LensCulture is een internationaal zeer gerenommeerde bron voor hedendaagse fotografie. Van documentaire, beeldende kunst, fotojournalistiek, straatfotografie en nog veel meer.
Regelmatig worden er awards uitgereikt waar je je als fotograaf voor kan inschrijven. Ik deed onlangs mee aan de LensCulture Street Photography Award 2019. Hiervoor heb ik 5 foto’s ingezonden.
Voor mij gaat het zeker niet om een award te winnen, want daar kom ik in mijn eigen ogen nog lang niet voor in aanmerking. Ik deed het vooral voor de beoordeling van een pro. Benieuwd hoe iemand anders naar mijn werk kijkt ipv bekenden en vrienden die toch iets minder snel kritiek zullen geven…..al is dat natuurlijk altijd wel welkom.
Foto beoordelingen
Vandaag was het zo ver…ik ontving van LensCulture dat mijn beoordeling binnen was. Deze wil ik graag met jullie delen, daar veel mensen weten dat ik mee deed aan deze award.
foto 1 
foto 2 
foto 3 
foto 4 
foto 5
Foto 1 :The quality of light does a nice job at bringing the two primary subjects in focus with reflections creating a nice texture rather than cluttering the scene. Regardless of whether that was natural or post-processing…nice job
Foto 2: There is a lot going on in this scene. With the girl having her face turned towards the camera, it seems she is the primary subject…although the moment caught lacks emphasis. (ex. with social talk mentioned in the caption, showing an expressive gesture of conversation would be visually descriptive in conveying that element of the story)
Foto 3: Nice monochromatic conversion with strong details throughout the scene. Consider selective dodging/burning to darken the background just slightly and bring the girl forward. I’ll post examples of how such a minor change can really impact the overall image.
Foto 4: This angle is pretty unique for street photography (people often facing the camera). It creates a sense of freshness in that regard.
A more powerful composition would keep an eye out for the positioning of the bike handle coming out from his mouth…a more shallow depth-of-field could help minimize background distraction, as would having a background slightly darker than the subject rather than being brighter than the subject.
Foto 5: Excellent and perfectly illustrating the suggestion in the previous image about having a darker background to help the subject pop out a bit.
Consider a crop that removes the figure at the far left who is also illuminated by this strong light.
Interesting as well for your continuation with a profile and this figure which is broken up into fragments (head/arm/leg).
Strong work.
Hier boven staat per foto de review van de foto. Ik ben er erg tevreden mee. Staan goede tips tussen waar ik wel wat mee kan. Ook was er een algemene review of eerder een antwoord op mijn inzending en hoe het tot stand gekomen is.
Dit stuurde ik mee bij de inzending aan LensCulture:
STATEMENT
All my photo’s are made as a free project….a project with the purpose of clearing my mind after a long day of work and travel.
Hier onder volgt de uitgebreide beoordeling met ook een aantal links. Deze zal ik ook toevoegen.
De beoordeling van LensCulture
Hello Perry and thank you for sharing your street portraits here within the LensCulture community. Your submission really stood out based on something you wrote. I recently interviewed a well-known photographer and his response was much like your own. Rather than making political or intellectual statements through photography, the process itself can work its own magic by unwinding the mind, tension, etc. It becomes an opportunity to step back and observe the world. It’s refreshing to hear photographers open up about their working process rather than trying to mask it with superficial words.
I can see you’ve entered these images in the Singles category so have gone through, image-by-image to give specific feedback. You can find notes on what you’ve done well and also suggestions on how to strengthen the work as you click on the individual photographs above.
Here I’ll address your comments about creating stories and handling projects. First, I’ll be the first to admit that “Storytelling” as a genre, as a tool, can be really difficult to wrap the head around at first. Rather than providing watered-down recaps, I’ll post a few articles below that really do a fine job at framing and describing this. Creating a photo essay (project) is a really great start…you’ll find it much easier to convey a story through a series of images rather than jump right in to do it all within one frame.
In short, you first need an idea; a narrative. You’ll want to do a lot of thinking and writing…start sketching ideas for how these images will look. What approach will you take (on the streets, in homes, portraits, objects, moody, crisp, etc.). When you’ve created a set of images, start pulling out your favorites. I like to print these out very small and rearrange. This is called Sequencing. The order in which you share the work should be handled much like writing a book (attention grabbing at the beginning with a middle and end). Look at this for a long time. Are there elements to the story that are missing or could make your sequence stronger? If so, go out for another round of shooting to fill in these gaps. (you may even have to repeat this a few times) Share the work with friends and colleagues (even via reviews like this…it’s better to get feedback before you’re finished rather than looking for it once everything’s been set in stone!). You’ll want to create a strong project statement for this work and, if it’s grounded in a documentary style, create captions as well to go hand-in-hand with each image.
Again, what I’ll do is place some informative articles below. Apologies for giving you a stack of reading, but I think you’ll be excited with new ideas and a clear direction as you set out to make a cohesive body of work. If the thought of pinning down an idea is a bit daunting, feel free to let yourself do some practice runs with something really easy (a hobby of a friend/family member, an event in your community, even something like a day in the life of your cat). Very best of luck throughout this process and thank you, again, for sharing!
Additional Recommendations
Photo Competitions
Other Resources
New Recommendations
Photo Business & Practice Resources
- How to build narrative ideas for a photo series
- Art of Sequencing your Portfolio
- Levels of street-photography effectiveness
Relevant Quotes from Past Jurors
- “You need to grab the jurors’ attention from the start and hold it firmly through to the last image. Editing is crucial. Each photograph has to be strong and the sequencing needs to make sense, from a story-telling and an aesthetic point of view. Avoid repetitions. — Daphné Anglès , Picture Editor, The New York Times, Paris, France
- “A good text with the pictures is short, concise, to the point, informed, descriptive. I find it helps to imagine you are speaking to a smart child who would rather be outside playing with friends: you have very little time to tell the story and explain WHY it matters. The same holds true for captions. 1st sentence: describe the image. 2nd sentence: why and how this image fits into the body of work.” — Daphné Anglès , Picture Editor, The New York Times, Paris, France
Books (business & practice of art & photography)
- The Artist Statement: How and Why to Write Yours by Jennifer Schwartz
- How to write an Artist’s Statement
Conclusie
Ik ben erg blij met mijn deelname aan de LensCulture Street Photography Awards 2019 en zou zo weer mee doen voor een nieuwe beoordeling volgend jaar. Erg leerzaam en waardevol.
