City - Portland State - OREGON Country - United States
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North West Professional Dance Project in Portland, Oregon... I asked if I could take pics of their Launch 2 program while on vacation... comments and ratings always welcome... cheers Dan
This sounded much like an excuse to me now, Dan. And quite a pseudo-philosophical one too, I am sorry to say. This kind of "personal taste" story used as an argument for weakening the criticism by posing questions about perfectness is nothing I bother for. I go to libraries for philosophy and not to online clubs. It is quite contradictory to call on "personal taste" and at the same time to question the personal taste of the critic, ey? So, if you refer to yours you *have* to also accept the existence of mine, which then logically includes *any* "personal taste" in the set of judgement means. The wish to achieve a "relative" judgement makes it only even more strict - so we better leave such thoughts aside and continue on this very image.
Of course there can be no sharply defined line between conveying motion and simply looking blurred(unsharp. But this doesn't mean at all that just because we can't define the boundary sharply we also can't say on which *side* of that boundary we are with each given image. This is a very general mistake that many too many people do, and not only in photography. The impossibility of a sharp definition for some boundary, like for example this one here, does *no way* imply that there are no regions in which the objects of consideration fall into. In this case it doesn't fall into the region of images about motion and dynamism. Don't get me wrong here, the subject itself was of course very strongly related to motion, but the *image* of the subject is not the same thing as the subject. In this case, if it conveys motion at all, then it much more like camera shake or something similar, while the other one is rather a hymne to dance and body control.
Thanx for the response Nick... I think in general... there are most likely rules that pertain to movement and blur... yet in the end... is there perfect in the imperfect?... we break the rules every day... taste is individual... be it clothing, food or imagery... what appeals to one may disgust another... so I am happy to shoot... and if it evokes a feeling, positive, negative, pensive, voracious, passionate, apethetic, calming or invigorating... I have realized my success. We do it for the love of the image and the cathartic aspect, for when inside the lens the world disappears and nothing is ever wrong. So truly the "rule of thumb" would be... is the thumb out of focus or in focus... it is all a matter of taste and personal perspective.
Thanks a lot for the reply and the link, Dan! Yes, sir! That is exactly what I mean! A great one for capturing the elegance and power of the motion! Especially the dancer on the front of that image is pretty much the quintessence of the dance and its movement.
The whole subject is very interesting but also full of questions to me, and this is why I examine it so closely and discuss about it. I don't "feel I am right" but I feel I am not sure at all about when it is the "reprography of motion" and when it is blurred in a way that it looks like bad focus.
Opening a parenthesis here, I also wonder what kind of "discussion" it can be, when each and every detailed sincere explanation of the reasons for the own impression goes under the label of "need to feel right". I can't say it conveys motion to my eyes when it doesn't. The different impressions are themselves a good hint for closer examination of what is going on. Closing parenthesis.
Back to the subject, unfortunately I don't have any other criterion except what I "see" on some given image, which is too vague. This one looks unsharp to me while the other one looks fantastic to me. But why? Where is the difference? I think that the difference is caused by the "amount of motion" that was captured, but is it? And is it the only criterion?
This is also why I am quite ambivalent about a series on motion that I start posting today. The differentiation between a good image on this subject and one that looks simply fuzzy is a strange thing to me, since I can't really tell what makes the difference. And I would be very interested in knowing some kind of "rule of thumb" about it in order to be able to shoot some good images of this category. I guess it will take much trial and error in a systematic way for getting some more insight in this.
If the motion of dance is the subject of the shot, then it has to be there on a much more powerful way, Dan. This one already "decided" to capture a "pose" and so it doesn't convey motion as an intention of the photographer but rather motion blur as an imperfection. You should rather adjust a slower shutter and shoot when the motion is expected to cover some reasonable area of space.
BTW, on the same website you will also find images without any motion blur that still enhance motion extremely strongly.
So, the "power in her execution" doesn't seem to be the dominating factor here, but rather the elegance of her figure on a break of movement for some splits of a second. Your idea about that power was a good one, but the shot caught something else - which was also very good to capture.
Thanx Nick... I don't necessarily agree with all your points... but I understand where you are coming from... I have numerous shots of this particular dancerand will post more... when shooting dancers... I find it is about the spirit and the emotion of movement for them and the piece... and so I am not bothered by the blurred movement... I feel the power in her execution of the movement and extension... because in this case it isn't about a frozen moment... but more a feeling of true emotional bliss, doing what she was truly meant to do... Thanx for the comment and dropping in for a look... Cheers Dan
A good timing for the shot, if we make an exception for the hand covering her face, and a well balanced placing of your protagonist into the area of your frame.
Most of the contours look OK to me but there are also some blurry ones. I assume a somewhat slow shutter for freezing all contoirs in the flow of motion. Having said that, the partial blurryness of some parts of her body wouldn't be much of a problem itself, but here it is combined with a not so high contrast. The combination of the two seems to disturb quite a bit.
I'd like to see some more tries about this subject. As a subject it is very very interesting and so it deserves, I think, some additional study.
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