Focus on focus

@Gortch I was just about to post something but I decided to re-read your OP and you are right some on here are too nice. But you have to understand that for most on here it is a learning curve and practice and practice. Yes I understand that saying something is sharp when its not is not constructive but to go on rant is not either. But sometimes just giving someone some confidence to go shoot more will make them shoot better.

Now I disagree they way you have posted about peoples threads here I know you posted on the these threads and thats fine nothing wrong with personal opinion but remember its personal opinion nothing else, if we all were taking photos to your standard it would make the whole thing very linear and boring. The fact it isn't and it is an art form which makes it beautiful.

My ownly advice is play nice dont be vindictive and righteous instead be constructive. Some of these examples could easily be lens error back or forward focusing which the user may not know about.

BTW I dont think you are righteous or vindictive but you have been on a rant and maybe need to climb a little off your horse.
 
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Simon, obviously there are situations in news photography and photo journalism where a badly composed or focused photo is better than none at all. You possibly have one there.

Also, I think we all understand that you have some artistic licence even in photo journalism and that there is scope to deliberately introduce motion blur etc for creative reasons.

There's a simple test though if we want to get a measure of how popular those sort of photographs are with editors and here it is. Pick up any newspaper, broadsheet or red top, and count how many blurred (deliberate or otherwise) photographs you find. Same with magazines on any subject. If you find one single example, I'd consider it very unusual.

Editors at newspapers and magazines aren't daft, they know what their readership want and expect.
 
@Pookeyhead it doesnt matter what his standard is. If we all took photos based on 1 persons standards it would be linear and boring.
 
Gortch said:
There's a simple test though if we want to get a measure of how popular those sort of photographs are with editors and here it is. Pick up any newspaper, broadsheet or red top, and count how many blurred (deliberate or otherwise) photographs you find. Same with magazines on any subject. If you find one single example, I'd consider it very unusual.

Editors at newspapers and magazines aren't daft, they know what their readership want and expect.
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With the increased use of images pulled from social media, I'd say that's changing. It won't change for editorial, but actual coverage of unfolding events is more likely to be covered using images pulled from twitter feeds than images taken by freelance press photographers. In a few years... the meaning of "professional press photographer" will start to be a very fuzzy (pun very much intended) and vague thing indeed.
 
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Gortch said:
It is widely understood and accepted that mass participation in photography as a result of what some call the digital revolution, has generally resulted in a dramatic decline in standards. Where before a relatively small number of people took bad photographs, huge numbers of people now take bad photographs.
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They said the same when Eastman introduced the first consumer camera and the Kodak slogan; "You press the button, we do the rest."

It didn't put an end to good photographs being made. Even if some of them were a bit blurry... :)
 
I remember these arguments raging when auto-focus first appeared. AF didn't put an end to great photography either.
 
Gortch said:
There's a simple test though if we want to get a measure of how popular those sort of photographs are with editors and here it is. Pick up any newspaper, broadsheet or red top, and count how many blurred (deliberate or otherwise) photographs you find. Same with magazines on any subject. If you find one single example, I'd consider it very unusual.

Editors at newspapers and magazines aren't daft, they know what their readership want and expect.
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If you really think the average newspaper reader is a bastion of style or taste (or editors such as yourself choosing pap pics for the masses), then you do are deluded!

Ps thought you said earlier about not making personal attacks, as someone whose grandparent was Jewish I think you did just that!

On that I'm out!
 
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come on folks sensible debate = not getting too heated.
 
I'm sitting on the fence if Gordy is a troll or not tbh, I do however find it a bit odd that a rank newcomer would come into a non specific hobbyist photography forum and start applying strict media advertising criteria to everything. It's not an advertising media forum.
I'm slightly more disturbed at the complete lack of any people skills, sure blunt has it's place but there's more effective ways of getting your message across. Talking of messages, boy you sure have a stick up your ass about focus, let it go.
No one is on here to make poor photographs, and no one more than me knows that we'll only get better with practise, patience, time and gentle critique. You'll find it a lonely cold unwelcoming place if you continue in this evangelical manner.

Summary: Learn some people skills, you'll get much further.
 
Gortch said:
Simon, obviously there are situations in news photography and photo journalism where a badly composed or focused photo is better than none at all. You possibly have one there.

Also, I think we all understand that you have some artistic licence even in photo journalism and that there is scope to deliberately introduce motion blur etc for creative reasons.

There's a simple test though if we want to get a measure of how popular those sort of photographs are with editors and here it is. Pick up any newspaper, broadsheet or red top, and count how many blurred (deliberate or otherwise) photographs you find. Same with magazines on any subject. If you find one single example, I'd consider it very unusual.

Editors at newspapers and magazines aren't daft, they know what their readership want and expect.
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That is both an unnecessarily provocative and rude statement.
You have simply dressed up saying "you have a badly composed and focussed photo" by turning it into a rhetorical question. That is like the excrement of a troll.

Good and successful Editors do indeed know what people like to see and that is why they plunder social media sites for up to the minute shots on a daily basis.
To a large extent the technical quality of a news photograph has always been subordinate to the content. Even low quality frames from news reels and vidiocams are featured on the world front pages.
 
Tintin124 said:
@Pookeyhead it doesnt matter what his standard is. If we all took photos based on 1 persons standards it would be linear and boring.
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Head on the nail (y).
Their come a time in life for me where if you just keep on shooting what you think others will like,your photo will become as you say linear and boring,me i now shoot for myself not everybody going to like what you turn out,but just hopefully at the end of the day you turn out photos that in someway you can be proud of :)
 
Time and time again in this discussion, people have hinted at or suggested outright that producing OOF shots is fine because art is subjective. This is truly disgraceful.

Listen, if you are making a study shot of say a chameleon and you mess up with the focus, you have failed. Show some humility for christ's sake and don't insult us by playing the "art is subjective" card.

If you go to a fancy restaurant and order a meal, how would you respond if the chef burnt the food and instead of owning up said something like "just eat up and shut up, it's art"? It's not art, it's burnt, and it's an insult to suggest otherwise. Compounding your errors with lies is also cowardly.

As for subjective, that has never, ever, meant anything goes. There is an objective reality and we all share some idea of what that amounts to, otherwise this forum doesn't make sense. Otherwise art doesn't make sense.

I'll put it another way. There are (objectively speaking) good photographs and there are bad photographs -- I think enough of us share that view and have (in common) clear enough notions what good and bad amounts to for us to say that without equivocation.

This whole culture of subjectivism and relativism is cancerous. It's origins are in Marxist intellectualism. Not only are we expected to congratulate people who have no talent or expertise, we are to rob those who do of credit where it's due. And so it's all subjective -- the swinish multitude are the artists, and the artists are swine.

Let me apologise to historians of the future on behalf of the few of us who reject this intellectual carnage for what it is. Who knows, maybe some record of this debate will be found in 100 years when humanity has crawled out of the dark hole we dug for ourselves.
 
simonblue said:
Same here :plus1::exit:

Just an quick one here,i would have liked it to be sharper,but just not possible i wanted to get the feel of the demo,and the only to get that was to get in with them,which meant it was hard not to get jostled about a bit.

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When you say you'd like it to be sharper, I will assume you mean you would like it to be in focus. I'm honestly perplexed that you kept it and think its worth sharing. I fail to see how the hustle and bustle of the occasion provides any excuse either. You could have increased shutter speed, bumped up the ISO, or used flash. You should delete it and apologise to those who depended on you that day to get a decent photograph. You failed them. Hopefully you can learn from it and improve.
 
I take it you're not expecting a rational discussion based on this assertive, egotistical, insulting hyperbole?

As for telling simonblue how he should feel about his image, and what he should do with his image, why don't you go and attempt to bully elsewhere.
 
Gortch said:
This whole culture of subjectivism and relativism is cancerous. It's origins are in Marxist intellectualism. Not only are we expected to congratulate people who have no talent or expertise, we are to rob those who do of credit where it's due. And so it's all subjective -- the swinish multitude are the artists, and the artists are swine.
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Are you being deliberately provocative or are you really a reactionary and humourless Philistine? (That's rhetorical, by the way, it doesn't require an answer... :rolleyes:)

Artists push boundaries. In doing so they make bad art, but they also make great art. Time will be the judge of which is which - not you and your narrow opinions.
 
Ed Sutton said:
Are you being deliberately provocative or are you really a reactionary and humourless Philistine? (That's rhetorical, by the way, it doesn't require an answer... :rolleyes:)

Artists push boundaries. In doing so they make bad art, but they also make great art. Time will be the judge of which is which - not you and your narrow opinions.
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You aren't allowed to use words like bad and great to describe art, as you just did. Having standards just upsets those who have no talent and henceforth all art is equal. Haven't you heard? It's like nursery school for adults, we want to encourage them and avoid negativity. Who is paying for all this? The people with real talent and expertise, of course.
 
Being talentless and with no expertise myself, thus by inference a liar and a coward, I humbly apologise for putting you to trouble and expense.
 
I think gortch moves in such a tightly controlled environment, that he's forgotten there are other types of photography other than the pure, perfectly lit and focussed images he requires in his line of work.

Let's be honest here, there's all sorts of dreamy images that are never in focus, misty landscapes, editorial, even motion blur deliberately used.

To simply say these would be discarded is frankly silly. Photography can be art, it doesnt have to be a perfect reproductiont and as such is subjective, so things that someone doesn't like, others will.

That's not to say that gortch doesn't have a point in his world. In his world, photos a required to be pin point sharp and that's fair enough if that's his requirement, provided that is the requirement provided to the image creator.

To discard anything that isn't though I think would be a real crime. Nan Goldin, nobuyoshi araki, parry Clark, Ryan mcginley, all sorts of contemptory artists would be lost. I recently bought an image from a student of a bicycle outside a tea house, taken on a 6mp canon 300D, with the cheap kit lens. A beautiful image, but not taken on the latest high resolution camera with the sharpest lens. That's now hanging framed on one of my walls.

There's room for all sorts of images. If the think the image is soft then it's fine to provide constructive feedback, but to say delete all is wrong.


Edit cos my iPad decides to type it's own words :)
 
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**Mod Edit** deleted quote removed.

There is an ignore button I believe, if you choose to use it.
 
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Guy's one or two of you are getting personal again.
final warning.
 
BRASH said:
**Mod Edit** deleted quote removed.

There is an ignore button I believe, if you choose to use it.
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Guaranteed if I'd said the deleted quote I'd be out of here.
 
Gortch said:
You aren't allowed to use words like bad and great to describe art, as you just did. Having standards just upsets those who have no talent and henceforth all art is equal. Haven't you heard? It's like nursery school for adults, we want to encourage them and avoid negativity. Who is paying for all this? The people with real talent and expertise, of course.
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Of course you can call art bad or great. Although it's subjective to do so. :p

Perhaps you can define 'real talent' for me?
 
Gortch said:
When you say you'd like it to be sharper, I will assume you mean you would like it to be in focus. I'm honestly perplexed that you kept it and think its worth sharing. I fail to see how the hustle and bustle of the occasion provides any excuse either. You could have increased shutter speed, bumped up the ISO, or used flash. You should delete it and apologise to those who depended on you that day to get a decent photograph. You failed them. Hopefully you can learn from it and improve.
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Now you are getting personal,i believe you are just an troll, goodbye.
 
simonblue said:
Your just baiting him I thought a member as long standing as you would know better :)
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Pish. You never saw what the deleted post said which was posted by somebody other that Gordy. It mentioned a mute button and referred the member to the ignore button.
 
simonblue said:
So why did you say it, are you looking for a ban, or just got nothing better to do
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FFS. It wasn't me that said it was it?? Somebody posted some comments and the Mods deleted it. All I was saying was if I had said these comments I'd have been banned BUT I DIDN'T - IT WASN'T ME!!! Capich??
 
I think the problem here is not what's been said by the OP but the way it's been said. This is after all a forum for all levels of photographer so obviously there are going to be plenty of technically not so good shots, a lot of people come on forums like this for help and advise. I've given out plenty of crit over my time on here but I've always done it in a way as to not provoke this sort of reaction. There is plenty of threads and debates about the exact subject on here, people rocking up into a thread and giving it the "nice shot" replies which I agree with doesn't help anyone. If you feel a shot is out of focus why not try to give some advise as to how to improve it next time rather than saying things like "Sharp? This photograph is obviously way out of focus. Sorry, but it is. I'm flabbergasted that this could be described as sharp."?

Anyway, all that said I believe you're doing a good trolling job.
 
Real talent, in terms of photography, is easy to define. It explains someone who consistently achieves desired photographic goals. Through their expertise and creativity, they visualise a picture, set out to make it and succeed.

Doing that sounds simple enough but to do it consistently you need to have a good understanding of all the technicalities involved and have creative qualities which allow to visualise the shot in the first place; creative qualities might include being able to achieve good/pleasing compositions, creating mood and feel, including allegory, etc.
 
BRASH said:
FFS. It wasn't me that said it was it?? Somebody posted some comments and the Mods deleted it. All I was saying was if I had said these comments I'd have been banned BUT I DIDN'T - IT WASN'T ME!!! Capich??
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Guys! Brash NEVER made the comment.
He quoted it.
I removed the quote, as I had deleted the post.
I left the ignore button part in, as its very good advice.
Several of you would do well to take heed of it.
 
BRASH said:
FFS. It wasn't me that said it was it?? Somebody posted some comments and the Mods deleted it. All I was saying was if I had said these comments I'd have been banned BUT I DIDN'T - IT WASN'T ME!!!

I know you said it wasn't you, but I can't help but feel your leading this new guy on, just to see how far you can push it.
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Cobra said:
Guys! Brash NEVER made the comment.
He quoted it.
I removed the quote, as I had deleted the post.
I left the ignore button part in, as its very good advice.
Several of you would do well to take heed of it.
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THANK YOU;)
 
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