The joy of discussing photographs
Show, Talk and Learn. Also one of the first times I show my own work here.
Just before the summer break we went to a beautiful location with a bunch of photo friends. It was an old industrial area in Den Bosch that has been turned into a cultural hotspot.
And this weekend, after the summer break, we met again to discuss the photos we'd taken that day.
We were supposed to bring three printed photos and discuss them.
As I'm a firm believer in showing my work to as many people as possible, as I wrote about last year, I love these meetings where we show and comment on each other's photos.
I always like to get together with like-minded photographers to show our work and have it criticised. I never take any criticism personally, I just suck it up and try to learn from it.
For the shoot we did in Den Bosch before the summer, I tried to focus on street photography with a single person in the frame. The three pictures I printed and showed had one person in each, and as we concluded after the discussion, they were all about the right moment, the decisive moment, as one famous photographer once said.
These are my three photos and here’s why I took those photos and the comments they made on each one:
Photo 1:
Tom and I climbed a flight of stairs, not knowing if we were allowed to. It turned out we weren't, but luckily they gave us a few minutes. A photographer friend who had stayed downstairs told us to pose. As there was no safety bar, Tom just grabbed two window frames. I heard from below: "You look like you're going to jump," and that's when I tilted my camera to get a more dramatic angle. I had already framed my shot, but that call made me realise it needed something extra. The dark parts at the bottom right and the bright, open parts at the top left work really well in the photo.
Photo 2:
I walked around to find an interesting frame. This staircase with the shadows and the rays of light looked like an interesting place. But something was missing. Because I shoot with a Ricoh GR that has no viewfinder, just the LCD screen, my view is much wider and I can see what is happening outside the frame. I saw this young woman with her fat bike. I knew immediately that I wanted to capture her entering the scene as she rode through the light. My camera was not in burst mode, so it had to happen at the right time. Luckily it did. I absolutely love this shot. The negative space on the left just adds to the movement and the lines of the light and the stairs lead the eye through the photo. One comment was also interesting: "Funny to see how little information we need to realise that she is riding a bike".
Photo 3:
This lady was trying to fill up a parking meter. The sun was making it difficult for her to see the information on the screen. I walked by and noticed her and the surroundings. It was an unreal scene, this old building, the empty street and the parking meter. She bent down for a moment to look at the screen before standing up again. We thought her standing up would not make such a powerful photograph. The meter and the woman in the middle of the frame are against the rules (I believe rules are made to be broken...), but it splits the frame nicely in two.
Bonus question: Did you notice her husband in the third photo?
I think it would have been better if it was a video instead of a picture, as he was nagging her about not filling the meter.
By the way, he is not in the picture, only his shadow, as he is right behind the meter.
Do you ever discuss your photos with other photographers?
By that I mean live, with real people coming together? Not the comments you get on social media channels. It is so much more rewarding and enjoyable to print out your work, put it on a table and absorb what others think of it, even if it is not to their liking.
And even if you can't get together, finding a place where people can interact with full attention and the best of intentions is far better than getting likes and meaningless comments on Instagram and such.
That said, would you be interested in having a channel to share your work and receive comments on it? Substack has this chat functionality which could be a good option for this purpose.
Let me know in the comments if you fancy it and I might open up the chat on Darkrooms to give and get some photo critiques.
That’s it for this week.
Till next time,
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I'm a big believer in show, don't tell. I feel photographs should speak for themselves. As a critic, I can write pages on the photographs of others, but I remain resolutely tight-lipped on my own. I prefer to let others do the interpreting. Funnily enough, my next 'letter, out tomorrow - if I can get the bloody thing written, is an introduction to reading photographs, so it'll make a nice companion to this piece for our common subscribers :)
As my Substack grows, one option for paid content I considered was portfolio review / critique. A discussion group on Darkrooms would be cool. I'd get involved if it was a thing. :)
The critique aspect of an artist gathering is one of the things I miss most about my undergraduate classes. I haven't had the chance to be part of an intimate photography community that focuses on giving and receiving feedback since then. That being said, I'm not sure online is the place I'd find what I want. I imagine a scene more like what you describe in your post, bringing prints together with a few people in person, discussing each piece, pointing out strengths and weaknesses. Growing together over time, face-to-face. But I think I'd give it a shot.