus? It's soft? Did he do that on purpose? Why? Who would want to look at a picture like that? So mostly you're nice and move on said:
Jim you have hit the nail on the head. I agree about 90% are just a snap shots. And trying to get people to comment is a futile effort. Every photo posted do not necessarily create an emotional response and Asher claims. However, an obviously bad (technically bad) photo, is bad and the person taking it should have better sense then to post it, especially when they keep posting the same type of bad images. To comment on it is a waste of time and energy. Other then to be very blunt and say take some classes.

Regarding your images with the antique lenses. I have talked to Asher about them, and still do not like the effect they create. However, your Death Valley, and Model T photos are dead on. Its just my preference.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Let's look at art, just for now as projecting ideas and or facilitating ideation.

Re: "You are really against disorder...."
You're very mistaken. In fact as I write this I'm up to my ears in a project inspired by mid-20th century abstract expressionist painting. Chaos can be very engaging (as I hope to demonstrate). But there is a difference between chaos and careless, the latter of which is generally visually counterproductive.
Ken,

I like your distinction between chaos and careless. It not only sounds right by intellect and intuition but is itself sonorous and succinct and so acquires the power of a proverbial saying that has authority! In the case of Jim Galli's, he does celebrate the former in lens finessing but with angel's paintbrushes dipped in mysticisms. Your alternate path of carelessness is hardly his sin; he's generally too obsessional about technique.

In the case of Guy Gagnon's images the subject, at least to me, is the contemplation and celebration of the remarkable forms that nature can conjure. Seeing "death" is an interesting reaction.[/QUOTE

Ken,

By contrast to Guy Gagnon's work, in this picture, Jim Galli has caught an apparition of a broad leaf, a ghost floating before out eyes through which disorder of the curving linear forms is seen. If you have held a lens in front of an illuminated eye and se en a virtual retina spread before you, then this experience is what I feel when looking at Jim Galli's picture.




FernandSpiderGrass.jpg


Photo Jim Galli fern & spider grass



His work, as such (when one cannot perfectly see hat was happening upside down and has to compromise on focus, then what one gets on film, thus exposed), is like what one finds walking on a beach, "found art". In the end, it's choosing as best as one can from many pieces of accidental driftwood and bringing one home.

Contemplation hopefully occurs when we seek to find meaning in that selected form. As potential art, it likely functions far differently from a work made with a more focused and thoroughly planned passion. It does not cause a replaying of planned emotions as experienced by the artist. Rather it allows the viewer to enter a novel universe. There one's own libraries of experience, ideas and emotions are allowed to open up and explore possibilities in a different setting. So the artist's job is to create such places of wonder and mystery for us to populate with our own ideation. Such art then has a unique and wonderful function for humanity. There, I posit, art serves as a "Gymnasium for the mind", not necessarily containing anything of an "Arc of Communication" by the artist. In the latter, which I originally thought was essential to all art, does occur when an artist engraves premeditated creations in a 2 dimensional composition. Their the work is mostly defined by the artist. Here, by contrast, with Jim's current 4x5 photograph, (as with driftwood returned from the beach), it's our experience we bring top the piece that makes it work! It seems that a "found" specimen is chosen as "Found Art" because it has qualities that allow indefined space to accommodate thoughts that we the observer bring.

Now there is no piece of art that is only narrative, full of beauty, has meaning, evokes passion or just serves to allow us to test our own imagination or givens in life. Art contains dabs of this and that! Similarly our education, personalities and openness varies. So that accounts for diverse reactions to Jim Galli's photograph.

There's a transient transparency of one broad leaf to allows the disorder and even untidiness of the more ancient grasses to be seen through and below it. Despite being far apart by evolution, they still can dance together with Jim's antique lenses.

You may think this is rationalization romancing chance nonsense and perhaps it's just an expression of my own disorder, but right now, I want a print. I may hate myself in the morning!

Asher
 
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Rachel Foster

New member
J However, an obviously bad (technically bad) photo, is bad and the person taking it should have better sense then to post it, especially when they keep posting the same type of bad images.

And how does one learn it's an "obviously bad photo" unless one puts it out there and gets commentary? People who are trying to learn deserve better than a dismissive, elitist condescension. I have taken classes and I've improved a great deal over the past 16 months. I also listen carefully to every suggestion/comment made. However, I am not likely to roll over and blindly "follow directions" either. This annoys some. Fine, they need not comment on my attempts to learn. But please, give credit where credit is due.
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
Rachel: Oish. I'm bewildered how you feel you've been struck by a ricochet...not a bullet from my gun! <g> Internet "critiques" are worth every penny you spend on them. (Yes, including...perhaps especially...mine.) Use venues like OPF to mine for "general public impressions". But unless you know that you're reading comments from someone accomplished and whose work you especially admire, file the comments for interest. But never swallow them whole. Use your camera to please yourself. To hell with everyone else.

Asher: I've once again had to stop my movie this evening to devote my full (age-dwindling) attention to your most recent remarks. I'm pissed. I so wish that I'd not abandoned marijuana 40 years ago, as I feel it might provide a clinical aid in my comprehension of your remarks. ("That's a joke, son!")

"Contemplation hopefully occurs when we seek to find meaning in that selected form."
Nicely stated. Inducement of contemplation is perhaps one of the most seminal objectives that any art photographer can hope to achieve.

"There, I posit, art serves as a "Gymnasium for the mind", not necessarily containing anything of an "Arc of Communication" by the artist."
Perhaps a "gymnasium" for the right side of the brain, eh? Indeed, it is not incumbent upon artists that they communicate.
 

Jim Galli

Member
Glad to see the discussion has taken on a life of it's own. I'm a little disgusted with myself for beginning an important discussion with perhaps an unimportant picture. That said I will explain that this negative has technical problems due to carelessness. Fingerprints, scratches etc. Is this the one that fell on the floor when I pulled it out of the JOBO? Maybe. That is all I will admit to though. Other than that I wouldn't change anything!

As far as it's other merits I want to re-visit my original premise that beyond the technical limitations there is no "right way" to do this picture. I looked at Gagnon's things. Guess what, say hello to your scanner table. I could do those pictures with no camera or lens at all. Just flop some cabbage on the scanner, hold a dark sheet over it and push the button. Whoopee.

The fact is whether Bill or Ken like selective focus and other irregularities introduced by antique portrait lenses, that is only 2 votes. What you will find over at Ebay is that these lenses have increased in value by a magnitude of about 10 in the last 3 years and the reason is that everyone except perhaps the 80 year olds at MOMA are just a little tired of the english field study guide type pictures.

I'm still just scratching the surface, but I feel there is a shunt to the soul that can be achieved by really good tonality and selective focus of the right picture. Your eye doesn't need 68 lppm in order for your heart to react to a picture. In fact all that resolution really just gets in the way. We've done it mindlessly because that's what we were taught. What your heart is looking for is a meaningful picture (this one probably wasn't it, I'll keep trying) and what the different lenses can bring to that picture are just tools in my tool box. I want my stuff to glow. I want to grab your heart strings before your brain ever gets a chance to kick in.
 

Rod Witten

pro member
Rachel: Oish. I'm bewildered how you feel you've been struck by a ricochet...not a bullet from my gun! <g> Internet "critiques" are worth every penny you spend on them. (Yes, including...perhaps especially...mine.) Use venues like OPF to mine for "general public impressions". But unless you know that you're reading comments from someone accomplished and whose work you especially admire, file the comments for interest. But never swallow them whole. Use your camera to please yourself. To hell with everyone else.

Asher: I've once again had to stop my movie this evening to devote my full (age-dwindling) attention to your most recent remarks. I'm pissed. I so wish that I'd not abandoned marijuana 40 years ago, as I feel it might provide a clinical aid in my comprehension of your remarks. ("That's a joke, son!")

"Contemplation hopefully occurs when we seek to find meaning in that selected form."
Nicely stated. Inducement of contemplation is perhaps one of the most seminal objectives that any art photographer can hope to achieve.

"There, I posit, art serves as a "Gymnasium for the mind", not necessarily containing anything of an "Arc of Communication" by the artist."
Perhaps a "gymnasium" for the right side of the brain, eh? Indeed, it is not incumbent upon artists that they communicate.


Ken and Asher,

Two gladiators joosting with words. Give us your images for the main event. How about "inducement of contemplation" as a subject for the challenge.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Ken and Asher,

Two gladiators joosting with words. Give us your images for the main event. How about "inducement of contemplation" as a subject for the challenge.
Hi Rod,

Not two gladiators, rather two very active photographers who put their work out regularly to entertain and contribute, risking ridiculous critique, but hoping for intelligent feedback. Jim Galli stuck his neck out exposing his unusual photograph with an OOF leaf dominating it! What follows, then, is the desirable discussion as to what Jim's work might be worth to us, the observers.

As our goals demand, we share truthful but measured opinions. We can be proud of that. We can even ask the question is it crap? Or is my opinion flattery of Jim Galli's work because I'm a blind fan of his? However, you cannot just dismiss our honest efforts as a dual, as it's not. In taking rather contrary positions, we might forge a better point of view.

Talk of challenges, where are your pictures, LOL? Don't think you can sit on the sidelines always and act as the prof! You have to go a few rounds too!

So why "Inducement of contemplation"? Why would you not use, "Contemplation". The former is complex! Anyway, I invite you to kick off this challenge in a new thread in "Still Picture".

Asher
 
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Ken Tanaka

pro member
Ken and Asher,

Two gladiators joosting with words. Give us your images for the main event. How about "inducement of contemplation" as a subject for the challenge.

Rod; In the genre of Jim's image, look at any floral work by Imogen Cunningham during the 1920's and 1930's. She was quite an original master of creating such imagery that seduced your eyes, and mind, into contemplating natural forms.

But there have since been many, many other photographers who have done some wonderful work along these lines. Floral detail photography can be mundane and abysmally amateurish or it can be absolutely sublime. The difference lies mostly in that "premeditation" quality I mentioned earlier.
 

Charlotte Thompson

Well-known member
I fail to see anything but a blur in the middle of a plant- I love the change of venue-

what I have done is with humansand animals, blur, distortion, shadows-
tell me
which is which-




DSC_06302.jpg



DSC_0331.jpg
 

Rod Witten

pro member
Rod; In the genre of Jim's image, look at any floral work by Imogen Cunningham during the 1920's and 1930's. She was quite an original master of creating such imagery that seduced your eyes, and mind, into contemplating natural forms.

But there have since been many, many other photographers who have done some wonderful work along these lines. Floral detail photography can be mundane and abysmally amateurish or it can be absolutely sublime. The difference lies mostly in that "premeditation" quality I mentioned earlier.

Ken,

Thanks for the Cunningham reference. The two pieces of her work that I have access are noted by the author to include sexual and erotic metaphors. With regards to "inducement of contemplation", would you know of a definitive article or study that relates a viewers psychological characteristics to their art or photographic preferences?

Rod Witten
 

Rod Witten

pro member
Hi Rod,

Not two gladiators, rather two very active photographers who put their work out regularly to entertain and contribute, risking ridiculous critique, but hoping for intelligent feedback. Jim Galli stuck his neck out exposing his unusual photograph with an OOF leaf dominating it! What follows, then, is the desirable discussion as to what Jim's work might be worth to us, the observers.

As our goals demand, we share truthful but measured opinions. We can be proud of that. We can even ask the question is it crap? Or is my opinion flattery of Jim Galli's work because I'm a blind fan of his? However, you cannot just dismiss our honest efforts as a dual, as it's not. In taking rather contrary positions, we might forge a better point of view.

Talk of challenges, where are your pictures, LOL? Don't think you can sit on the sidelines always and act as the prof! You have to go a few rounds too!

So why "Inducement of contemplation"? Why would you not use, "Contemplation". The former is complex! Anyway, I invite you to kick off this challenge in a new thread in "Still Picture".

Asher

Asher,

As for "Contemplation", my powders mostly wet. I recall a photo of that subject 6 yrs ago that I'm sure is around here somewhere in a shoebox. However, if I had a photo showing "inducement of contemplation" it would most certainly be on my wall.

Rod
 
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