California (now day 5 of 13)

[Frank F.]

Sorry if I appeared harsh earlier.

I encourage any body to say he/she likes a picture or not!

Critique is something else:

Critique means to tell what you like about a picture and what you do not like and also tell me why.

Critique is daring!:

I show something of myself with my picture and you start a conversation with me by showing something of yourself with your words

 

[Frank F.]

You see the world differently than most and even your photography expresses who you are. The golden hills, freeway and strip mall = Everyday California.

That is a huge compliment! I hope you are still with me after a few hundred shots. These are all from my day one in America 9 October 2016, only the "Highway to Livermore" could be later, because I took this picture with my phone. The others are taken with the D500 or D600 and an assortment of 10 Kilos of glass...

 

[Frank F.]

#5 Levis Stadium, Santa Clara

 

[Frank F.]

#6 Eight seconds to cross

 

[Frank F.]

#7 Mercedes

 

[Frank F.]

I think it was keen of you to utilize the powerlines as a leading line and framing line in this landscape. I also feel bad for whoever lives in that house, they have a railroad, oil tanks, grid power lines, parking garage, and construction surrounding them.

This is an AirBnB venue. Very nice Chinese family.

They got all infrastructure inclusive here for 110 Bucks per night: Airplanes going over the house 24/7, Huge gasoline tanks, a central transformer station, an amusement park with a roller coaster till late, a big Football-Stadium ... only the freeway and the Amtrack are too far away to hear ... pity

 

[Frank F.]

#8 Nantucket Circle Gated Community

 

[Frank F.]

#9 Nantucket Circle Gated Community

 

[Frank F.]

#10 Nantucket Circle Gated Community

 

[bulldurham6 1]

The critique is an art form in of itself. There are many ways to approach a critique and I know I've ruffled more than one feather on here with my own. C'est la vie but I'm just not into a lot of unnecessary warm fuzzies. It accomplishes nothing other than encouraging one to do more bad work.

As to all your images in this post, and I cannot single one of them out for a more favorable response, I find them totally unwarranted to favorable comment. The exposures are minimally charged, the framing as if shot literally from the hip with no real "art" in mind. The subject matter, however intended as "everyday life" in CA, well I lived there most of my formative years and I found nothing that I can definitively say ties me back to my past.

You seem overly enamored with trickery to "make" the shot - vignetting, color saturation, and blurring via an ortonish effect which do even less to make me want to look further. Why not put some of this effort into first learning the craft of photography: exposure, framing, composition and proper post production work, then work on developing a style that evokes both an understanding of your medium as well as an art to what you are trying to accomplish.

I give this effort a D-

 

[Frank F.]

Interesting observation, yet difficult to draw any information about my photography from your post. It is more about you, right?

You basicly say that after roughly 500.000 shots and 33 years I have learned nothing you can value as anything.

Now I am interested in what kind of shots you might like and value. (I looked up some recent posts, mostly technical bird shots, some nicely designed bird shots)

I suspect these shots are shots I consider worthless in my book. (no, just boring, most of them)

So after all we might have different ways to see the world which is perfectly alright for me. (I can not tell from what I have seen)

Can you point me to images you DO like? (Images by others)

 

[The_Traveler]

Well, let's go to the posts to likes and then make a comparison. Not everyone thinks my work is boring or worthless...au contraire, I am rating in at 133% whereas you are rating in at .32% likes to posts.

It's remarkable that you think that the number of likes/posts is meaningful in any way.

I don't care for these, specifically because they are too close to copies of Egglestion's style, an attempt to make the banal important through processing.
Once its done, its done for me.
These would be great for a MFA student, meta-art, where the meaning of a larger idea is much more important than any content of any photo and the repetition of the specific type of execution is important.

 

[bulldurham6 1]

I really don't put as much emphasis on this as you might think and was only using it in response to what I perceived as a personal affront. Frankly, I should have left the whole thing alone and not responded at all. I find Frank F rather boorish. Oh well.

 

[Trever1t]

Hey, now you are in my town!

 

[jcdeboever]

#5 Levis Stadium, Santa Clara

View attachment 131144

This is super in my eyes. I like the perspective. What an exciting image, reminds me of walking up to Tiger Stadium in the 70's and sneaking into the baseball game. We were occasionally caught but let in anyway because we were wide eyed kids. Thanks Frank for surfacing that wonderful memory for me. Yo da man....