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04/18/2009 11:05:02 AM · #26 |
Originally posted by DJWoodward:
Where do read that in the challenge description details?
"Take your camera with you everywhere this week and capture a candid moment." |
I read it in the word "candid" and how I define that word. Feel free to define it however you like. For the third time, I'll say that this is how I define it. |
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04/18/2009 11:09:48 AM · #27 |
Again, youâre entitled to the opinion,I don't question that. Iâm just trying to understand because it seems arbitrary to me
Isnât it like looking at a challenge with details saying âTake your camera with you everywhere this week and capture a photo of a landscapeâ and saying âIn my opinion, this is a challenge that encourages people to step outside a take pictures at twilight onlyâ.
What does comfort zone have to do with a candid moment? What if Iâm perfectly comfortable with taking candids of strangers? Will you be able to judge that by looking at my entry?
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04/18/2009 11:12:13 AM · #28 |
As far as I'm concerned, the concept "candid" pretty much presupposes the concept "unaware"; if your subject is aware of your presence, as a photographer, the image stops being candid. The only exception to this I can think of offhand is when the "candid moment" itself constitutes the subject's reaction to the sudden awareness that s/he is being photographed :-)
Take all this with a grain of salt BTW, I'm not being dogmatic, just musing...
R.
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04/18/2009 11:15:36 AM · #29 |
So you "don't question my opinion," but you have three questions about it? :P
I'm just going to leave well enough alone here... for the 4th time, I'm saying this is how I judge these entries. It's not like I'm going to knock a vote down to a 1 for something that looks posed, etc., but I definitely take these things into consideration and these are items that I tend to give lower scores. Again, you can come up with whatever criteria suits you.
What it boils down to is that I tend to reward non-cop-out shots better than cop-out shots.
Message edited by author 2009-04-18 11:17:23. |
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04/18/2009 11:31:10 AM · #30 |
Originally posted by alanfreed:
So you "don't question my opinion," but you have three questions about it? :p |
Yes that's exactly correct. I've always been a supporter of hearing all of the voices of the choir unfiltered. However that doesn't mean that I don't want to better understand an opinion that doesn't seem to make sense to me.
Message edited by author 2009-04-18 11:31:49. |
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04/18/2009 11:40:16 AM · #31 |
Originally posted by alanfreed:
So you "don't question my opinion," but you have three questions about it? :P
I'm just going to leave well enough alone here... for the 4th time, I'm saying this is how I judge these entries. It's not like I'm going to knock a vote down to a 1 for something that looks posed, etc., but I definitely take these things into consideration and these are items that I tend to give lower scores. Again, you can come up with whatever criteria suits you.
What it boils down to is that I tend to reward non-cop-out shots better than cop-out shots. |
to put my two-cents in. I can see where you are saying that kids are not as observant so easier subjects for candids. I agree to a small extent. But in looking at it another way... In this day and age, it's harder to take a picture of a child who is not your own, because if the parents notice you, they are extremely uncomfortable with strangers photographing their child. So I actually think a candid of an unknown child is much more difficult than a candid of an adult. |
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04/18/2009 11:41:39 AM · #32 |
im gunna be doing a self portrait, but im gunna pretend that i dont know that i am in my studio or that a picture is being taken. hahahaaaaaahahahaaaa.
ok, i need another beer.... |
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04/18/2009 11:54:45 AM · #33 |
Originally posted by alanfreed:
So you "don't question my opinion," but you have three questions about it? :P
I'm just going to leave well enough alone here... for the 4th time, I'm saying this is how I judge these entries. It's not like I'm going to knock a vote down to a 1 for something that looks posed, etc., but I definitely take these things into consideration and these are items that I tend to give lower scores. Again, you can come up with whatever criteria suits you.
What it boils down to is that I tend to reward non-cop-out shots better than cop-out shots. |
I question your ability to know what a cop-out is simply by looking at a photograph in a challenge :)
You've written an arbitrary set of personal rules, but every single one of them can be turned around to be explained as out of SOMEONE's comfort zone.
Message edited by author 2009-04-18 11:55:44. |
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04/18/2009 12:08:55 PM · #34 |
Originally posted by K10DGuy:
I question your ability to know what a cop-out is simply by looking at a photograph in a challenge :) |
This is what I wanted to know also. How does one determine if a person has copped out or not? Perhaps the person who takes a picture of a child has pediophobia but not a trace of xenophobia or sociophobia. How can you tell that from a picture? |
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04/18/2009 12:11:27 PM · #35 |
Originally posted by K10DGuy:
You've written an arbitrary set of personal rules, but every single one of them can be turned around to be explained as out of SOMEONE's comfort zone. |
Like a candid shot of the moon, for example...
Message edited by author 2009-04-18 12:11:38. |
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04/18/2009 12:14:40 PM · #36 |
Originally posted by alanfreed:
Originally posted by K10DGuy:
You've written an arbitrary set of personal rules, but every single one of them can be turned around to be explained as out of SOMEONE's comfort zone. |
Like a candid shot of the moon, for example... |
Never know when that man in the moon is contemplating life unawares. |
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04/18/2009 12:22:24 PM · #37 |
Originally posted by alanfreed:
Like a candid shot of the moon, for example... |
You seemed to have jumped to the extreme. I don't believe there are too many members with selenophobia.
I would still like to know, how you will know when I have stepped out of my comfort zone from my photo only, so you can reward by shot appropriately?
Message edited by author 2009-04-18 12:37:53. |
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04/18/2009 12:53:54 PM · #38 |
Originally posted by DJWoodward:
I would still like to know how you will know when I have stepped out of my comfort zone from my photo only so you can reward by shot appropriately? |
I have no clue in the world what might be out of your personal comfort zone, but if I look at a shot of the moon (an extreme example, yes, but there were two of them in Candid III), a shot of someone's pet (how can you take a non-candid shot of a pet...?), a shot of geese, someone's child posing and looking directly at the camera, the backs of people's heads, a baseball player at bat, a flower, fireworks, buildings, statues, boats, a road, insects, an empty subway station, pottery for heaven's sake -- I could go on and on and on -- it is safe to say that someone simply didn't make a huge effort to meet the challenge. These are all examples of prior "candid" entries.
In my opinion there are more DNMC entries in Candid challenges than in any others in the history of the site.
Look at the top entries from each of the challenges (which do include some excellent shots of kids, by the way), and you'll see shots where people did an excellent job of unknowingly capturing someone in their element. That's what candid photography is about.
If you want to include some of these things that people have submitted in the past, this may as well be a Free Study. |
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04/18/2009 01:09:38 PM · #39 |
i would define candid as:
A photograph of a person who may or may not be aware of your presence and/or your camera, but is not neccesarily aware if and when you are photographing them. ie: The photo is not set up - and the photographer has no control over the situation the photograph was taken in - outside of the position of the camera.
Message edited by author 2009-04-18 13:10:04.
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04/18/2009 01:52:02 PM · #40 |
Originally posted by alanfreed:
I have no clue in the world what might be out of your personal comfort zone, |
Thatâs my point. In an early post you said:
Originally posted by alanfreed:
In my opinion, this is a challenge that encourages people to step out of the comfort zone. |
So if you have no clue what a personâs comfort zone is how can that be part of your criteria for judging?
Iâm going to offer an example, this was going to be my entry:
I feel that itâs a competent photo, not a ribbon winner, but it meets the criteria as defined in the challenge details. No, itâs not of a person, and it has eye contact but itâs no less of a capture of a candid moment than anything that anyone else will enter. It was not staged, it was not planned it was simply a capture of a fleeting candid moment. As I said earlier adding all the extra qualifiers (although youâre entitled to) simply stifles creativity.
Looking at the photo alone there is no way you can tell how taking fit into my comfort zone. There could be a deeper meaning or an attached emotion that you can't grasp. To assume it was easy to take might be a mistake.
nuff said by me |
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04/18/2009 01:59:00 PM · #41 |
Originally posted by DJWoodward:
Iâm going to offer an example, this was going to be my entry:
I feel that itâs a competent photo, not a ribbon winner, but it meets the criteria as defined in the challenge details. |
And I would probably give it a 4 or maybe a 3 because in my mind this would be a cop-out shot as a "Candid." If the challenge were "Pet Portrait," I'd probably give it a 7 or 8. |
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04/18/2009 02:36:25 PM · #42 |
| I think there's a bit of confusion - Alan said it's an opportunity for some to step out of their comfort zones, not that stepping out of a comfort zone is a key element of candids. If a photographer is stricty a landscape artist, shooting candids of people is out of their comfort zone, most likely. For someone like me who wanders about shooting people randomly all the time, it's not. That doesn't mean I'll get anything useful this week, of course. So far my best is a goofy shot of a friend who caught me stalking him with my camera. Snapshot, yes. Candid, probably not. |
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04/18/2009 05:03:27 PM · #43 |
Wow... To me the beauty of DPC is that people vote according to thier own criteria and have every right to do so. While my definition may be less structured than AlanFreed, I celebrate his right to define it in whatever way he wants and to vote accordingly. I hope he likes my entry but I'm still going to enter the one I like the best.
With all due respect to this thread, I don't know if explaining my definition of "candids" is going to improve my score. Maybe I'm too cynical....... |
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04/18/2009 05:15:36 PM · #44 |
Originally posted by neophyte:
Wow... To me the beauty of DPC is that people vote according to thier own criteria and have every right to do so. While my definition may be less structured than AlanFreed, I celebrate his right to define it in whatever way he wants and to vote accordingly. I hope he likes my entry but I'm still going to enter the one I like the best.
With all due respect to this thread, I don't know if explaining my definition of "candids" is going to improve my score. Maybe I'm too cynical....... |
Nope, it won't improve my score, but it helps me to understand the score. I think conversations like this are very informative and very interesting. We have a tendency to believe that most people share our views of what's a good photograph (even though we see evidence to the contrary). This is a way to get a feel for people's tastes before entering a photo. If you're entering only to please yourself, you don't need to know these things. But if you are trying to create photos that will please the majority of people, it's good to do your homework. |
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04/18/2009 05:31:05 PM · #45 |
Originally posted by vawendy:
Nope, it won't improve my score, but it helps me to understand the score. I think conversations like this are very informative and very interesting. We have a tendency to believe that most people share our views of what's a good photograph (even though we see evidence to the contrary). This is a way to get a feel for people's tastes before entering a photo. If you're entering only to please yourself, you don't need to know these things. But if you are trying to create photos that will please the majority of people, it's good to do your homework. |
And bear in mind it's not even always an issue of what's a "good photograph", it's rather a question of whether the voters perceive that an otherwise-good photograph is responsive to the challenge as presented. Lawd knows, I've seen some lovely photographs mercilessly hammered because they were seen as totally non-responsive, my own personal contribution to the genre being this one in a "self Portrait" challenge:
A personal-worst, and I've had some real stinkers :-)
R.
Message edited by author 2009-04-18 17:32:03.
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04/21/2009 11:03:41 AM · #46 |
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04/21/2009 11:09:50 AM · #47 |
| I'll wager that a macro of a bug might not be considered by some to be a "candid". My own definition tends to lean toward "has people in it". A macro of a person? Might be interesting. Might not be a candid, but might be interesting... :-) |
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04/21/2009 11:26:31 AM · #48 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
As far as I'm concerned, the concept "candid" pretty much presupposes the concept "unaware"; if your subject is aware of your presence, as a photographer, the image stops being candid. The only exception to this I can think of offhand is when the "candid moment" itself constitutes the subject's reaction to the sudden awareness that s/he is being photographed :-)
Take all this with a grain of salt BTW, I'm not being dogmatic, just musing...
R. |
Not to be argumentative but subjects can be aware of the camera and you can still get candid moments from them.
I've shot candids at weddings, as a back-up and that's a good example of an exception but there are also many other situations where where cameras are shooting all over the place and candid moments can be captured. Candid moments are even captured on The Red Carpet.
I suppose another great example would be the lunch table at the Germany (Munster) GTG where there was nothing but camera activity, yet tons of genuine candid moments were recorded.
I agree that animal candids are a cop out but on the flip side animals do occasionally pose (in their way, of course) but still, very weak IMO as a candid choice. Babies, as well are a bit of a cheap out..IMO. I'll put it this way if you were trying to demonstrate your amazing skill as "Candid Photographer" animal and baby shots wouldn't win much attention or praise from me. Add, Sports to that list...but that's just me judging the essence of a candid as I see it.
I would give the dog shot posted above a 1, 2 or a 3 depending on my mood or how many animal shots I see. I tend to get agravated at that stuff after a while and my votes skew. Capturing a quality candid of a human being requires a good degree of skill, where capturing an animal "unscripted" is well...all they're about, morning, noon and night.
Here a primo candid moment and I'm sure the little girl was aware of the camera.
and a few of mine if you're interested
All for now...
Message edited by author 2009-04-21 13:04:14. |
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04/21/2009 01:24:49 PM · #49 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
As far as I'm concerned, the concept "candid" pretty much presupposes the concept "unaware"; if your subject is aware of your presence, as a photographer, the image stops being candid. The only exception to this I can think of offhand is when the "candid moment" itself constitutes the subject's reaction to the sudden awareness that s/he is being photographed :-)
Take all this with a grain of salt BTW, I'm not being dogmatic, just musing...
R. |
Sounds about right to me. :-)
When all is said and done, the photos that meet the "criteria" of 'Candid' for MOST people that are voting, and are well captured (composition, all the technicals, etc...), will be the top scorers. Like it or not, that's the way it is. In your comfort zone, or out of it, doesn't matter. |
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04/21/2009 02:10:57 PM · #50 |
Originally posted by glad2badad:
When all is said and done, the photos that meet the "criteria" of 'Candid' for MOST people that are voting, and are well captured (composition, all the technicals, etc...), will be the top scorers. Like it or not, that's the way it is. In your comfort zone, or out of it, doesn't matter. |
Doesn't that kinda suck and make it all kinda useless? |
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