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Fine Art Critique Part 2

Incredible john turn in time for halloween too great a great example of split lighting here. Beautiful highlight on the top of the hat that separates it from the background. We have a black background and black subject and of the jacket and the hat but they've all separated can see texture throughout the image. I mean, just the lighting on this is really well done. Yeah, this image just is an opera singer, folks and you can tell that the maker of this image knows precisely what they're doing. It is just I would love to see this really the real rope print on this because it is so masterfully done. I mean, john, I could not agree with you more when I look at the subtle highlight on the top of that at that separates his hat and his shoulder from the background. I mean, this had the potential to be just flat and very one dimensional, but because of the way that a floating head yeah, exactly a floating head and and I love to look at the subtle highlight that's right back here. I mean, beaut...

ifully done. I just think that's just amazing the fact that they took this subject and they they knew just to add a whisper of light right through here to suddenly pull that that that face away from the background crap that's just seriously amazing you're making it easy and hard for us on I just in my mind I'm trying to think you know, this is the kind of an image that I will tell you right now is going to get you noticed a huge way and I'm not even thinking as literal as halloween I mean in my mind I'm thinking of so many other you know, other avenues that could you know this is a piece of fine art that would have absolutely hanging a home or in a gallery forget man it looks like a painting yeah it does but it's not overdone effected look like paying it's just a photograph that was handled well yes t reminded about the lighting approach to that what modifier like what do you think it might be it's it's hard to tell when we see thinking see we usually look in the eyes but that looks like the light's more coming from from the back here there is a slight glow behind here the light is big enough that it wraps around the hat to the front here I mean it looks like it could be small soft box or beauty dish that's just so if I was the subject just just kissing across here and feathered this way to not like this side of the face best I can come up with from here but the minute you can see texture and shadows in the in the fabric here so there is some light in front and I think it's coming from above so I'd love to know from the maker of the story of this image I love to know what it was for why it was shot because these kinds of and these these air great little personal projects I mean if this was done for some specific reason that's great but what if it's not think about what you could do as an individual and for those of you that are out in the audience I want you think about well what could I do in a personal project? Maybe this is a great opportunity for you to practice if you're a little bit weak on lighting what a great thing to do you know there's a lot of of makeup artists out there who love collaborating with other artist one of the things I've been doing for years is I do this thing called hair wars and basically what we do I mean I've even demonstrates on actually on one of my educational dvds that through creative live shows oh the one that I did in my studio which is the third one it shows me working and collaborating with the hair studio and a makeup artist to create some very unique looks and this is something that every single photographer can do basically what you do is you work with a local hairstylist I like working with here people here stylist who are out of the box, who liked to experiment, who aren't going to try to make everything all perfect, but who like to really be created? And I've done this now with a number of hair salons in my community, and it started out originally as being something that we would just get together and play. It was our playdate, we would get the models, they would get the hair so they would get we'd hire makeup artist and hair stylist and people that were just really very fun way get would give ourselves a theme we give ourselves the same, okay, the theme is ice cream cones or something, and then we each interpret that story or that theme us photographically them here, people and so forth, and then so it's a great way for us to collaborate with other artists, and I believe here starless horror artist, they're just a weird as we are, and so are making parts were all nuts. They're absolutely artist, just like us, and so it started out that way, but then I worked with this big salon in walnut creek. They had like, sixty stylist, and we ended up being able to turn this into a charity event. And we're what I did is I ended up photographing all of the stylist for the salon we went and had a big gala at the salon they showed all my portrait we hung them in thirty by forties in the salon on dh it was a fantastic way for me to get my name out there in this community that I wanted to target market for it also gave the hair salon images to use an upcoming advertisements I mean, it gets doesn't get any better than that and there is nobody in the world that gaps more than hair stylist as they're thinking they're just what they do that's what they do so it's a really cool thing to do ok john yeah I see a lot of potential in this image um the poses is almost there I'm kind of distracted by like I like having the tree in the foreground but for some but it's still it had some depth to the image but it's just too much in the foreground for me here but the placement of the umbrellas works really nicely the colors work through there but it's just it's almost there yeah I agree with you the train before god is so heavy it draws my attention I do like the fact that there's something there because I think without that tree there when I when I try to remove it in my mind it becomes boring the photograph becomes less interesting because there's not something in the foreground but I think the trees just too heavy there, so I'd love to see something there maybe if in post production, if it were tone down or something, I'm not sure that you don't know what I how a change it just but I'll tell you what, the makers onto a really cool idea and maybe this is not like an opera singer I'm not going oh my god, I have to have it. I think part of the reason that it's not quite there for me is the whole photograph looks too literal and if you're going to do something really abstract with all of these umbrellas, I feel that we need to find a way to pull it over the edge so that we're not trying tio to make it look like a literal person is standing there with an umbrella it just to me there's just not enough about the photograph that makes it more illustrated maybe if if she had jumped with it and was off the ground and she's flying with the umbrellas because right now one leg escape cut off completely and into the grass or bushes or whatever season there, so maybe if it just gave a little more gesturing I saw both feet it would just give this airiness to the with photo a popular word for me today arian asiana remember ever seeing that before but very interesting I will say that I love this image I mean it's it's direct there it's right in your face it could be a portrait could be fine art could be editorial the textures the color of the skin the flow off and depth of field that it's just just a small plane of sharpness in the front that goes through the hat and the eyes and the mustache I mean everything just comes together so well the piercing eyes there uh we'd love to have taken this picture yeah thiss actually reminds me something john that you would do it's beautiful this actual reminds me of something that art wolf would do when I was in new york and I went to the gallery are we'll have a complete wall piece of of individuals from different parts of the world and it was an entire wall collection that was absolutely spectacular he also has a a new serious that I was crazy about and it's called I want to say something like illustrated ce is that the painted people people can I just tell you my heart leapt out of my chest when I saw those painted people it literally made me crazy that's a beautiful do you know the words based here in seattle? Yeah ideo studio down here and susan did you ever work with orteman with court wolf I did I did some I did some painting our body painting for that's what? You were just talking about the painted bodywork? Yeah, absolutely stunning work. This is just gorgeous but this doesn't need the painting I mean this year so everything is everything is there the black background works? It's just yeah, I want to take in the picture. Yeah, obviously the maker of this image knows what they're doing and it's beautifully beautifully took the photographers actually in the creative live chat room and it's travis tank and everyone is just commented to him and saying that it's absolutely beautiful travis you go, honey, he did a great job also told stuff, did the halloween shot okay? Told keiko and his comment is that was a personal project on a sugar school theme and john absolutely is right with the lighting small soft box camera left and small soft box for hair light I named it blind how we run yakul gorgeous, just keep it up. Yeah, yeah. And this one I love the feel of, you know reminds of nineteen fifties um because of the wing that not only the tail of the car but just the coloration of it the cream colored car I can't tell if it's in modern or an old airplane because focus falls off enough um I could just see I can build a story around it um you know, I can build a movie some old nineteen forties and nineteen fifties movie around this um that the tail light is just in sharp focus and everything falls off from that but it's still descriptive enough to know what it is without being overly in our face. Yeah, I think so too. I mean, I could see this in in a home in in like a man not in a man cave but I'm thinking someplace where, you know in your sort of family room or something, I just you know, I've been a big opulent home I think this is just a really very interesting piece and I especially like the color harmony I love the fact the color of the car it works is the opposite on the color wheel to the sky I liked the harmony with with the car and the ground is just very, very life I was going to retouch anything there's an orange thing between the wheels of the plane that just is isn't as muted as everything else that I probably just toned down or or clone out of there I think that's the only thing that's distracted me that there's just that has a different tone and the rest but otherwise it's very nicely you have heeded your question I think this is all natural light it looks like natural light to me. I mean, it looks like the sun hitting the that corner of the car window. I mean, there's there's this really amazing pinpoint like that comes off car windows of the sun hits it at a certain angle it could just send a chef of light down a hallway and you can do a silhouette of someone from that light I can tell one of cars driving by the house I could just see this pinpoint of light at certain times a day that's that's really, really something just the curve of a back windshield on a car does something to sunlight and reflects it in a way nothing else seems to and the one of the reasons that I think it's just dumb of natural light is this if you look it that's a reflection of the sun there's a highlight there on the plane there's another highlight there. So that kind of tells me though that's the direction that the light is coming from on. So for me I feel like it's just it was taken with natural light here I don't see any I mean, when you take a picture of a shiny object big car, you're not really taking a picture of the car, you're taking a picture what's reflected in it and I don't see any any other lights really jumping out at me from that I mean if they did it was nice and subtle and well done but shiny objects give everything away beautiful you love horses I do I love horses I'm I really do I love them love them love them on dh again this reminded me one of the horse pictures that I saw that art wolf did um and it was this is very, very beautiful do you mind the tail just right at the edge there yeah, I would love to see thank you, john good I'm kind of feeling I'd like to see a little bit more space behind behind that horse. I'd like to have just a bit more breathing room there but the the pan with it everything would get really good a good choice of shutter speed and pan speed you know, unless this horse was running in circles you got it. You know, if you look down you had many chances to get this so we could it worked out well, I mean the head is in a great spot compared to the light colors in the background the motion of the background or works nicely against the horse and I think that's what to me what I love about this is that if the maker had changed their camera position just a little bit then this head is going to go up in this area and I think the fact that the head this part of the body is in this brighter area really to me is what makes this print makes this image work on die don't expect it to be sharp. I think that the panic and the fact that there's a bit of motion blur this is one of those times when when something that's not sharp is acceptable and quite frankly, is more appropriate. It's the emotion of it, john, nice colors and tones I mean, with the hands looks like they're working with the model to try to get the hands and took a position. The bottom hand on the back is still not quite where I'd want to be. I'm a little distracted by the butterflies, maybe just because the color atonality them is so different. I d we've been saying how the blues and yellows have played off each other well in so many of the night shots. Um here, I'm not sure if the butterflies work as well, or maybe there's too many of them may be the softer ones do, but the sharper ones are are working from for me, but yeah, because I want to love this image, I want to love it, there are many things I do like about it, I love the harmonious palette. Of this photograph, I think that's quite lovely her backhand doesn't relieve him bother me because I think that that's kind of a natural movement I think what is bothering me about this photograph is that the maker is photographing a bit too straight into her backside, and so and because of the low camera angle, her head looks a little bit distorted. I'd love to see if they had turned her body a bit mohr and then had her even almost leaning back over her shoulder to look at those butterflies. You see, I'm kind of leaning back a bit, then I think her head would be closer to the lens of the camera and it would make her it wouldn't make this part of her body looks so large because whenever you shoot up someone that's going to be closer to the lenses go look bigger and so I feel that that's what makes your head look a little bit smaller again that's only my opinion and this is an illustrative image, so you know, you know, with that said, but that's what my eye goes right to that part of her shape instead of wanting to move from that that bottom left hand corner up to that her face is my I just kind of goes bump and stops right at her backside I mean it's going more into the editorial in the fine art world, but is your face like this? I sort of want to see your turning down a little bit and just playing a little more face towards the camera, she said, told turn the body just still a little bit more so it's not straight on, but it's another great start. Yeah, and I really want I love this maker. I want you to do some more stuff like this because this could be a great siri's I mean, this is a really interesting photograph and I think could really be something just magnificent in the future. You got a quick question? Yeah, I was wondering for you guys, how much pre visualization do you guys recommend for fine art photography? Do you feel like someone needs to get in an entire, you know, ten print gallery assignment before they kind of go out and shoot? Or is it okay? Just have some rough concepts and then building it as the issue. I'm not sure what your ass I mean, I think it fine art stuff does need to pre visualization that here you've got an idea of what your end point is going to be. I don't know where you can't wear the ten images gallery came into play on well, do you feel like someone go out and just shoot one? One piece or do you feel like I think you could make one pieces in our piece that you know what you want to go? I don't think it has to be a siri's, okay, uh, but but I think it does take some some thought about where you're going. You may not go any end up anywhere near where you thought you're going, but for me, I think I would need you know, I don't shoot this this type of image, I mean, I would would like to watch brooke shadings classes have what you with the textures, who's, doing a lot of stuff with textures now, and I'm going, well, I got to get get there, but my my mindset, yet, it's something I'd like to work toward, and maybe I'll get there, maybe it will maybe we'll get somewhere else, but I think you have to sort of have an idea where you want to go, you know, but the other thing, but I do think it does help to shoot in siri's is of images, you know, when I look at the work of christine melcher mitchell from the u, k, she works in collections, you know, she'll have a whole theme to a collection of images that she's going to do, and I think that that is a fantastic a place that gives buyers a place to go and it shows, well, this is my theme for the year I work with them there's a variety of artists in the building that might that my studio is in there all like painters and sculptors and guys who work in glass. And one of the artists names big gootman she's, a very famous painter from san francisco, and she says that she'll do I mean, she's a painter, and yet she'll have a collection during the year, and it'll all have, like a thread that runs through it will be a theme associated with this series of images that she'll create a much like a fashion designer does. If you look at the fashion when you look at fashion, my favorite show's project runway, I lied, I love that stuff, I'm love fashion if I wasn't photographer would be a fashion designer, but they have a theme that they work through, and I think themes are a great way for you and I to isolate where we want to go, because if you're like me, I'm a butterfly. I am floating around here and there, and I have all these abstract ideas, and actually we've seen examples of that where photographers who have not been a successful where they had a lot of different ideas, but they didn't know howto bring them together and I think that's one of the things that they do will that people that are in fashion do well and those that work in a siri's of images do really well because they start with kind of a common theme and then they find different ways to express it but they all kind of work and harmony they're not the same but there's kind of this overall wonderful feel that goes together yes, I'm coming from this assignment background and I got used to just doing a one off and that's why I think that way but it's it's really you know you're making me think differently about some stuff. Yeah, well, you know jennifer hudson last year did for debbie pp I she did on album that of course, won the grand award for album that was one of the most amazing it was I want to say was called the physician or something like that and it was a syriza of images that we're in an album that were just spectacular to get a chance go to her web site and she shoots and syriza's of photographs she'll have a theme to her imagery and that's actually one of the things that I'm personally working on myself because I am such a butterfly that I'll go home don't go here and I won't go there and I get myself disjointed and I don't end up following through and I think I'm not as effective as an artist because I don't give myself a chance to work through a story I don't finish it onto the next thing I'm like that's the thing great thank you this is a nice one where that the reflection does work I mean, it does make sense there um underwater the flowing floating um nice tones it's nice to see a black and white underwater underwater is tough on color, you know, once you're more than about two or three feet below the surface, all the reds start disappearing and it's really hard to bring back and so working in black and white works really nicely here and it's a nice open area to a lot of funds pool shots made maybe when I do pull shots, I often drop of dark background behind this subject, so seeing seeing a bright like this as well, you know it does it works um actually, my one the one thing about this photograph that I think is bothering me is the positioning of the legs and the water with the skirt. So one of the things that that happens when you're when you have somebody in the water is that if they're wearing a really just a floating kind of dress, it tends to get tangled up in their legs on bears a variety of different ways sometimes people one of the people that I know has been very effective I don't know the name of the photographer but last year debbie fbi's competition there was this one photographer who had the girls wearing a tutu and that I thought oh that's a brilliant way to do because the teacher is not going to get that close to erl material is a tool maturity it would be nice is stiff now I know that the reason behind it many of us would want to have this kind of floaty kind of feeling because it looks very elegant but you have to be really careful maybe this is an op opportunity to have a secondary assistant who can help to kind of pull that fabric away from the body as it goes a za person goes in the water it's tough knowing where things are going in the water I mean you shoot millions of images and sometimes it's it is a shootin spray it's pretty impressive just right you know we're talking about not doing spray and pray but this is a time when you do so I mean it's it's a really, really nice image due to start from what you have working with fabrics underwater you don't know where they're going to go I love this person fits is just so weird it's just weird it creeps me out but I think that can be a good thing I don't know why I like it I really don't because I should hate it because it's really ugly and it makes me feel icky and creepy but it's so it is so much that way I just think it's adam's family you know? Yeah, we ask the author if it's true very more does your doesn't yeah, I mean the tones we'll work together the gold on the forehead leading into the butterflies and the silvery ish in the hair that looks like the ears gone gold maybe said gold leaf on the year, the eyes or just staring off? They're not quite connecting with us the only distracting the phrases like the beauty mark right on the edge you know, maybe it would have turned the head is a little more got a little more of this skin on the other side of the eye there but again I'm thinking as a portrait is a fine art maybe maybe not. I'm so ingrained into the portrait things don't break the cheek line with the nose show the quarter inch of of of it's the skin next to the I hide one year type of thing so I gotta break out of that sometimes it's very campy, you know I find it very, very campy and it's it's obvious that it's not supposed to be taken literal, you know as a literal portrait on dh so for that reason, I tend to cut it some slack. I love the think butterflies on the head, actually, the one thing about it that I don't really understand that kind of makes me go. What the heck is that? Is this piece right here? I don't really know what that is here. You see, I can't decide whether it's here or not, but it's just this kind of flat and black right there, but it could be here, um, but whatever it is, it's it's, interesting and sometimes, which leads me to the fact that sometimes there's images that that we will take that one I mentioned earlier about controversies. Good. This is what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about vulgar controversy, like I don't like the miley cyrus kind of controversy, but but this kind of controversy, I think, can be a good thing, so ugly can be really good and something that's, really, you know, very uncomfortable can be good, uh, good as well.