Eye Full

[Mike Farley]

Eye Full

Eye Full.jpg (124.33 KiB) Viewed 4877 times

Quite possibly this picture has the most visual impact of the sequence I took when shooting for my PAD 254 post. It was taken in St Pancras station and is part of the frieze around the base of the Lovers statue. I did not select it as my image of the day as I felt it was too derivative of the original artist's work for me to be comfortable in calling it my own. What I will say at the outset is that this is entirely a personal view and that this type of record work is definitely a valid form of photography.

There is a contradiction here as much of my photography involves capturing the world around me, in other words I react to whatever is going on. Many photographers operate similarly, including many of the most well known, and there is nothing wrong with that approach. When I do try to set something up for the camera, usually I am not very happy with the results. So what is the difference between this shot and the one of the canal boats which I eventually chose as my PAD shot?

Both required some effort on my part to get to the locations and involved an element of seeing when I got there. With the canal boats, I recognised the potential in the scene, but really wanted something to fill the left hand side of the image. Ordinarily, that would usually mean a period of waiting, but would you believe that within moments the narrow boat appeared and that was the only one I saw moving on the canal the whole time I was there? When processing the image, I cropped slightly and did some work to bring out the textures in the sky and the building on the right. All very routine and straightforward.

With this image, the process was very similar. I saw the artwork, selected a part of it that I found appealing and took the photo. The frieze is circular and not very high, so afterwards I needed to crop into a panoramic format. Actually, getting that right turned out to be a bit fiddly and I needed a few attempts to get it how I wanted, then processed it to bring out the textures. Had I been more serious about using this image, I would have gone further and made other changes:

• Fill in the area at top left where the curvature of the frieze has created a gap
• Remove the line at bottom left, which is also due to the curvature
• Darken the area at bottom right under the nose
• Add a small amount to the top of the image as I feel that the spectacles are slightly too close to the top edge of the frame, although this is how it is reality.

All these are tweaks and do not fundamentally change the nature of the shot. I like the image, but do not feel that I have done enough to assert any real form of ownership and most of the input is from someone else. Once again, I emphasise that that there is nothing wrong with this type of photography and it is difficult to know where to draw the line. For example, architecture photography is all about interpreting the work of others and I have no qualms about including buildings in my photos.

What do others think?

[Nina]

Works well for me Mike. Your mono conversion is very nice indeed.

[Mike Farley]

A few days ago, I was talking to Andrew Wilson, who is one of the leading judges in the Western Counties Photographic Federation (WCPF) and gives courses for potential judges in the region. The WCPF is trying to discourage the inclusion of other people's artwork unless the photographer is adding something of their own vision. In other words, a straight shot such as this would not score highly, whatever its visual impact. However, if it were part of a wider scene and had a supporting role in the image rather than being the image, then a higher mark could be justified if the picture justifies it.

There is potential for an interesting experiment to see what a local judge would make of it, perhaps?

[davidc]

Give it a go

[davidc]

I thought I'd already replied to this, must have been lost when typing on the phone.

I think there are two ways to approach photographing someone else's image - either as a record shot or with the photographer adding their own creative slant and I think it's extremely narrow minded to say that photographing artwork is bad enough to actively discourage it. In the limited context of camera clubs it usually means it should be judged against it's peers on the night and I think in this case either a top notch record shot or creatively interpreted version should still be rewarded as examples of good photography.

Just because someone takes a bad photo of other people's artwork doesn't mean the solution is "ban photos of art", judges should score it accordingly and provide some constructive feedback. I still remember the judge from the second time I ever attended the club who dismissed a photo outright because he didn't like people taking photos of others artwork and just moved on quickly! Bad judging!

[davidc]

As for improvements, I'm not sure any of the things you've suggested are strictly necessary. I wouldn't have noticed them unless you mentioned it and even now I have they are not distractions. Though I think the image is interesting when first viewed to look at the detail of the shot, beyond that I'm not sure it's one I'd return to so in that context I'd put it in the record shot category perhaps. I wouldn't say you've added an artistic slant to it but have accurately rendered the detail pretty well.

[Mike Farley]

As for improvements, I'm not sure any of the things you've suggested are strictly necessary. I wouldn't have noticed them unless you mentioned it and even now I have they are not distractions. Though I think the image is interesting when first viewed to look at the detail of the shot, beyond that I'm not sure it's one I'd return to so in that context I'd put it in the record shot category perhaps. I wouldn't say you've added an artistic slant to it but have accurately rendered the detail pretty well.

Following on from Clive Tanner's "Is this the printer of your disc content?" talk just before Xmas, I have been thinking further on this topic. A lot of Clive's shots were taken in cathedrals and included close-ups of the detailed carving to be found in these buildings. In essence were both approaching the subject matter in the same way, with the selection of an area of detail to be photographed. After Clive's talk, I took some similar shots to his in Croydon Minster and found that I would have had no reservations about using them based on content. The shots themselves were taken handheld in low light at high ISO, so were less satisfactory from a technical aspect, hence I have not used them.

Having given the reason for this some thought, I believe that the purpose for which the subject of the image was created has a bearing. In places such as churches and cathedrals, carving is either decorative or, in the case of tombs, commemorative. It is a part of something bigger and derives from craftmanship rather than artistry, although admittedly the distinction can be a fine one. The frieze at Paddington Station station was always intended to be an artwork and exists as an artefact in its own right, hence my discomfort about using it in my own work, even though in both instances what is being shot derives from the efforts of others.

[davidc]

It is a part of something bigger and derives from craftmanship rather than artistry, although admittedly the distinction can be a fine one.

I think I'm following you, in that if you - for the sake of argument - take a photograph of a painting then as that is a piece of art and "nothing more" it'd make you uncomfortable about presenting it in anything other than a record shot capacity? Whereas sculptures for tombs have a purpose (commemoration?) other than art for it's own sake and are therefore "fairer game", for lack of a better phrase?

Personally, I found the subject & discussion element of Clive's talk interesting but to be brutally honest, the photographs & subject matter did not engage me. I doubt I would find a close up shot of a tomb sculpture to be any more engaging either and really, even focusing on one small aspect, you're STILL presenting someone else's work. Including a statue's hand in a shot, or the whole statue - to my mind the photographer still isn't adding anything and is just recording someone else's work. Just a smaller part. Unless you macro-shoot it into some kind of abstract image perhaps, where the source is unrecognisable.

This doesn't mean you can't get interesting pictures - as I said before, your frieze shot was interesting to look at, but I know that I'm looking more at the sculptors work and it doesn't come over as a photographer's work. I found I hadn't considered the photographic aspect at all, just the sculpture. You could argue that it's because it's well taken but I'd probably counter that once you pass a certain level of basic skill OR get lucky with good conditions, the difference between adequate and top tier "record shots" is narrower than in many other styles of photography.

Having said all of that, you could argue that I'm saying "you can't include anyone else's artistic work in a photo otherwise you're just presenting other's efforts". But that's not quite the case. Someone - and I can't remember who, sorry! - took a shot of someone reaching out to touch the hand of an outstretched statue and entered it in competition. That is an example of the photographer using someone else's work and definitely adding more to it. Another example are those long exposure shots you see of the Mona Lisa with blurred people trails as they move around and observe it. It's showing the artwork, but it's in the context it's set and how people interact with it. MUCH more interesting than either simple record shots or just focusing in on details.

The other end of the spectrum is the judge we had this past Wednesday, Gerald I think his name was? He was EXTREMELY vocal that any artwork photographed - even some that looked to me like record shots - were unacceptable and with only a single exception were given among the lowest scores on the night. I felt like he was missing the point, wildly so, in that photographing other people's artwork is not "wrong", it's just limited in overall long term appeal and it's often easy to photograph, or at best easy to overlook technically well taken shots.

In other words, I think if all you do is take a picture of someone else's art then there is nothing wrong with that, I just think it's highly likely to be a photo of limited appeal. I've tried this myself -


Usain Bolt - 24/365 by cedarsphoto, on Flickr

Once you get past the initial "wow" of the colours, it's quite a forgettable photo. The artwork isn't forgettable itself, it's quite cool (and now has been painted over) but photographically it was unchallenging and all I've essentially done is bring it to a wider audience. I put it in the same boat as your frieze shot.

[Rose]

Yes, I think many of us were surprised at the judge's attitude towards this sort of shot. I submitted a B&W image that scored 12 in last year's monochrome competition - the judge last year remarked on the excellent range of tones in the image and the capture of light and and texture. However, this week's judge gave it the lowest mark on the night (7.5) simply becuase it was an image of a sculpture and I "hadn't added anything". Go figure...

[Mike Farley]

It looks as though there is a fair measure of agreement here about the use of other people's artwork in photographs, although I know that there others in the club who think that it is a valid approach. What does intrigue me is where this ends. If I take a shot of a flower or landscape, I have had no part in creating these things so essentially it is a record, but few would have qualms about displaying the results as their work. Otherwise, photography would become extremely limited.

This is the shot I took in Croydon Minster last year, when I again chose to go with something else. In that instance, the subject was the roof of East Croydon Station - another man made object - where I selected just a part of it to emphasise the shapes and forms.

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Hands

Hands.jpg (112.03 KiB) Viewed 4641 times

In this image, apart from the selection of the hands, I have given it a photographic feel by using a wide aperture (f/1.4) and converting to mono. This does seem to be more acceptable, although I wonder what Wednesday's judge would have made of it. At some stage, I plan to go back with a tripod and a different lens so that I can shoot at a lower ISO and maybe get some different angles.

Full EXIF info:

Panasonic DMC-G3
Leica DG Summilux 25 f/1.4 (50 mm equivalent for 35 mm)
1/30 sec
f/8
ISO 3200