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Another oul’ wretch
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ciaran wrote:
I guess this one is subjective so there’s no debating it :) I appreciate the comments.
Aye, especially since we have such different styles and obviously different ways of seeing things.
Glad you took the comments as they were meant, Ciaran, personal observations on the work and not the man behind the camera.I always dread giving honest opinions that go against the general concensus, feels like you’re walking into a bar with no clothes on and ‘kick me’ tatooed on yer ass. ;)
going to have to agree with mick on this.
while there is much to admire in these shots , for me where they fail is on the emotional level .. also like mick i feel the eyes do not have the prominence required for this type of portrait .. (windows to the soul and all that)
i admire a lot of what you have achieved here but it is a very difficult genre to get right because it has been done so often, and by so many greats .. richard avedon in particular springs to mind.
but perhaps the thing that has coloured my opinion the most is the title … guys like avedon et al had a genuine respect for the people they photographed .. i could be way off the mark here as i do not know the local venacular .. and if i am doing you a disservice i apologise … but ‘oul wretch’ strikes me as being a somewhat disrespectful title and in being so detracts from any emotional resonance with the people in the images?
d
I think this series is getting better as it gets added to, and that the best is yet to come- after all, there’s no need to just stop this series at the end of the competition?
I like the toning, and think this treatment will lead to strong dark prints, and it is, after all, a print competition. Number 1 looks a bit out of series now, unless you’ve reprocessed him-regarding the eyes, I couldn’t comment without seeing a print, but skin colour and texture seems fine to me.
I like the lighting, it looks similar throughout. It implies the street to me, down at the bottom of the canyons- lit from above up above, the fag in hand the excuse. There’s the tobacco angle, the premature aging of the skin angle, so much so that they almost look like miners at the coal(tar) face-
The dogged determination to see a job well done-
Smoking for Ireland.They all engage with the camera, are complicit with the picture, and look completely relaxed, almost like they know where their next pint is coming from :D but well done to get that.
Regarding the title, I think if the final prints had a different title, it would probably be better. Unless you’ve got the model release signed already-
j
Mick451 wrote:
Aye, especially since we have such different styles and obviously different ways of seeing things.
Glad you took the comments as they were meant, Ciaran, personal observations on the work and not the man behind the camera.I always dread giving honest opinions that go against the general concensus, feels like you’re walking into a bar with no clothes on and ‘kick me’ tatooed on yer ass. ;)
No worries. I think it’s important that when people post shots for critique, they have to be able to take the rough with the smooth. Technical failures (softness) are one thing, but leaving them aside, subject matter isn’t going to appeal to everyone. So as much as I personally like these shots, I’m not naive enough to believe they’ll hold appeal for everyone. Now.. about this tattoo.. bend over there! ;)
David_S wrote:
but perhaps the thing that has coloured my opinion the most is the title … guys like avedon et al had a genuine respect for the people they photographed .. i could be way off the mark here as i do not know the local venacular .. and if i am doing you a disservice i apologise … but ‘oul wretch’ strikes me as being a somewhat disrespectful title and in being so detracts from any emotional resonance with the people in the images?
Isn’t it fascinating what a title does to an image? In the past I’ve posted images to a forum and received little or no response, but when I posted it on different forums with a different title, the response was completely different. Perhaps I should have learned that lesson and chosen a more suitable title for these images. In choosing the title, I certainly didn’t mean to and don’t mean to disrespect the subjects, but in hind sight a better title should have been picked. For all of the shots in the series, I chatted with the people before and after I took the shots and I’m 100% sure that if there was any disrespect in my voice or demeanour they wouldn’t have agreed to either let me take the shot in the first place or keep it afterwards.
jb7 wrote:
I think this series is getting better as it gets added to, and that the best is yet to come- after all, there’s no need to just stop this series at the end of the competition?
Cheers. As for continuing it afterwards, we’ll see… for now I’m just focused on getting two more shots.
jb7 wrote:
Regarding the title, I think if the final prints had a different title, it would probably be better. Unless you’ve got the model release signed already-
Yup point noted already about the title. I think I gave the first one the title of “Filthy habit” which is probably closer to the final title I’ll give the series.
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