Teaching Tips – Critique 2

The first several landscapes by Jay and Kevin open our series. 

The first photo is almost a monochromatic study, except for the sides of the house. The understated color is a relief in these days where everything is over-hyped. The second photo has even less color, and this focuses our eye on a comparison of the pale blue-gray sky with the faded green of the pasture. Both photos use a fence in the foreground as a visual tool to help define the space.  

The next two landscapes are by Kevin. They both deal with a reflective foreground, the first being snow and the second, water. Both surfaces reflect a bluish color even though they are so different. The second photo has the horizon pushed up higher against the top of the photo frame, expanding the foreground. This is a good way to exaggerate space. 

The next yellow wall photo by Patty is interesting because of the way the tree is cropped by the frame, as determined by the position of the photographer. This makes it a very personal viewing, not something you would've seen if you were standing next to the photographer when they were taking the shot. [This is a good test for any photograph- to determine if it is a generic or a unique point of view.] This is also helped by the square format playing off the shape of the square windows. The perfectly horizontal horizon reinforces the geometry. The final payoff is the little vertical post on the right-hand side. All in all, this is very nicely designed.

This shot of the yellow table and chairs by Allison verges on the surreal. You can almost feel people sitting there talking or just sipping coffee. The bright yellow of the chairs is balanced by the red signs behind. This photo could have been a bit more unique if it had not been shot from eye-level, but it is still really cool.

The seemingly contradictory signs in the next photo, also by Allison, seem baffling at first. The bright orange of the barricades stands out against the blue sidewalk which is complemented by the yellow of the buildings. It seems however that the sidewalk is a bit too blue. [This probably should've been corrected, but maybe it was deliberate. There's a fine line between color being tweaked for effect versus a 'color cast' that needs to be corrected. This color cast might only be something that one learns to see after working with color for a long time.]

This building site by Jake uses some of that extreme viewpoint technique. The spacing is very constrained and full of equipment in disarray. One can easily see that the original motivation might have been the bright reds, oranges and yellows against the green buildings, but the photo goes further than that. This is what happens when something catches your eye and then you walk over to investigate it with your camera and then you structure the shot so that it goes beyond that original motivation to have more content. In this case the restricted space becomes a dominant factor.

This next photo by Jake captures a weathered building and it's decaying signage. I am very glad that the photograph was not oversaturated. It is important to let this building be itself. The ground floor has beautiful brickwork as well. The orange and white striped caution sign standing next to the yellow fire hydrant adds a little extra pop. What is curious however, is the new modern building off to the right-hand edge. It sets up a clash of culture and style. That same element shows up in the next photo.

This straight on shot of a rainbow painted building by Francesca is almost objective, but the fact that the left and right and edges are so perfectly pushed toward the edges of the frame that it becomes a very deliberate visual design. Upon further investigation the stains on the sidewalk at the bottom of the frame become almost more interesting. And there it is again, that brand-new modern building off of the top left-hand corner! [Does everyone else in. Philadelphia hate this guy Lew Blum as much as I do? His name is on every parking lot, and on the side of every building. He's the guy who will tow your car away and charge you $100 a day until you come get it.]

Playing off the dead center doors of the last shot, this photo by Jake takes us into the museum. Usually, things that are dead center do not have enough movement, but this is not about side to side. This is about the deep space down the center and it allows you to move through the frame.

Another shot from a museum is presented by Courtney. This picks up on the great light, the inquisitive gallery guest, and the ubiquitous and silent security guy. The shot is enhanced by the low angle of you view.

An incredible space, shot by Jake, contrasts the sunlight coming through the ceiling with the orange corridor at the bottom center. The sense of scale is almost overwhelming in an impressive manner. Everything sits nicely within the frame.

Keeping with the train station/corridor theme, this photo by Kat smears the lights in a very unique manner. The space also seemed a little squeezed, forcing you to move down the center which is also beneficial. [I might have lined up the beam on the ceiling with the top edge of the frame, but I am known to be a bit to compulsive.]

Another corridor picture by Annie takes us through a different part of the subway. To a certain extent, the artwork has already been made by another sculptor, but the way she pulls the ceiling down to below the midpoint of the frame makes the pictures hers by design. This is another effective use of deep space.

This is another subway shot by Allison. In one way it is a P-angle (explained in the photo cliché document). If the top edge of the yellow line was exactly parallel to the bottom of the frame then it would become the beginning of an abstract design. 

Here Francesca is again playing with diagonals. Her close up view truncates the scene and just leaves us with the "no admittance" sign for us to ponder what is actually up those steps. It seems that any photograph with steps somehow references Marcel Duchamp's masterpiece cubist painting "Nude Descending a Staircase" that lives in our own Philadelphia Museum.

I could not help but to connect this photograph by Jake to the previous one because of the sign. But this shot is a nice minimal photo of the intriguing mix of sunlight and incandescent light.

This light pole photo by Courtney takes us in a slightly different direction, although it is still an overlay of incandescent and natural light. It is curious because of the angle of view makes it look like this could be some kind of alien staring down at us. It is beautifully designed because as the sky fades from top to bottom, the pole recedes in the opposite direction, counterbalancing the light fixtures against the lightness of sky at the bottom.

Another pole by Patty makes its way into our collection, with a similar angle of view. This time the pole is augmented by two other vertical lines and there are horizontal wires stretching across the bottom edge of the frame. Probably the best part of all is the two little dots at the very lower right-hand corner! This is a good example of ‘omake’. [oh-ma-kay, Japanese term meaning ‘hidden treasure’]

Patty pulls her point of view down in the opposite direction in this almost monochrome photo with the striking red umbrella. It has a truncated view that flattens the space somewhat, but it still has an element of deep space created by the sidewalk's perspective. Two points of mystery come into play; one because the car that was parked on the right-hand side is now gone leaving a negative space imprint of missing snow, and the other is the feet disappearing out of the top left corner. Great! This photograph puts us in a certain place at a very particular time. This is what I mean when I'm talking about using space and time to best effect in photographs.

Another semi-abstract snow photo is this car door by Courtney. The space is flattened and the visual cues are minimalized and the fading of the snow renders a beautiful composition. This is especially made possible by the fact that the line of the car door is perfectly horizontal. Again, good visual design.

Mary pulls our point of view even further down, flattening the space even more. The crushed crayons and the box from which they came are situated in the frame perfectly. This really does become painterly, both literally and figuratively!

Kat use a similar technique to frame some random articles on the street in a painterly arrangement. This is partially because some of things are cut by the edge of the frame and the whole thing is accentuated by the diagonal line across the foreground, so that space also flattens out.

Mayuko extends this methodology by combining lines on the street with articles of clothing, all articulated by shadow. The two horizontal lines at the bottom being perfectly parallel to the edge of the frame make this work. The 'Framing and Composition' document talks about how edges of photographs have power. This is one good example how to use that power.

Courtney helps us out with some more blue paint on a curb. She brings back the snow theme, wonderfully accentuated by the footprint left as an artifact of someone's passing through the scene. A wonderful small piece of implied information, a clue!

These turquoise and blue specs seem like paint but that we see that they are wet, creating a mystery just by getting us to figure out what the heck they are. The downward angle of view looking into a dark corner is a bit tenuous if not dangerous.

[It would be clever if someone would walk around with pigments in their pocket that they could then deposit onto the street to create abstract paintings just for the purpose of shooting a photo. The pigment would dissolve in the next rainstorm, leaving no trace. Only the photograph would be left as an artifact.]

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From here we slip into the night.

Kevin pulls us all the way back at this industrial site. It’s almost looks like the previous photo could have been shot in one of those doorways. This is an ominous place and we can't be sure if it is just a deserted warehouse or a place where the next drug bust is about to happen.

Courtney pulls up a similar shot, a little closer in, this time with some extraordinary red light along the top edge of this wall. Another ominous space that is fascinating.

This photo by Mary provides even fewer clues about what is going on and where we are. [There's a rule for the darkest shadows that is the complement to the one quoted earlier about not having any pure blank white space in a photograph. Technically, there should be detail even in the darkest shadows. But when you have a photograph like this, shot in the dead of night, then the content lets you get away with it.]

That same green ambience is used in another shot by Mary, this time silhouetting  some people. It is not exactly clear what is going on but it looks like a stage set and there are some cymbals and the head of a Fender bass guitar in the lower left.

Here we are given a totally unique upward view by Francesca. The yellow color is a unique blend of light and paint, but at night time you can't really tell what color anything is. [We do not see things. We only see the light reflecting off of things. If you shine a yellow light on something white, it will appear yellow.] This is another photo that puts us inside the mind of the photographer. We see what they are seeing, but I'm still not sure what they are thinking. In art photography this is good. It is the mystery.

Patterns of light like these shot by Mayuko dance across the walls in Center City in the late afternoon. They are fleeting and change with the weather. I could see someone doing a video piece about these.

Mayuko gets even more abstract with this blue photo. I'm not sure if it is night time or underwater or just a reflection. The white spots look like light bouncing off water's surface with the blue coming from beneath. This might be another good source for a video work.

The curved reflective surface of a car windshield, shot by Patty, totally distorts the space around it. The fact that most of the edges have been removed makes it harder for us to figure this out and keeps the photograph interesting.

The blueness continues with another photo by Mayuko, this time looking up through a window covered with rain.  The distortion that results is fascinating. Another video piece?

In this shot we are not quite sure what we should really be looking at. Is Mayuko showing us the pattern of the wall or is it the scene being reflected that is important ? (Of course, it is the interaction between the two that is so cool.) The emptiness suspends us in time as we wait for something to happen. [Maybe a video piece of a space where nothing ever happens?] 

This gymnasium photo by Patty plays with the same kind of geometric pattern as the previous photo. The parallel edges of the red wall at the top of the frame running exactly in line with the photo frame edge makes it work. Then you add the yellow diagonals running off into the distance. This photo has the same painterly feels as some of the earlier shots even though everything is clearly defined.

Here we have two bicycle shots, one by Patty and the next by Judith. For some reason bicycles never seem to turn into a photo cliché. These are both old style bikes and they sit nicely within their environments.

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Now we get to our self-portraits:

This is a great action shot all muted by shades of beige (if I can call hair beige!). I'm intrigued by the fact that I cannot identify the person or even really see her face. I am not sure if the gesture is one of joy or anger, but it sets up a series of questions that make this photo compelling.

Here's another shot by Francesca with a gesture and the face is cut by the top edge of the frame, but in this case we see the facial expression. The gaze goes right past us and she seems unaware of our presence watching her. She has a relatively neutral expression but it indicates that she is thinking about something important. The close focus and slightly lower angle of view make this one successful.

Here Patty is gazing back directly into the camera, but with an inquisitive look. Closely cropped by shooting close and coming from a slightly higher angle makes this photo work well.

This is another nicely cut photo that seems to catch the subject unaware. There is a strange lens flare at the top right corner, and for some reason she has this strange warning sign behind her that is backwards! I wonder now if this is a reflection…

Courtney brings us very close in with these two photos. The closed eyes speak of sensuality while the open eye has a dreamy feel to it. Both display extreme intimacy and are good examples of how you can do something different in a portrait.

Yikes! Need I say more?

The shape of the mouth in the previous photo is echoed by the shape of the cake in this shot by Judith. And the sprinkles mimic the glitter. I know this is purely coincidental but it is great when this kind of serendipity happens between people working in the same group. 

This is a wonderfully luscious color photograph by Annie. It's so incredibly simple, with its close up view. But at the same time it talks about the experience of cooking and, hopefully, all the fun time you can have baking a cake with friends or for friends.

This is another simple but wonderful color photo of two red cushions by Judith. It is similar to the previous photo in its use of color and this one describes a comfortable situation. All of the emotional content is implied through the beautiful color.

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Grading: The number of photographs you have in this blog page is an indication of how well you are doing in this class. Some people are, however, slower at getting things working while others plateau out, so your grade is never certain until the end of the semester. Progress in demonstrating how much you have grown through the semester is a major factor.

Thanks for all the good shooting that went into this critique. I wish you all continued success with the next Topic.