Plus side
- Overall comments: "I love the ‘premise’ of your assignment here. Creating a narrative, whether real or fictive, is a creative device that has ‘framed’ your pictures. I also appreciate the running poetic verses you’ve written, which add a personal narrative to the search bringing up memories and random associations. It doesn’t quite captivate me but it is a very promising idea. Nevertheless, it shows you’re thinking ‘out of the box’ and beginning to join text to picture in experimental ways."
=> I am happy Robert appreciated my effort to experiment the mix between text and images. I am convinced that I have to think more and more "out of the box" in order to develop my artistic path. The combination between photos and poetical text can be really an interesting way for my personal growth.
- Images 1-6. "This series of urban perceptions are well composed and make good atmospheric impressions of the place. Technically they are almost faultless; I think you could have straightened some of the naturally straight lines. But you really are confident about how to arrange the different elements of the view in the frame. In terms of pure subject interest, the picture of the hand prints stands out to me. Maybe because it provides a mysterious human connection in this initial series. Also because it resonates with the text and the idea of following it with the photo of the child."
=> As I know to be "technically weak", I am proud to read that this series of images are technically faultless because I tried hard in putting a lot of attention to the technical aspects of my pictures.
The approach I wanted to have planning the shooting was as "cold" and "neutral" as possible. Even the post production left the photos almost unchanged and that is the reason why I did not want to straighten some of the lines that Robert mentioned.
- Images 9-11. "I would cut image 10 here because it doesn’t reflect the same kind of young male macho attitude of the other two. They are really good portraits. 9 because you’ve framed one guy with two headless pals in the foreground. 11 because the pose and attitude of the guy with sun- glasses is so completely “American Hip-Hop”. You’ve captured the character his gestures."
=> Image 10 is indeed the weakest of the three, but I decided to leave it because, in my opinion, it gives continuity to the flow of images and because it is supposed to underline the flavour of an atmosphere imbued with alcohol, smoke and hip-hop.
Things to improve
- Image 7. "It’s a pity this is not in focus. It also isn’t a great portrait. But the idea of a suddenly appearing child in red is quite strong in this neutral coloured and (until now) people-less environment."
=> I fully agree with Robert on his comment.
- Image 12. "The voluptuous folds of this woman’s body suggest a random erotic perception. It would have worked a lot better if you’d used shallow depth of field to soften the distracting background. It’s all about her torso, not the place. The light is also a bit grim for the subject. With a photo like this you kind of break away again from the first more architectural project and the Hip-Hop kids to something altogether different which creates a feeling of incongruity. It’s difficult to see how all this gels together and becomes an integral whole."
=> I agree on the fact that I should have used a shallow depth of field to soften the distracting background. However, my intention was exactly to break from the previous first "architectural" and then "hip-hop" approach. On purpose I was looking for the feeling of "incongruity" perceived by Robert because it is the exact feeling that I had during my shooting. My introspective journey was full of "incongruities" and ended up with the discovery of somebody (myself) that does not fit at all into the scheme, exactly like the fat lady does not fit at all with the previous pictures.
- "On the whole, I feel you haven’t put this work together in an interesting and telling manner, but the raw material is there. Think about sequencing or pairs. Search for a resonance between pictures."
=> I like the idea about the sequencing or pairs. As Robert says, poetry, after all, is a special kind of syntax and photography can really work well as visual poetry. In the future I would like to pursue this way and maybe trying to work with photographic diptych combined with poetical texts.
Final conclusions
"Congratulations on finishing People & Place. I hope you will continue your photographic studies because you’ve got talent and you’ve shown that you are capable of self-motivated learning. Maybe now is the time to assess your progress through all the courses you’ve done and consider what to do next. OCA have many new courses, Context and Narrative is challenging and I think it would suit you."
=> As I wrote in the conclusions of the assignment, this final assignment was a fantastic photographic experience. I am very satisfied because the work done in Arles helped me to express what I learned during the last year with my tutor and the PaP course. Indeed I have learned a lot and I really believe I have made good progresses from the beginnings of my first assignment to this final one. I have to thank my tutor Robert for his advice and patient encouragement throughout this course.
I will definitely go on with my OCA's studies and I think that, as Robert suggested, I will consider "Context and Narrative" as the main option going forward.
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Sunday, October 4, 2015
Assignment 5: People and place on assignment
The special element of this final part is the assignment itself.
For this final assignment, the choice of subject is mine: the only proviso is that the subject should be one from this course – people and/or the places they inhabit.
I must first choose the kind of client (newspaper, magazine, text book publisher, advertising agency, television graphics, etc.), the purpose of the assignment (educational, informational, promotional) and how the images will be used (to illustrate a story, to sell a product etc).
Having assigned myself the brief, I need to submit between 8– 12 photographs and accompany the final images with a short written assessment that should include:
• the ‘client briefing’
• a statement of how I set about planning the photography
• how well I succeeded, including the difficulties and opportunities you encountered that you had not anticipated at the outset.
Thick clouds of smoke were floating in the room while Alain was talking to me with his strong Southern French accent.
He was waving his dark cigar like an orchestra's director could use his stick during the new year's eve concert.
His green eyes were shining and his cheeks blushing due to the wine and the passion he harboured respectively in his stomach and heart.
Our dinner had been fantastic.
French cuisine, the real one, not the one they sell to tourists in the snobbish restaurants in Paris, is just a step far from heaven.
I was satisfied, rather happy and very interested in listen to what Alain defined as "a very good proposal".
After all, a student photographer like me does not have a lot of opportunities to get a photographic project from an editor.
I knew, Alain is a friend, but when he speaks about art he is always very serious.
"Where is poetry, Marco? Nowadays people only speak about money and commercial activities. No more poetry, no more real soul and artistic commitment in our job! The last books I edited showed only how beautiful spending money is in our region. Ok, I admit that I made nice profits with
those commercial books and advertisement, but I am fed up. Now I want poetry, at least a bit. You are not a famous photographer, you are a student, but I would like you to produce a work of art. You must think out of the box!"
I had been in South of France since three days and I was planning a short stay there to meet some old friends like Alain and recover from a very tough winter, full of stress and work.
I had my camera with me, like always, but no intention to work on such a difficult subject.
However, Alain's words were really appealing to me.
Poetry. What a beautiful idea to describe with photos and poetical texts an imaginary trip into the deep and charming belly of Provence.
"I could do a small, very personal photographic journey in Arles, looking for people and places" I suggested shyly.
Alain leaned back on his chair, breathed in a long puff of smoke from his cigar and smiled at me with satisfaction.
"Yes! Do so and I will publish your book".
When I arrived at the train station in Arles the world seemed different.
A world of deafening cicadas and fast moving clouds throbbed incessantly over my head.
My lungs still loaded with sea air, inhaled en route from Marseille, brought rich oxygen to my brain and I could see a new reality.
The search for myself that I set for my French stay had started.
I looked down and I saw the stairs.
It was the start of the trip on which I was about to embark.
Image 1.
Periphery. Magic and cursed place, privileged ghetto of a disparate humanity.
I arrived, confused among the tenements, their distant noises, the deep belly of the Republic.
A hostile world, seemed to surround me, indifferent to my presence, locked up in itself as it had always been imposed.
Finding myself amongst these buildings from the 80s, immersed in the scents of a far away Maghreb, appeared impossible to me.
Image 2.
I started walking slowly, lazily, almost lulled by the unreal atmosphere of the desert around me.
Suddenly the clouds rushed away and left space for a hot and reassuring summer sun, memories of a Mediterranean childhood.
Among the narrow streets of the maze twisting under my eyes, unsure footsteps led me elsewhere.
Then, for a while, I felt the life in the maze where I found myself.
My faithful camera, perpetually on my shoulder, only confirmed the presence of shadows carved on a secular pavement.
Image 3.
And the maze led me to a door. It was ajar.
A drop of ice cold sweat beaded on my face and my heart began to beat faster.
The door was in front of me and invited me to look, to open its doors to the curiosity of my eyes.
Was the search over?
The hope of finding someone now seemed certain.
Image 4.
It was a matter of moments.
The reflection ran away without noise, without a trace among the lanes of Arles.
It remained imprinted on my Pentax sensor, tangible sign of its presence among my innermost thoughts.
The hunt had really started and now it couldn't help but notice!
Image 5.
Advancing faster and faster I found some tracks.
The fingerprints left by the one who kept escaping me were now clear and indelible.
I was after him; he couldn't escape much longer among the twists and turns of this unknown city. His fingerprints clearly visible were almost a recall left intentionally so as not to get lost, like a thread of Ariadne that only I could follow.
Image 6.
Suddenly an encounter.
My heart jumped into my throat as if peeled out of my chest, like squeezed by an invisible hand.
In the distance I saw a small creature who, like a devil, overtaking me, pushed me away with an unexpected strength.
"Follow me stranger!" shouted the girl running away at breakneck speed.
Image 7.
And now the race.
Fast, behind her, who was disappearing far away.
My powerful strides couldn't do anything against her unreal speed.
I had arrived.
And they appeared around the corner.
I had found them.
Image 8.
"Fais gaffe mec, ici c'est le paradis, ici c'est Macondo" ("Beware friend, this is paradise, this is Macondo").
Image 9.
Image 10.
Image 11.
As if released from a dream, I woke up drenched in sweat with my camera close against my chest.
On the terraces of the arena in Arles I had found myself.
Image 12.
COVER - "Photographic I"
Image 13.
CONCLUSIONS
The project my imaginary friend and editor Alain asked me to develop is a photographic journey in the city of Arles looking for people and places.
My search is not only focused on people and places, but it is also supposed to be a sort introspectional journey looking for myself as a photographer.
That is the reason why the title of the project is "Photographic I".
The aim is indeed to print out a small book as final work of this course and present it to the assessment.
The approach I wanted to have planning the shooting was as "cold" and "neutral" as possible. Even the post production left the photos almost unchanged.
The idea was to depict reality with a sort of crescendo with the twelve images describing my journey.
First the "naked" places of the suburbs of the French town and then their inhabitants, the people.
The apparent lack of poetry in the images should be compensated by the "poetical" text.
This final assignment was a fantastic photographic experience.
I am very satisfied because the work done in Arles helped me to express what I learned during the last year with my tutor and the PaP course.
Indeed I have learned a lot and I really believe I have made good progresses from the beginnings of my first assignment to this final one.
I have to thank my tutor Robert for his advice and patient encouragement throughout this course.
I am particularly proud of my last assignment as it also gave me the chance to experiment a story board and doing what I like most: combining writing with photography.
I am also fully aware that I still have to improve my technique and that my journey is still long.
For this final assignment, the choice of subject is mine: the only proviso is that the subject should be one from this course – people and/or the places they inhabit.
I must first choose the kind of client (newspaper, magazine, text book publisher, advertising agency, television graphics, etc.), the purpose of the assignment (educational, informational, promotional) and how the images will be used (to illustrate a story, to sell a product etc).
Having assigned myself the brief, I need to submit between 8– 12 photographs and accompany the final images with a short written assessment that should include:
• the ‘client briefing’
• a statement of how I set about planning the photography
• how well I succeeded, including the difficulties and opportunities you encountered that you had not anticipated at the outset.
Thick clouds of smoke were floating in the room while Alain was talking to me with his strong Southern French accent.
He was waving his dark cigar like an orchestra's director could use his stick during the new year's eve concert.
His green eyes were shining and his cheeks blushing due to the wine and the passion he harboured respectively in his stomach and heart.
Our dinner had been fantastic.
French cuisine, the real one, not the one they sell to tourists in the snobbish restaurants in Paris, is just a step far from heaven.
I was satisfied, rather happy and very interested in listen to what Alain defined as "a very good proposal".
After all, a student photographer like me does not have a lot of opportunities to get a photographic project from an editor.
I knew, Alain is a friend, but when he speaks about art he is always very serious.
"Where is poetry, Marco? Nowadays people only speak about money and commercial activities. No more poetry, no more real soul and artistic commitment in our job! The last books I edited showed only how beautiful spending money is in our region. Ok, I admit that I made nice profits with
those commercial books and advertisement, but I am fed up. Now I want poetry, at least a bit. You are not a famous photographer, you are a student, but I would like you to produce a work of art. You must think out of the box!"
I had been in South of France since three days and I was planning a short stay there to meet some old friends like Alain and recover from a very tough winter, full of stress and work.
I had my camera with me, like always, but no intention to work on such a difficult subject.
However, Alain's words were really appealing to me.
Poetry. What a beautiful idea to describe with photos and poetical texts an imaginary trip into the deep and charming belly of Provence.
"I could do a small, very personal photographic journey in Arles, looking for people and places" I suggested shyly.
Alain leaned back on his chair, breathed in a long puff of smoke from his cigar and smiled at me with satisfaction.
"Yes! Do so and I will publish your book".
When I arrived at the train station in Arles the world seemed different.
A world of deafening cicadas and fast moving clouds throbbed incessantly over my head.
My lungs still loaded with sea air, inhaled en route from Marseille, brought rich oxygen to my brain and I could see a new reality.
The search for myself that I set for my French stay had started.
I looked down and I saw the stairs.
It was the start of the trip on which I was about to embark.
Image 1.
f 3.5, 1/500 sec, 800 ISO, 18 mm
Periphery. Magic and cursed place, privileged ghetto of a disparate humanity.
I arrived, confused among the tenements, their distant noises, the deep belly of the Republic.
A hostile world, seemed to surround me, indifferent to my presence, locked up in itself as it had always been imposed.
Finding myself amongst these buildings from the 80s, immersed in the scents of a far away Maghreb, appeared impossible to me.
Image 2.
f 8, 1/750 sec, 200 ISO, 31 mm
I started walking slowly, lazily, almost lulled by the unreal atmosphere of the desert around me.
Suddenly the clouds rushed away and left space for a hot and reassuring summer sun, memories of a Mediterranean childhood.
Among the narrow streets of the maze twisting under my eyes, unsure footsteps led me elsewhere.
Then, for a while, I felt the life in the maze where I found myself.
My faithful camera, perpetually on my shoulder, only confirmed the presence of shadows carved on a secular pavement.
Image 3.
f 8, 1/350 sec, 200 ISO, 18 mm
And the maze led me to a door. It was ajar.
A drop of ice cold sweat beaded on my face and my heart began to beat faster.
The door was in front of me and invited me to look, to open its doors to the curiosity of my eyes.
Was the search over?
The hope of finding someone now seemed certain.
Image 4.
f 8, 1/30 sec, 200 ISO, 20 mm
It was a matter of moments.
The reflection ran away without noise, without a trace among the lanes of Arles.
It remained imprinted on my Pentax sensor, tangible sign of its presence among my innermost thoughts.
The hunt had really started and now it couldn't help but notice!
Image 5.
f 11, 1/60 sec, 200 ISO, 75 mm
Advancing faster and faster I found some tracks.
The fingerprints left by the one who kept escaping me were now clear and indelible.
I was after him; he couldn't escape much longer among the twists and turns of this unknown city. His fingerprints clearly visible were almost a recall left intentionally so as not to get lost, like a thread of Ariadne that only I could follow.
Image 6.
f 6.7, 1/80 sec, 200 ISO, 70 mm
Suddenly an encounter.
My heart jumped into my throat as if peeled out of my chest, like squeezed by an invisible hand.
In the distance I saw a small creature who, like a devil, overtaking me, pushed me away with an unexpected strength.
"Follow me stranger!" shouted the girl running away at breakneck speed.
Image 7.
f 19, 1/125 sec, 200 ISO, 133 mm
And now the race.
Fast, behind her, who was disappearing far away.
My powerful strides couldn't do anything against her unreal speed.
I had arrived.
And they appeared around the corner.
I had found them.
Image 8.
f 19, 1/350 sec, 1600 ISO, 21 mm
"Fais gaffe mec, ici c'est le paradis, ici c'est Macondo" ("Beware friend, this is paradise, this is Macondo").
MACONDO
The time blood wet
crystallises in my thoughts,
goes back,
flips and laughs.
Fearless to say everything,
without reason for what I think
I take the time and without sense
I laugh in front of a book,
I see the world as it is,
I see the world like it is
while others observe it.
I feel it sad the world (this world)
dissolved in its anxieties,
burned by ancestral sicknesses,
a large brothel,
ephemeral and odorous.
And the chestnut tree on the mountain
loses its leaves,
waiting for the season that will come
knowing already, sadly dying inside,
that I will not see me again.
Distant planet is mine,
shining star, loser star,
ridiculous in his movement,
uncertain and cursed tingling.
Yet free ... forever!
Gypsies with colourful dresses,
games of simoniacal magic,
in an incessant succession of voices, sounds,
in a spiral of time
that turns on itself and swallows,
not me, but itself,
returns there, same as before,
and tries, without peace,
to turn against me that I am the time,
myself, as in a mirror.
And in this frenzy of shapes
I think to Macondo,
distant homeland
that I lost without realising it
but that remains inside of me,
stuck in the heart.
Goodbye Macondo ...
Macondo is me!
Image 9.
f 19, 1/350 sec, 1600 ISO, 18 mm
Image 10.
f 19, 1/350 sec, 1600 ISO, 18 mm
Image 11.
f 5.6, 1/350 sec, 200 ISO, 18 mm
As if released from a dream, I woke up drenched in sweat with my camera close against my chest.
On the terraces of the arena in Arles I had found myself.
Image 12.
f 16, 1/60 sec, 200 ISO, 20 mm
COVER - "Photographic I"
Image 13.
f 4.5, 1/10 sec, 1600 ISO, 45 mm
CONCLUSIONS
The project my imaginary friend and editor Alain asked me to develop is a photographic journey in the city of Arles looking for people and places.
My search is not only focused on people and places, but it is also supposed to be a sort introspectional journey looking for myself as a photographer.
That is the reason why the title of the project is "Photographic I".
The aim is indeed to print out a small book as final work of this course and present it to the assessment.
The approach I wanted to have planning the shooting was as "cold" and "neutral" as possible. Even the post production left the photos almost unchanged.
The idea was to depict reality with a sort of crescendo with the twelve images describing my journey.
First the "naked" places of the suburbs of the French town and then their inhabitants, the people.
The apparent lack of poetry in the images should be compensated by the "poetical" text.
This final assignment was a fantastic photographic experience.
I am very satisfied because the work done in Arles helped me to express what I learned during the last year with my tutor and the PaP course.
Indeed I have learned a lot and I really believe I have made good progresses from the beginnings of my first assignment to this final one.
I have to thank my tutor Robert for his advice and patient encouragement throughout this course.
I am particularly proud of my last assignment as it also gave me the chance to experiment a story board and doing what I like most: combining writing with photography.
I am also fully aware that I still have to improve my technique and that my journey is still long.
Saturday, October 3, 2015
Part four: People interacting with place - Learning points
Pulling back so that people appear small in the frame does not necessarily make them appear insignificant, but rather shows them in a different context.
Such a picture is conceived exactly as this, but it is also an interesting and restrained way of establishing a connection between people and their wider surroundings.
Such figure-in-a-landscape images pitch a small human being against a dominant location, so an extreme size relationship is key.
Typically, contrast is in the form of colour difference or tonal difference – dark against a light background or light against dark.
One thing that you are forced to abandon with this kind of extreme composition is identity.
There may indeed be an advantage in this kind of anonymity, in that it keeps attention more firmly focused on the location.
When the place is the principal subject, but when it will look better inhabited, it is often useful to find ways of reducing the visual attention that a person or a face tends to command. Among the most common ways of achieving this while shooting are the following:
1. Small and many. A crowd of people naturally have a certain dominance because of their numbers, but individually they command less attention.
2. Facing away. The human face is such a powerful visual attractant that simply photographing someone from behind or with their head turned away from the camera alters their relationship to the rest of the image.
3. In silhouette. Shooting from darkness towards a bright background, as in the example shown here, communicates ‘person’ but rarely ‘personality’.
4. Partly obscured. Figures and faces even partly hidden behind some other object are automatically reduced in visual importance.
5. Motion blur. Useful if slightly mannered technique when you have a tripod and the light is sufficiently dim to use a slow exposure. Needs experience to judge the effect of length of exposure on the appearance of a moving figure. Light figure against dark background is always more noticeable than dark figure against light background.
Such a picture is conceived exactly as this, but it is also an interesting and restrained way of establishing a connection between people and their wider surroundings.
Such figure-in-a-landscape images pitch a small human being against a dominant location, so an extreme size relationship is key.
Typically, contrast is in the form of colour difference or tonal difference – dark against a light background or light against dark.
One thing that you are forced to abandon with this kind of extreme composition is identity.
There may indeed be an advantage in this kind of anonymity, in that it keeps attention more firmly focused on the location.
When the place is the principal subject, but when it will look better inhabited, it is often useful to find ways of reducing the visual attention that a person or a face tends to command. Among the most common ways of achieving this while shooting are the following:
1. Small and many. A crowd of people naturally have a certain dominance because of their numbers, but individually they command less attention.
2. Facing away. The human face is such a powerful visual attractant that simply photographing someone from behind or with their head turned away from the camera alters their relationship to the rest of the image.
3. In silhouette. Shooting from darkness towards a bright background, as in the example shown here, communicates ‘person’ but rarely ‘personality’.
4. Partly obscured. Figures and faces even partly hidden behind some other object are automatically reduced in visual importance.
5. Motion blur. Useful if slightly mannered technique when you have a tripod and the light is sufficiently dim to use a slow exposure. Needs experience to judge the effect of length of exposure on the appearance of a moving figure. Light figure against dark background is always more noticeable than dark figure against light background.
Assignment 4 - Comments on Tutor's report
Plus side
- In his “Overall comments” my tutor Robert stated: "This is a personal and idiosyncratic view of your subject of Romagna. At times you’ve succeeded in creating a strong mood and expressing something of the character of the region in the colours and light particularly."
=> I am particularly happy about the fact that Robert appreciated the colours and the light of my shots because my major effort in this assignment was to focus on those two aspects which are the main characteristics of Romagna.
- Image 1. "There is a special ambience to holiday towns when they’re out-of-season. That pole looks like it could be used for something in the summer, but here it is rendered meaningless, like a black line, a purely visual element crossing the horizon. Technically this is very objective and rigorously composed, but it appears slightly soft focus in the sky. Such stylistic treatment does add a subjective rendering to an otherwise objective subject. You should be aware of this."
- Image 2. "This wider curving bay with silhouettes of people looking out to sea also has that bleak, stormy off-season look. This is by far the strongest picture here, the most ‘complete’ and finished. It is also the kind of photo that looks great large because you notice the details: the woman and child covered in black clothes, the seagulls on the shoreline, the misty distance that swallows the land."
=> Despite Image 2 is not my favourite shot for this assignment (I feel much "closer" to Image 1, 4, 5 and 6), I understand very well where Robert comes from with his comment and I will definitely print out a large sample of it.
- Image 5. "It’s a good strategy to seek out novel images of traditional themes, as you have done here with the twilight landscape over-view of a sea town with the foreground in car headlamps. It shows you are aware of tradition and want to transcend it."
- "As you say, you had been taking photos without any end result in mind. And it is this pre-visualization or vision that is your next level of development. Such a vision ties images together and gives you a goal to aim for when you’re wandering around searching for pictures. I think the best image here (Image 2) is worth building on and could form the basis for your final assignment.
Try to think in terms of the subject of “off-season” holiday locations."
=> I think I really must continue to improve my "vision" in order to better express myself with my photographic language.
Things to improve
- "It is difficult to find the thread that connects these pictures to a single, defined location. Romagna is a large and unwieldy ‘place’ to use as a subject for this assignment, so I think you would have been more successful if you had focused on one village or town rather than an entire region."
- "You have made some close detail shots here and hardly any wide landscape shots of the region and not many portraits. Such images would have been key elements in showing atmosphere in a place.
You seem to have stayed within your personal interest and that is an artistic ‘comfort zone’
that you should be aware of so you can challenge it. You clearly have visual talent, and that is something to be developed, but you must try to extend it rather than remain within its confines because it will eventually become a ‘manner’, a ‘style’."
=> I agree with Robert and I believe I must shape my "style" according to my creative vision. I must break out of my current comfort zone and become comfortable with the unfamiliar and the unknown.
- Image 3. "Apart from the well spotted visual play, technically the image isn’t so good, with some obvious degradation in resolution of movement blur. At this stage in your development you should be editing out any picture that doesn’t pass basic tests like focus. It’s a bit like singing out of tune on a record, it is just unprofessional!"
=> Point taken! I fully agree with Robert.
- Image 6. "The orange paint makes a great background for your shadow-play here and certainly emphasises the character of the place. But it is a very ‘visual’ picture with aesthetic textures: cobble stones, weathered plaster and shadows. When I say this, I mean it has visual merit without really having much to say about subject. This photo though suggests that you had no decisive vision in mind and appears random in the context of the better photos here. You’ve been honest about that in your text."
=> I agree in principle with Robert's comment. Image 6 was supposed to show my very (!) humble version of the "decisive moment". I felt that everything was perfect in the very exact moment I shot my photo: the light, the background, the colour, the shadow and its lightness... Probably only who knows Romagna can understand this kind of "dolce vita" so typical there and my regret is not to be a great photographer (yet) to make this feeling pass through my images. I am sure I will improve!
- In his “Overall comments” my tutor Robert stated: "This is a personal and idiosyncratic view of your subject of Romagna. At times you’ve succeeded in creating a strong mood and expressing something of the character of the region in the colours and light particularly."
=> I am particularly happy about the fact that Robert appreciated the colours and the light of my shots because my major effort in this assignment was to focus on those two aspects which are the main characteristics of Romagna.
- Image 1. "There is a special ambience to holiday towns when they’re out-of-season. That pole looks like it could be used for something in the summer, but here it is rendered meaningless, like a black line, a purely visual element crossing the horizon. Technically this is very objective and rigorously composed, but it appears slightly soft focus in the sky. Such stylistic treatment does add a subjective rendering to an otherwise objective subject. You should be aware of this."
- Image 2. "This wider curving bay with silhouettes of people looking out to sea also has that bleak, stormy off-season look. This is by far the strongest picture here, the most ‘complete’ and finished. It is also the kind of photo that looks great large because you notice the details: the woman and child covered in black clothes, the seagulls on the shoreline, the misty distance that swallows the land."
=> Despite Image 2 is not my favourite shot for this assignment (I feel much "closer" to Image 1, 4, 5 and 6), I understand very well where Robert comes from with his comment and I will definitely print out a large sample of it.
- Image 5. "It’s a good strategy to seek out novel images of traditional themes, as you have done here with the twilight landscape over-view of a sea town with the foreground in car headlamps. It shows you are aware of tradition and want to transcend it."
- "As you say, you had been taking photos without any end result in mind. And it is this pre-visualization or vision that is your next level of development. Such a vision ties images together and gives you a goal to aim for when you’re wandering around searching for pictures. I think the best image here (Image 2) is worth building on and could form the basis for your final assignment.
Try to think in terms of the subject of “off-season” holiday locations."
=> I think I really must continue to improve my "vision" in order to better express myself with my photographic language.
Things to improve
- "It is difficult to find the thread that connects these pictures to a single, defined location. Romagna is a large and unwieldy ‘place’ to use as a subject for this assignment, so I think you would have been more successful if you had focused on one village or town rather than an entire region."
- "You have made some close detail shots here and hardly any wide landscape shots of the region and not many portraits. Such images would have been key elements in showing atmosphere in a place.
You seem to have stayed within your personal interest and that is an artistic ‘comfort zone’
that you should be aware of so you can challenge it. You clearly have visual talent, and that is something to be developed, but you must try to extend it rather than remain within its confines because it will eventually become a ‘manner’, a ‘style’."
=> I agree with Robert and I believe I must shape my "style" according to my creative vision. I must break out of my current comfort zone and become comfortable with the unfamiliar and the unknown.
- Image 3. "Apart from the well spotted visual play, technically the image isn’t so good, with some obvious degradation in resolution of movement blur. At this stage in your development you should be editing out any picture that doesn’t pass basic tests like focus. It’s a bit like singing out of tune on a record, it is just unprofessional!"
=> Point taken! I fully agree with Robert.
- Image 6. "The orange paint makes a great background for your shadow-play here and certainly emphasises the character of the place. But it is a very ‘visual’ picture with aesthetic textures: cobble stones, weathered plaster and shadows. When I say this, I mean it has visual merit without really having much to say about subject. This photo though suggests that you had no decisive vision in mind and appears random in the context of the better photos here. You’ve been honest about that in your text."
=> I agree in principle with Robert's comment. Image 6 was supposed to show my very (!) humble version of the "decisive moment". I felt that everything was perfect in the very exact moment I shot my photo: the light, the background, the colour, the shadow and its lightness... Probably only who knows Romagna can understand this kind of "dolce vita" so typical there and my regret is not to be a great photographer (yet) to make this feeling pass through my images. I am sure I will improve!
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