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Vincent !!8LCSE0Zp1mL
Ok, took a break from Birds and panoramics.
I suck at abstract photography, Its just not something I can easily visualize when taking pictures.
So I went out and specifically looked for things I would define as "abstract" pics.

Anyway, critique me 4chan, I like to have a good grounding in most photo genre's, so I would appreciate some tips / critique's.

Kiron 105mm f2.8 MF lens.
EXIF data available. Clickhereto show/hide.
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>> Vincent !!8LCSE0Zp1mL
     File :-(, x)
300mm f4 for this shot.

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>> Vincent !!8LCSE0Zp1mL
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>> Vincent !!8LCSE0Zp1mL
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>> Anonymous
bof

that's french for meh
>> Vincent !!8LCSE0Zp1mL
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>> Vincent !!8LCSE0Zp1mL
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>> Vincent !!8LCSE0Zp1mL
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>> Vincent !!8LCSE0Zp1mL
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this neighborhood has a thing for lion statues it seems.

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>> Vincent !!8LCSE0Zp1mL
Still no Comments...

Though I admit the 6 pic idea is pretty cool...
>> Anonymous
i wouldn't call any of these "abstract" and again

meh
>> Butterfly !xlgRMYva6s
>>141725
Same, its clear what you are taking photos of so its not really abstract. The shots are technically fine but the subjects are just so fucking BORING.

BORING!

Its all very flat on too, no interesting angles no UCT. Seems more archive/record photography than art.
>> Anonymous
you should stick to panoramas

no offense really, just saying
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
Huh. I didn't notice this thread when you posted it.
>>141260
>>141261
>>141262
>>141263
>>141265
Fucking gorgeous. I love the colors in these shots, and I think the composition is great. If I'd taken them, I'd print 'em out and hang 'em on my wall.

>>141266
>>141267
>>141268
The opposite.
>> Anonymous
wow, you must be seeing something i'm not

gorgeous? great composition?

there's no difference from the close up shots people take every day
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>141741
Yeah, art is subjective.
>> Anonymous
okay

i'll save these pictures, change the exif info to a canon g9 and post them again in 6 months and get blasted for them

these are shots of nothing, a wall, a fence, a lock, another lock

shit must be so cash it's on a whole other level beyond my comprehension
>> Butterfly !xlgRMYva6s
>>141746
You must have missed 1/2 of us not liking them.
>> Anonymous
>>141748

only 3 people posted in this thread so far

half of that doesn't mean anything
>> Anonymous
>>141748
Buttertroll

Vincent, great job on these, i didn't like the last 2, they are definately your weakest here. However i love the colors and textures you've captured in the first few. good job.
>> Butterfly !xlgRMYva6s
>>141753
I said good photos of boring subjects. This is much more a choice of athsetic style which will always be different from person to person.

Being able to create that sort of shot is probably complimentworthy.
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>141746
>change the exif info to a canon g9 and post them again in 6 months and get blasted for them
So what, you're saying that I only like them because they were taken with good gear?

Lurk the fuck more.
>> Anonymous
that and because it's vincent

if it were a random anon with a g9 taking shots like that, it would be automatic fail
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>141774
ITT exactly what I was talking about in>>141408

For example, did you miss the part where I told him that the last three (and should have been four; that was a mistake on my part) were boring, poorly composed, and I wouldn't consider printing them out and hanging them on my wall if I'd taken them?

If it appears that I praise namefags more, that's just because
a. Namefags are more likely to take good pictures
b. People who take good pictures are more likely to become namefags on here.

I've praised anonymous posters plenty of times in the past. And I've criticized namefags plenty of times in the past, too, one example of which is in *this very fucking thread*. A nontrivial percentage of the pictures in my flickr account that I felt were good enough to upload were taken with my old, dented, slow-as-hell PowerShot A95.

Seriously. Lurk the fuck more.
>> beethy !HJGkSBB3Ao
vince, you know i love your work...
but this
>>141261
is the only shot i actually like
the rest just seem sub par
there's nothing interesting happening in the other images, no intriguing composition or nice patterns/textures.. etc.

all i can say is.. try again! you are good, just not at this.. yet. (or that day)
>> elf_man !!DdAnyoDMfCe
>>141260
More interesting as a thumbnail when it looks very flat, but interesting.
>>141261
Decent place to start, but a really common kind of shot.
>>141262
Again, bricks are just way overused, although the hole makes for an interesting element.

The others, eh, not so hot. And none of them are actually abstract. The bricks would be but they're just too obviously bricks, part of what's difficult about them. The first shot is borderline though.
>> Anonymous
>>141781

there is absolutely no difference between the "great shots" and the "opposite" shots

look at them, please just look at them

step back for a minute, and look

they are all uninteresting
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>141802
In the shots that I like, the main focus of the shot is not the thing he's taking the picture of, but of the colors and textures in the scene. E.g.:

>>141263
You could look at this one and say "Meh. Boring shot of a lock". I don't. I see smooth areas of green and blue with a splash of red, contrasted with a hard silver metallic.

The others that I like, I like for similar reasons. They're certainly boring objects to be taking photos of, but he's composed them in such a way that it's not about the objects, it's about the shapes and the colors.

The others are just, whoopty-doo, here's a porch; whoopty-doo, here's another porch; whoopty-freakin'-doo, here's some lions on--wait for it--someone's porch. Good documentary photos of porches, I suppose, but boring subjects and dull colors. They're too representational of the things they're photographs of for the abstract shapes to take the forefront.

Like I said, art is subjective. I'm sure that a lot of people don't see what the difference is between their holiday snapshot and Henri Cartier-Bresson's holiday snapshots. Maybe you don't see the same things in these pictures that I do, but I assure you that I do see a difference.
>> Vincent !!8LCSE0Zp1mL
Ok I obviously have a different definition of what "abstract" shots are.
I guess I was going for more boring subjects trying to make them look decent.

Basically everything I took pics of followed basic composition rules, 90% of the pics are composed in 1/3rds. DOF is shallow to seperate subject from background, and OOF areas were chosen to either contrast the subject, or at be soft and unobtrusive.

Whats funny is people IRL (mostly photogs themselves) i've showed these pics to, ALL have different favorites, and ones they dislike.
>>141261
>>141262
These 2 get the most praise, but so does this one.
>>141268

Its very subjective. HOWEVER assuming I stick to this theme, what do you guys think would either improve them or what would make a better subject than these types of shots?

Also I always stick to panoramics, its my staple, and its how i sell prints / differentiate myself from other photog's.
>> beethy !HJGkSBB3Ao
>>141812
EXTREM macro = instant abstract art.

seriously though, what you're asking is difficult to answer for me.
i'd say look for interesting eye catching patterns.
make it difficult or almost impossible for the viewer to know what subject they are looking at, but at the same time use leading lines.. all the basic rules you used on the above. also, don't be afraid to stray from them as well, with abstract photography your ratio will be VERY low, so experiment experiment experiment experiment experiment!!!
>> Anonymous
>>141811You could look at this one and say "Meh. Boring shot of a lock". I don't. I see smooth areas of green and blue with a splash of red, contrasted with a hard silver metallic.

good thing you're not in politics because that load of bull doesn't get you very far

>> composed them in such a way that it's not about the objects, it's about the shapes and the colors.

you're getting better! but after you look at the shot, it's a shot of a goddamn lock with the background oof

i sure as hell don't think he went, oh! i'm going to angle my shot like so, to show the blue, green and splash of red in the background! fancy!

>> Maybe you don't see the same things in these pictures that I do, but I assure you that I do see a difference.

i wish i could have this kind of perspective on things, maybe then i would be impressed by any picture

but i don't lie to myself
>> beethy !HJGkSBB3Ao
>>141819
underage b&

nobody above 18 can sound that stupid.
>> Anonymous
>>141826

please don't interject when big boys are talking
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>141819
An interesting fact is that if someone hasn't been raised with representational art around them all their life, they won't be able to tell that, say, a picture of a person is a picture of a person. They'll just see blobs of color. Your brain has to be trained to recognize that a two-dimensional picture looks like a three-dimensional object. That's why cave paintings look so primitive, even though a modern artist can draw a very realistic looking picture in charcoal. That's why Europeans didn't "discover" perspective until the renaissance.

The point I'm trying to make is that you're a moron who doesn't know dum-diddly-do about photography. You're like a guy who can't see the sailboat in a magic eye picture and just assumes that everyone else is playing a gigantic trick on him. You're like me at the end of 1st grade when I refused to believe that .4 was larger than .09 because I'd never encountered decimals before but I knew damn well that 9 was larger than 4 and that zeros in front of a number don't matter.

I can understand people not liking this style of photography. But you're trying to argue that there's no possible way that other people could like it because you personally don't get it, and that's just dumb.
>> Vincent !!8LCSE0Zp1mL
>>141833
I can't see the sailboat :(
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>141837
There actually isn't one. We've all just been playing a gigantic trick on you. SUCKER.
>> Anonymous
>>141833

beethy should be posting QFT and quoting you 5 times right about now
>> Anonymous
>>141833

please, give me a goddamn break

big paragraphs leading to nowhere, let's go to the only real part

>> I can understand people not liking this style of photography. But you're trying to argue that there's no possible way that other people could like it because you personally don't get it, and that's just dumb.

please don't put words in my mouth

point to me where exactly i said no one else could like these

i'm saying, you're looking at these and fooling yourself into thinking there's actually something interesting and has a meaning rooted deep inside where only someone as good as you are could decipher

no, these are just shots of a goddamn lock and what you see is just a fucking lie
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>141843
>point to me where exactly i said no one else could like these
Okay:
>>141843
>no, these are just shots of a goddamn lock and what you see is just a fucking lie
>> elf_man !!DdAnyoDMfCe
>>141843
Okay, let's rephrase. What you're saying is that there isn't anything there to like. Right? You're saying there's no meaning, so they're boring. Right?
But who here said anything about meaning? As they've said, it's about the texture, color, and composition. It's something else entirely.
>> Anonymous
>>141844

you're putting words in my mouth, now

again, i'm saying: these are shots of a lock and a wall, there's no meaning to them, there's no artistic merit to them, there's no pseudo bullshit postmodern idea behind them

i did not say: no one can like them
>> Anonymous
>>141847

who said meaning are only words?

meaning can have texture, color and composition
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>141849
So what you're saying is, it's theoretically possible for *someone* to like them, but it's impossible for *me specifically* to like them?

If not, what exactly are you saying?
>> Anonymous
look, ac

i like you, i've been reading /p/ a long time and you went downhill fast

at first, it was all great, helping out newfags, giving honest comments but over time you put on the snob hat

which is understandable with the bullshit we have here

but you've been acting as a high and mighty know it all, i'm always right, pompous, pretentious prick

who died and made you /p/ god?
>> elf_man !!DdAnyoDMfCe
>>141856
And nobody said they were amazing or perfect or anything. It looks like everyone so far agrees they need work.
>> Anonymous
>>141856
You need more lurking before you post.
>> Anonymous
>>141854

why are you so hung up on "like", "don't like"

no one brought that up

in any case, no

i'm saying you're lying to yourself into thinking there's actual meaning behind those great shots
>> Anonymous
     File :-(, x)
I believe that when you shoot enough boring snapshots like this, you'll eventually learn to shoot more interesting photos.

... or that's what I really hope is going to happen ;-)

Luckily shooting stuff is always fun, then you can just forget the results if you don't happen to like them.

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>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>141856
So what happened? Did you post a picture and I criticized it?

Pro Tip: I had basically this exact same argument with some Anonymous poster several months ago. I haven't changed. You've just noticed that I can be an egotistical pompous prick sometimes and now it's all you can see. It colors your perceptions.

You think I'm the sort of person that has to always be right, but if you go back and read the thread, you'll notice that I never said that other people were wrong for not liking these pictures. I just said that I do. And *you* said that *I'm* wrong for saying that I do.

So who's trying to declare themselves god of /p/? Do you even know why you're arguing?

(If you're wondering why I'm arguing: It's because I like these pictures, so I'm happy to keep bumping the thread by responding to you)
>> Vincent !!8LCSE0Zp1mL
Lol why does the word "meaning" keep getting tossed around.
Of course theres no deep meaning (whatever that means to you) to these pics, I wasn't out to make a statement, or debunk some sort of authority. I took the pics because I want some practice making boring things look cool (or what i thought of as "abstract")
Its also good practice for everything photography related, and of little to no cost to me.
>> Anonymous
>>141870

i've never posted a picture on /p/, it's just not a good place to get comments from.

again, why are you so hung up on liking or not liking the pictures

i don't give a rat's ass if you like them but don't go and tell me you see something when there's obviously nothing
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>141880
>i don't give a rat's ass if you like them but don't go and tell me you see something when there's obviously nothing
If there were nothing, I wouldn't like them.
>> Anonymous
>>141263
>>141262
>>141261
>>141260

humor me then, tell me what you see
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>141263
Already humored you and told you what I saw in this particular one.>>141811if you don't remember. You called my explanation bullshit, then went off on a straw-man argument where you claimed that my statement (which basically boils down to "It has pretty colors and texture, arranged in a pretty fashion") was some sort of deep post-modern quest for meaning. I wasn't saying that the green represents Jesus on the cross (the red being an obvious metaphor for the stigmata) and the lock represents Man, with the blue and black (Good and Evil) symbolically "locked" on either side of it. I *could* make that sort of argument. I minored in English. But what I was saying there is that there are pretty colors and texture, and they are arranged in a pretty fashion.

As for the others:
>>141260
This shot has pretty colors and texture, and they are arranged in a pretty fashion.

>>141261
This shot has pretty colors and texture, and they are arranged in a pretty fashion.

>>141262
This shot has pretty colors and texture, and they are arranged in a pretty fashion. And the hole is interesting.
>> Anonymous
an interesting fact is that if someone hasn't been raised with representational art around them all their life, they won't be able to tell that, say, a picture of a person is a picture of a person.

they'll just see blobs of color.
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
Oh hai.. ac here. Id just like to say that im an asshat, aand.. uhm.. yeah.
>> Vincent !!8LCSE0Zp1mL
     File :-(, x)
Posting another pic in a shitstorm thread.

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