First of all, I really appreciate your comments. As I said from the beginning, I was somewhat ambivalent (can anyone be "somewhat" ambivalent? <g>) about this one.
I'd have liked it were the cyclist sharper - I wanted to see what others thought. Most like, some don't, and I'd rather have divergent opinions than none at all!
I'm learning to like it - it's not one of my best shots, but it may have potential - getting all sorts of feedback helps in my process.
Interesting you mention the big X across the contact sheet if it were yours. I never do that. I've had some photos that I've come back on months or years later, and suddenly decided that they had potential that they didn't have before. Were I to X things, I think I'd never revisit my work. I guess we all work differently, eh? That's what makes this place so interesting.
thanks again, frank
"The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
From: Keith Whaley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
I'm one of the ones that doesn't particularly like this shot. Why? Because the cyclist is a blurred double image.
I think there are two possible goals when panning a shot. One is - if you'll excuse the use of the word - artistic. That's what Frank's horizontally framed cyclist shot does. There's less focus or concentration on the subject (the cyclist) than there is on the scene as a whole. The subject is central to the photo, of course, but the goal is not technical perfection but capturing the feeling. More like war photos, I guess. . .
The other goal is to display the subject in as good a focus as you can, with minimal blurring, without regard to the back- or foreground. In other words, make the shot with strict regard to getting the moving subject as clear as possible. Were this from a photo session of mine, I would have culled this image from the lot as not being displayable. Not what I'd like my images to portray. . . A black cross on the proof sheet! "Don't print!"
But then, as a Chinese art professor once told me, I was WAY too tight! I had problems with letting go, flowing the watercolor on, making bold brush strokes with feeling. I admit to that limitation. My photo painting is more like laboring over Grandma Moses' miniatures, instead of Frank's free-flowing Toronto cyclist photos! Neither "wrong" with either, just a difference in approach.
Having said that, I can accept and even learn to like Frank's image, and who cares if it's something I wouldn't have displayed? It's Frank's work, not mine! <bg>
Keep it up, Frank!
keith
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