Opinions on some stupid images?

[rwboyer]

I don't know what possesses me sometimes I have bunches of images of stairs. Anyway shot these while walking around the other day with the wrong camera and wrong film but wanted some opinions.

Which one? None?

#1

#2

#3

Thanks a lot

RB

 

[Shaggysk8]

Well I like 1 but, which one for what purpose?

 

[rwboyer]

Just over all. I will probably print one of them for no particular reason but I am the worlds worst editor. I actually have a collection of prints of stairs for no particular reason. Just nutty I guess or it is some strange subconscious metaphor that causes me to involuntarily take pictures of stairs?

RB

 

[brian steinberger]

I like the 3rd one with the bottom cropped off a bit (to 4x5 ratio).

Don't feel weird about being drawn to strange subjects for no reason. I'm drawn to electric meters for some reason, especially old ones. I don't know why, and I don't care. Sometimes in photography we don't need to understand. I tend to think though, that it may be something, an emotion or feeling inside of us, that is conveyed through a need to photograph something. I'm sure if we digged deep enough we could figure it out, but life is a journey.

 

[J Rollinger]

You are weird! Stairs? You should be like me and have hundreds of images of benches! Every time i see one i have to shoot it.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

What's wrong with photographing steps? They look to have quite some character.
But some planning might be useful next time you come across a scene like this: if you can somehow insert a shadowy figure (i.e. time exposure to record movement) at the top of the stairs in the bottom photo, it would make quite an impressive, suggestive abstract photo.
That last image appears to have the best exposure.

 

[Shaggysk8]

maybe you like the history of stairs. which one do you like?

 

[bobwysiwyg]

I like number three. It conveys a sense of leading somewhere, whereas the others seem cut-off. Nothing at all wrong with the subject matter as far as I can see.

 

[rwboyer]

Thanks for all the input. I agree about the planning thing - but knowing how my head works if I turn the theme into a project I will become unbearable. I will put it on my list of someday projects. I have like 70 prints of stairs that I have made just from walkabouts.

When I saw these I wondered how many people use these everyday? For how long? Nobody seems to give a crap about them or a second thought and they look like they might be completely useless as stairs in like not too too long. Then what?

RB

 

[rwboyer]

You are weird! Stairs? You should be like me and have hundreds of images of benches! Every time i see one i have to shoot it.

I have a bench or so. Usually empty ones.

RB

 

[mopar_guy]

Just my two cents, one of MY weaknesses in my photography of this sort is that I tend to just compulsively snap away. Also I tend to avoid having people in some of my photos of this sort. If I make a deliberate attempt to correct these "weaknesses" sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but I usually come away with a different look.

 

[Galah]

I like #1 best.

 

[Tim Gray]

This thread is funny and liberating in a sense. Admitting our deepest photographic secrets.

I like #1.

 

[Donima]

Hi rwboyer; try cropping off the railings and the bottom of #3 to 4+5 proportions and i think you will have a much better image. I don't like to crop usually but sometimes it helps. Don

 

[keithwms]

These don't really work very well for me, I am afraid. Let me suggest just thinking some more about what it is about them that you find compelling. Is it where the stairs take you? How they interact with the landscape? The angles they present?

 

[Moopheus]

I think #3 is good--I like the way the three lines trisect the image into different tonal areas. #2 is okay too, but #1 seems a bit too static.

Photographing stairs is okay. Somebody has to do it.

 

[Leighgion]

Only three? Slacker! Those stairs are not going to photograph themselves!

Seriously, I think #3 is my favorite. No need to justify what you feel like taking pictures of. If you feel like it and have no regrets after, that's all the reason needed.

 

[Dennis S]

I like #3 it seems more "complete"

 

[phenix]

I like the stairs, but don’t like the wall, so for me is #1.

As for compulsively shooting the same subject or several subjects, it comes from our unconscious memories, and is usually linked to comfort and security, and less to unsolved issues or conflicts. I also have several subjects like this.

And I also learned (from the writings of the regretted movie director Andrei Tarkovsky) that, if you want to produce emotion in viewers, shooting the objects or scenes that moves you more is the best way to do. Some will love your work, some other won’t, but those loving it will do it deeply. This is because they share similar unconscious memories with you, making your work to resonate profoundly in their souls.

Emotion in this case is only suggested, not directly pictured. There is also another stream, stating that emotions have to be intentionally searched or created in a scene, and than directly pictured or even emphasized, but I don’t resonate with this stream.

 

[Craig Swensson]

i`m with 3, stairs need to lead somewhere,

Hey it could have been far worse, imagine if you only took pictures of road surfaces

 

[MattKing]

Is the model in your avatar at the top of the stairs? .

I like #1, because it is less ordinary (a horizontal crop of stairs).

Matt

 

[JMC1969]

I have the same odd urge about stairs. I like three the best, but then I tend to shoot stairs in a more vertical (in this format). If it's a horizontal look I am going for, it will be a detail in a step itself. It's not the leading of the stairs that gets me, it's really the lines and shadows that they create, 2 steps closer, sideways, taller, you have a completely different look. It's all about the character and drama. The more crap growing out of them the better, well places chips and dents makes my mind wander and think of the circumstances in how they became. I love them and actually, they are one of the things I love about walking around the European cities I have had the chance to visit. But, So far, nobody has them like Scotland. My 4x5 is going with me next time just for this reason. Ok, maybe not JUST this reason, but I'm sure I will have quite a few.

 

[ntenny]

I'd go further than some other posters have suggested, and crop #3 (from the bottom) all the way down to a square.

Interestingly, it was #2, the one that no one else has spoken up for, that grabbed me initially. The light is a little more even than in the other two, and I think that works well---it makes it into a picture of the stairs as an object, rather than "stairs leading somewhere". On reflection, I think the composition of that one doesn't work so well, but the interaction of light and subject is a winner.

I think there's no shame in having an inexplicable subject that grabs you. For me it's doors, with the proviso that you can't see the other side---they can be closed, or slightly open, or the other side can be too dark or too light to be distinguished, but if the viewer can see beyond the door, it doesn't push my buttons. Who knows why; I just run with it and figure that my future descendants can ask themselves "What the heck was it with Great-Grandpa and doors, anyway?"

-NT

 

[sun of sand]

3 by a wide margin
I think you could cut off the bottom half to what may be a 4x5 ratio as I read up there and have a tighter photo
less about the stairs more about the light/varying tones

bed

 

[Anton Lukoszevieze]

I think No. 3 works best, the portrait format works better than the landscape view. I would foto it more and with different light states. But, yeh stairs are cool, not weird. Look at Brassai shot of stairs in Paris, Kertesz' Mondrian's studio, etc.