BTW, of course you'll always right because you are a professional and so your point of view is the Perfect one and for this reason for you is impossible to understand that if I don't want to show the surrondings is not that I don't accept critiques, but because is my photo and is my choice to decide what I want to show and what I don't want to show! From the beginning I explain my point of view but you didn't made a critique but only impose you opinion writing "Please, let's stay serious and avoid invented "explanations". You didn't include more of the surroundings because you didn't think of that." or "I heard the story about "being different" quite a couple of times from many too many that camouflage failure through that and similar excuses."
Critique is constructive when there is a dialogue and not when someone has preconception and doesn't want to hear different point of view!
You do professional photography, I'm really happy for you :) I never wrote that I'm doing professinal photography and I never wrote this is a perfect photo, I''m not looking for perfection or to impose my point of view I only make it clear and share it with people and if someone doesn't like it is not my problem ! I don't impose it ! I respect people and I don't take joke of people because they don't think like me or understand my point of view !!!
Yes, Dominique. You are right, Dominique. Whatever you say, Dominique. And we all suggest this wonderfully succesful image that managed such a geat thing like getting the (average) "shape of the two kids" as the new candidate for the Hasselblad award. Really geat, I stand amazed!
BTW, of course we are totaly different. In the meantime I do professional photography and this is of course why I can't understand your great work and your "point of viedw". (Strange but each and every amateur says exactly this. Otherwise they are all ooohh so different!)
Now, be happy with your great work, which I know that you will be, since you accept no critiques but only credits and acknowledgements. You will surely get them.
About the quality of the original, I never had the time to make the print in other places, in China every place print very different, maybe you can’t understand what I’m talking about. If you believe that photo is only professional photography is your point of view, go on with that !!!
I was not looking for perfection and I don’t want to make perfect picture but get the moments. If I was looking for the perfect photo I didn’t use a toy camera, but a professional one without plastic lens and without adding an extra plastic lens. I was shooting and make an experiment.
When you use toy camera of course you know that you’ll never sure what you’ll get. I didn’t wrote “I got it well” but I wrote “I don't think the shot was a failure or horrible, because I get the 2 kids shape, in that moment, this was my first point.”
I don’t understand why you are insist in believing that you know something that you couldn’t understand! You don't know me, you don't know my background and you don't read my mind!
If you can’t understand my point of view this means that we are totally different
Everyone express feeling in different way! There is also in this website a Photo Projects call "Personal style" !!! If you give a photography or video mission to 2 people you’ll get different results and also if you give a mission to people that have to collaborate they will do different results. Well, if you believe that everyone view and tell or feel in the same way, maybe you are trying to find excuses! If it would be like you believe the world would be totally the same and there would not be reason to communicate because everyone starts from the same point of view and arrives in the same end. 1 - I'm not contradict my own statement, I wrote that I don't like to "steal", but of course making the pictures I had already stolen! I wrote also that, because I didn't ask permission ( of course if they know or I had asked is a different situation) I feel is not polite to show more about them poverty condition. For my point of view is enough a broken sofa and a broken staircase. When I shoot the photo I thought about them game, about catwalk and my comment about it is "The Power of Children's Imagination! Some kids can be happy with few things!" My photo is not about kids playing in a garbage dump. Is about them, is about a way of play, not about poverty condition. Showing more poverty is only to emphasize and make them look more poor: this is not what I wanted to tell. From my point of view for exemple taking the sorroundings is steal more their mood, because is showing the terrible condition and also could make some people think about the place, not about them or say “poor miserable kids”! This is not what I want! I don’t want someone take fake pity on them! 2 - For example 1 year kids (poor and also rich) could enjoy more to play with a plastic empty bottle than with a toy. If in my mind I want to explain this, from my point of view I don’t care about the place, but just about the kids. Maybe if you shoot the photo for an adv you'll put the sorroundings for emphasize. But “The Power of Children's Imagination” is the mind and not just the place and everyone is free to find his/her way to express that.
I heard the story about "being different" quite a couple of times from many too many that camouflage failure through that and similar excuses. You only contradict your own statement, when you say that you wouldn't like to "steal" the mood of the kids and at the same time, that you didn't want more of the environment. The logical conclusion of the combination of the two statements is... that going further away from the kids would "steal" their mood more than closing up. Or isn't it?
About the quality of the original, just show it to any professional photographer and listen to what he/she would say. If you still insist that you "got it well", then he will raise the shoulders and say OK, then you got it well. Go on with that.
Everyone is different and everyone as a different way of be in touch with people and for this reason everyone as also a different way to tell story or to take pictures! I'm not invented explanations! If someone is taking pictures of people without asking them permission is like steal, because they don't know. People who knows me very well understand my point of view, I also will never take a picture of a mendicant, sick or dying person. I know that there are some people that can do photos of this people or include the surroundings, but I'm not them! My photos, is my point of view and my way of telling. I didn't include more of the surroundings because I didn't want!!! For my point of view is enough a broken sofa and a broken staircase. Include the garbage dump is showing more poverty condition, this is not what I want to tell. My point was the focus on this 2 happy kids play on a broken sofa, not to make them look more wretched. The camera is a toy camera, you can't make real zoom, to take picture you have to get closer. The camera use an original plastic lens and I used on this an extra plastic lens. Yes, the light was terrible, it was a raining day and of course the capabilities of the camera and conditions of the light didn't make a good capture, I don't think the shot was a failure or horrible, because I get the 2 kids shape, in that moment, this was my first point. Have a nice day Dominique
What you say.. So, you would "steal their emotions" if you would include more of the surroundings while zooming more in (and thus having them bigger) doesn't "steal their emotions", Dominique? Please, let's stay serious and avoid invented "explanations". You didn't include more of the surroundings because you didn't think of that. That's OK but the afterward excuses are needless for stepping further into photographic work.
The original is not simply "not good" but rather horrible, except of course if you really intended to get an image with almost zero contrast. The retouch did much indeed and bettered the overall quality and mood, the way I already described, but nonetheless the shot was a failure. I don't know if the plastic lens contributed to the bad quality but it was certainly not only that but also bad adjustments and/or inadequate capabilities of the camera. You could retry something similar under better light conditions or perhaps with some other lens.
Yes, children are able to keep their good mood also in misery place, but when I shoot without asking permission I feel like I'm stiling them emotions ... here the original without the colors contrast, the print was not good and so after the scan I update the colors, more similar to real chinese way !!! Have a nice day :) Dominique
I think that showing the misery around would rather enhance your subject and intention, Dominique! Exactly *because* the children are able to keep their good mood also in such a place. This would raise the tension too.
The cpombination of the plastic lens and the PS effect resulted into something like an image taken with a baby lens. BTW, you also used the radial softener, may I assume?? Oh, and yould you attach the original too?
Thank you very much for your critique! Yes you right, it could was better include also much of the surroundings: behind the girl there was a smelling destroy public toilet and behind the boy a garbage dump. Because I don't ask permission to take the pictures, I decided to focalize on them and on them game without show more about the poverty. I use a extra plastic lens to increase the blurry. I use PS to contrast the colors because in the original print there were to much fade and it was hard to see the girl is wearing heels. Thank you again :) Have a nice time!!! Dominique
The image surely has much of a touch of, say, the 1970's instant photos, Dominique. And it exhibits this behavorior in quite a good taste and a good ability to use the special characteristics of such an image as a support for the intented image. The bit of blurry and softer appearance of the kids themselves adds also a bit of that kind of "snap of journalism" but still I think that a better focus and sharper details would do good.
The composition is not as bad but also not really special. The centered design lets everything look rathe flat, though it was good to include also much of the surroundings and the scene.
I guess that you did some additional work with PS here, so was that the original? If not, then could you please attach it too?
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{K:127263} 7/29/2009
