This was taken in an community vegetable garden near my house in February. How's the exposure look? Too much contrast? Too dull a subject?

-- Mark Rovetta (1234hods@gte.net), March 30, 2000

Answers

Nice, I like the subject and the composition. Very "relaxed". It would be very difficult to judge exposure of a BW photo on most monitors. There is no standard for gamma, thus what looks dark on my system might look light on yours.

-- Joe Perrigoue (joe@supply.com), March 30, 2000.

From a technical standpoint, you have excellent exposure and contrast, nice out-of-focus background which isolates your subject, and appropriate subdued but detail-rich foreground. Pictorially, however, this photograph is screaming for some kind of story or anecdote. Even though I know from your post that it's at a community garden and that I am now to presume the basket contains vegies, I don't think this photograph stands on its own very well, or, it just needs a more compelling subject. Maybe the subject (the basket) should have a bunch of vegies poking out from the top, maybe some brightly colored ones having some bright tones that would help balance the photograph with the light "22" marker. Maybe the crop is a bit too tight, but I am very often the only one in a group of 100 photographs who likes to include more in a photograph than less, i.e. I don't crop as much as I should perhaps.

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@alaska.net), April 03, 2000.

Joe and Tony, thanks for your responses. Id say this one was only as successful as what I learned from making it. I have really enjoyed thinking about it. I hope the doesnt break the rules, but I think the critique forum needs more words ;)

STORY This is in a community garden run by the King county parks department. Anyone who asks gets free use of a six by ten foot plot to grow vegetables or flowers. The growing season is over by February, and it didnt look to me like anyone had been in the garden for about a month. The only plants I found still in the ground were a rotting Brussels sprouts and some seedy cabbages. What was strange was that there were many tools abandoned and left out in the rain. A hand trowel and shovel, a rake and several Mason jars, this basket, and a barrow with "Pea Patch" painted on the side. I found a coffee can for a cheap brand of coffee they dont sell anymore. Really careless. Perhaps this park is in an affluent Seattle neighborhood where most of the people have gotten rich on software and dont need to grow food. The place smelled like disrespect. I walked over to the tool shed and pushed open the door. Inside a man was asleep on the floor.

PHOTOGRAPHY I decided to walk around the garden and take pictures of stuff without moving anything. Really, my objective was not to document the literal truth, because the truth was that this was just some litter tossed around a park. I have tried photographing objects (shoes, fruit, beer cans, the telephone) thoughtfully arranged on the carpet of my living room floor. In my case, the results always look lame and too formal. It just works better for me to keep my hands off the subject and on the camera. I have only admiration for the professionals that can magic sets and lighting to make any product or person look natural. I still just sort of hunt around for opportunities. It probably also would not have occurred to me to go get a woven basket and take it outside into the light of a stormy day. Maybe the practice I got here using selective focus and judging light (the sun was moving in and out of the clouds) will help me nail that great subject when it comes along. Because I scan all my pictures for the web, it has just seemed most practical to use a tight crop and relatively simple composition. Same reason for often choosing B&W rather than color, first I confess that I just dont understand color well , and the prospect of trying going from vision, to film, to scanned file, to computer monitor seems just too boggling . Although I do really like how B&W looks.

cheers

-- Mark Rovetta (1234hods@gte.net), April 04, 2000.