CCC Forum

We had a critique yesterday evening and I wondered what makes a picture tick.
This is no criticism of the other photographers involved but is of interest.
I spent quite a time constructing a series of graffiti into one image, and if I say so myself, you cannot see the joins.
There were at least 3 artists involved and I mean artists, I was truly impressed with their work, and myself the photographer !!
Now time taken doesn't make an image but my picture told a story.
The judge's comment was all I did was copy someone else's image, fair enough, he couldn't tell how much work was eventually involved.
Two other works had come up , a bronze and a street scene involving graffiti.
The bronze had been created by an artist and manufactured by an artisan, probably just photographed lightened, cropped and enhanced
interesting picture as a copy of something, came out fine. The Street scene was just a street with a little graffiti on a wall, was that not copied, they both received certificates.
Neither of those told a story other than what the artist wished to tell. Mine did. Could somebody tell me why mine was considered inferior.
To be honest the judge did say he did not like the picture, that to me might have been enough, but there are other criteria. Quality of printing interpretation, composition, crop, colour rendition et al.
This isn't the first time my graffiti images have been scored down and other similar images have received certs. What am I doing wrong people.
The only thing right about all this is I enjoyed the project tremendously, and liked the result.

When I first started coming to the club, at the first competition I witnessed I ended up speaking to the judge during the interval. He told me about a picture of a lemur for which he had recently awarded a low mark, only to be confronted by an upset photographer at the end of the evening. Apparently the shot had been taken in the wild after a three day pursuit of the creature through the Madagascan jungle. The judge had not been impressed with the result and reckoned something better could have been taken at the local zoo. It does not matter how much effort has gone into the making of an image, it is unlikely that the judge will be aware of that for most images and will be more concerned with technical competence and aesthetics.

I think that pictures of graffiti have a particular problem as they are two dimensional representations of two dimensional subjects, in other words there is often no impression of depth, which is often an important consideration for a successful photograph. I am struggling to recall the other graffiti shot from your description, but I believe it is the one taken in Peru. That was surrounded by other artefacts, so there was something else happening in the scene other than the graffiti. As the author of the bronze sculpture image, I can say a little more about its creation. Yes, essentially it is a record shot and the judge marked it as such. That said, it did require a fair degree of post capture work, firstly in getting a good Raw conversion and then mainly in toning down highlights, emphasing features and applying a moderate vignette. I also added a generous amount of silver toning as although it is a mono image, I wanted to convey the feeling of the original bronze. It is my interpretation of what I saw. Although your shot was a composite, that was not obvious to the judge and he assessed it as a straight picture. Where they differ, is that my shot was of a three dimensional subject and, dare I say it, one that has more appeal. Although the "story" was not mine, I do not think that your picture actually expressed a narrative in a way that is especially meaningful to others.

Your final comment is the most important one. The main person for whom we create our works is ourselves. Others liking it, particulaly judges, is merely a bonus given that any assessment will always be subjective. Personally, beforehand I was quite worried last night that my shot would be marked down for lack of originality and there are some judges who would undoubtedly have done so. Ironically, what was probably my most creative image in that I had substantially transformed it from the rendering of the orginal subject, was the one which fared worst last night.

I hope this helps and thanks for raising a topic which should concern us all.