What Would the Judge Say?

[Iggy]

Diane Arbus, lucky girl, did not have to do 4 hours of post shooting manipulation.
Bring back the good old days!
Mike, here is the challenge - it might be interesting to see Child with toy hand grenade without the obvious "flaws" if you feel like it without raw files to play with!
Iggy

PS: Just learnt that the image was printed after she committed suicide in 1971 aged 48! So not so lucky.

[Mike Farley]

Mike, here is the challenge - it might be interesting to see Child with toy hand grenade without the obvious "flaws" if you feel like it without raw files to play with!

That was not the purpose of this post, which was to highlight that there are different criteria by which photos are judged. The image is as it is and people can assess for themselves how they view it.

PS: Just learnt that the image was printed after she committed suicide in 1971 aged 48! So not so lucky.

Diane Arbus developed mental health issues later in her life. Her images certainly have a distinctive look and no doubt her mental issues were a factor in the way she portrayed the world.

[davidc]

I don't think Iggy's idea is that bad actually. If we apply judicious "flaw removal" does it actually make the picture better?

As much as I think the learning experience that comes with club photography is useful, especially to beginners, I often think it has debatable value in improving the final image. It's a textbook to choose techniques from, not apply by rote to every image.

If I get time this weekend I'll have a go.

[Iggy]

Thanks David. Look forward to seeing a "cleaned up" image.
Iggy

[Mike Farley]

Thanks David. Look forward to seeing a "cleaned up" image.

i suspect that darkening the edges, adding a bit more space under the subject's feet and removing or toning down the people in the background will not have much of an effect. It is the tree growing out of his shoulder which is the real problem. It is such an integral element that removing it will change the entire character of the image. As a judge would say, the photographer should have moved to her left.

[Mike Farley]

As an aside to the discussion about aesthetics, here is some background about the boy featured in the picture.

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.co ... means.html

[davidc]

Here's a 5 min version.

mod1.jpg (232.64 KiB) Viewed 5153 times

[davidc]

This topic inspired me so much I paraphrased it into a blog post and added another image, a side-by-side comparison of the original vs "tweaked" version.

http://davidcandlish.photography/news/2 ... -judge-say

What do you think?

[Iggy]

Hi David,
Thanks for taking the time to create the sanitised version.
A judge would probably say that all the extra people in the image, however small, draws the focus away from the main subject.
So they should prefer your tweaked version. Removing the offending tree from the shoulder does bring the boy alive, for me in any case.
To the die hard Arbus fan though, you have committed sacrilege and ruined the photograph by removing all trace of other human participation in the image.
Should you have also removed the main tree in the image for a completely sanitised image? Perhaps not as it does seem to provide some balance to the image.
Would I hang any version of that image on my wall? No way, as I am not a fan of Arbus.
I do like this image of Diane though, perhaps without the bin on the left!!! More tweaking??
Iggy

[davidc]

That might be a trickier one to clone out "distractions"
I think it is an interesting exercise. I don't think any of the changes were needed per se - it reconfirmed to me that while the ideas taught by judges are great for basic improvements and worth considering for all images, sometimes they just aren't needed.