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Canon DSLR Challenge | all galleries >> CSLR Challenge 49: Faceless (hosted by iso3200) >> Challenge 49: Eligible > * A Summertime Swing
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28-AUG-2005 Lonnit Rysher

* A Summertime Swing

Canon EOS 10D ,Lensbaby 1.0
1/500s iso200 with Flash hide exif
Full EXIF Info
Date/Time28-Aug-2005 11:40:22
MakeCanon
ModelEOS 10D
Flash UsedYes
Focal Length
Exposure Time1/500 sec
Aperture
ISO Equivalent200
Exposure Bias
White Balance (-1)
Metering Modepartial (6)
JPEG Quality (6)
Exposure Programaperture priority (3)
Focus Distance

other sizes: small medium original auto
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Guest 06-Sep-2005 20:08
Lonnit, I am not at all a fan of the Lensbaby. That being said, I really enjoy this image. It has a very active and dreamy quality to it. The stress on bright primary colors lends support to the childhood theme. I think you could also do another version of this with very pastel colors which stressed its dreamy qualities. -Michael
ctfchallenge03-Sep-2005 15:46
Thanks for the translation. :) ~ Lonnit
iso320003-Sep-2005 11:34
OTT = Over The Top
ctfchallenge03-Sep-2005 06:36
Thanks Andy. What does OTT stand for? ~ Lonnit
Guest 02-Sep-2005 19:02
As an image it works for me. Its in your face bright and gaudy. The yellow and red add something. Its completely OTT and i lke it.
Guest 01-Sep-2005 00:02
You really must comment more Bleau. At least you think my standards are usually high.:) I don't think your comment was negative - how can an honest opinion be negative? I never thougth I'd ever produce an image that everyone in the entire world loved... has anyone done that?

So, you think I'm 'whacky', do you? So do my in-laws. They once bought pineapple soda for me because they thought it sounded whacky, so if I'm whacky they figured I'd like it. Silly them - I'm so whacky I don't even drink soda! LOL! ~ Lonnit

Canon DSLR Challenge31-Aug-2005 23:17
OK I hardly ever comment, but I wondered what all the fuss was about, and then when I read the comments I could not believe it.
Maybe I am missing something ?
It just looks like a blurred shot to me, and at first glance I thought I saw purple fringing as well.
I just don not think that this is up to your usual high standard and although I know you can be quite "whacky" at times this just does fall into that catagory, so for me,I had to break one of my own self imposed rules and say something negative.
thubleau
Canon DSLR Challenge30-Aug-2005 16:29
Phil, I'm glad it's growing on you - keep looking! LOL!
Photogs have always been playing around with things like pinhole cameras and other 'cheap' quality images. Just because we can make technically flawless images with our fine equipment shouldn't mean that we should be locked into it. I think when you are capturing emotion there is no need for capturing anything but that which contributes to the emotion. I didn't need sharpness here to give a feeling - indeed sharpness would have detracted from the dreamlike quality.


Andy, I'm still on the fence about the red but leaning towards leaving it. I think it might be bland without it, and with it, it adds to the story that this is a playground. Without it, it might not be clear that it is.


Olaf, "The Player" is a nice shot. I like it's potential, but there seems to be something missing - a little bit of ooomph or something. I think maybe if you punched up the color it would make it pop. I'm thinking if you enriched the colors as in this image, it would do the trick. http://www.flickr.com/photos/bitterlysweet/38482463/.

I would have stuck with the original on that too. There's nothing wrong with the blur or anything else technically speaking. The only thing I'd change about the image would be to have caught him leaning slightly back to get some space between his hands/the chains and his face/body. Otherwise, it's a fine image. Thanks for joining the conversation. :)

~ Lonnit
Guest 30-Aug-2005 12:06
You know, the more I look at this, the more I like it (I guess I'm easily swayed).
It has a dreamy look to it, which does give it some qualities.
However, I think the thing people are perhaps kicking against, is that this is the sort of shot that would come out of a camera-phone, or a cheap digicam from 5+ years ago, and maybe we all just thing that DSLR's should be producing image with so much more fine detail.
I know it's a Lensbaby shot, but I think the absence of any one point of sharpness (ducks and runs for cover for mentioning the "s" word) is why is gets a negative reaction.
Phil
ctfchallenge30-Aug-2005 07:38
Nice. Having read the comments below, I would add that without the red it would lose something special.

andy
Canon DSLR Challenge30-Aug-2005 07:36
Why can't one use type href-links in the comments? That's really what I'd wanted to use in my comment below... --Olaf.dk
Canon DSLR Challenge30-Aug-2005 07:33
Interesting debate about sharpness and technical perfection vs. art here. Instead of a lot more words on it, I feel compelled to let my opinion be known through a couple of old challenge-photos of mine.

This one:http://www.pbase.com/cslr_challenge/image/23121781 is and old shot of mine posted in challenge 3. It is unsharp and full of blown highlights, still I like it, but there were no comments on it.

In challenge 14 I posted a blurry shot of my son on a swing:
[http] ://homepage.mac.com/me2/.Pictures/Noah%202004%20Q1/125_2576_web.jpg
I re-shot it and replaced with a sharper imagehttp://www.pbase.com/cslr_challenge/image/28574298 , in spite of me really liking the first image more. Today I would have kept the originally posted image.

Of course, just because an artful image may be blurry does not mean that any blurry shot is art... In this particular shot (A Summertime Swing) I do see some qualities...
--
Olaf.dk

Canon DSLR Challenge30-Aug-2005 05:18
Cindy, I'd say that somewhere in the middle, beyond the scope of technical precision and before the realm of artistic snobbery, lies the true art. :)
OY! Now you've got me seeing the chunks in the barf! LOL!! ;)


Yes AAm, it thrilled me that finally someone else liked them! I so appreciated your support, and still do. :) Thanks.


Perhaps Grant. I came late as well; for me it took 43 years, although it was something I'd always wanted to do. I just wanted full control of the process, but didn't want to be a chemist. I also didn't want to be stuck with only BW, which would have had to have been the case if I wanted to do my own developing. When my ability to afford a DSLR met with prices dropping to a reasonable amount, and PS at my fingertips, I finally started to realize my lifelong dream. I think that's why I'm so passionate about it - because I had to wait so long for it. It was worth waiting for. :) And as for the comment you got from Brenda Lee; yes, that's what an artist does. :)

~ Lonnit
Canon DSLR Challenge30-Aug-2005 01:29
Well, you get away from these forums and there is not only latitude for non-technically perfect photographic images - but the art world often seems to look down its nose at in-focus - sharp - perfectly-exposed images. So much so that my daughter in art school found the 'worse' her image was technically - the better the teacher liked it in many cases. I think maybe blowing the perfection allows for greater individualism.

I often like lens baby images - I like this one. The colors do seem to distract though - especially the yellows in the foliage - feel like I'm about to be barfed on. lol. ;) Cindy
Guest 30-Aug-2005 00:50
Here is a great example of what I am referring to:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fladines/1297498/in/set-2589/

I especially like the comment by Brenda Lee.
ctfchallenge29-Aug-2005 23:18
Yes that was me Lonnit (aam1234). Remember my fascination with your flash photos in NY streets? sharpness doesn't even enter into the equation there. They were ghosts of people, yet they were very beautiful...heck, they were breathtaking --- (aam1234)
Guest 29-Aug-2005 23:07
Maybe that is the difference...I came to photography lateer in life after having experience with drawing, painting and sculpture (BFA in industrial design) so maybe I have a lot more tolerance for experimentation.
Canon DSLR Challenge29-Aug-2005 23:01
Was that you Aam? As you see, I'm not a stickler for sharpness - my galleries will tell you that for certain. :) The reason I thought the sharpness would be nice in the old man image was to emphasize the wrinkles. The shot works well as it is too. I'm a big fan of the character shots that really show off a well creased face.


It's not just this community, Grant. It seems to be the majority of photogs rate images by technical perfection, whereas in the non-photographic arts there seems to be plenty of latitude
for experimentation and distortion of reality. Maybe it's because a camera *can* capture a flawless representation, that most people deem the perfect image to *be* a flawless representation. I see experimental work as poetic license. Sharpness will never capture the heart ... effect can stir emotion. There's an earthyness, an etherealism, a poetry to an image that is shot from the heart with a disregard or even a disdain for technical perfection.

Look what happened when Olaf shot, literally, from his heart. I commented about a sudden wonderfulness in his images. His response was that he did not want his subjects to know he was shooting and to be discreet, he held the camera to his chest and did not look thru the viewfinder. The result was more passionate images.

Interesting Monet comment b/c I got some comments on a couple of my shots last year where the viewers said they had a Monet quality to them.


LOL! Funny Pops :)

Now look at this.... a whole big controversy started and it wasn't me that started it - with words... change of pace, I started it with an image this time! LOL!

~ Lonnit
Canon DSLR Challenge29-Aug-2005 22:14
I'm with Grant regarding "sharpness". This is a comment I made 4/5 days ago (depending on your location)

http://www.pbase.com/ctfchallenge/image/48038969
Guest 29-Aug-2005 21:45
I need to rant here a bit...

Among this community (dpreview) there is a huge bias for creating sharp pictures. Now I like a sharp picture as much as the next guy but it seems that most people prefer a razor sharp image of a cat to something more experimental and impressionistic that may not be sharp. I geuss it seems like a silly measure of quality to me. Many of the greats (Henri Cartier-Bresson for example) didn't make tack sharp images. The whole Holga/Lomo crowd makes some wonderful pictures that aren't sharp. I think Lonnit has a very dreamy image that looks like a somewhat faded childhood memory. And I think it is much better than if it were sharp. This phenomenon has been bugging me since this:

http://www.pbase.com/cslr_challenge/image/28364772

Was Monet a crappy painter?

Grant
Guest 29-Aug-2005 21:09
She did. It is called a Lensbaby.
alexeig29-Aug-2005 19:05
I do not know, for me it looks as if you have put some sort of semi-transparent material in front of your lens
ctfchallenge29-Aug-2005 18:44
I'm in the iso camp here. I've never seen a lensbaby shot that I liked. I just don't understand the appeal. But that's just me. And that adds to the learning process. First, I leanred what a lensbaby is and then I've learned not to buy a lensbaby! LOL Pops
Canon DSLR Challenge29-Aug-2005 17:11
Iso, Maybe the problem is that I'm just working against myself here. I've got the serenity of the swing and the soft focus, OTOH I've got the tension & excitement of the burst created by the Lensbaby plus the tension of the red. BTW, on my monitor it is not that intensely bright - it's bright, but not painfully. I just checked and the whites are not even blown; the highest # is 247 in the red channel and the others are lower. But Lensbaby images are definitely love-it-or-hate it. Yes, experimenting is lots of fun and posting them here... it's so great to get feedback from you and the others - good or bad. It's not the compliments that make you grow, it's the criticism. :) Thanks!!

Bob & Antidote - you know, now I'm not so sure about the red/yellow. Maybe it adds some tension, but maybe more tension is not a good thing. Thanks for commenting. :)

Grant, The irony is indeed hysterical! I really did laugh out loud when I read that. I just looked at your linked gallery. Thanks for the suggestion. Your gallery is just beautiful! I LOVE the milkshake and the cup of egg yolk (ok, yeah I know it's coffee but it's pretty yellow, but I love it just the way it is!). When I'm done here I'm going to check out the service - it looks good - I like the format. I wouldn't ditch Pbase though, I'd put only my favorties on flckr. BTW, I'm also on usefilm.com. Thanks again.

~ Lonnit
Guest 29-Aug-2005 09:00
another one!
love the matching greens....
i guess i can see how the yellow and red be distracting, esp when the blur effect is kinda 'moving' toward it.
iso320029-Aug-2005 08:56
I'll have to go against the grain. I think it's great to be experimental. I love to try new techniques myself, but this just doesn't do it for me. The brash colours and overexposure burn my retinas. I think it's because I'm not overkeen on lensbaby images in general. Occasionally one will work for me, but not this. Sorry.
Guest 29-Aug-2005 07:58
I too like this. I think the red/yellow thing adds something though.
Guest 29-Aug-2005 04:07
And another thing...I know how much you thrive on comments. You should ditch PBase and move to flickr. It is a much more participatory site. Plus, the whole point is to put your photos in different groups in order to share them with more people. Check it out.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/granthamilton/
Guest 29-Aug-2005 04:05
As an aside, I am tempted to get a lensbaby but I can't get over the irony of using a 1DsII with L glass and putting a lensbaby on it. What do you think?

Grant
Canon DSLR Challenge29-Aug-2005 03:53
Grant! Thank you so much for the confidence booster on this. :) I know it's a risky shot. I was debating about removing the red but I figured I'd end up having to repalce the image anyway due to thrown tomatoes! LOL! Since I've been complimented only seconds after uploading, I guess it's going to stay, so I will work on getting the red out. :) Thnaks again ~ Lonnit
Guest 29-Aug-2005 03:45
Lonnit,

This is really beautiful. I like it a lot. I'm sure someone is going to whine about it being blurry but they are wrong. Do not listen to them. I don;t know if this would be an improvement but my instinct is to crop out the red and yellow thing so that is is all shades of green. Dunno if that fits with your vision but I thought I'd mention it. Well done.

Grant