my little guy turned one at the end of January-thought i'd share some shots taken of him in January-c&c always welcome-all shots 1ds2 (pretty sure no 5D shots in here) with 35L
Lovely sense of childhood perspectives in these. The slow shutter gives the sense of motion to some, the angles and selective focus draw the viewer into Isaac's little world. Nicely done. Do you convert to black and white to get away from the 'clutter' that all the childhood colours bring (toys etc.)? Or to evoke more of a sense of documentary?
thanks, doug-kids CAN be terrors but isaac is about as sweet as they come-it's henry that i'm worried about
canon ball-appreciate your comments-it's nice to hear how people perceive your work-i love black and white images, myself-i recently wrote two posts on thefamilyphotojournalist
the posts are called, "Why black and white"-just click on the titles "why black and white part 1" and "part 2" which are on the right side of the page-i hope they're helpful in understanding why i find black and white to be so effective for my work
i appreciate your honest feedback-these aren't snapshots-they're a style of documentary that aims at capturing moments as an observer-i'd be interested to know a little more about what you're seeing as overexposed-the only clipping is happening in the backgrounds and the tiniest bit on a white shirt in one image-the softness may be downresing, not sure but i do shoot slower shutters to enhance motion so everything won't be perfectly sharp-sharpness is overrated and to me and secondary to capturing a genuine moment-lighting and shadows are due to use of ambient lighting only
i recognize that not everyone will like my shots but i appreciate feedback regardless-thanks
StevePerry wrote:
Of course; that was my point. I would suggest using light you can control, even for photojournalistic shots like this - even photojournalists typically use at least fill flash
Flash can have undesired effects not related to the exposure. At many documentary events, it's conspicuous at best, distracting at worst.
StevePerry wrote:
What are you talking about? Are you SERIOUS? Dude just turn on CNN and see how many people are using flashes. Come on... there's a reason they sell them. Those who say "flash is bad" don't know how to use it properly. It's ALWAYS the job of a photography to control his light, period, end of discussion; light control is what sets a photography apart from a snapper.
Steve,
As someone who shoots with Daniel professionally on a regular basis, I will assure you that he knows how to use both off and on-camera flash very effectively. If he didn't choose to use a strobe in these images, it was a conscious decision on his part to sacrifice a certain measure of technical "perfection" in favor of something he values more highly. You're welcome to disagree with those decisions, but don't assume that Daniel's choices were the result of ineptitude.
Flash can absolutely be distracting and conspicuous, and can ruin certain scenes with its invasive quality. Sometimes flash is the right choice to make, and sometimes it isn't.
steve, your statements are so demonstrative, if i didn't know any better, i'd think photographers such as robert frank and sam abell and steve mccurry have absolutely no business taking pictures-oh, also sebastiao salgado and marc riboud and w. eugene smith-you get my drift-there are plenty of brilliant photographers who don't use flash to balance out ambient-it's a choice and to make the statement that you're only a "photograhper" if you use fill flash is silly-i mean, come on, it's silly-these photographers' works speak for themselves
i'm not comparing my work to theirs, simply pointing out that your general statements don't translate across the board-now, if you think my photographs need fill flash, fine-i get that-but let's not pretend that control of light is the ONLY important thing in a photo-it's very important and effective but sometimes, great moments happen in poor lighting-look at eddie adams' photograph of the execution of the viet cong prisoner in vietnam-technically, it was the wrong time of the day, pretty straight forward comp, etc., but the CONTENT is what gets the acclaim along with the fantastic timing of adams
