Showing posts with label Favourite Photo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Favourite Photo. Show all posts
Winner of the B&H/Leica Street Photography Contest
The image was captured on a Tri-X film with Leica M6 and 50mm lens
When Will This HDR Fad End?
Personally I love the look of HDR images, the photographs look more like paintings than photographs, however there are times when they are not suitable, but that's for another time. I would argue that they are no different to loading say Velvia 50 into your camera and getting a different look to the average consumer colour film. Finally what could be more abstract than Black & White which is universally accepted in the world of photography?
Photographer: Taryn Simon - "The Innocents"
The Innocents documents the stories of individuals who served time in prison for violent crimes they did not commit. At issue is the question of photography's function as a credible eyewitness and arbiter of justice.
The primary cause of wrongful conviction is mistaken identification. A victim or eyewitness identifies a suspected perpetrator through law enforcement's use of photographs and lineups. This procedure relies on the assumption of precise visual memory. But, through exposure to composite sketches, mugshots, Polaroids, and lineups, eyewitness memory can change. In the history of these cases, photography offered the criminal justice system a tool that transformed innocent citizens into criminals. Photographs assisted officers in obtaining eyewitness identifications and aided prosecutors in securing convictions.
Simon photographed these men at sites that had particular significance to their illegitimate conviction: the scene of misidentification, the scene of arrest, the scene of the crime or the scene of the alibi. All of these locations hold contradictory meanings for the subjects. The scene of arrest marks the starting point of a reality based in fiction. The scene of the crime is at once arbitrary and crucial: this place, to which they have never been, changed their lives forever. In these photographs Simon confronts photography's ability to blur truth and fiction-an ambiguity that can have severe, even lethal consequences.
Photographer: Jane Bown - "Samuel Beckett"
Presented here uncropped and in their full glory, these photographs show why Jane Bown has been hailed as the natural successor of Cartier-Bresson and as one of the UK's preeminent portrait photographers In this new collection, Jane Brown's astonishingly candid photographs are artfully presented, and behind-the-scenes unpublished pictures that hit the newsroom floor are finally revealed. Working almost exclusively in black and white and with natural light, Jane produces images that reveal the private side of her famous subjects. She works quickly, unobtrusively, and decisively, often snatching great pictures under impossible circumstances. She has an unerring instinct for capturing the telling moment, even in the midst of a media assault or rushed in mid-interview. At every shoot, Jane takes numerous wonderful studies, but the "definitive" image is usually chosen by the "Observer" picture editor, sometimes on the basis of something as arbitrary as how much space was available on the page. Here, Jane's photos finally get to speak for themselves.
Seven Elements That Help Make A Great Black & White Photograph
SEPTEMBER 23, 2010
Copyright Scott Bourne 2010 - All Rights Reserved
There was a time all photos were made in black & white. Now the default is color and we have to adjust to get the images from their color to the monochromatic version. (Assuming digital camera.)
Now that shooting B&W is more of a deliberate choice, I thought I’d outline seven elements that I think help make up a great B&W image.
1. Great B&W images tend to be simple, with their main components isolated and easy to identify.
2. Great B&W images tend to have depth and dimension – usually accomplished by creating visual layers that extend from the foreground to the background and all points in between.
3. Great B&W images rely on shape and/or form to make up the image. Hue and color distractions are gone. Only the shapes or forms made up by objects remain and can be arranged in such a manner that they draw the eye into or out of the photograph at the appropriate time and place.
4. Great B&W images tend to exploit contrast. The difference between the whitest white and the blackest black is the highest contrast point in the picture and this can be used to draw the viewer’s eye. Good contrast can help add depth and dimension as well.
5. Great B&W images rely on tone and texture to take the place of color and hue. This can be accomplished in many ways. Texture for instance can be enhanced with side lighting. Sometimes high ISOs are used to emulate film grain for more texture.
6. Great B&W images often rely on patterns to draw the eye into the subject of the photo. It helps form shapes and designate important elements in any B&W scene.
7. Great B&W images tend to minimize the background and accentuate the foreground. While this is not always true, if you look at the bulk of the work of some of the great old-time B&W masters, you’ll find this technique used in many of their images, particularly portraits.
Of course there are many more traits you might want to consider when shooting for B&W images, but these seven points should be top-of-mind, especially if you’re new at B&W photography. They’ll get you to the point where you’re at least in the ball park. Your own vision and creativity can take you from there.
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