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"Mike Raiford" <"m[raiford]!at"@gmail.com> schreef in bericht
news:4a8596a1$1@news.povray.org...
> Sometimes, in photography, especially when taking macro shots, you don't
> have much choice, either no picture or a razor thin DOF.
>
> http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2125/2089456023_0c64233baf_o.jpg
>
> and other times, focal blur is used for artistic effect
>
> http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2302/2090316034_fb62145001_o.jpg
> --
Let us not forget that focal blur comes from the physical restrictions of
lenses in the real world. It is not something "artistic" in the first place.
Macro photography cannot be done without focal blur obviously, and is the
headache for every photographer to get exactly "right" around the subject.
For artistic effects, I tend to disagree. There was a movement at one time
promoting "artistic blur" as the summum of photographic art (fifties?
sixties?) but which was more a way of hiding the lack of talent of second
rate photographers. The photograph you refer to here is a stricking and
typical example, imo, of the totally incorrect use of focal blur in
photography: no purpose, no real interesting focus at all. In fact, the blur
destroys the only thing worthwhile in the image: the eyes!!!
Yes, I am a follower of the old documentary school that brought forth people
like Cartier Bresson or Frank Capra. I don't pretend to reach up to their
heels, but they (and others) are my masters.
Thomas
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On Sat, 15 Aug 2009 11:06:13 +0200, "Thomas de Groot"
<tDOTdegroot@interDOTnlANOTHERDOTnet> wrote:
>The photograph you refer to here is a stricking and
>typical example, imo, of the totally incorrect use of focal blur in
>photography: no purpose, no real interesting focus at all. In fact, the blur
>destroys the only thing worthwhile in the image: the eyes!!!
I agree, I'm not a great fan of focal blur myself, I seldom use it preferring
fog to cover up inadequacies in an image. :)
It can be used to artistic effect but not in that photo of the cat. (I hope that
it was not Mike that took it)
--
Regards
Stephen
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"Stephen" <mcavoysAT@aolDOTcom> schreef in bericht
news:t67d85tvg84ubkdiq9gi9c4jvtt74s6ngg@4ax.com...
>...... (I hope that
> it was not Mike that took it)
Oh hum... well, if so, my comment was meant as constructive. One should be
prepared to learn through the hard way sometimes :-)
Thomas
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> "Mike Raiford" <"m[raiford]!at"@gmail.com> schreef in bericht
> news:4a8596a1$1@news.povray.org...
>> Sometimes, in photography, especially when taking macro shots, you don't
>> have much choice, either no picture or a razor thin DOF.
>>
>> http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2125/2089456023_0c64233baf_o.jpg
>>
>> and other times, focal blur is used for artistic effect
>>
>> http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2302/2090316034_fb62145001_o.jpg
>> --
>
> Let us not forget that focal blur comes from the physical restrictions of
> lenses in the real world. It is not something "artistic" in the first place.
> Macro photography cannot be done without focal blur obviously, and is the
> headache for every photographer to get exactly "right" around the subject.
> For artistic effects, I tend to disagree. There was a movement at one time
> promoting "artistic blur" as the summum of photographic art (fifties?
> sixties?) but which was more a way of hiding the lack of talent of second
> rate photographers. The photograph you refer to here is a stricking and
> typical example, imo, of the totally incorrect use of focal blur in
> photography: no purpose, no real interesting focus at all. In fact, the blur
> destroys the only thing worthwhile in the image: the eyes!!!
>
> Yes, I am a follower of the old documentary school that brought forth people
> like Cartier Bresson or Frank Capra. I don't pretend to reach up to their
> heels, but they (and others) are my masters.
>
> Thomas
>
>
Often, the so called "artistic blur" was done as a post process/black
room step. The projector used to do the print was set off focus.
Another aproach was to use a frosted filter. This simulated a fog like
effect with grosly exagerated luminous bloom.
A agree with you about the cat's photo. Not artistic at all but an
obviously bad focus.
Alain
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Alain wrote:
> A agree with you about the cat's photo. Not artistic at all but an
> obviously bad focus.
How do you know the original intentions of the photographer? Maybe he
wanted the focus to be exactly as shown in the photo, for artistic
purposes. *You* might not find much artistic appeal in his decision, but
that's just a subjective question of opinion.
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"Warp" <war### [at] tag povrayorg> schreef in bericht
news:4a87edee$1@news.povray.org...
> Alain wrote:
>> A agree with you about the cat's photo. Not artistic at all but an
>> obviously bad focus.
>
> How do you know the original intentions of the photographer? Maybe he
> wanted the focus to be exactly as shown in the photo, for artistic
> purposes. *You* might not find much artistic appeal in his decision, but
> that's just a subjective question of opinion.
Ah! This is a difficult and simple discussion at the same time. Of course,
everyone is allowed to do as he/she likes best for any purpose he/she
choses. However, art is not about doing whatever you want and call it "art".
There should be - at least - a certain "something" which appeals to a random
and miscellaneous group of (at least a bit) knowledgeable observers before a
piece is considered part of the artistic domain. If not, really everything
could be called art, killing art in the process and putting kitch in its
place. Would you consider the ubiquitous "tearful child" or "busty gypsy" as
art? Probably not. Still, many people love them enough to put them on their
walls, and thus indeed a subjective question of opinion at large, but not if
one has taken the trouble or the time to learn/understand what art is really
about.
Consider the cat. When looking at a photograph, or a painting, one wants to
understand the intentions of the artists (not always clear, I agree). Why
did he do this? Or why did he not do that? Here, the whole image is out of
focus except part of a paw. What is the intention? What is the message? What
does it tell me? There is nothing interesting happening in that particular
part of the image that needs focussing. However, if instead the eyes had
been focussed sharply and the rest of the cat slightly out of focus, the
image would have gained in intensity. It would not have been a wow image,
but certainly a more interesting one. But why not simply photograph the cat
sharply and leave it at that? The personality of the animal is more than
enough to make the shot attractive without extra add-ons.
All this said without intentions to hurt whoever took the photograph. This
is the kind of analysis one would get in any photography or art class in the
world
Thomas
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On Sun, 16 Aug 2009 14:30:31 +0200, "Thomas de Groot"
<tDOTdegroot@interDOTnlANOTHERDOTnet> wrote:
>All this said without intentions to hurt whoever took the photograph. This
>is the kind of analysis one would get in any photography or art class in the
>world
I couldn't put it better myself and I didn't :)
--
Regards
Stephen
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Thomas de Groot wrote:
> Consider the cat. When looking at a photograph, or a painting, one wants to
> understand the intentions of the artists (not always clear, I agree). Why
> did he do this? Or why did he not do that?
Just because *you* don't understand the photo doesn't mean that it's
not a valid piece of art.
I'd say that if a photograph evokes emotion or thought, that's art.
And this photograph has clearly succeeded in exactly that.
(One could argue that if a photograph only evokes thought about the
artistic value of the photograph itself, rather than what the photograph
is trying to convey, that's not art. Once again, that's a subjective
question of opinion. One could even call that "meta-art".)
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Thomas de Groot wrote:
> There should be - at least - a certain "something" which appeals to a random
> and miscellaneous group of (at least a bit) knowledgeable observers before a
> piece is considered part of the artistic domain. If not, really everything
> could be called art, killing art in the process and putting kitch in its
> place. Would you consider the ubiquitous "tearful child" or "busty gypsy" as
> art? Probably not. Still, many people love them enough to put them on their
> walls, and thus indeed a subjective question of opinion at large, but not if
> one has taken the trouble or the time to learn/understand what art is really
> about.
This is the core notion which drives Fine Arts professors to sneer down
their noses and say haughtily, "Ugh, Illustration. That's not ART".
(Guess what my major at university was :P )
"Oh no!" they cry. "XYZ is removing mystique from The Thing Which
Elevates Our Clique To Superiority, killing Art: it's not a legitimate
artform!" (All photography was once in that category, you might be
aware. CGI generally still is.)
"Art" used to just be any skill performed by a crafter, before being
corralled into a narrow pen of being something only a few, educated
elite could 'understand'. Skill used to mean more...but now, skill can
be had at the push of a button. Even if you don't use
artificially-generated skill to accomplish a task, the end product is no
longer considered something which someone skilled made, even though you
can still have something that's very low quality made with pushbutton skill.
FFFFFfffffff.
</rant>
--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net
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Stephen wrote:
> It can be used to artistic effect but not in that photo of the cat. (I hope that
> it was not Mike that took it)
It was me that took it... :P
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