80's life through a lens

Yes, as per the comments on the bbc that was a bit odd...
 
i'm missing something, the photos seem a bit poo to me

the out of focus couple would have been in the bin if it were mine
 
joescrivens said:
yeah, maybe i should keep all my carp out of focus shots in case i get the chance to show them off in an exhibit about the twenty tens one day :lol::lol:
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If I did this, I'd have nothing left!!
 
Am I missing something with these? I am very new to photography but they do absolutely nothing for me?!

Composition is a bit iffy and the blurry shot is awful, also black and white pics to record an era famous for its bold colours seems an odd choice to me.

The only pic I liked from the set was the young boy staring at the luxury car, interesting story in there. The rest were IMO a bit poor, the sort of stuff I would produce not a professionals work.

Someone explain what's so great about them for me?

Dan
 
they're a very poor set in my opinion

there's far better street stuff posted on here
 
joescrivens said:
yeah, maybe i should keep all my carp out of focus shots in case i get the chance to show them off in an exhibit about the twenty tens one day :lol::lol:
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Well, if you believe that the power and beauty of photography is limited to perfectly sharp images with balanced histograms that obey the rule of thirds and don't scare the horses then I can see there's nothing there for you.

I'm sure there'll be another Ansel Adams calendar out soon. :p
 
Sharpness is over-rated*.. there's a lot of very sharp and deeply and profoundly uninteresting street photographs about.. and technically, the couple shot is not mis-focussed as the softness appears to be entirely due to motion blur.

With that shot, there are definite references to Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville, and visually there's a lot going on - most obviously the ways the diagonals in the background are converging. Imagine the same shot without the blur, it would be less abstract and much less interesting.


* if anyone compliments you on how sharp your photos are, just remember that it's the equivilent of someone complimenting an author on their new book by saying, "It's all spelled correctly". Sharpness can be nice in it's place, but it's not the first thing to think about.. and in the street, well, the street is all about movement..
 
Lots of Henri Cartier Bresson's stuff isn't sharp and I agree that sharpness is over rated. However these pics don't do much for me either.
 
gingerjon said:
Well, if you believe that the power and beauty of photography is limited to perfectly sharp images with balanced histograms that obey the rule of thirds and don't scare the horses then I can see there's nothing there for you.

I'm sure there'll be another Ansel Adams calendar out soon. :p
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no i believe the power of photography is due to good photos of which these are not. my daughter sometimes grabs my wifes compact and takes shots like these - she's 2 years old :lol:
 
I wasn't in the UK during the 80s at all. Nothing much here to make me wish I had been!
 
joescrivens said:
no i believe the power of photography is due to good photos of which these are not. my daughter sometimes grabs my wifes compact and takes shots like these - she's 2 years old :lol:
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If you're not defining good photos as sharp etc etc then I'm not sure how these are bad. The subject is interesting, they link together nicely and they hold the attention.
 
lets be brutally honest here...if a newbie here posted up ANY of these images, he would be offered a multitude of tips and advice on how to improve

because...........................

frankly, they are not the best....:D
 
gingerjon said:
If you're not defining good photos as sharp etc etc then I'm not sure how these are bad. The subject is interesting, they link together nicely and they hold the attention.
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If you say so. I would have wrote that sentence with three exact opposites
 
strictly speaking movement blur is what you get when the subject is moving - in the case of the couple shot it appears to be more camera shake - and the photo would work better without it

most of the others are just dull, uniniteresting, and have nothing to grab the attention - only the pic of the boy with the rolls has a 'story' going on and that is marred by seemingly being shot through a car window.

in short they were probably crap when they were taken in the 80s , and sadly they havent a aged like a fine wine, 30 years later they are still crap.

and yes some of them are a little reminicent of HCB, but then imo a lot of HCBs work is highly overated too
 
The point is, whether the pictures are crap or not, the photographer has achieved their objective ...to be pubished... and have everyone view their work.

Even though they may not float everyones boat, they certainly do nothing for me, thats just our opinion, which everyone is entitled to.

maybe the best piece of advice learned from seeing these is even if you think the photo is bad, keep it anyway, you'll never know

:)
 
I actually defy anyone to say hand on heart that they would have given these more than 1 second's worth of attention if they weren't presented as some artsy fartsy exhibition.

These aren't artistically obscure and clever, they are just *****
 
Typical bloody forum. Guys you are seriously missing out on the magic of these images. Every one is a gem.
 
Emperor's new clothes?
 
I'm not kidding, Joe.
 
Apart from some dodgy clobber and a few old cars there's nothing in there to signify the eighties, may as well called it the sixties or seventies, they're all pretty mediocre.
 
I think the photographs are a curates egg lot, but they shouldn't be dismissed out of hand simply because they don't conform to the accepted norms. They make me question what photographs are. That's why I have the site bookmarked.
 
joescrivens said:
i know, thats why i was laughing
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Glad you're amused. Clueless, but amused.
 
desantnik said:
I actually defy anyone to say hand on heart that they would have given these more than 1 second's worth of attention if they weren't presented as some artsy fartsy exhibition.
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I had no idea they were in artsy fartsy exhibition so hand on heart they'd interest me no matter where I came across them.
 
Just seen his website and some of the pics on there are really good, think the selection of the bbc editor was a huge mistake.
 
just been on the website too

some really good stuff on there, they've picked the worst for the BBC !
 
well, someone once did a poo on the floor and called it art, what tickles someones fancy doesn't tickle anothers, even on the guys site there is a photo of a tv of thatcher - to me it's just a carp pic of a tv.

Theres another out of focus shot of a guy drinking tea, apparently:

"The full English tea pot is a very iconic shape. No matter how you photograph it, however much you throw it out of focus or blurr it, it still hangs in there as an emotional symbol."

i look at that shot and see a wonky blurred pic of someone drinking tea. :shrug: a teapot as an emotional symbol? This made me emotional today

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_f8pXcUqZgA8/TKEJUFkJikI/AAAAAAAAAyk/RFiJ299cUNo/s1600/afg001.jpg

a pic of an old man drinking tea and an out of focus teapot? Sorry, does nothing

but like i said, apparently excrement on the floor is also art so what do i know?
 
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The23rdman said:
Typical bloody forum. Guys you are seriously missing out on the magic of these images. Every one is a gem.
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I agree with Dean actually. They are mainly technically 'not very good' but that isn't what photography is really about. Each one says something about the decade (I particularly like the David Frost one - wouldn't be like that now with mobile phones, bluetooth business card exchange etc. Or would it?) and unless you see the meaning of each shot then you aren't going to get them.

Street photography is not about taking pictures of people in the street, its much more than that. All those saying these are rubbish ought to have a go at it (I have, not very good at it :D ). Make your theme about this decade and see how well you do at capturing more than just people walking in the street.
 
I'd be the first to agree that there certainly can be something about a less than technically complete photo - of course there can and some of these the key is to it being blurry, odd composition etc

However, these I just do not get. There isn't a "style" there isn't anything clever. They are just what looks like the fail pile from someones wanderings with a photo in the 80's.

They aren't really even iconic moments of the 80's IMHO...

"Street" photography is a hard subject, I see many, many photos that are just B&W shots of stuff on the streets and that really doesn't do it for me.... it has to capture something about the moment you've grabbed, there has to be a point or a question - and these don't do it for me. I can't define what "street" needs to be (feel free to try) but it is about emotion and these do lack it.

There's a chap on here who has a massive thread of "street photography", the name escapes me (sorry!) but his work is spot on, this stuff is as second rate as the bulk of the "street" I see posted on flickr, only this stuff is "old" and done on film (which doesn't make it better in my book)
 
I had another look, and haven't found anything to change my mind. I know great photographs don't always meet the "accepted" technical criteria, but there's just nothing here for me. These don't say 80s, they're just a selection of random street photographs that could have been taken just about anywhere and in any era. Sure, there are some clues, but a set of photographs that try to define or capture an era should speak for themselves. They don't do it, for me anyway.
 
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