October Shoot-In comments (Tubes, etc.)

A jumble of my customary blunt, opinionated pronouncements, to be accepted,
disputed, ridiculed, or ignored.

Bob


Tony Cooper All 6
Well, I guess you got them all in there. It does serve as a boffo introduction
to the Shoot-In, even if its artistic value is, er, questionable.

Tony Cooper Kids
Grandchildren, right? They're my favorite subject too. Nice picture: good
colors, good background, very nice use of available light. (Did you use a
reflector?) And the cone from the previous picture doesn't go to waste.

Tony Cooper Cable
This image has little to recommend it but its marvelous colors, which do work
well together. The colors of the davit are puzzling; I assume it's steel
painted yellow and allowed to rust, but that's really just a guess. Whatever
it is, it makes a nice picture.

Helen
It fits the mandate, but it's really not my thing. The columns seem confined,
and the defoliated vines just make the picture look busy. I don't think I'd
have done it in B&W, either.

Jim Kramer 1
This one doesn't cut it for me, partly because prominent elements are out of
focus and partly because I don't care for the way it's cropped. But mostly I
guess I just don't get the point.

Jim Kramer 2
This one looks OK as a thumbnail, but when you expand it, the cracks (or drips
or whatever they are) are distracting. A potentially nice idea that doesn't
quite come off, I think.

Jim Kramer 3
I like this. It's a cute picture; it follows the mandate; and it's well done
technically. The B&W format, which doesn't do much for Kramer's other two
images, shows off to advantage here.

* * * * * * * *

I won't presume to critique my own work, obviously. But since our submitted
captions didn't make it to the show this time, I'll tell you what mine would
have been:

Bob Coe 1
Cables? I'll show you cables. This pole decorates a fairly typical residential
street corner in our bucolic Boston suburb. Newer subdivisions are required to
have all utilities underground, but in older areas a rapidly expanding jumble
darkens the sky. Canon 50D with Sigma 18-50mm lens at 46mm, 1/250 sec at
f/5.6.

Bob Coe 2
A component of Boston's "Big Dig", the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge
claims to be the world's widest cable-stayed bridge. Although a cheaper, more
conventional bridge would have served at least as well, it has become a
beloved landmark. Hemmed in by other bridges, it's difficult to photograph
except from the air. (I thought of renting a helicopter for the Shoot-In, but
that's as far as it got!) Canon 400D with Sigma 18-50mm lens full wide, 1/250
sec at f/8.

Bob Coe 3
The Wayside Inn complex includes a working grist mill built by the auto
magnate Henry Ford, who owned a summer home in Sudbury. Its grounds are
decorated with retired millstones. This one captured the high sunlight best on
the day I drove over to fulfill the Shoot-In mandate. Canon 50D with Sigma
18-50mm lens at 31mm, 1/400 sec at f/5.

* * * * * * * *

Bob Flint 1
This one's a winner: a completely different take on "tubes" and very nicely
presented.

Bob Flint 2
What are these, railroad ties? The steel ends nicely reflect the blue sky and
make a pretty picture. One muddy area in the shadows, but good composition
overall.

Mark Thomas 1
A variant on one of mine, sort of, although Mark found better light than I
did. Those circular insulators give it a "2-fer" on the mandate.

Mark Thomas 2
I feel as though I ought to like this one, but don't particularly. The tangled
rebar and the out-of-focus bus jockey for attention, but neither is very
interesting or attractive.

Paul Furman 9865
I don't get this one at all. I suppose the two stairways fit the mandate in
some approximate way, but the picture is too crowded. The trees on the left
are just plain ugly.

Paul Furman 1260
I couldn't tell you what this is, but it's attractive in a colorful, abstract
way.

Russell Durtschi 1
Good but not great. The irrigation hoses are moderately interesting but not
very attractive, and the sheep are, well, just sheep.

Troy Piggins 1
As usual, Troy demonstrates his technical mastery with an elegant, unusual
image. At first I thought it was a subway station, but I've concluded that
it's probably an airport terminal. In any case, I wonder where it is.
Melbourne? Sydney? Alice Springs? London?

Walter Banks 1
This picture is attractive enough, despite the nearly blown highlights, but it
doesn't really catch my eye. Maybe there's too much going on to provide a
clear center of interest. Someone else will probably like it a lot.

Tim Conway 1
This pasta meal, glutted though it is with starch and saturated fat, fairly
begs you to sit down and polish it off (which I assume Tim did as soon as he
finished clicking the shutter). I don't care for the tight, uneven cropping,
but that's a stylistic preference that I'm sure won't be universally shared.

Bowser 1, 2, 3
Bowser's trusty fisheye never seems to fail him, and he commonly seems to have
one picture that's at least head and shoulders above his other submissions. In
this case it's entirely superfluous to point out which one it is. If this
Shoot-In had a first prize, I think this one gets my vote. Maybe the church
should have it made into a mural and put it up downstairs in the parish hall.
The other two? It was a mistake to include them. They're not bad pictures, but
they can't begin to stand the comparison. If Bowser was bound to submit three,
he should have found two that didn't try to cover the same subject matter.

Alan Browne 1
See next picture.

Alan Browne 2
This is a colorful, well composed picture; but it would be pointless, were it
not displayed next to the antique airplane engine. As it is, it's brilliant.
The two images play off against each other as I guess Bowser hoped his three
would. Displaying these five images together was a masterly choice for the
compositional lessons it provides. Alan, if it wasn't intentional, you don't
have to admit it!

Alan Browne 3
This picture strikes me as truncated and uninteresting. Maybe I'd like it
better if I could see the boat's entire hull.

 

I know, but I couldn't resist trying to get all of the mandate items
into one image.

Yes, my two grandsons. After the "shoot" they informed me that they
were quite willing to sign on as models for any more shoots involving
ice cream or sweets.

That is a different cone, though. Ice cream dipped into a cone melts
too fast, so I had to run out for some Drumsticks. We started with
two Drumsticks, but the grandson on the right ate his faster and I had
to let both finish the younger's Drumstick.

The biggest problem was selection of one shot from the several I shot.
Almost used this one:
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f244/cooper213/a049.jpg

The davit and the concrete base really were yellow. This was taken at
the Port of Palatka, and assumedly some retired sailor followed the
Navy rule and painted everything that didn't move. Palatka (Florida)
is inland, by the way, and on the St John's River. In the late 1800s,
Palatka rivaled Jacksonville as a major port. During the Civil War,
Union gunboats controlled the St John's and occupied Palatka.

To see how far inland this port is, see:
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&r...TF-8&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&resnum=1&ct=image
and then scroll out to see that you have to enter the St John's in
Jacksonville and work down the river to Palatka. ("Down", which is
"up", since the St John's flows north)

Following this mandate was an extremely interesting project for me. I
drove from Orlando (where I live) to Jacksonville Beach (where my
daughter lives) and spent the day looking for columns, cones, cables,
pipes, and tubes. I have another half-dozen pictures I could have
submitted. Looking for the mandate items forced me to look at scenes
I would have otherwise overlooked, and I found pictures in those
scenes.

 

You know, if it wasn't for HS sports, I'd sell all my other lenses except
for the fisheye. Truly, I submitted three from the husic hall because the
only other shooting I did last month was HS sports, and they didn't really
fit the mandate. Not even close. Since I'm in total control now, I'll
jury-rig the next mandate to suit HS sports so I'll have a little more
variety.

The management of the music hall loved the shots, and called me back for a
second shoot. Fisheyes rule!

 

I was thinking more of the cartoon setting which often has a great deal if irrelevant
detail.

" The mushroom family leave their cave for a rare public performance"

The little cave to the right of the mushroom family is home to a chipmunk in our yard.


Thanks for taking the time to comment.

w..

 

You sir, are a cruel and heartless rapscallion. But at least you are
honest.

The other (tubes) shot on this roll was of my house's roofline with the
vents sticking up and out of the roof, but it was less of a success that the
first two images. Those DVDs were very rough around the edges much to my
surprise. And even at F22 there wasn't enough DOF for #1 to work.

Thanks for commenting.
-Jim