An elaborate, argumentative photo-essay. 

A little over two months ago, I had written an opinion piece titled Photography and its unfortunate critiques. At that time I had no plan or intention to write a follow-up second part to the article.

Now, however, the huge readership and discussion I got from the last one, along with the fact that I have enough more to say, warrants this part 2 in continuation of my older article. If you have not read the older one, please read it to get a better idea of what we will be discussing here.

Deviating from your norm

As photographers, we have consciously or otherwise, learnt certain rules to abide by. Some understand that these rules are more suggestive guidelines, but some religiously stick to them. That is not a problem, so long as we realise there is something else we are creating in the process.

What I refer to could, to an extent, be called prejudice. It is a sort of forbidden territory we set for ourselves as photographers. Everybody, whether they like to admit it or not, has certain compositions, styles, processes and techniques they will never try. And most have their reasons.

Over the long run, however, it becomes important to recognise that our prejudice may not be as well-founded as we thought. As with the previous article, I shall use myself as an example: I hate the Dutch angle. But after a lot of self-loathing I decided to try making a photograph that way.

My belief was simply that, done well — and done at the right moment — even the Dutch angle has some weight. It took me nearly three days to find a good reason to shoot in this style, but I did it as carefully as I could and I quite liked the result I got (see image at the start of this article).

Becks, since 1900.
Find out how this photograph was made →

I tried it a second time in this photograph above, and, although it was a spur-of-the-moment decision, I still liked it. If anything like a lesson is to be learnt from this, I would say, step out of your norm. Try to do something you were sanely prejudiced against. It might surprise you.

50 shades of black and white

(I did not mean to strike at E.L. James’ work with that heading. It just seemed apt.)

Over the past several years, I have come across a vast range of black and white processing styles. The most prominent of these is the over-used Silver Efex set from Google. But this is only one of a myriad single-click solutions to beautifying photographs.

I am not a big fan of filters. In fact, the last time I used filters was on my Instagram account one-and-a-half years ago. I have used it exactly 61 times, all on Instagram, all around two years ago; never before that, never more recently than a year-and-half. Why did I use that? I was experimenting, as we all do, and I did not like the gimmicky look — quite the same as Silver Efex and others. They work, but too much of anything, as they say, is too bad, so I never use them.

Die Nr 1

The photograph above received one of two criticisms: either that it was good (in some way or other, which we will naturally not bother about here), or that it was too dark. I never asked anybody to define too dark, because that is highly subjective. A criticism of the form, “That photograph is worthless because I hate that shade of pink”  is not really criticism.

Here is a photograph by the legendary Hungarian-born photographer, Brassai. Too dark? That is not the point of a photograph.

Copyright Brassai/any successive owner.
Photograph sourced from Atget photography

As a photographer, I have the right to use all the shades between black and white when I make a photograph, and whether it is predominantly black or white is up to the photographer’s intention. While that is not an excuse for poor technique, such as, for instance, a slower aperture, a faster shutter speed or smaller ISO that should have ideally been, it can hardly be the basis of a strong critique either.

On showing motion

I may or may not have made it clear so far, but I sometimes devilishly enjoy throwing out my photographs for critiquing just to watch the naïevity of self-proclaimed critics. Try it sometime, you will have a fun, laughter-filled evening.

For instance, I put out this candid photograph that I made early one sunny evening:

In the sunny heat of the moment

Once again, I will skip the positive comments I received because they are of no concern to us. Many people urged me to clone out the pole before the cyclist. I would not, as I do not believe in cloning things out. But another interesting point was made: (my intention was to capture the bright, sunny day as well as, very subtly, some motion) it was suggested that if I did want to make motion shown, I should have made it more pronounced.

What they refer to is the typical photograph where motion is shown as a long, fuzzy line or arc or patch on the photograph. I can understand that this is the norm, but why anybody would want to stick to this so magnetically really troubles me.

When you look at this photograph, three things are clear: two people going about their business, subtle movement, and the fact that it is a bright, sunny day, as I said before.

“Red wall and rope”, Singapore, by Jay Maisel. © Jay Maisel.
(I respect the photographer’s rights over this image and I have tried hard to clarify the fair use rights for this photograph and it is my belief that use for criticism/teaching falls under fair use, especially since I am not using this work to monetarily profit from it, and have linked it to the portfolio on Mr Maisel’s website; but if you believe otherwise, please write to me before taking further action and I will take the work down immediately and replace it with a text-link to the artist’s portfolio.)

Consider this photograph (shown above) by Jay Maisel. I need hardly speak of Mr Maisel’s brilliance in this art, especially after his famous photograph for Kind of Blue, and the fact that he holds the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Society of Media Photographers.

Notice that the motion of his shoes is no more pronounced that those in my photograph above. Why? because pronounced motion was not the subject of either photograph. I have already stated my three intentions in making my photograph above, so what about Mr Maisel’s work here?

Firstly, the colours. I, as I am sure you too do, love the colours that pop out of this photograph. A red/blue juxtaposition adds great contrast to the photograph. However, this photograph also conveys a sense of hurry, motion, work, and generally the need to get things done. The man in blue overalls pulls the rope as he walks across the canvas, literally instilling a sense of motion in the viewer without the need for long streaks of light.

Once again, like in my photograph above, motion was not the centre of this photograph, but, instead, an element used to beautify it and add a feeling of presence to it. But mostly, in Mr Maisel’s work, it is all about the colours and the rope and the composition at thirds.

Big name v emerging artists

This all brings me to an important point I wanted to make: a raging social belief (or perhaps a very human flaw) that makes people accept what big name artists do rather than what an emerging artist attempts.

Indeed, there is a reason why an artist became a big name, but that does not mean emerging ones need to stick to the norm. I have wildly ignored the norm in making many of my photographs and roughly half of them have been received well and half otherwise.

Is it that only big name artists have the right to draw a new line for others to follow? I do not think so. Art is art whether you do it or a squirrel does.

HCB: a case study

One of my favourite photographers is Frenchman Henri Cartier-Bresson. I like his work as the epitome of exhibiting an eye for photography. But I am not here to talk about Mr Cartier-Bresson; instead, I would like to share with you an incident from a critiquing platform I watch, which serves to expand upon (or simply prove, if you will) my previous point.

This photograph (shown below) was put up there by one, André Rabelo. On the one hand, it serves to further prove my point that motion can be achieved by very subtle means; see how the cyclist is not a long, fuzzy line, just like the shoes and feet were not, in Mr Maisel’s photograph above and mine above that?

This photograph, on the critiquing platform, received some rather nasty criticism like blurry, soft and generally crap. Would you agree? I suggest you pick a side before reading further because things are about to get interesting.

Mario’s bike | sourced from André Rabelo

The photographer is not André Rabelo, but Henri Cartier-Bresson.

That says a lot about the brilliant critics on the web and elsewhere, does it not? Had it been revealed that the artist was Cartier-Bresson, a whole lot of praise and fanfare would have followed.

I shall leave you at that: think about motion, how subtle it can be, and how many people might hate HCB’s work when they are not told to like it. Humans.

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