On Jan 27, 2011, at 7:28 AM, Bruce Walker wrote: > On 11-01-27 12:23 AM, Larry Colen wrote: >> On Jan 26, 2011, at 4:16 PM, Bruce Walker wrote: >> > > You and I differ on a definition then. I define lack of clarity by all of the > antonyms of clarity. You define lack of clarity as simply unsharp.
That is part of it, and the other part is perhaps a disconnect between what you're saying, and what I'm hearing. You say that clarity is not necessary, and I hear that as you're saying that nothing in the photo needs to be clear. What I'm saying is that in *most* photos, something needs to be clear. While a couple of your examples didn't have anything that was sharp, even they had enough clarity to easily recognize the road and the trees. I am certainly not saying that nothing in the picture can be blurred. As a matter of fact, in one of the photos that I'm almost certainly going to submit to the annual: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/4603493834/in/set-72157625712393314/ I don't think that there is anything in the picture that is perfectly sharp, although I think it would be slightly stronger if the things that were nearly so, actually were perfectly sharp, as much of the appeal of the photo is the contrast between the clarity of stationary objects in the field of focus, and the lack of clarity of everything else. What I suspect that you really mean is not that nothing in the photo needs to be clear, but that not everything in the photo needs to be clear. While I'm saying that while not everything in the photo needs to be clear, the fast majority of the time, something does. In other words, you and I seem to be in violent agreement on this. > >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/silentrunning/3609986922 >> The leading edge of the flower, right in the center of the screen, is in >> perfectly sharp focus, and the razor thin depth of field lends depth to the >> photo. >> >> All of these photos critically depend on at least one element of sharpness >> to make them work. > > Yes, agreed, there is *some* sharpness there, and it's critical where it > appears. Yes, that's what I said. > > But you are fixating on sharpness as the single measure of clarity, and I > maintain that reduced clarity covers more ground than merely a lack of > sharpness. It also covers gloom and shadows, low contrast and haze, > distortion and noise. (It could even include obscured meaning of the image, > but I'm *not* going there. ) I was indeed misunderstanding your definition of clarity, which I find amusing. > > Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that clarity is /not/ good, or that > clarity is /never/ necessary. I'm saying that there are excellent photos, and > not just a few exceptions, that are low or very low on clarity. For another > example, take the very large body of work of the Pictorialists. Look at The > Black Bowl here ... > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictorialism If you don't define clarity as sharpness, but rather the opposite of obscuring, then I'd say that it is very clear what various elements in the photo are, and that if the woman's face and jewelry were blurred to unrecognizability (a complete lack of clarity), then the picture would not work. I think that the point that we're in violent agreement on is that clarity (not necessarily sharpness) is a tool, and that is critical that a photograph have the right amount of it in order to work. I think that it's critical to recognize that clarity is an analog value, not a boolean one, and there's a range between zero clarity and 100% clarity. > > You've heard of the Group f/64? Where sharpness is _everything_? I am not > those guys. :-) > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_f/64 When I first heard about them, in my early teens, I considered them as an ideal to aspire to. But at one point I sort of felt the same way about orthodox jews too. > > > Lots to think about anyway. Larry, thanks for inspiring this exploration. I agree. I've been having fun with this. -- Larry Colen l...@red4est.com sent from i4est -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
