Bresson's masterful use of bokeh.

[sashbar]

I would LOVE to see HCB reaction to a praise of him being a true master of bokeh.

 

[gsgary]

Bokeh & DOF - the differences between the two

So, do you think it should be better termed as Bresson's masterful use of DOF?

Bresson's example looks like it would fit nicely here.

Bokeh Effect — 30 Awesome Examples Showcasing The Dreamy Effect | APN Photography & Web-Design

Personally I think most of you are spitting hairs. I'm comfortable with the original title.

Now, what are your opinions of Bresson's photo?

It shouldn't be termed anything he would not want it, if anything isolation of subject

 

[photoguy99]

Saying there's no bokeh in a shot is almost like saying there's no tone.

This looks like a direct quote of pointillism, and as such is as likely to be a joke as anything else. Whether it was deliberate or not is anyone's guess.

 

[sashbar]

Looks pretty marginal to me...

Hey, I just saw your egg shot and blah food. Your a pretty tough critic of the old master for a guy like you.

what's so great about the shot?

the crooked horizon? the poor composition? the distracting background? the blown out chandelier? the blown out black-blob of a curtain? the distracting bright triangle from the area beyond the curtain? the poor use of bokeh to make it hard to tell the wall is a mosaic of mirrors? the pushed-too-far contrast to remove any details?

is that what make that shot so masterful?

this is what that room probably looks like (another iranian palace): http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RQkg1dAsg8c/ULj5Oe6cJKI/AAAAAAAAAaY/Tb2TDQBRV4E/s1600/mirror+hall.jpg

it's clear to see how poorly Cartier Bresson was able to capture and translate the majesty of that room; instead we focus in on an ugly statue without any detail or intersting lost in a sea of other gray/white blobs.

Braineak - this is not a picture of the room. This is a picture of a fairy tale. This is a tale about how a presence of some fairy-like creature can transform a grand room, a demonstration of solidity and grandeur into something eerie, unreal, blurry, uncertain illusory, immaterial and weird for want of a better word - my English is quite limited. Same way a presence of that sort of a creature in our life is able to shake our solid foundations and transfere our life into something completely different and unexpected. Any Dick,Tom and Harry can take a picture of a room. Who the f**** cares about shooting a room in a palace? Try to go to such a room and create a story with a simple photograph. A story that shines through technical imperfections that do not really matter. Just like HCB did. In essence this is an image about how something fragile is able to completely posses something grant and seemingly unshaken.

 

[terri]

Moved from Off Topic to a more appropriate forum.

Carry on!

 

[vintagesnaps]

Okay. lol thanks mom!

I think looking at a copy that may not be the best quality isn't going to be the same as being able to see a museum quality copy (which I haven't, in person anyway). When I first saw it, momentarily I wasn't sure what I was looking at and then went - oh!

Definitely an unusual photograph, and I think it is an example of being able to have most of a photograph out of focus and have that work. I think that can be tricky to do well.

Here's the Cartier-Bresson/Magnum copyrighted photo (click on it for info.).
IRAN. 1950.

I think it does have elements of composition in the balance of the chandelier and the statue; it seems to use converging lines to draw the viewer's eyes into the photograph. Even in the small version of the original there's contrast in dark and light and detail in the fabric in the statue, etc. it's just not as easy to see as it probably would in a larger size.

I think too as others said that the bokeh (which having been a photographer a long time I don't remember having heard much about til recent years on the internet lol) is the quality of the out of focus part of an image; it seems to be more from the quality of a lens, that may have a lot of aperture blades to give more rounded shapes to points of oof light. So this to me seems to use the oof part of the image to add interest; I think that's what makes the photo.

 

[Mr. Innuendo]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...resson_Plate_124_from_the_Decisive_Moment.jpg

Error generating thumbnail
The source file 'Cartier-Bresson_Plate_124_from_the_Decisive_Moment.jpg' does not exist.

That's all I got when I clicked the link.

 

[W.Y.Photo]

I wouldn't call it a masterful use of bokeh in the sense that he made a masterful image about bokeh or even that his technique with bokeh was masterful.. But it is a masterful image and it does use bokeh.. So I guess in that sense it is...