Photo Gauntlet

Gauntlet: What Holds Our Attention?

Tue, 07/27/2010 - 16:22

by Gary Fong
Photographer: Billy Weeks, www.billyweeks.com
Click Photos to Enlarge

Both photos are nice…but one is nicer than the other. The elements are the same…a horse, a man working with a horse, and a child in the background. Which one would generate more interested viewers?

Billy Weeks is a trained professional who may have forgotten more than most of us have every learned about photography. One basic trait of a good photographer…he always keeps his eyes open for other photos. He may not make an exposure in his camera…but always an exposure in his mind.

If we could develop and download all the photos he’s taken in his memory…it would be a rich collection of images that spans time and place.

Now for the Nit Picking

Most viewers are attracted to action in a still image. Figure 1 is quiet action. The head of the horse almost disappears in the darkness of the stream. The man’s face is somewhat expressionless. That’s all well and good for a photo designed to be melancholy…but we live in a world of media that screams at us for attention. Figure 1 whispers the story…

A horse on its hind legs fighting with a man, screams “pay attention” or I’ll clobber you with a hoof. It’s graphic action. The forward ears, the body language of the horse, and the lightness of its coat pulls the viewers attention to the conflict. Voyeuristic people are always drawn to conflict.

It’s fair to say that different editors, with different story concepts, would edit for a quiet or action-oriented image. Putting the needs of the story aside for a moment, when compared side by side, Figure 2 wins over Figure 1. A viewer’s attention would gravitate to “action” over “quiet”.

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Gauntlet:All It Takes Is The Right Moment

Tue, 07/20/2010 - 07:58

by Gary Fong
Photographer: Billy Weeks, www.billyweeks.com
Click photo to enlarge

Day in and day out, year after year, Billy Weeks has made “something out of nothing” at the Chattanooga Times Free Press. He’s been doing it so long, that he’s almost forgotten how to make “something out of something”.

But given the situation, the lighting, the mood…that “something” in Billy’s camera, turns into “something extraordinary”. Mr. Weeks is a photographer with a sensitive eye to light and mood. Maybe it’s the years of experience that allow him to see when the right moment has arrived. With academic dispatch, he quietly makes a few selective exposures, rather than machinegun it to death with the motor drive.

Now for the Nit Picking

He must have put on his mood and mystic lens…cause it’s such a delicate image. Low light, hand held, at a 1/10th of a second and wide-open…waiting for the right moment.

Machineguns and motor drives are noisy and disruptive during silent motion. A sensitive photographer, in tune with the subject, will make pictures that do not interrupt the flow of the mood.

But what’s missing is the detail in the face of the infant. I would think dodging the area about 15% (three wide passes using a 5% dodging tool in PhotoShop) would just about do it. The print needs to show enough detail in the child’s face to give an impression of innocence.

The mother’s expression is classic. The lighting on her face is all so very delicate. Billy must have folded up his lights or never considered bring them out. I’m sure the light changed in a matter of minutes.

Her face could be just a shade lighter with detail. The viewer’s eye should gravitate to the mother’s facial expression, then drift off to the baby and other parts of the frame. However, the attention for the viewer’s eye competes with the mother’s face and the light part of the wall lit up by window light. If he burned it down area about 40%, that would change the balance back to the women’s face.

Writers tell me, ever once in a while a story comes along that writes itself. In photography, every once in a while, an image shows up in front of your lens…all that is required of the photographer is to make one exposure.

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Gauntlet: Color Can Make All The Difference in a Photograph

Wed, 07/14/2010 - 07:31

By Gary Fong
Photographer: Russ Taylor, www.nomadruss.com
Click photos to enlarge

Figure 1 Figure 2

It shouldn’t be surprising how much color, influences a viewer’s appreciation of an image. In some cases, it’s the only element that makes the picture.

Russ Taylor’s recent entries in the www.wearephotographers.com “From Your Archives”contest, gave us an enlightened look into how a simple color palette sets the story tempo of a picture (Figure 1 and 2).

His photos are simple, pleasing to the eye, or stands in stark contrast to the subject.

Now for the Nit Picking

An image with very subtle humor can be lost without the contrast of content or color (Figure 3 and 4). The pastel color is a major element in this particular image, causing it to stand out above many. Without the pink background, it blends into hundreds of pictures I’ve seen this week.

Figure 3 Figure 4

In color, the isolated hand is almost too subtle. It could be easily missed. In B&W - converted by us, it’s almost completely overlooked.

In this particular image, why does the color make a big difference? It’s due to the intersecting point of the pink wall, with the pastel blue square. It points the view right to the hand…which lands in a compositional crash point.

In B&W, the colors are almost the same gray scale, which neutralize each color’s impact. They no longer contrast…but melt into each other.

If one looked at Taylor’s two other photos in B&W, they’d be appreciated differently. If I were to put them in order of preference, I would say in “color”, (Figure 1, Figure 2 and (Figure 3). But in B&W, would order them as (Figure 2, Figure 1, and a very distant, if at all, Figure 3).

I would think Taylor should keep shooting his outstanding color…not worry about B&W.