Into the Night at #OccupyOakland with a Hasselblad XPan II

richardman

As usual, a few more photos on my blog than I show here:
http://www.richardmanphoto.com/blog/?p=3098

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Nov 2nd evening, I really wanted to use the XPan as long as possible. First I put in ISO1600 Neopan film. Unfortunately, the lens are slow unlike the Leica lens (the Leica photos from the same night can be seen here). At their fastest speed of F4 and F5.6, the XPan lens are 3 stops slower than the F1.4 Leica lens, meaning that the XPan lens needs as much as 8 times the light level. Eventually I put on a flash (which I never do with the Leica), but only got at most one or two keepers from using the flash. I can try using a bigger flash next time or just use my Leica (or give up).


This really is an experiment for me. Very few people shoot street photography / photojournalism with a Hasselblad XPan, and fewer still use a flash. I wouldn’t say the flash is a success, but only that it has potential. The panoramic frame is so wide that a successful image must either have a good main story situated in the environment or that there are multiple good supporting sub stories around the main story. It’s difficult to take good street photos even with a regular camera and using the XPan makes the difficult genre even more challenging (i.e. it takes more than a picture of someone walking down the street to make a good street photograph), but I am going to keep working on it. I hope you enjoy the effort.


Nov 2nd apparently was also Dia DeLos Meurtos, so a few people were celebrating the “Day of the Dead” as well. I sat with the Buddhists a bit, doing Za Zen, and there were quite a number of kids there, before the night ended.

RSL

Richard asked me to comment on Into the Night. I commented in an email and he agreed that I could post the comments here.

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The shots in "Into the Night" are very good technically, and I think all of them would fit nicely into a photojournalistic approach. None of them are street photography, however.

But the problem with what everybody seems to be doing in the PJ field on Street & PJ has to do with what photojournalism actually is. PJ involves a story, and, in most cases the burden of the story is thought out before the photographer trips a shutter.

You and I both like Gene Smith's work. Actually, in photojournalism, I think Gene was the best there's ever been. But look at "Country Doctor." Gene had a scenario in his head before he made his first shot of Dr. Ceriani. That's not to say he had a list of pictures he knew he wanted, but he knew the story he was trying to tell in his pictures. It's the same thing Cartier-Bresson talked about when he said something to the effect that when you're shooting something like The People of Moscow you have to remember what you've shot so you don't leave out the pictures that bridge the gaps in the story.

What "Into the Night" (ITN) and most of the attempts at PJ I've seen on Street & PJ leaves out is a story line. Actually, as you pointed out, there are two stories mixed together in ITN. One involves Dia DeLos Meurtos, and the other involves Occupy Oakland. I guess what I'd have done is try to tell the story of Day of the Dead by starting with the daylight gathering and then working a story in pictures into the night. Nothing wrong with flash in PJ, by the way, though Cartier-Bresson would disagree, but flash doesn't belong in street photography.

If Sam, for instance, were doing real PJ he'd be trying to tell the story of Occupy Oakland, hopefully a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. But that's pretty hard to do because the occupiers don't seem to have an objective. They just want to "occupy," whatever that means. Any photojournalist who can come up with actual coherence in "occupy Wall Street" should be able to get national coverage in a heartbeat.

But I also see one artistic problem with ITN, and you pointed it out yourself. It's awfully hard to tell a coherent story with a sequence of wide-angle shots or panos. You may need the wide-angle shot to set the scene, but the supporting sub-stories you mentioned need to be done in fairly, sometimes very, close contact. Gene's picture of an exhausted, dejected Dr. Ceriani who'd just lost a patient is a classic example of what I'm talking about. I frequently see a amateur painters copy that picture without attribution and I always want to get Gene's heirs to sue them.

By the way, This time I'm not going anywhere unless Richard kicks me off Street & PJ, at least until I've had a chance to say what I've wanted to say about the lackluster photographic crap I see on here. But I am going to stop critiquing photojournalism, mainly because I don't actually see any on here. Not even Sam's stuff quite fits. I love good street photography and maybe I can get some of the folks on here to produce some. You and Ben both are able to do that. Ben just needs to learn to be really critical of his own stuff. It looks as if he posts most everything that comes out of his camera. Maybe I can talk him out of that.

One of the reasons I don’t want to critique PJ any more is that I don’t feel qualified. I wrote non-fiction for publication back in the sixties, and some of my stuff is still extant in books published by the Foundation for Economic Education. I also wrote a lot of poetry, much of which was published in “little” magazines. But I’ve never even tried to do photojournalism.

Richard

RSL wrote: »

By the way, This time I'm not going anywhere unless Richard kicks me off Street & PJ, at least until I've had a chance to say what I've wanted to say about the lackluster photographic crap I see on here.

Your comments on the low quality of the work here are getting tiresome, Russ. They are insulting to a number of photographers who frequently post excellent work and are discouraging to newcomers who are here to learn. If you dislike this forum as much as it would appear, I suggest you go elsewhere.

RSL

Knew that was coming, Richard. Yes, there are a few good photographers on here, some of whom are pretty loose about what they post. There are others who seem to dump enything that comes out of their cameras on here. I know you'd rather keep things on the sweetness and light track and not have serious critiques. You can kick me off when you want to. You're the moderator.

richardman

I asked Russ for his advice. Russ posted everything he emailed me, and while it's clear that we are on separate line of the political divide, photographically I do agree with most everything he writes, and I do not mind it a bit.

In a forum like this, we have to tread a fine line between quality and participation. Criticize too much and no one dares to post. No criticism, and the quality goes down.

Of course everyone has an opinion on whether something is good or not, but the truly great pictures are deemed great, by most everyone. And of course it's not just a popularity contest either. There are people who are ahead of the curve, but seldom is someone ahead of the curve of EVERYONE so much that no one else appreciates their stuff.

Can Russ' writing rub people the wrong way? Of course. He rubbed me the wrong way with the first post I saw he made, but that's OK. Once I get past that we are just of different political minded, I can talk to him in the field of photography. I personally think this forum would be lesser if we cannot criticize and I think this should be the major purpose of a forum like this - to post and learn.

RSL

Thanks, Rich Man. But Richard has a point. I've probably been too broadly critical. On the other hand, that's the way I see this forum. Seems to me there are some gems here in a sea of -- well, let's be polite and call them "not gems." I think the thing that bugs me most is that Richard has posted, under Tips, Threads, etc., a sticky list of what he called "masters." I don't entirely agree with his list of masters -- Arthur Fellig (Weegee), for instance, essentially was a crime reporter, not a street photographer or photojournlist -- but it's a pretty solid list. I can't see that many, if any of the posters on Street & PJ have looked at, much less studied, any of the masters. I think the lack shows in what they post.

On the other hand I may be expecting too much. My first impression was that this was a dump for people who just wanted other people to see their personal snapshots and get pats on the back for them. But when I came back after dropping off I realized there are some people on here trying seriously to do good street photography.

I've been on Luminous Landscape for a couple years now and I've found that I've learned at lot -- especially in areas like landscape, that I've only recently approached on a serious basis -- through serious critiques of my work, including modified copies of what I've posted, posted on my own threads. Richard tells me that's a no-no on Street & PJ, and, considering what I've seen so far, I'm not surprised. Actually demonstrating someone's errors is a lot more intimidating than simply mentioning them, and it certainly doesn't contribute to sweetness and light.

So, what's it to be? Is this a snapshot dump, or is it a place where people might learn something new? Seems to me I'm the only one on here who's been willing to offer critiques without the sugar-coating. As I said earlier, I'm not the Pope of street photography. There must be other points of view from people who've studied the genre. Let's hear them.

Or, maybe it's too much fun to just dump your snapshots and hear how great they are from other snapshot dumpers -- same way you get kudos from aunt Nelly when you show her snapshots of her nephews and nieces. Nothing wrong with that either, but it makes a sort of mockery out of the proud title "Street & PJ."

damonff

All of these are beautiful. Well done.

richardman

Honestly, I rather to have people be critical of my work and articulate what they see is wrong. Of course I will form my own opinions in response, but without criticism, I won't learn.

I think there is a wide gap between "sugarcoat" and "blunt." I don't mind bluntness toward me because I know that's how some people are, but I try not to be so blunt myself without sugarcoating.

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// EDIT: Damon: thanks. My response wasn't toward you. I appreciate any complements too :-)