Horn tooting, in awe and wonder

[pecunium]

I take pictures. I happen to think some of them are pretty good. But thinking one's own work is decent isn't hard to do. Harder is to figure out what other people will like.

I think this



is a pretty good picture. Based on other people's reactions, I'm wrong; it's a damned good picture.

On the other hand, some of the things I think are outstanding, e.g.



don't seem to resonate with people.

So, yesterday I got a comment on this picture, telling me the detail was really good.



I got it from, of all places, the National Museum of Wales

It took a little time for me to realise this was the actual flickr account for the Museum of Wales (why shouldn't they have one, the US Library of Congress has one). I don't know who manages the account. I don't know what criteria that person (or people) use to decide what to look at, much less what to praise.

I do know the various photos they have (at the museum's flickr account, and at the actual museum pages) include some nice macro, to include some wing scale details.

So I'm feeling tolerably pleased with myself.

Comments

But the middle photo

[dragonet2.livejournal.com]

is a great composition. I can imagine a dialogue, "You're in my way." "No, you are." etc.

All three are excellent, though.

[phonemonkey.livejournal.com]

I think the booby picture is absolutely awesome. The composition, the contrast between pale animal/dark rock and dark animal/pale rock.

Re: But the middle photo

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I think so too (though the dialogue I hear is a little different), but it doesn't get anywhere near the positive reaction of photos I don't care for as much.

I wonder if that's not part of the problem with being steeped in the arcana of a discipline, one can't see what those who aren't so informed see, and are aware of other things, which they aren't.

I spend some of my time on flickr at places where folks want critique, and compare what I say about a picture to what other people do, and we speak different languages.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

It looks better larger. I have a 13x19 print of it, and the details of the lava, the feathers stuck in the booby's beak (from grooming) all show up well.

It's not the one people ask if they can get a copy of.

[ctahmase.livejournal.com]

I like all of them, but the middle one especially for the implied story. You should feel pleased with yourself. Your photography is lovely.

Charity

[shekkara.livejournal.com]

The grapes are lovely. Nice composition, beautiful use of narrow depth of field.

The lizard and the booby - very cool. Great humorous story in that picture. (I imagine the booby thinking, "Mmm.. dinner.") The kind of picture I'd try to take, too, if I were lucky enough to come across them, but I can see how it might not have universal appeal. Some people are after just beauty in their photos.

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

I'm feeling a story in the middle one too. Sure, no one will ask for a print - it's not aesthetically pleasing that way, but that in no way says that it doesn't have as much worth (or more!) than the others.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I'm not a pro, but I love the grapes. They just feel *right* to me.

And praise from the experts is praise indeed.

Re: But the middle photo

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

The textures are what really work for me; the rough rock and lizard and the smooth bird feet.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Well, the booby is purely a fish eater (and I'm reasonably certain that's a male, so it eats smaller fish, at shallower depths).

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I think what works with the grapes (and it's not that I'm displeased with it, it's pretty, and I worked a lot longer at getting it than I did for the scales, or the booby and iguana) is that it's composed. There is nothing jarring in it, and one can apprehend the totality of the image in a single glance.

It doesn't take a whole lot of work to grasp. The details, those are there for the finding, but you don't need them to appreciate it.

They have a story, that of early summer, and the fruits of spring slowing ripening; in the cool under the leaves. It's an easier story to "get", so, on balance, it ought to be (assuming it's well done) the one people react to more.

That's where I think the trained eye suffers, because we start to look for the more complex details, and lose track of the simple virtues of easy apprehension.

[pameladean]

The grapes are beautiful, but the booby and lizard made me exclaim out loud.

(Hi, you don't know me; I friended you because of your comments on Making Light.)

P.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Um.... for certain values of know, I do; since the name is familar to me from ML, and Occam would lead me to presume the same name went with the same person.

[pnkrokhockeymom.livejournal.com]

I like the grapes, but I REALLY like the lizard and the booby. And not JUST for the composition, but also the aesthetic. I would want to frame it and hang it in my office. Then whenever I was feeling cranky and overwhelmed by my mundane and largely meaningless job, I could look at that picture and remember that there is a whole wide world outside of my office, and that neither the lizard nor the booby give a hoot about the outcome of the case I'm working on.

And, you know, it's gorgeous--the booby's feet, the lizard, the grey and white of the rocks and that bit of green up in the corner. It's so sharp. Like I could touch it.

[pameladean]

Yes, Occam is vindicated once again. I just comment so seldom that I don't expect people to remember me.

P.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

You can have to frame, and hang in your office (tell me the colors of your office, and I can have it framed before you get it).

You can have the grapes too (something for home).

All you need to do it tell me the size (or concommitantly, your budget).

[pnkrokhockeymom.livejournal.com]

Oh! You Tempter, You.

I want that picture for my office. The office colors are crap and drab and to be ignored. Size is what I'm wondering...

....You know what maybe I'll do, is take a picture of the wall I want to put it on tomorrow, and send it to you. Then you can use your artist's eye (as that's something I'm SORELY missing) and recommend a couple of sizes and tell me how much you think?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I can print up to 13x19, which will have a finsished size, after it's been matted, of about 16x24.

I can print as small as you like, but much less than about 8x10 doesn't do it justice. The larger it is, the futher back you have to be to take it in.

And there's the question of what it costs (which has to take shipping into account, unless you plan to be in LA sometime soon)

[pnkrokhockeymom.livejournal.com]

Oh, right. Maybe it would be better to ship rolled and I get it framed out here?

Hmmm. I'll look at the wall tomorrow. It's a big wall, so it will take a big print. But I have to worry about the budget, too. I might have to wait until another hours bonus rolls in.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I'm of a mixed mind on rolled. I'd reccomend matted, and then framed when you get it.

If you want it rolled, I can do that, but I worry the paper will take damage, even with tissue; unless you get it on canvas, which I don't think this subject would really do well on, because the details of the racks will suffer.

I have a large print right now (I don't think it's 13x19, but rather 11x17) I can look at it, and see what it's cost is. The matting has already been done.

The issue isn't really the wall, but the floor. Look at a large print from too close and it suffers.

[pnkrokhockeymom.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm.

Oh.

See why I can't decide on my own? *g* I don't even know what to look for!

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Ok, here's what you do.

Go to work tomorrow, measure the floor space in your office, in particular, the distance from where you plan to put the picture, to where you plan to be when you look at it.

Two, figure out how much money you don't want to spend more than.

Three, I have a print, a trifle more yellow than the onscreen version, which is already done. It's 11x17. Without shipping it's $185.00 Shipping, will be in the 25-40 dollar range (depending on what the insurance costs).

A larger print will be a little more (13x19 would be in the $230-300 range, depending on how you want it matted; before shipping). A smaller pring a little less.

If you want to get it mounted, the price will be a bit less, though the shipping will be about the same; maybe more, because it will need better packaging (I think it has to ship flat).

[pnkrokhockeymom.livejournal.com]

Will do all of the above, and email you tomorrow night.

[shekkara.livejournal.com]

Ah, but you see, I'm not a (I can't believe I'm going to say this) a booby expert, so I get to imagine whatever diet for the booby that I please, as long as I don't pretend that I actually know what I'm talking about. :-) It's a great photo, even if neither the booby nor the lizard are eyeing each other as dinner.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

The grapes are pleasant, but I get a tremendous kick out of the blueness of the boobie's feet.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I love the bokeh of the grapes, and it's a lovely, simple image.

I love the complexity of the Galapagos photo, but I had to take my time looking at it to realize how good it is.

I really love the wing macro. That's what sings to me.

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

I think the middle one would work excellently in a large poster, but as a small image it's grating to me. It looks like two extremely well composed images, set on top of eachother by circumstance, and my eye keeps getting confused - if I look at one part, I'm drawn to the other, but if I look at it, I'm drawn back, and I can't seem to find any comfortable way to look at both at once.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

Yes! I nearly laughed out loud when I saw them.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

Not that I'm an expert, though I've shot video and have been complimented on my framing, but I think the first photo might click with people because it seems to fit the 'rule of thirds'. There's also a lushness to it--with the gradations to "purpleness". I can almost taste and feel them in my mouth--makes me think of the poem, "This Is Just To Say".*

There's a nice dynamic in the second photo, with the pelican and lizard in diagonal opposites, while the last photo doesn't really do much for me other than cause me to say, "Look, nature's pixilated."
_____
*They did a nice rip on "TIJTY" on This American Life, which was one of my favourite poems when I was growing up because it made me think of the plums my mother would can.

[writingortyping.livejournal.com]

I have one of Terry's photos (an orange poppy) on my drab office wall, and not only does it make me happy to see it, a lot of people comment on its beauty.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Macro (esp. that sort of macro, where the details are raised to levels of abstraction) are very idiosyncratic photos.

To go all meta here:

In some ways they rise to the level of esoteric jazz (what one friend of mine calls, "music for musicians") because they are one of those things one either gets, or not; and there is no shame, harm, or failure, in not getting it.


There isn't really any of that with any other photo; so long as one doesn't take the personal reaction, ad convert it to a statement on the merits.

To digress, in one of the Flickr groups I inhabit; where the rules are to do a very short critique as why one thinks a photo is good, poor, or so-so, someone; so it seems to me, took offense that a photographer, whose style he didn't care for, and attacked him as a talentless hack. He demanded to know where someone who couldn't take a photo that wasn't junk (though he used jargon in the attack, to make it seem it was a valid criticism) got off commenting on anyone else's work at all.

That's bullshit. There are a lot of pictures I don't care for, which are realy good; as photos (Mapplethorpe, for example, did a lot of art I don't like, but the photos qua photos, are great).

As an aside, I think that's one of the most flattering things anyone has said about one of my pictures (wrt to WCW). Thank you.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, the grapes and the macro are both luscious in color and texture, but the booby is the one that has my heart (even though I can only get the top two-thirds to load, which obviously is not the composition that you intended. Story? Lizard? Missing.) I react to form before color before meaning, and it took my breath away.

Mary Anne in Kentucky

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Did you try clicking through to the flickr page?

I can send you a copy, if that doesn't work.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, that worked. (Strangely, flickr paused for a long time before loading the bottom third that LJ wouldn't.) I like the real version just as much: the way their postures mirror each other, and the light/dark contrasts. But in the accidentally cropped version, the booby's feet were a spot of color in the exact center of a square--striking composition.

Mary Anne in Kentucky

[pnkrokhockeymom.livejournal.com]

Hey! I want the 11x17. It will be GREAT in my office. Let's work out the details.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Just checking in, to see if you are still interested.

[pnkrokhockeymom.livejournal.com]

YES.

I just got all swamped at work and am drowning.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Ok, when you get unswamped, let me know.