On 29/5/04, SHEL, discombobulated, offered: [regarding Paul's gorgeous blue-eyed gal street portrait]
>You've created something that does not exist. IMO, that's not a portrait >but a work of art, a creation. The work is good, the woman looks good, >but, imo, agreeing with Peter, some of her character is gone. I think, as a >portrait, you overdid the Photoshop work. If this were to be for a >magazine ad, I'd proffer high praise. The people in magazine ads are often >portrayed as "perfect examples of humankind," with flaws, wrinkles, and >anomalies removed so as to create a fantasy for the viewer. But this is a >portrait, and it should show more of the real person, Imo. Interesting. We all have a wide variety of limits we seem to adhere to. For instance, when I do portraits, I willingly get rid of pimples and blemishes, but not freckles or birthmarks. My reasoning is this: freckles are a permanent fixture of a face - although even these appear lighter or darker depending on exposure to the sun - and pimples, or acne, call it what you will, is/are transient and at any one time may appear or not, and where they will. Hence, I can justify to myself their removal. I think Shel will still find this practice atrocious. However, I have thought long and hard on this and am at ease with it. It's a boundary that I have drawn in the sand and which I have decided to stick to. it's my limit. My copy of the Pocket Oxford Dictionary defines a portrait as 'a painted, drawn or photographic likeness of a person or animal, elaborate or vivid description'... It goes on to describe 'likeness' thus: liken - make like (rare); represent as comparable or similar to... likeness - resemblance, semblance, portrait especially in respect of it's truth (have one's likeness taken, be painted, photographed...a good, bad, flattering likeness)... ... and so Shel's position tends to be supported by these definitions, although seemingly not exclusively. For in order to 'represent as comparable or similar to' then surely the image [in this case] does not have to be an absolute recreation in two dimensions of the original. I would interpret this as room for manoeuvre, and so Paul's portrait is valid within this definition, IMO. But this all harks back to the basic interpretation of photography as a medium. Is it a bone-fide representation of a scene, or is it an interpretation of a bona-fide representation of a scene? Is it real or is it Memorex??? These and other questions answered in the threads to come ;-) Waiter, more wine! Cheers, Cotty ___/\__ || (O) | People, Places, Pastiche ||=====| www.macads.co.uk/snaps _____________________________
