Thursday, August 12, 2010

I Can't Help Myself

That's the title of this photo: I Can't Help Myself. The working title, anyway. I saw the possibility of the photo as I was driving into town today. The subjects were a good fifty yards away, I turned on my camera in auto mode, pushed the zoom a bit, pointed the camera in their general direction, coasted through the stop sign and snapped. It wasn't until afterward that I saw the zoom was fully extended, passed 300mm. I thought for sure I'd have a blurred close-up of some tree branches against a sky.

If and when you enlarge the photo, you'll see that I got the blurry part right. The frame is uncropped, and certainly tweaked in Photoshop. But even before post-production, I liked it.

I could be talking myself into liking it, for it occurs to me that over the last few days I have been thinking about those unconventional photos, the ones with the sun glare that edits the shot 'just so' and the blur that doesn't directly represent movement, and still they manage to 'work' and convey.

However, let's imagine for a moment that I came to a full stop, or moved in closer, set the camera's exposure, even bracketed, kept the same framing, and the resulting photo was sharp. The intentionality is the same, but would it be appealing? Perhaps there are elements that would draw me in: the ball in front of the tree, the child's t-shirt, the dandelions in the foreground, and the camper as a frame within frame. The things that might have attracted my attention in the first place, had I the time to actually think beyond ooo, me likey.

Likewise, upon seeing the image, I immediately thought I had something special.  I've taken a lot of out of focus photos, and dismissed them right away. Not this one. I can't justify it, and maybe that's okay.

 TM's suggestion for sepia (50%)

11 comments:

NT said...

You realize, of course, that you've taken a picture of someone taking a picture...

bastinptc said...

Fully. That aspect holds little interest for me, except perhaps that all of the faces in my photo are hidden to some degree.

Crash said...

I like the B&W.

TenMile said...

Now take it back to Photo Shop and make it Sepia.

Memphis MOJO said...

it occurs to me that over the last few days I have been thinking about those unconventional photos, the ones with the sun glare that edits the shot 'just so' and the blur that doesn't directly represent movement, and still they manage to 'work' and convey.

You shoot and evaluate from an artist's perspective, I think.

Ten Mile said...

What'a ya think, Patrick?

bastinptc said...

I'm not sure what to think of the sepia tone. It has a visual appeal that suggests age, and maybe therefore age-old. It is funny coincidence that a friend elsewhere said the picture reminded him of WPA photos.

I have not done much duotone work. I have to think about my perceptions about artifice.

joxum said...

Before reading about the photo, I would have guess it was shot back in the 60's.

I like the B/W best. Or perhaps add more tone to the sepia.

/j.

joxum said...

Before reading about the photo, I would have guess it was shot back in the 60's.

I like the B/W best. Or perhaps add more tone to the sepia.

/j.

TenMile said...

The WPA angle struck me first also, which is why I suggested the tone change.

I'd suggest cropping the picture also, verticly about where the sky and ground meet left of the tree. You can see it best by clicking enbiggen and moving the photo leftward with the lower side to side slide.

I'm glad you felt the two pictures should stay on the blog. Photo manipulation isn't necessarily a bad thing however.

That type of ethicallity concerning photos is rare anymore. But photo's cropped or worked, for art or pleasure, are as old as photo journalism.

A couple of examples are the "Valley of Death" photos (if you find them together its amazing) and a couple from the Civil War.

Crash said...

The B&W shows texture, highlights, and shadow better. If all you want is to pretend it is old, go with the sepia.
And if you ever do another nude (not naked) do B&W or color.