|
This well
regarded and successful picture was taken by David Trout LRPS,
President of the Society at the time, in October2010. It
helped him win the prestige Valente Cup competition in that
year and was part of his Licentiateship panel in 2011 as well
as being accepted in numerous international salons. It seems
there was not completely universal praise for it though…
We’ve all taken
pictures we really like but no one else gets excited by them.
And then there are those we think are just okay but our
friends all say: “That’s a winner”. Best of all are those we
are really pleased with and nearly everyone else agrees. I say
nearly everyone because you never get 100 per cent agreement
on the merits of a photograph as picture appreciation is such
a personal thing.
However this is
one image that I liked and so did quite a few other people.
It formed part
of my trio of winning pictures in the 2010 Valente Cup
competition, and was entered in my Licentiate panel for the
Royal Photographic Society in June 2011. It was the only black
and white image in a set of ten photos. It was also included
by the RPS in their 2011 International Projected Images
Exhibition and has been accepted in other salons.
But it wasn’t
received with universal praise by the small group of
photographers from several countries for whom it was taken. In
2010 I was invited by a group of about ten photographers from
the Pentax User Forum to join their new break away group
because they were seeking a more critical approach to
photography than you will ever get in a large forum.
Each month we
vote on a subject – usually something that is well outside the
comfort zone of the members. The idea is to shake us all up
into doing some photography of the kind we wouldn’t normally
bother with. At the end of the month a single shot from each
person is voted into the portfolio.
In October 2010
the subject was Out of Focus; not camera shake or fuzziness
due to incompetence but deliberate use of soft focus for
artistic effect. Nearly all the entries were subjected to the
third degree. Pictures were either too out of focus to make
any sort of sense or they weren’t out of focus enough.
Over the years
several of my favourite pictures have been taken while
relaxing over coffee including a series of street photos I did
through the window of a café in Oxford during a torrential
rainstorm in 2009. This one was taken in The Sage at Gateshead
while I tried to dream up ideas for the out of focus project.
My coffee cup was empty and as I dreamt on I noticed the legs
of people walking by. The idea clicked to get the coffee cup
sharply in focus and blur the legs by both differential
focusing and movement. The result looked much better in mono
than colour.
The verdict from
my international friends: ‘The coffee cup and table top are
too sharp and the legs not blurred enough’. You can’t win can
you? Still, it’s done OK elsewhere.
Pentax K10D,
1/60th @f8, ISO 200, focal length 34 mm.”
David Trout
|
