Is this a mens club only or can anyone join? :) I4m one of the women invited by Tom Meyer, I4ve been fooling around with abstracts and landscape shots for about a decade - now I4ve taken the big leap into people photography, starting with street shooting, a few portraits of friends and, as of today, asking strangers for permission to photograph them. I4m a digicam user and have two shots hot off the CF-card posted to this address:

http://photocrit.hosting4less.com/cgi-bin/s?10nYic++nYj+000310-08:12:20-look.no

Please tell me what you think, I4ll explain my intentions later :)

:) Christel

-- Christel Green (look.no@film.dk), March 10, 2000

Answers

Hi Christel, Welcome aboard! I think recent discussion here about a LACK of female contributors will reassure you that this is not intended to be a "men's club".

Don't have time right now to look at/comment on your work...will try later. Just wanted to welcome you :-)

Larry

-- Larry H. Smith (LarryHS@webtv.net), March 10, 2000.

The second one, uncropped, in color is much better than the rest (although an editor would probably crop this as the next example shows if this were illustrating an article).

I still have one general comment, though, which I've brought up before. Without a context, shots like this (and some of the other recent posts) are at best "nice" (or maybe "mostly harmless" for Douglas Adams fans). As part of a series on street life or bus stops or working people or the city you live in or shopping or benches or asians or new perspectives (or something) - then it would have some impact.

Part of the problem of not having such a context is that criticisms tend to devolve into technical minutiae, rather than anything that could be meaningful or helpful.

-- John Kantor (jkantor@mindspring.com), March 10, 2000.

Hi Christel,

I too like the second shot better than the first. Keep at it, and keep shooting. The more you do it, the easier it becomes to "become invisible" and capture those compelling images we all dream of making.

Good luck!

-- Robert Anderson (randerson1@uswest.net), March 10, 2000.

Hey Christel, thanks for stopping by...

You've used the same device in both images, that I recommended to the skateboarding guy, i.e. using a frame within the photograph. Both of your images have the woman's head in a smaller frame within the greater photograph.

Tonality, I think, plays a big part in the greater success of the second image, along with a more lyric gesture. Good work, show us more. (there's no limit here... yet!)... t

-- tom meyer (twm@mindspring.com), March 10, 2000.

Hi guys - thanks for looking :) What I wanted to do with these pictures was to portray a "real" woman ie. a woman who shows signs of being alive, rather than the passive ornaments depicted in glamour portraits. I just posted a different approach to the same at:

http://photocrit.hosting4less.com/cgi-bin/s?00vDLc++vDM+000310- 23:27:19-look.no

The subject of this photo is a 19 year old girl, she4s single and pregnant and dropped out of school the week after this session. I wanted to bring out her self image and personality in the portrait. Would like to know your opinion.

:) Christel

-- Christel Green (look.no@film.dk), March 11, 2000.

Christel,

There is a space too much inn your precious link, interested people shoud use http://photocrit.hosting4less.com/cgi-bin/s?00vDLc++v DM+000310-23:27:19-look.no for the image (titled "Backlit Portrait").

The server is very slow, but I really like the light on the face (which is all that has loaded by now). Somebody on the thread called it cartoon-art, and the backlight certainly brings a graphic element to the image. I like it. I even like the grain (and I always hate grain!).

PS: Christel er et usfdvanligt navn i Danmark? Jeg gftter pe Danmark pe grund as din .dk adresse, men hvad er .no i din e-mail? Norge, eller nej.

PPS: I really like your "Tank Girk"

image!

PPPS: The speed of your server is stupid - especially if you are using Netscape as your browser - so I have taken the liberty of including your image below:

-- Allan Engelhardt (allane@cybaea.com), March 11, 2000.

Eeeek, f*cked up the HTML again.

"Tank Girl" is at http://photocrit.hosting4less.com/cgi-bi n/s?zzvnxn-p11125956+vnw +vny+000119-02:15:56-look.no.

Image:

Sorry :-(

-- Allan Engelhardt (allane@cybaea.com), March 11, 2000.

I need more sleep.....

'night evenrybody"

-- Allan Engelhardt (allane@cybaea.com), March 11, 2000.

well that was worth it. nice photo. i like it a lot, especially around the eyes...shawn

ps there's gotta be a better way to do it than this. everybody is having quite a hard time loading pics in. any suggestions other than a very thorough reading of every character before you post?

-- shawn gibson (SeeInsideForever@yahoo.com), March 11, 2000.

(Off-topic to Shawn's comment: I'll see if I can implement a simple preview feature tomorrow when I'm awake again and can hit the right keys on the keyboard. Need more sleep...)

-- Allan Engelhardt (allane@cybaea.com), March 11, 2000.

Response to posting problem

I am guilty of getting HTML wrong and thus loading blank frames for all to admire! The suggestion was made in the introductory material of this, or the "Images" forum, to open a separate window, point toward your file, and see if you got it right. If I have any sense, I take this one step further and copy the good address and paste it into my spot here. That is at least a little harder to mess up. Of course, if I try to get too fancy with pointers to other pictures from the ones I post.... :0

-- Paul Harris (pharris@neosoft.com), March 11, 2000.

Allan - thanks a lot :) I wasn4t sure exactly how to import the picture so I decided not to. I can write HTML if that4s what it takes, but an easier way to do it would be greatly appreciated! My e-mail address: You4re supposed to forget about the @ and read "Look! No film" (because I use a digicam :) Unfortunately my - ahem - "circumstances" only allow me to own one camera at a time and I couldn4t resist the temptation to not have to wait for processing/printing etc. Typical right-brainer :) The "Tank Girl" or "Two woman hybrid" was supposed to be an ironic commentary to the chasm between real women (me - heh heh) and "fake" women - the ones created by vendors of the beauty ideal. I4m glad somebody likes it because it took quite a bit of guts to post :)

:) Christel

-- Christel Green (look.no@film.dk), March 11, 2000.