[Experimental] Always Look On the Brighter Side In Life : Mitsuki

[JohnKokWithAdSLR]

#1 #2

#3

#4

#5

Constructive C & C welcome

Sorry about the small pictures, bigger ones can be found at the full length of my experimental work

Artistically Scientific Side of Things

As an artist, my work is about expressing a person’s character using impressions generated from photos and words and piecing them together to form a bigger picture.

Rather than on a per-picture basis, kindly consider my work through an overall point of view.

My experimental series can be found here

I would be grateful for any feedback at all as they are valuable for my experiment’s progress. Thank you ;-)

[JohnKokWithAdSLR]

Experimental Concept

My artwork is about combining all of the impressions from of all of the photos of the model. In every set I have more than 30 photos, all displayed in a specific format arranged to simulate the layout of a Triptych (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triptych) but modified to for website publish

Another example can be those of Egyptian wall art


Other words you must consider all of these photos plus the words in my article about the model for it to work. Its sort of like a macro scale kind of thing.

My experiment is about being able to accurately express a person using this means.


Approach

I capture my subjects exactly as they are despite what she says about herself and what she does in the pictures

I minimize my influence and bias in the subject by providing minimal direction and art guidance, hence minimizing influence contamination.

Everything in the photos, everything in each word and sentence belongs to the subject and none of mine.

All of this raw data is completely up to the audience to process and interpret to their heart’s content =D

Telling me your interpretation will definitely help me a lot ! So please do =)

As for the background and place i choose, this sort of captures an element of fate to my work. Its like it is fate that we have to shoot at this place at this particular moment ( i hope i am making sense )

[gahspidy]

I have seen your previous threads before this and am starting to wonder if you work or are involved with famecherry.com in any way as it seems especially with the watermarks on the images that this is in part a promotion for the website....

In any case, I think your project is worthy but seems far from experimental and actually quite basic in that your presenting a series of images of one subject and including the subjects narrative and bits of personal info which is basically a biography. Although I get that you would like it to be more about the artistic presentaion rather than just a typical biography of the girl.

As far as the images go here, they are all fine in composition and the technicals (exposure, dof, sharpness, etc) although image #2 is cropped too tightly and I feel more room should be left above.

My thoughts on the images also are that they all look very posed and somewhat like amateuristic modeling shots as opposed to you trying to capture what this girl is really about. I don't get anything more than a girl who is posing for some shots....although not bad. You have stated that you give no direction as you do not want "influence contamination" but with most of these images of her posing for the camera it appears your very presence has been highly influential.

I would suggest catching her in various real life settings such as sitting alone by the water, dining with friends, at a ticket window purchasing tickets for a show, feeding the birds, dancing,swimming, whatever her interests are, etc. Right now, I know nothing about her except that she is attractive and has earings.... get more creative.

[arne saknussen]

Gary has summed this up pretty well. As for me, I just do not get the connection of what you state you are experimenting and the photos themselves. In fact, they seem contradictory.
The model is wearing the same thing in each shot, her poses look very directed and how does the environment equal any kind of "fate" when there is no attempt to connect the subject to the environment.
Now, the individual photos are fine, a nice subject shot with some knowledge of the craft.

[Anbesol]

John, I've gotta be honest, I'm a little skeptical of the purpose you have here as well. Each post you put up is the same concepts, with the same ideas, and you post the same explanation with the same 5 picture layout of a girl. Are you trying to create more hotlinks to your homepage? Considering the only post you have made in a thread that wasn't your own was "lolz, I dont think I should make my opinion publicly known." I think you are taking advantage of this communities generosity and resources.

The policy is to offer other critiques for the service of the community critiquing your work. You received some excellent feedback from several members here already, but you come back with the same famecherry hotlinks and such, you're like a sophisticated spambot. I'm sorry but this thread being what, 4th? It is really putting the evidence over the top here...

#4 the left corners are white without detail in an unpleasant tonal way. The light falling on her face is flat and has no shadow or specular range, hitting plain flat simple hues. making sure there is some range of shadow adn specularity on a persons face is especially important in dramatic closeups. as it is, her features are poorly illustrated, her cheeks and eyes look like they may as well be a boy, the angle, the moment, and the light came together in a very bad way for her here.

[n8]

I'm glad to see the peculiarity is catching on. what's a hotlink?

[Anbesol]

I'm not very familiar with the proper jargon, maybe I'm misusing the word "hotlink". Basically, he writes this really elaborate detail about his own website, almost like an advertisement, disguise it as a genuine community interest. As internet traffic goes through and picks up hits from keywords, his name, his website name, and the links will pop up more and more in search engines, I think it increases also based on repeated key phrases with web-crawling. Something to this effect. Also, hes advertising to us as well. He hasn't involved himself in anything other than his own threads here, and his threads have a ton of links, detail, 5 images, etc. He has some elaborate detail about an "experimental" method, I don't see how his work is any more or less "experimental" than other typical photography, the craft itself is one giant experiment and practice.

Oh yeah - google images will pick these up with certain keywords, then the watermark provides home domain advertisement. thats one way.

[JohnKokWithAdSLR]

I have seen your previous threads before this and am starting to wonder if you work or are involved with famecherry.com in any way as it seems especially with the watermarks on the images that this is in part a promotion for the website....

In any case, I think your project is worthy but seems far from experimental and actually quite basic in that your presenting a series of images of one subject and including the subjects narrative and bits of personal info which is basically a biography. Although I get that you would like it to be more about the artistic presentaion rather than just a typical biography of the girl.

As far as the images go here, they are all fine in composition and the technicals (exposure, dof, sharpness, etc) although image #2 is cropped too tightly and I feel more room should be left above.

My thoughts on the images also are that they all look very posed and somewhat like amateuristic modeling shots as opposed to you trying to capture what this girl is really about. I don't get anything more than a girl who is posing for some shots....although not bad. You have stated that you give no direction as you do not want "influence contamination" but with most of these images of her posing for the camera it appears your very presence has been highly influential.

I would suggest catching her in various real life settings such as sitting alone by the water, dining with friends, at a ticket window purchasing tickets for a show, feeding the birds, dancing,swimming, whatever her interests are, etc. Right now, I know nothing about her except that she is attractive and has earings.... get more creative.

Well ... FAME CHeRRy is a community owned site designed to spread understanding between people through fashion and lifestyle, but thats not why I am here.

The column CHÉRI is my invention and I am here to look for ways which can contribute to its continual improvement in all possible aspects =)

Then again, of course, I understand that this is a photography forum, I am very much interested to improve on my horrible photography as well.

Unfortunately however, in order to show my work fully and in its original intended form and format, I have to include a link to my full series as its composed of more than 30 photos and arranged in a specific manner. I would really appreciate the permission to share my work so that I can make better progress.

For #2, I am not comfortable using my 50 mm to shoot full body shots =( I feel that details of the subject's expression are often lost due to the size. I really hope that I can save enough money to buy a wide angle lens or something, what would you recommend for full body shots ?

I am also not happy with the colors, I feel that they are not to my taste. Is it because of my camera or do i just need to apply more post processing ?

True, it is inevitable that I am influencing the subject =( right now I am trying to think of ways to minimize my influence further or at least standardize the influence

Thank you very much, I shall work harder on my art direction

Gary has summed this up pretty well. As for me, I just do not get the connection of what you state you are experimenting and the photos themselves. In fact, they seem contradictory.
The model is wearing the same thing in each shot, her poses look very directed and how does the environment equal any kind of "fate" when there is no attempt to connect the subject to the environment.
Now, the individual photos are fine, a nice subject shot with some knowledge of the craft.

Thank you, I shall work harder in my presentation

Fate because it is fate that we shot on that particular place and time ( difference in time schedule, weather, logistic locations, life circumstance )

John, I've gotta be honest, I'm a little skeptical of the purpose you have here as well. Each post you put up is the same concepts, with the same ideas, and you post the same explanation with the same 5 picture layout of a girl. Are you trying to create more hotlinks to your homepage? Considering the only post you have made in a thread that wasn't your own was "lolz, I dont think I should make my opinion publicly known." I think you are taking advantage of this communities generosity and resources.

The policy is to offer other critiques for the service of the community critiquing your work. You received some excellent feedback from several members here already, but you come back with the same famecherry hotlinks and such, you're like a sophisticated spambot. I'm sorry but this thread being what, 4th? It is really putting the evidence over the top here...

#4 the left corners are white without detail in an unpleasant tonal way. The light falling on her face is flat and has no shadow or specular range, hitting plain flat simple hues. making sure there is some range of shadow adn specularity on a persons face is especially important in dramatic closeups. as it is, her features are poorly illustrated, her cheeks and eyes look like they may as well be a boy, the angle, the moment, and the light came together in a very bad way for her here.

Well ... since my work is based on the interpretation of a person's personality through a combination of impressions. I am also trying out generating a "first impression" through the combination of 5 photos which I feel may sort of give a "first impression" of my subject. I also choose the photos which are most sound technically since this is photo forum and I want to know what is wrong with my best photos among the set.

So far its not working very well though, since most people dont know what am I doing =(
The links is to show my full work which is hosted according to my original idea

I am sorry if you feel that way, I am really thankful for all that this community has given to me but look at my photography, I dont know if I have the know-how to criticize anyone technically from any photographic point of view.

In photos, I look mainly for art direction, subject's expression and interpretation. Maybe I can give my pov according to these aspects ?

To tell you the truth, I am not really a photographer, more like a researcher maybe. But I am interested to improve my photography because better photos means better work presentation.

#4 - hmm ... thank you, please help me, how can I increase shadow and specularity in this lighting condition ?

I'm not very familiar with the proper jargon, maybe I'm misusing the word "hotlink". Basically, he writes this really elaborate detail about his own website, almost like an advertisement, disguise it as a genuine community interest. As internet traffic goes through and picks up hits from keywords, his name, his website name, and the links will pop up more and more in search engines, I think it increases also based on repeated key phrases with web-crawling. Something to this effect. Also, hes advertising to us as well. He hasn't involved himself in anything other than his own threads here, and his threads have a ton of links, detail, 5 images, etc. He has some elaborate detail about an "experimental" method, I don't see how his work is any more or less "experimental" than other typical photography, the craft itself is one giant experiment and practice.

Oh yeah - google images will pick these up with certain keywords, then the watermark provides home domain advertisement. thats one way.

erm ..... i dont know what to say lol

how can I prove that I am not doing all these things ?

P/s :
How to do the google images thing btw ?

[Anbesol]

how can I prove that I am not doing all these things ?

Well first of all, you can stop linking back to famecherry, and upload pics without the watermarks. Second of all, you can try critique in the same way everybody else here does it - by offering critique as well as asking for it. As you enter the forum, you are greeted by a message, which you have managed to skip since you came here, saying:

Please post no more than five images a day and respond to as many images as you post.

Its selfish of you to come here and take advantage of this places community resources without offering any sort of contribution yourself. I said something about it to you before on your first thread.

To increase shadow and specularity you can use a reflector, or wait for stronger light.

I wouldn't bother trying to shoot portrait wide angle, just get further back, more telephoto angles produce a compressed perspective, accurately displaying the models form. Further, it allows you to contain in smaller area your background, have better control over your key, and improve your focus transition.

*edit - also, picking ONE image for critique is better. Don't pick your BEST necessarily, but pick something that you have some hesitation about, something that isn't quite as good as you'd like it to be. I understand that you feel they are part of a combination of images, but each image still has its own independence, if it doesn't stand up on its own then it will only drag others down.

[JohnKokWithAdSLR]

Well first of all, you can stop linking back to famecherry, and upload pics without the watermarks. Second of all, you can try critique in the same way everybody else here does it - by offering critique as well as asking for it. As you enter the forum, you are greeted by a message, which you have managed to skip since you came here, saying:

Its selfish of you to come here and take advantage of this places community resources without offering any sort of contribution yourself. I said something about it to you before on your first thread.

To increase shadow and specularity you can use a reflector, or wait for stronger light.

I wouldn't bother trying to shoot portrait wide angle, just get further back, more telephoto angles produce a compressed perspective, accurately displaying the models form. Further, it allows you to contain in smaller area your background, have better control over your key, and improve your focus transition.

*edit - also, picking ONE image for critique is better. Don't pick your BEST necessarily, but pick something that you have some hesitation about, something that isn't quite as good as you'd like it to be. I understand that you feel they are part of a combination of images, but each image still has its own independence, if it doesn't stand up on its own then it will only drag others down.

ok thank you that is very good advice

Im sorry I dont mean to take advantage of this community

ahh telephoto, yes ! =) how many mm is ideal ?

makes sense =(

[Anbesol]

70-200 f/2.8

or, 85mm f/1.4, ot 135mm f/1.8 - those are the two most popular portrait ranges, but I like shooting at 400mm as well when I can.

[JohnKokWithAdSLR]

70-200 f/2.8

or, 85mm f/1.4, ot 135mm f/1.8 - those are the two most popular portrait ranges, but I like shooting at 400mm as well when I can.

400 mm ! wow =) nice