Pixmedics Photo Contest V (AKA: The big one)

[chuasam]

Thanks PixMedic.
I don't really feel much emotion so I want to understand the reaction of others to photographs that bring emotion.
I agree that Dan's has the feels.
A good friend of mine from High School (now I graduated a quarter of a century ago) had revealed that her daughter had a rare cancer. I told her that if she comes down to my studio, I will get her some images that she can use to raise funds and awareness.
Thanks for the critique. I wanted to learn to improve and create more moving photos. Since you're in the medical field, the answer is Ewing's Sarcoma.

 

[jcdeboever]

did you miss post #40? or did I miss something you were interested in knowing about?

I wanted to know more about the emotional response to each picture.
I wanted to hear about the laughter and the joys to each image as it was being reviewed.

that's a toughie....
im not going to go over each individual critique here, but i will disclose some of our trade secrets, including a generalized breakdown of how we reach consensus. Its a proprietary algorithm I like to call, processus autem certamine victor eligens, but for the purpose of this post it will hereby simply be known as "the process".

I would like to preempt this dissertation with a warning and disclaimer: These contests are strictly the wife and I's (mine and the wifes? me and the wifes? the wife and me's?...#%@$... @limr help me out here please!) personal opinions in an already very subjective medium.
if you are prior entrants and/or feel you might be offended by my explanations of our subjectivity, please read no further. you have been warned.
if you are not easily offended and wish a bit of insight into "the process", then full steam ahead.

so, as you know, (if you read post #40) the first part of "the process" is us simply going over the pictures by ourselves, at our own pace. this normally happens over the course of a day in between other things.
this part is more of a "rule out" more than "picking a winner".
If you have read the full post of my more recent contests, you will also know that the contests are less about technical perfection and more about theme appropriateness and creativity.
so...ill go ahead and use this contest as an example. (last chance to stop reading if you think you might not like why your particular picture didn't win)

first up is the initial culling process...we feel there's no point in sitting down together to discuss things until we have narrowed our own choices down to a max of 2-3 pictures.
sometimes we have photos that are our favorites because we really like them, that we wish we could have taken, but are not necessarily the "best" for the theme.
please bear in mind that even within photography, the term "portrait" itself is pretty subjective. everyone has their own ideas, and its no secret which end me and the wife lean towards. some pictures ranked lower because we felt they fell more into the "snapshot" category than the "portrait" category. some pictures ranked lower because we felt that while they might have had an emotional value to the photographer, (maybe a family member) to an outside party looking in, it didn't evoke that same feeling. in some cases we were not even sure what "emotional response" we were supposed to be feeling, or was being projected.

@DanOstergren came in strong right out of the gate, but the red tint gave us some pause right up until the end.
for me, @zombiesniper just killed it. I was like, holy shite...i wish i had a shot like that in MY portfolio.
and @PhotoriousMe had another of my personal favorites.

the wife on the other hand, favored @adamhiram bubble mower shot, as well as Dans, despite her aversion to the red lighting.
@smoke665 was also high on her final list with the fuzzy.

now, since you brought this up @chuasam ill get to yours, and since you asked for it, I hope you will take this in the spirit in which it was given, with is with much respect.
you should have won man. you had it. everything we love about portraiture. its a brilliant portrait. we assumed this was a cancer patient/survivor?
but....the wife noted early on that there was just something missing. the expression? her head placement? a cancer awareness pin?
we never really pinned down exactly what we felt was off, only that there was just....something, keeping us from really feeling it.
in the end it came down to your shot and Dans, and in the interest of full disclosure, if you want the 100% honest-to-Zeus truth...
Dans shot really hit us in the feels, and yours did not.

well, there it is...
I hope I haven't been too offensive, but thats "the process" for this contest.

That is cool. I didn't think or I should say, I knew I wasn't going to win. However, I had a plan I stuck with it. Problem was, you can't make a good person look like a robber... Lol. I tried and knew it didn't come off. I just was thinking outside the box. I remembered the emotional aspect of being robbed at gun point on several occasions growing up in Detroit, but couldn't seem to duplicate it's random, adrenaline, emotional response. I called a few ex gang banger allie friends of mine and they refused to pull a gun on me for a photo contest. One of them said, "I ain't, and none of our brothers finna even think of playing your game like that dog, you'll throw some of that ninja **** on us cause y'all be thinking this **** is going down fo real. Man, you crazy, let me hold a Jackson". I said, you want a Jackson, hold me up snoopy. We laughed are butt off and moved on. I met up with snoopy the week following and showed him a pic of a 1600 SAT friend of mine (we all lived in the same village) that cleaned his clock, and two of our buddies, in a steet fight. He said, that ****** ain't dead? Nope, he is still ugly and has the render of that pipe on his face. He said that ****** had cement hands.

In conclusion, your contest provided enhancements into my life.