I have inserted comments I recently received from my teacher for the Santa Fe Workshop photos I had posted previously. Here is the blog page link to view the comments: http://gottagolinda.blogspot.com/search/label/critiques After clicking on this link, scroll down to the blog entry dated September 28, 2008.

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Sandi, Stacy and I are headed in to the 1st Tuesday Baby Meeting tomorrow morning, earlier than usual, so we can visit the Getty Museum for about 3 hours.
I’m excited about seeing this exhibition in particular:
Dialogue among Giants: Carleton Watkins and the Rise of Photography in California
October 14, 2008–March 1, 2009

Hopefully I’ll get to take some photos of the landscape and architecture too.

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CRITIQUE: Linda Jeffers

Red, White, and Blue

BOAT BOW

You took something rather mundane, Linda, and

created a little jewel, which is kind of the point

of all my online classes — look around you, find

something, and compose it as best you can. In

this case, you isolated a part of a boat and filled

your frame with strong lines and bright color.

What was working against you (and I know,

because I was there) was harsh sunlight. From

the shadows it looks as though the sun was pretty

high in the sky, which is traditionally a tough

time for us to be

shooting. But in this case,

the bright sunlight and

the angle of the sun

created a relatively bold

shadow under the blue

crosspiece, which adds to

your composition in that

it echoes the stripe of

black paint in the lower

third of your picture.

Your shadow is dark

enough to be bold, yet light enough so that we still see the boat detail within it.

I like how you offset the vertical piece of wood — it’s over in the left third of the frame rather

than being centered. Nothing wrong with centering it, which would give a feeling of symmetry,

but I also like this offset look.

A large challenge here was metering. The lightest part of the image is the bit of white on the

right side. If your camera meters for the blue or for the left side of the boat, that bit of white on

the right is going to be very overexposed. I think that you came very close to having that

happen, but nope, we can still see some detail in the white, so all’s well. Good shot.

ART



Ha! “I don’t know anything about

ART, but I know it when I see it!”

This is a good example of red/

white/blue, with your clean, crisp

colors. But what happened here is

exactly what I was talking about

in your previous shot. Your

“ART” is perfectly exposed. But

because the red paint is darker

than the foreground mooring

lines, your camera exposed for

the dark red and the mooring lines

are blown out, way overexposed.

This happens to us all the time. Luckily, since most of us are shooting with digital cameras and

we have access to histograms and LCD screens that blink when we overexpose, we have superb

tools now at our disposal that we film shooters never dreamed of.

I know you know this, but it bears repeating. Whenever we encounter bright, sunny situations

and a lot of light colors, it behooves us to check our histogram after every shot. I’ve got my

camera set so that when I click the shutter, the histogram automatically comes up. I rarely look

at the image on my LCD screen, but I try to always check the histogram. If the graph is

touching the right side (the light side) of the histogram, I know I’ve overexposed. If I see

blinkies here and there — huge clue that I’ve overexposed. And then the solution is to use my

exposure compensation dial and take another shot, this time perhaps 1/3 or 2/3 stop under (-1/3,

-2/3). Check the histogram. No blinkies? The graph is backing away from the right? Then I’m

good to go. Oops, don’t forget to set my exposure compensation dial back to 0.

REFLECTION



I can see why you were attracted to this, and I

think I might have taken photos of this same

reflection. I, too, was taken by the red, white,

and blue colors. Did we succeed? I’m not

super-pleased with mine, and, in a second, I’ll

go find the shot, prep it, and will include it

here so you can see . . .

The tough part about photographing this

reflection was that first of all, it was

constantly in motion. So to try to focus AND

come up with a dynamic composition was the

real challenge. It was frustrating to focus on

what I thought looked good, only to have it

shape-shift away and lose the focus as well as

the design.

(I couldn’t copy and upload Carol’s shots she used as an example. Sorry.)

Well, no, my

photo is not of

the same

reflection as

yours. But it’s

still bad, as you

can see below.

Yes, the colors

are good, but

where’s the

design? Where’s

the line? Why

did I put the red

thing right in the middle? And, importantly,

why did I keep the darn thing?

Regarding your photo, there are two things

working against it. The first is the overall

dullness of the colors and the water. The red and the

blue is very good; the white is more of a cream and the

overall water looks sort of beige. This can be lightened

and brightened in Photoshop with relative ease.

But the other thing that’s not working is that there’s no

real pattern nor design, no focal point, no place where

we begin and end our visual journey around the frame.

As a result, we just sort of want to move on.

So, what’s the difference between an abstract reflection

that doesn’t work and one that does? I added a second

reflection shot of mine (below) that I like because the

reflections are bold and crisp, but there’s also a sort of

blocky design that I like — red lower left, dark block to

the right, darker block upper right, and lighter block

upper left. To emphasize this blocky look, I should crop

in from the left, getting rid of the blue color, as you can

see in the very bottom photo.

Thanks for posting these — very much appreciated.

Carol Leigh

November 1, 2008

Here I adjusted Levels in

Photoshop . . . (Again, sorry about not being able to show/upload Carol’s example.)

In response to Carol’s critique, I sent the following email to her:

Wow Carol. Did I get a lot from your critique.

First of all in my second shot “ART”, you are correct, I do know how to look at the histogram, but haven’t been looking at it I’ve been so concerned with focus. I forgot?

Secondly, I never even noticed the mooring lines being overblown! Hmmm. Don’t know where I was while prepping this photo.

And the 3rd shot of the color in the water, I looked for a design, a pattern etc and knew the composition was lacking something. I tried cropping this way and that but never felt anything looked right. So I see I need asking these questions you posed and posted on my critique using your photo as an example: “Yes, the colors

are good, but

where’s the

design? Where’s

the line? Why

did I put the red

thing right in the middle? “

I remember you repeatedly saying to take time, slow down (in Santa Fe). I think my new rule before taking a shot is to keep looking and asking myself questions before I ever take the shot. A little restraint. Yes, restraint has worked in other areas of my life big time, so why not in photography.

It was interesting yesterday. I hadn’t lately taken any photos for my Daily blog. The cloud formations and backlighting on the clouds over the San Jacinto mountains was breathtaking. I went out and shot off a few photos without thought before a phone call interrupted me and then the light had gone. The phone call was about possibly going to the Getty Museum to see a photography exhibit. So I went online and found an example of some of the photos at the exhibit. Here is the link to the blog photos I posted of the clouds I took on 11/1 …and the questions I asked myself secretly about why this guy’s cloud photo is featured in a photo show at the Getty. The “guy” is Alfred Stieglitz!!!!

Now I see there is no pattern to my cloud composition. That’s what had been bothering me. I hadn’t stopped to think about the composition. I liked the lighting but didn’t go further.

Long story short, you helped me answer a big question not only with the photos you critiqued but with why I initially began taking classes……..TO SEE! And I can’t see if I’m not slowed down enough to ask myself: What am I seeing, does it have design value or am I doing what I’ve done my entire life….recording/taking the photo for memory sake.

I think I may have had a mini psychic change. I hope so.

Thanks Carol. You always get me seeing, a little more, what I can’t see.

Linda

A couple hours later I received this email response to my email from Carol:

You know what’s interesting, Linda, is that when you signed up for

your very first online class and you gave me your website address, I

could tell IMMEDIATELY from your pictures that you needed to slow

down, to take a deep breath and think before clicking the shutter.

Knowing that when I did, so early in the game, I feel I’ve been remiss

in not pointing it out to you often enough throughout the online

classes and in the two in-the-field workshops you’ve taken. Better

late than never, I guess, but yeah, I can remember the “this woman

needs to slow down” flash going through my brain from the very beginning.

This doesn’t just apply to you, however. We ALL need to slow down and

think before we shoot. Why are we taking this shot? What do we like

about the scene? What’s the light doing? Are there weird things in the

background? Are there ugly hot spots that will ruin the picture?

Where’s the movement in this scene? Am I including too much? Not

enough? Would this be better as a vertical? What’s my ISO? Is my

exposure compensation dial accidentally still set to 3 stops

underexposed from the last shot? And much, much, more . . . Sometimes

I’m amazed we ever get around to clicking the shutter!

Carol Leigh

I’m still taken back by how much Carol opened my eyes to how my character/personality traits are everywhere, even in my photos. I feel like I’m wearing a new pair of glasses today. This is Good!

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An hour ago, I was drawn outside with my camera and tripod by the vision of billowing, backlit, cumulus clouds over the San Jacinto Mountain range. A phone call distracted me from taking more than 3 photos.

Moments ago I went online to see what exhibitions were at the J. Paul Getty Museum, hoping Sandi and I could catch the end of a photography showing while in LA Tuesday. Online checking out the exhibitions now at the Getty site I found a photo from the Landscape photo exhibition named “Songs of the Sky”. (shown here)

Alfred Stieglitz was a great promoter of Modernism in America and an advocate of photography as art. He began pointing his camera skyward in 1922. His images of evanescent clouds were meant to express his own fleeting emotional states and reflect the dynamism of a world in constant flux.

Originally Stieglitz titled these cloudscapes “Songs of the Sky,” but he later came to call them “equivalents of my most profound life experience.” The works focus on abstract qualities of proportion, rhythm, and harmony, presenting pure form as music for the eye.

Now lookie here at two of the photos I snapped off around 5pm tonight.

And here you have my “pure form as music for the eye”.

p.s.
syn·chro·nic·i·ty Listen to the pronunciation of synchronicity
Pronunciation:
\?si?-kr?-?ni-s?-t?, ?sin-\
Function:
noun

The coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality —used especially in the psychology of C. G. Jung

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Last week Ray and I were on the go non stop. Wednesday we drove in to the San Fernando Valley where I spoke. We spent the night over and Thursday, also in the SFV, we attended our home group meeting. Friday we attended the Just the Black Print Meeting Ray and I started here in Rancho Mirage. Then after the meeting we had dinner with some friends who driven out to the meeting. And Saturday we again drove in to the SFV to attend a friend’s 20th birthday. All last week I felt sick but now I’m home really sick with a full blown cold.

This week’s schedule was on the heels of having been away 8 days up in Half Moon Bay attending a loosely structured class with 11 other students, Norm and our teacher, Carol Leigh. Our assignment was to photograph the character and feel of HMB. By the way, I had an incredible time setting up my tripod and camera at 5am to shoot the setting full moon and later rising sun. The Beach Hotel where I stayed had a balcony that suited my early morning shooting needs without having to go out into the scary dark of the morning on the beach or pier.

I don’t know how many photos I shot. Tons. We were told to select 20 photos for submission to our teacher. She’ll take 3 photos from each students’ submissions and put together a book. Thank goodness my computer waited to crash until I was home. (I am now the very proud and happy owner of a new T500 Lenovo IBM, a 20″ Mac external monitor, Lightroom 2.1 and am waiting for Adobe Photoshop CS4 which is supposed to arrive this week. Lots of learning curves.)

Here are some of the photos I submitted:

Out on the docks, looking at Pillar Point Harbor Pier.

Silver pumkin outside the Mill Rose Inn B&B.

An attempt at photographing color at a local pumpkin farm.

Looking back at the Beach Hotel where I stayed.

So many students photographed great shots at the many pumpkin farms. We had great sunny days, but had hoped for clouds which make for better photos. This was a another attempt at a pumpkin festival shot.

This was one of the first shots I took before sunrise. I’d never shot with so little light before. Pillar Point Harbor.

We all called this Norm’s Pier. I don’t know the real name of it. It’s located at the northern end of the Half Moon Bay Beach. This was the first of two times I visited this pier for sunset shots.

Early morning shot looking north from my balcony at the Beach Hotel.

Reflections of dock pilings at Pillar Pt. Harbor.

A wider view of the dock.

An uninteresting boat that caught my eye because of the light on it.

First full moon rise I’ve ever shot. I was so excited and focused on the moon, I neglected to notice and avoid a big ugly dock feature in the lower right hand corner of many of the other photos.


First time I ever shot a setting moon. It’s hard to not blow out the moon and retain detail.

A point at the northern most beach of HMB.

A view of the house at the end of ‘Norm’s’ Pier.

Another moon shot over a hotel along the shore in HMB.

Pigeon Point Lighthouse. I arrived and started shooting a half hour before sunrise. As with all these shots, I used a tripod.

I turned around and shot the rising sun. Can you see two of my classmates?

A shot of the lights of the northern most land and naval equipment.

Ocean beach bluffs photographed on my return from Pigeon Point Lighthouse around 8:30am.

Shot seconds before the sun rose.

I was asked by my doctor if I’d bring in two framed photos from this class to hang in his office. Which two do you think would be best together?

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http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/2008/archives/1294

Scott Kelby is my newest read.

Reading his links in this link kept me up too long.

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At the end of our 3 and a half days of workshop shooting, Carol set us all up and evidently gave us very specific directions on how she wanted us to pose for a memorable group photo, directions I obviously didn’t understand. I’ve included the email Carol just sent to us all regarding the photos she linked us to:

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This is a fun group and I can’t wait for the Half Moon Bay workshop next week.

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My photography teacher’s new photo montage blog.

AND……Katie has started an unbelievably good daily blog. Ray is addicted to reading it. I see by a comment left from Joanna that she is following Katie’s daily journal as well. Here is the blog.

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CRITIQUE: Linda Jeffers
Twos and Threes

THREE ON TWO

Woof! What a terrific photo,
Linda. I’m not sure what I’m
looking at, or looking through, or
looking into, but it doesn’t matter
and I really don’t want to know.
What you’ve created is an abstract
image with a lot of mystery, a lot
of drama, and a lot of power. You
lined things up just right. Your
exposure is just right. I love the
little highlights running along the
horizontal elements in the shot. I
like the grainy look to the scene.
And I like how the cars are so out
of focus yet sharp enough that we
know we’re looking at cars.
Your three lights set the scene beautifully. The two cars?
Perfect. The grids that form a frame? Excellent. Do I have
any suggestions regarding how this picture could be any
better? Not a one. Major kudos, madam.

MULTI-PURPOSE VASES

This one’s good, too. I like how
you’ve got a lot of depth of field, a
lot in focus from front to back.
Usually this is the result of
selecting an aperture that’s quite
small — the smaller the lens
opening or f/stop, the more will be
in focus.
Your lighting is good in that it’s not
overly hot; there aren’t any distracting hot spots. Yes,
there’s glare on the glass, but it’s not overexposed and
we EXPECT glass to have reflectivity.
I especially like how you put the vases on the diagonal.
There’s also a diagonal line behind them, running in a
different direction. Those two diagonal lines give your
photo movement. We begin with the foreground vase,
move into the frame, and then the background diagonal
encourages us to move back toward the left. The vertical
nature of the vases and the reeds or stems within them,
give your photo a lot of height — yet another direction
for our eyes to go. Lots of movement here, and done in
an orderly fashion.
Interesting photo, well-composed, well-exposed, well
done!

HAPPY UGLY FEET

Ha! I wish I could say you’re the first to feature feet
in these classes, but Rebecca Ford (once of San
Francisco, now living in Mexico) beat you to it. She
would be pleased to see yours, however!
What makes your photo particularly compelling is
the lighting. The way the light is hitting your feet
and accentuating the texture of your skin and
creating shadows that set your toes apart is excellent.
What I also like is the combination of the bluishcolored
fabric at the bottom of the frame and how it
makes the warm golden tones of the background
look especially good. Complementary colors.
You created movement in
your shot by having a
long diagonal line lead us
up and into the frame; the diagonal line of your toes leads our eye
down to the foot on the left. Again, well done.
You should be INCREDIBLY pleased with these three photos.
They’re not the sort of thing you usually photograph, and I hope you
had a fun time doing it.
Carol Leigh

I am so surprised by the Woof! I got in the critique on the first photo – Three on Two. I had read tonight’s email I’d received while I was away in LA today. My friend Carol D. sent me the following email. I had not read my photo critique yet.

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1 CRITIQUE: Linda Jeffers
AlphaNumeric
WOODS LODGE

This is a very cool “C,” Linda. It’s got a sort of
primitive look to it that’s enhanced by all the grunge,
goop, drips, drops, splats, and splatters surrounding it.
The “1932″ is a nice little touch, too.
I like how you composed your shot, with the vertical
aspect of the “C” enhanced by your choice of a
vertical format. (So many times we mindlessly hold
our camera up, in a horizontal format, click, and don’t
consider how simply changing to a vertical format will
make already-vertical subject matter look even taller.
But I digress . . .)
The ONLY thing that could make this picture better
would be if it were in focus . . . You’re KILLING me
here! The shot looks really soft to me; if it had been
sharp, you would have nailed it.

2. MY INITIAL

Yay! It’s in focus! What a cheerful, splashy,
jubilant “J” this is. It’s all about boldness and
complementary colors (orange/blue) and the
entire shot just jumps out at us.
What makes your “J” especially interesting is
that it’s on a surface that has some shading and
texture to it. If the background had been a
plain, smooth orange color, it wouldn’t have
the same impact. It would border on boring.
But the background here is excellent for setting
off the “J.”

‘Tis a jaunty little “J.” It’s got personality. You
done good.

3 HIGHWAY 40 GRAFFITI

I have such a love/hate relationship with
graffiti (I feel like it lowers our overall quality
of life, yet the colors and designs can be
spectacular). In addition to the emotional
aspect of it, I also find it really hard to shoot.
The letters often merge into one another,
preventing me from isolating one particular
letter or number, which is frustrating. But I
think you photographed this “S” fairly well.
You’ve isolated the letter. You centered it in
the frame, which is fine, and the left-hand
black vertical thingie and the right-hand wood
act as internal frames, setting off the “S”
nicely.
The only thing I’m wondering about is your
shooting angle. It looks as though you were
standing off to the right, so the horizontal lines
of the cinder blocks are skewed at the bottom
but level at the top. Would the letter look better
if you’d shot straight on?
I brought your photo into Photoshop Elements
5 and, using the Transform/Perspective tool,
tried to tweak the picture so that it looked like
you shot from straight on. But my Photoshop
skills aren’t good enough to show you what it
would look like — it didn’t work at all. Sorry.
Good color, good focus, lots of drama. You
should be pleased!
Carol Leigh
P.S. The better the photos, the shorter the
critique.

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