How do you know when you've made a bad photograph?

[Toffle]

That's one of the reasons why I use view cameras.

Even the left/right mirroring on a TLR is very instructive in seeing a composition take shape outside the context of the subject matter.

 

[ntenny]

View attachment 59991

I'm sure this will be controversial but sometimes 10 minutes and you can remake an image to what you want. Personally I like the rocks. They add dimension by creating a foreground, a middle ground and a background.. A great picture, but I dislike the stripes and I think it looks better in black and white.

That's really interesting---it had never occurred to me to try that. I'm not at all sure which version I like better (and I'm so used to the color version that it's hard to judge). Thanks!

I've already deleted this from my files. Please feel free to do with it as you wish.

As far as I'm concerned you didn't need to delete it. I woulda said something if I wanted to restrict what was done with an image I posted.

-NT

 

[cliveh]

That's one of the reasons why I use view cameras.

Also possible with 35mm.

 

[markbarendt]

Also possible with 35mm.

At the camera?

 

[Stephanie Brim]

I love the view camera's upside down image viewing. It took some getting used to, but now I prefer it. I also find it easy to compose in square format, though, so I'm odd.

 

[heterolysis]

I have always loved composing square pictures...much preferred over 35mm. I have never tried 4x5.

I never get my hopes up when shooting---I will never be a talented photographer, it's just something I like doing. But in general, the more time I spend composing, or just observing, the more confident I am the shot will come out. Therefore, I have a much, much higher success rate with MF than I do firing off my Nikon N80.

I scan everything I shoot these days. It helps me figure out where shots went right/wrong, and gives me a better idea how to prevent failures the next time around.

 

[rwreich]

I usually find something wrong with every image I capture, but that's why I love photography. To me, the nature of the analogue photography is about truth telling. If I capture it honestly (without manipulation), then it's true because the moment is both behind you and with you in the negative. Of course, there are other, less-analogue, methods of narrative in photography, but that's not what I want to show.

Here's one that is interesting to me, but may be totally nothing to everyone else:

It's from a wedding (obviously?) that I covered recently. I don't know if I would have liked it had it not been the end of the roll, but I know I think it's interesting aesthetically because of the poetry. It's not everyone's favorite poem, but I remember walking backwards as the couple recessed. As the motor drive pulled the roll tight, I tripped up a stair and reached for the backup body. I think that part of the reason they're smiling so much is because they saw what was about to happen.

It doesn't have to be right, but if there's a story, then it's interesting.

(Also, for those who might wonder, I did not include this image in the official proof, but I'll show it to them eventually.)

 

[MattKing]

I've never made a bad photograph - they are all remarkably well behaved.

But I have made many disappointing photographs.

 

[Steve Smith]

How do you know when you've made a bad photograph?

Most of my cameras make a 'click' sound every time I make a bad photograph.


Steve

 

[Diapositivo]

With the film cameras I normally compose attentively and when the film is developed I don't have surprises.

With the digital I found I have a problem. My digital camera doesn't have an optical viewfinder (it probably was the first really good camera with EVF only, back in 2006 or 2005). The electronic viewfinder, besides being a bit cluttered with information (which must be there because there are not knobs to tell you what your settings are) is not so well defined and big as the viewfinder of an SLR. I sometimes find that there are disturbing elements in the composition (or gross mistakes) that I did not notice when I was composing the picture.

 

[E. von Hoegh]

Even the left/right mirroring on a TLR is very instructive in seeing a composition take shape outside the context of the subject matter.

Yes, and it makes panning more fun!

 

[batwister]

With the film cameras I normally compose attentively and when the film is developed I don't have surprises.

With the digital I found I have a problem. My digital camera doesn't have an optical viewfinder (it probably was the first really good camera with EVF only, back in 2006 or 2005). The electronic viewfinder, besides being a bit cluttered with information (which must be there because there are not knobs to tell you what your settings are) is not so well defined and big as the viewfinder of an SLR. I sometimes find that there are disturbing elements in the composition (or gross mistakes) that I did not notice when I was composing the picture.

Must say, I always found live view much more fluid for composing. The Pentax 67 viewfinder, while big and bright, is only around 90% coverage of course - same deal with the Hasselblad. But because live view is so easy to work with, like I said in the OP, I found my pictures 'too' composed, contrived. The surprises in my case relate to colour and tonality, but critically, the realisation of the image compressed in two dimensions - DoF preview only ever gives me an idea in broad daylight. The real 'surprise' comes when I realise my intuition at the shooting stage was right. However considered and laboured a composition, the true objectivity and analysis of the image comes afterwards - only then do I know if the picture 'has it'. I've spent whole shoots working with one scene, a handful of compositions, but the 'what was I thinking moment?' when looking at the negs has more to do with what Ansel Adams called confused seeing.

Composition can sometimes feel like sculpting without stepping back to see what you're making, you can get lost in the viewfinder, the 'making'.

 

[E. von Hoegh]

I love the view camera's upside down image viewing. It took some getting used to, but now I prefer it. I also find it easy to compose in square format, though, so I'm odd.

Not really, at least not because of that. Square format simply gives one less thing to wonder about. I like my Rollei for the same reason.

There's a guy named Austin Granger over at LFPF who posts wonderful strong 6x6 compositions, they're worth signing up to see in the "Safe haven for tiny formats" thread.

 

[blansky]

I put a few thousand rolls of film through my Hasselblads and never once printed square.

I can appreciate square but somehow I just never printed that way.

In fact with digital sensors I like printing full frame 35mm more than I did back in the old days when I shot Hasselblad and printed 16x20. Seem to really like 16x24.

Maybe it's just a phase.

 

[cliveh]

I put a few thousand rolls of film through my Hasselblads and never once printed square.

I can appreciate square but somehow I just never printed that way.

In fact with digital sensors I like printing full frame 35mm more than I did back in the old days when I shot Hasselblad and printed 16x20. Seem to really like 16x24.

Maybe it's just a phase.

Don't you mean 24 X 36?

 

[E. von Hoegh]

Don't you mean 24 X 36?

16x24 is the same 3:2 aspect ratio of 35mm.

 

[cliveh]

16x24 is the same 3:2 aspect ratio of 35mm.

Yes, but not 35mm in size.

 

[removed account4]

time always changes things.
often i will put aside negatives that i thought were bad
photographs, but down the road with different eyes i will usually think they are good.

 

[Steve Mack]

I've stopped looking at my photographs as bad, or good, and I treat them as sketches. Most of them are trial images to see if I am seeing what I think I am, and a lot of times they aren't. But, as with most of us, I try to learn something from all of them, even those that are less-than-successful. And I am reminded of Mike Johnston's comment, (of The Online Photographer fame,) that your contact sheets suck, and so did HCB's, and Gary Winogrand's, and everybody else's. It's part of the nature of the game.

Just my $0.02 worth.

With best regards,

Steve