09-19-07 – Painting With Light

Forums Forums Farktography General Chat This week’s contest 09-19-07 – Painting With Light

Viewing 15 posts - 46 through 60 (of 76 total)
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  • #13193
    soosh
    Participant

    even for the most carefully worded themes, we often find people will interpret it in an unanticipated way that isn’t really what was intended, yet can’t really be precluded (read: deleted) due to the wording of the description and/or title.

    As always, it’s not photography, it’s Farktography. Your hard work on your photos is not negated by anyone else’s photos be they on theme, off-theme, or stretching the boundaries.

    And this is exactly why I love Farktography. Because of how wide and various the interpretation of the theme can be.

    The shots I entered tonight, I picked because there was a difference in how the scene looked to the eye compared to how the scene turned out with accumulated light taken into consideration.

    #13194
    SilverStag
    Participant

    The shots I entered tonight, I picked because there was a difference in how the scene looked to the eye compared to how the scene turned out with accumulated light taken into consideration.

    And what does that have to do with the theme? Just curious.

    #13195
    schnee
    Participant

    But seriously, I’m a lazy bastard

    Well, for a lazy bastard, you do some nice work. Maybe I need to be lazier!

    On the model with the bat, what sort of lens did you use? I’m sensing a bit of tilt movement, but it could just be a shallow DOF.

    #13196
    Elsinore
    Keymaster

    The shots I entered tonight, I picked because there was a difference in how the scene looked to the eye compared to how the scene turned out with accumulated light taken into consideration.

    And what does that have to do with the theme? Just curious.

    I’m guessing that’s how he interpreted the theme title “Painting With Light”

    #13197
    bobroberts
    Participant

    But seriously, I’m a lazy bastard

    Well, for a lazy bastard, you do some nice work. Maybe I need to be lazier!

    On the model with the bat, what sort of lens did you use? I’m sensing a bit of tilt movement, but it could just be a shallow DOF.

    No tilt lens, but I think you’re right about the shallow DOF giving it that look. I used the Canon 50mm f/1.4 for that shot (exif: 1/25s f/1.4 at 50.0mm iso400). It’s funny, because it was my cheapest lens, but I think it’s my favorite…

    #13198
    Curious
    Participant

    The shots I entered tonight, I picked because there was a difference in how the scene looked to the eye compared to how the scene turned out with accumulated light taken into consideration.

    And what does that have to do with the theme? Just curious.

    I’m guessing that’s how he interpreted the theme title “Painting With Light”

    and how others did also. HOWEVER Photograph something, anything, but use additional light, past an on-camera flash. Bounce light, flashlight, lantern, or strobe- Be creative to my mind accumulated light, while creative, doesn’t fit the description. this contest has several entries that are nothing more than ambient light. nice photos but not on topic/theme.

    and IMHO that’s a disservice to those that spent the time to actually add light to their entries. mine aren’t getting votes due to the suck factor but they at least had an outside light source. and when i did them i spent some time trying different angles and lighting. a pretty sunset or a dog back lit by the sun ……. well maybe it just bothers a few of us.

    #13199
    soosh
    Participant

    The shots I entered tonight, I picked because there was a difference in how the scene looked to the eye compared to how the scene turned out with accumulated light taken into consideration.

    And what does that have to do with the theme? Just curious.

    I’m guessing that’s how he interpreted the theme title “Painting With Light”

    and how others did also. HOWEVER Photograph something, anything, but use additional light, past an on-camera flash. Bounce light, flashlight, lantern, or strobe- Be creative to my mind accumulated light, while creative, doesn’t fit the description. this contest has several entries that are nothing more than ambient light. nice photos but not on topic/theme.

    and IMHO that’s a disservice to those that spent the time to actually add light to their entries. mine aren’t getting votes due to the suck factor but they at least had an outside light source. and when i did them i spent some time trying different angles and lighting. a pretty sunset or a dog back lit by the sun ……. well maybe it just bothers a few of us.

    So some people’s additional light came from an electronic source, other people’s came from sitting around and waiting and collecting several minutes worth of light and combining them into one visual. I added additional light to my scene by leaving the shutter open long enough that the foreground was lit like day, not like the pitch black it really was.

    If “painting with light” means I have to direct an artificial light source into a scene, then every time I’m turning on the damned porch light to look to see if it’s a porcupine or a bear in the garbage, I’m “painting with light”.

    Suppose the subject of a contest was “chairs” and the person who envisioned the subject had a real love of seating furniture. Wicker-back rockers, plush club chairs, leather sofas, you name it. Would a toilet be out of the bounds of the contest? What about a portrait of Edmund Giambastiani, former chair of the Joint Requirements Oversight Council in the US Joint Chiefs of Staff?

    Don’t let your vagina get all sandy.

    #13200
    Elsinore
    Keymaster

    and how others did also. HOWEVER Photograph something, anything, but use additional light, past an on-camera flash. Bounce light, flashlight, lantern, or strobe- Be creative to my mind accumulated light, while creative, doesn’t fit the description. this contest has several entries that are nothing more than ambient light. nice photos but not on topic/theme.

    and IMHO that’s a disservice to those that spent the time to actually add light to their entries. mine aren’t getting votes due to the suck factor but they at least had an outside light source. and when i did them i spent some time trying different angles and lighting. a pretty sunset or a dog back lit by the sun ……. well maybe it just bothers a few of us.

    And in the current voting, you have to count down 19 pictures before you come up with a single one that’s lit with sunlight, then you have to count down several more beyond that to find another one that might be questionable. The vast majority of the questionable photos are in the <10 votes range. The voters by and large are responding to photos that used artificial supplemental light.

    #13201
    schnee
    Participant

    The vast majority of the questionable photos are in the <10 votes range.

    And then there’s my craptacular entry. I shoulda stood in bed.

    #13202
    Flavivirus
    Participant

    Shoosh, the attitude isn’t exactly endearing. I think your pictures are beautiful, and I think they are well shot and thought out. However, I would suggest that “painting with light” means you actually do manipulate lite somehow. Were you holding the moon? 😛 I don’t worry about votes, this was the most fun contest for me because I have never experimented with light before (and I think that is the point of these exercises, yes?), and I learned a lot, even from looking at others idea (I love the laser idea!). However, anyone with any shred of photography knowledge (which is all I have) knows what was implied by the theme title and description, and long-exposures of self-lit or ambient-lit scenes wouldn’t qualify.

    There is no “sand in a vagina”, this weeks Farktography was a blast… but for some of us, we would have liked it if people actually applied the theme, so that oranges can be compared to oranges. I understand the sentiment that was behind the critique.

    The other thing that Elsinore pointed out, is that it’s not photography, it’s Fark 😛 You don’t even get a happy meal for finishing first! haha.

    #13203
    millera9
    Participant

    The shots I entered tonight, I picked because there was a difference in how the scene looked to the eye compared to how the scene turned out with accumulated light taken into consideration.

    And what does that have to do with the theme? Just curious.

    I’m guessing that’s how he interpreted the theme title “Painting With Light”

    and how others did also. HOWEVER Photograph something, anything, but use additional light, past an on-camera flash. Bounce light, flashlight, lantern, or strobe- Be creative to my mind accumulated light, while creative, doesn’t fit the description. this contest has several entries that are nothing more than ambient light. nice photos but not on topic/theme.

    and IMHO that’s a disservice to those that spent the time to actually add light to their entries. mine aren’t getting votes due to the suck factor but they at least had an outside light source. and when i did them i spent some time trying different angles and lighting. a pretty sunset or a dog back lit by the sun ……. well maybe it just bothers a few of us.

    So some people’s additional light came from an electronic source, other people’s came from sitting around and waiting and collecting several minutes worth of light and combining them into one visual. I added additional light to my scene by leaving the shutter open long enough that the foreground was lit like day, not like the pitch black it really was.

    If “painting with light” means I have to direct an artificial light source into a scene, then every time I’m turning on the damned porch light to look to see if it’s a porcupine or a bear in the garbage, I’m “painting with light”.

    Suppose the subject of a contest was “chairs” and the person who envisioned the subject had a real love of seating furniture. Wicker-back rockers, plush club chairs, leather sofas, you name it. Would a toilet be out of the bounds of the contest? What about a portrait of Edmund Giambastiani, former chair of the Joint Requirements Oversight Council in the US Joint Chiefs of Staff?

    Don’t let your vagina get all sandy.

    soosh there are a few things you should be aware of. First: Curious happens to be the most vocal and the most routinely forward member of this forum when it comes to calling out others on their disobedient entries. Do not let yourself think that he’s the only one who looks at entries and regularly thinks “man, what the hell was that person thinking?” or “did they read the same theme description I did?” He’s not, so it isn’t a case of abraded labia on his part.

    Secondly, and this is the important thing for this week’s contest, the description asked for people to use additional light. The concept of additional is that you’re adding something that wasn’t previously there. In fact, the dictionary definition of “additional” is very straightforward. It says, “added; more; supplementary”. That’s it. The word can not be correctly interpreted to mean anything else except that. Your shots are technically proficient and very well taken but they don’t fit the theme at all. You didn’t add any extra light to the subject matter in either of those shots, you simply used what was already present.

    Beyond those two points, I generally agree with you. Farktography needs to stay relaxed and fun and it certainly needs to remain elastic and open to interpretation. Your chairs example is excellent. Taking a photo of the chair of the committee would work just fine for that in the same way that taking pictures of the hands of a clock worked for last week’s “hands” theme. However, when people start misreading and misinterpreting very simple instructions like “add additional light to a scene and photograph it”, that’s when the system begins to break down.

    #13204
    soosh
    Participant

    [Photograph something, anything, but use additional light, past an on-camera flash

    Each of my entries manipulated light to produce an image in the camera that wasn’t what an observer at the scene would have seen. The way that was done was to accumulate additional light using time, which I think is every bit as valid a way to paint with light as a flashlight. Did I provide the moonlight? Nope. But I made sure it got into the box.

    #13205
    Flavivirus
    Participant

    Again, shoosh, I’m not saying you didn’t ‘collect light’, but you didn’t manipulate it. There is no way you can state that you added (hence the word “additional”) anything to the shot. The light is there, you just needed the time to collect it.

    “use additional light”. Please define where, in your image, there is any additional light that didn’t exist in the scene. By the way, someone with very good night vision could see what you took a picture of very easily, thanks to our wonderfully adaptive retinas.

    Regardless, this’ll be a “chasing circles” type conversation. You feel your entry is valid, many don’t, the voters (and even those who feel it doesn’t think it belongs in this contest) think it looks good, we can probably move forward from this point, yes?

    #13206
    millera9
    Participant

    [Photograph something, anything, but use additional light, past an on-camera flash

    Each of my entries manipulated light to produce an image in the camera that wasn’t what an observer at the scene would have seen. The way that was done was to accumulate additional light using time, which I think is every bit as valid a way to paint with light as a flashlight. Did I provide the moonlight? Nope. But I made sure it got into the box.

    Uhhh, no. I’m sorry to inform you of this but you didn’t use any additional light like the theme description very specifically asked you to. You actually don’t have a unique or unusual interpretation of the theme, you have a completely incorrect interpretation of the word “additional”. You didn’t add any light (“add” being the active root of the word “additional”). A casual observer wouldn’t have been able to observe the ambient light shown in your photographs but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. You didn’t photograph “additional” light, you photographed existing dim light. There is a very big difference between those two things and, judging by the other entries in the thread and the way the voting has turned out, most people were able to understand the instructions. I applaud you for thinking outside the box and trying to differentiate yourself, but don’t come in here and start preaching to us about having “sandy vaginas” because we politely asked you to adhere to the very simple rules.

    #13207
    Curious
    Participant

    soosh where to start? in case you didn’t notice i am a moderator at this site and while my opinion may have no more weight than anyone else’s but it doesn’t stem from sand in my vagina. as millera9 pointed out i’m a vocal critic of straying off theme. it bothers me and i say as much, regularly. IMHO the main point of these contest even havening a theme is to stretch our collective skills by exposing us to different requirements. either in subject or technique.

    now as to your entries i didn’t call you out by name or photo so i’m wondering why the heated response. in an earlier post you wrote Each of my entries manipulated light to produce an image in the camera that wasn’t what an observer at the scene would have seen. i take exception to the claim of manipulating the light. you gathered light that was there and manipulated the resulting image from one that would have resulted in a short exposure. you did not add light to the scene which was the point here. those pictures that did add light by using either a brief burst (off camera flash), or a continuous off camera source such as a flashlight or laser actually added some light.

    you are welcome to your opinion and free to express it. that’s what this site is dedicated to but please don’t expect us all to agree with you. and when we don’t it’s (usually) a friendly difference of opinion neither a personal attack nor simply me with an attitude.

Viewing 15 posts - 46 through 60 (of 76 total)
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