A question about composition

[Farside]

[A G Photography]

[Nesster]

The show at the Metropolitan was instructive, seeing good prints, large, of these early images.

Once a basic technical level was reached, and this happened fairly early, the cameras and lenses were capable of incredible images - in many, I could just keep going into detail within detail within detail... the sense of telescoping depth was MUCH greater than one can achieve with small formats.

The thing missing because of the size of equipment was the sense of movement in the large formats. This is what Catier-Bresson brought into the vocabulary with his Leica.

All along, photographers were making artistic and technical choices based on their own priorities. A couple of examples include Cameron's interest in soft focus pictorial portraiture where she was extending the exposure time (at a time when most were trying their best to shorten and sharpen theirs), and Atget's use of technology that was well into obsolescence during his career.

As we've seen here on this very forum, many of the old lenses are still competitive in many aspects with modern ones, perhaps stylistically (contrast, speed) they have been superseded, but not artistically. Further, the large formats require LESS absolute resolution (or, to put it another way, resolution goes FAR further with large format) from the lens than any of these new-fangled miniature cameras.

So yes, the ability of Joe Sports Photographer to squeeze off a rapid set of photos at 100ft and low light and get the images on their employer's desk in minutes is new. And the scope and convenience of equipment is far greater now than even 30 years ago. And it is more democratic: the average enthusiast can have equipment that is hugely better than his predecessor (even the Leica of yesteryear was less convenient and required more effort).

With HCB, we have his early work and 'trash bin' available now... the discovery was how often his Decisive Moment was actually the moment he selected which negative to print... and even there it was likely to be the Indecisive Moment as he vacillated between versions.

I think it all goes to show: any art struggles with the medium, regardless of the state of development of the medium. And any art involves things beyond the technicalities of its time.

But at the same time we are fortunate to have the democratic technology we enjoy today, even if it makes the identification of our modern masters harder in all the noise of technically high quality images.
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[zewrak]

Wow, thanks for all the kind comments.

Both the ground and the house is indeed leaning towards the left. It is an old graveyardchapel, where they used to store dead people waiting to be buried. It has not been used for the past 50 years or so though. And time is taking its toll.

I did straighten it before I published it, but if I straighten the ground the house would look even more leaning, but to the right, so I left it as it is.

This image is acctually only made black and white, its not cropped or anything. My idea was to remove the ventilation thingie above her head. I just posted it to hear what you had to say.
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[Nesster]

[Farside]

@Allesandro and Nesster...
I pretty much agree with what both of you say. I doubt very much if HCB took that pic as a one-off; it's likely he had the camera set up and the cyclist passing that spot a dozen times until he was sure he had a neg that showed what he wanted. The capturing of the cyclist's movement was what made the pic, imo. Again, working within the limitations of the kit he had available it was a damn good shot. The film in those days was the main limiting factor, imo and it shows he knew what he was doing.

I repeat my opinion - we cannot judge those early pics by today's standards, for they will nearly always fall short of expectations, as the 'deleter' thread proved. In fact, that thread proved one very important thing - those who never knew anything about HCB were able to take a dispassionate view (albeit by modern standards) and give it a thumbs down. In their eyes the emperors of yesteryear have no clothes today.

I never mentioned large formats - perhaps I should have made clear I was only talking about miniature film and cameras. I fully know large format plates way back to the days of the American Civil War have a great deal of detail in them - pretty static detail though, because of the crappy emulsions of the day.
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[A G Photography]

Sorry Farside, but the deleter thread just proved that a lot of people is simply too dang ignorant about art.
Sharpness, blurriness etc are needed mainly for commercial images because this is what the "common viewer" expect to see.
That shot of HCB is art and art in that time frame was very concerned about movement.
Just an example:



This is Giacomo Balla's "Dinamismo di un cane al guinzaglio", 1912, one of the manifest painting of italian futurism.

Look also in HBC shot how the static metallic stairs balustrade bring the eye to the moviment of the cyclist. It's art, it's composition and I couldn't think a better way even today to produce a masterpiece like this one.
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[maddog10]

The "common viewer" as you describe it, does not know what art is. All they see is what is on TV or on the billboard on the way to work (maybe in a magazine if they are in a reading mood). What we like is different to the other 90% of the world's population. We take photography more serious than most people do. We take the time to analyze a photo and judge it on strength and weakness. I believe most people have simplified it to , "I like it or I don't", and this is only on the photos that they have access to (usually advertising or maybe sports photography). Most people expect to see a sharp image with vivid colors.

Photographers and perhaps advanced hobbyists may understand motion blur or the rule of thirds for composition and can pick up on subtleties in a photo more readily. This should happen in a photo contest on a photo forum, but who is to know who the users are and what background they may, or may not have in photography.

This is an auto-focus, digital world (thankfully not here) and the masses just point and shoot snapshots. They generally do not care about the history that has led us to this point. We here at MFL are in the minority and look how differently we view things, and we have a better understanding than most.
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[Nesster]

Taking a look at flickr's popular photos - their interestingness quotient or just a sheer number of views - and one can see definite trends as to what's popular. A major component is an instant BAM!, if a photo can't hook a viewer instantly, it just doesn't get past the attention spans amongst the thousands of pics posted every hour. This doesn't make all these photos bad ones - indeed, there are some very skillfully created and concentrated images out there.

I'll agree with you Farside as well on this: had better film and equipment been available then the photographers would have flocked to them. I've verified this myself - twice in this lifetime! First, growing up and now in my second childhood of using vintage equipment. All the limitations and complications register, and I appreciate even more each fix and automation.

But there's another side to this easy technical perfection: we've been conditioned to these standards. We're talking EV of +- 1/3 stop now - back when that probably was measurable but I don't believe it was done. Leica users for example were/are proud of 'knowing their light' without a meter. Same goes for focus, for sharpness, for a host of individual technical characteristics.

It's sort of like in audio, the distortion and power wars made for equipment that measures better but doesn't necessarily sound better. Often it sounds worse. The same goes for sound recordings: these are often the perfect products of hundreds of splices and sweetenings. Sure they sound technically note perfect, without distracting flubs and farts...

I feel that groups of enthusiasts such as collected here, or the bokeh hounds, or the Holga tramps, are reacting to the measured perfection - and therefore conditioned expectation. Showing a little leg, paying attention to what isn't sharp, perfectly exposed, and so on.

Yet, as we know and love to find: there are lenses that are simply better at what they do. There is more natural resolution, more detail and nuance to be had. Often this is almost subliminal, sometimes experienced as 3-D. Lovers of light have always sought these out, for some the hunt and the quality suffice in themselves, and for some these make more flexible tools for expression. If one then rejects this aesthetic for something else, that's fine too, only the decisions are then based on knowledge and understanding.

Another aspect that we tend to miss these days: so many of the famous images are famous because at the time, they had that flickr hook! They were new, they showed us something different and interesting. Now, these have lost much of their old power to shock, replaced instead by a vintage presence and the weight of reputation.

I'm finding this a very stimulating discussion, thank you Alessandro for the clarity by which you educate on HCB's futurist references.
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[peterqd]

[j.lukow]

Great shot, I like the original composition. There is a cohesiveness and flow to it that are great!

Jim
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