All of these have a subject: the composition itself comprises a subject. A grocery store, a parade of wine growers - you can absolutely name a subject for all of these. I am on the fence as to whether the whole of the composition will be allowed to comprise a subject.
you don't think these photos have multiple points of interest? yes, the "subject" is the scene itself, but there isn't one single thing within the scene which could be called the subject. For you it's the grocery store, for me it's guy in back with the Santa hat, for someone else it's the expression on the face of the sales woman - all collectively forming an interesting scene. No lead lines, no rule of thirds, no shallow dof singling anything out, no selective desat making something obvious .... just an awesome image.
Originally posted by karmabreeze:
Originally posted by hopper:
JJ's the master at it :)
All of these have a subject: the composition itself comprises a subject. A grocery store, a parade of wine growers - you can absolutely name a subject for all of these. I am on the fence as to whether the whole of the composition will be allowed to comprise a subject.
I think that "subject" and "points of interest" are different things, and one of those two items isn't mentioned anywhere in the challenge description. I doubt I'll take that hardline stance, as I rarely do take a hardline stance on challenge interpretation, but it's a thought to throw out there for those who might not otherwise consider it - because you know there will be that contingent.
Originally posted by hopper:
you don't think these photos have multiple points of interest? yes, the "subject" is the scene itself, but there isn't one single thing within the scene which could be called the subject. For you it's the grocery store, for me it's guy in back with the Santa hat, for someone else it's the expression on the face of the sales woman - all collectively forming an interesting scene. No lead lines, no rule of thirds, no shallow dof singling anything out, no selective desat making something obvious .... just an awesome image.
Originally posted by karmabreeze:
Originally posted by hopper:
JJ's the master at it :)
All of these have a subject: the composition itself comprises a subject. A grocery store, a parade of wine growers - you can absolutely name a subject for all of these. I am on the fence as to whether the whole of the composition will be allowed to comprise a subject.
So if there is no major element, you can clone whatever you want. Or since no element is the major element, maybe you can't clone anything. I'm so confused. This is the Seinfeld challenge.
If I understand the challenge correctly, the last two fits the challenge better than the first one. I think the first one has a rather strong subject present in the photo but it's situated in such a way that it is minimized somewhat but not completely removed. If that makes sense. :)
OK, so help me understand how "the composition itself comprises a subject" ... I guess I don't understand. Also, please help me understand the difference between "subject" and "point of interest" within a photograph.
Thank you
Originally posted by karmabreeze:
I think that "subject" and "points of interest" are different things, and one of those two items isn't mentioned anywhere in the challenge description. I doubt I'll take that hardline stance, as I rarely do take a hardline stance on challenge interpretation, but it's a thought to throw out there for those who might not otherwise consider it - because you know there will be that contingent.
Originally posted by hopper:
you don't think these photos have multiple points of interest? yes, the "subject" is the scene itself, but there isn't one single thing within the scene which could be called the subject. For you it's the grocery store, for me it's guy in back with the Santa hat, for someone else it's the expression on the face of the sales woman - all collectively forming an interesting scene. No lead lines, no rule of thirds, no shallow dof singling anything out, no selective desat making something obvious .... just an awesome image.
Originally posted by karmabreeze:
Originally posted by hopper:
JJ's the master at it :)
All of these have a subject: the composition itself comprises a subject. A grocery store, a parade of wine growers - you can absolutely name a subject for all of these. I am on the fence as to whether the whole of the composition will be allowed to comprise a subject.
OK, so help me understand how "the composition itself comprises a subject" ... I guess I don't understand. Also, please help me understand the difference between "subject" and "point of interest" within a photograph.
I am not sure how valid a distinction, or rather how useful a distinction, that is. But nevertheless, imagine a completely abstract photograph that nevertheless has "composition" to it; it has some sort of a flow, some sort of visual interest. This image essentially has no "subject" in the sense that we usually think of it; in a "conventional" photo, there is subject and there is ground, there is some degree of duality, and in this imaginary abstract photograph the entire image is either all "ground" or all "subject", depending how you choose to define it. THAT is a clear-cut "subjectless photograph". The example I posted earlier Of ripples on the water would come close to this, except that it is not entirely "abstract", int he sense that the image is recognizably OF water, see?
Now imagine a closeup of a person's face, perhaps a very old person with lost of character lines. Imagine that the image includes the eyes. You can see how the eyes would very likely become the subject of the image, and the highly-textured skin itself would be the "ground", and we have a subject/ground duality that makes the image not truly be "subjectless". The same image cropped not to include the eyes would undoubtedly lack this subject/ground duality, and be truly subjectless, even though it is clear to us that it is a picture OF skin.
We don't need to get really hung up on this, because in the end the voters will establish the parameters of this particular challenge, and who can predict what they will do? But it's nonetheless obviously a very intriguing challenge, for the simple reason that so many people seem to be caught off-guard by it, meaning that it will be a challenge that causes many people to look at the whole idea of composition a little differently than they have been; and this is a Good Thing; it's a potential learning experience.
Buried early in the Landscape Learning Thread, in a post dated 4/07/2006 at 1:08:44 PM, is an "assignment" for "Landscape Without Subject", and we continued on discussing that for quite a while after, so this might provide some useful background for how people feel about this, although it's admittedly tailored around my particular perceptions of the topic.
The thing of it is, in DPC we tend to heavily favor images with clearcut, definable, appealing subjects in a very conventional compositional sense, but it's nevertheless true that REALLY nice photos can be created that don't rely so heavily on this approach, and that's what the challenge is about.
You can describe a cohesive scene in a single word or phrase - that's the subject.
Originally posted by hopper:
OK, so help me understand how "the composition itself comprises a subject" ... I guess I don't understand. Also, please help me understand the difference between "subject" and "point of interest" within a photograph.
Thank you
Originally posted by karmabreeze:
I think that "subject" and "points of interest" are different things, and one of those two items isn't mentioned anywhere in the challenge description. I doubt I'll take that hardline stance, as I rarely do take a hardline stance on challenge interpretation, but it's a thought to throw out there for those who might not otherwise consider it - because you know there will be that contingent.
Originally posted by hopper:
you don't think these photos have multiple points of interest? yes, the "subject" is the scene itself, but there isn't one single thing within the scene which could be called the subject. For you it's the grocery store, for me it's guy in back with the Santa hat, for someone else it's the expression on the face of the sales woman - all collectively forming an interesting scene. No lead lines, no rule of thirds, no shallow dof singling anything out, no selective desat making something obvious .... just an awesome image.
Originally posted by karmabreeze:
Originally posted by hopper:
JJ's the master at it :)
All of these have a subject: the composition itself comprises a subject. A grocery store, a parade of wine growers - you can absolutely name a subject for all of these. I am on the fence as to whether the whole of the composition will be allowed to comprise a subject.
