April, 2009 - FirstView Comments

[Hotblack]

I spent all morning sat on a decking by a pond doing course work and taking photos with a 400mm lens. The Mallard shot is a true reflection of my day. What's the problem?

I don't think there's a problem but wouldn't a shot of your course work (however boring) have been a truer reflection of your day?

Just askin'. Not critcisin'.
And like I can talk. I haven't contributed for several months.

[OneTen]

I think it's p*ss poor if we have to justify our shots for first view and loses the point for me. Should we be running Crap View instead where the whole point is to take a crap photo?

[spinno]

I think it's p*ss poor if we have to justify our shots for first view and loses the point for me. Should we be running Crap View instead where the whole point is to take a crap photo?

I'd win every month......no sorry mine are rubbish not carp....

[Hotblack]

I didn't say 'crap' I said 'boring'. And as most people's lives tend to be mundane isn't that a better reflection of what FirstView is all about rather than fantastic shots? It is in my view anyway. FirstView is about documenting ordinary everyday experience, not making something up to make things look better than they really are.

Maybe my photos were crap. They were certainly boring, but that was (for me anyway) more a part of my day and a reflection of what I was doing.

[OneTen]

Surely the point is that it doesn't have to be boring, if someone happens to be doing something interesting then that is as valid. This being a photography forum, I would suggest it's reasonable to expect someone to be doing some photography on the first of the month. Isn't that just as valid too?

[Hotblack]

Surely the point is that it doesn't have to be boring, if someone happens to be doing something interesting then that is as valid. This being a photography forum, I would suggest it's reasonable to expect someone to be doing some photography on the first of the month. Isn't that just as valid too?

Yes, to a certain degree but the day's experience is going out photographing, not the actual shot; so a shot of the setup is IMHO more valid than the shot achieved. As I said before, FirstView is about documenting everyday life in all its boring mundanity. That's the whole point of the exercise.

A shot of say..... for instance... a mallard landing on water has a certain validity.....but then I never said it wasn't valid in the first place. However, IMO a shot of your course work, for all that it's boring, has more validity for the project then a shot of the mallard.

[huwevans]

I'm going to comment here, but let me stress first that I'm commenting purely as just another participant, rather than in any definitive capacity.

I happen to agree with both of you. I genuinely think both approaches are valid, and taken over time, help to buid up a more complete picture. Now, I do think that if a person was, let's say, a landscape photographer by profession (I don't think we've got any of those, so I'm probably on safe ground ), and each month they only submitted a landscape shot that they'd produced that day, then it wouldn't give a complete picture over time. A shot of a pair of muddy boots, or the pile of litter they'd collected, or the bacon butty and cup of tea in the cafe after an early morning shoot, or even the laptop, reviewing shots at the end of the day, would be more expressive and revealing about their life than the beautiful landscapes they were producing, month after month.

But at the same time, if they only ever gave us the mundane shots and never showed us what it was that motivated them to get up at 4am and go out into the gloom day after day, then equally we wouldn't have the whole picture.

So I think both are necessary over time. And it is important to see FirstView as a project that builds over time - one picture can't say very much about a person's life (or, indeed, about the validity of their interpretation of FirstView!), but ten years' worth of one picture, every first of the month - that can show a great deal. And whilst most of our lives are probably mundane and routine most of the time, I think we should also sometimes expect to see something a bit more special.

The problem, if there is one - and I'm speaking here with my FirstView organizer's hat back on again - is that you can't really judge in individual cases. As I said earlier, one gets the impression sometimes that there are more picturesque, photogenic-type of shots than you might expect to see on average, if people were really just documenting their daily lives, without any deliberate attempt to 'prettify' them for public consumption in the FirstView project. And I honestly don't think there's anything much that can be done about that. We have to allow for the fact that the participants are the only ones who can judge in their own case, and they have to be allowed to interpret the brief for themselves, to a large extent.

My hope - and I think this has largely been borne out over the last couple of years, is that people will fall more and more into line with the general ethos of FirstView, even if perhaps they have a tendency to miss the point in the early stages. And I'd also like to suggest that even though we've been going since the beginning of 2007, it's still quite early days. If someone asked me if FirstView was succeeding as a project, I'd probably want to say, "ask me again in ten years' time." In the same vein, if someone asked me if I thought that so and so was correctly interpreting the brief, I'd say don't look at one picture - look at their pictures from ten or twenty months, at least.

[bench_ubbster]

I should have read these comments before submitting mine ! I was on holiday and our cottage was just inland from Doyden point (where the picture was taken), Port Quin and quite frankly everywhere round the area was so picturesque. Even a novice such as myself couldn't fail to capture some of the beauty of the place (even with quite flat light at 3pm).

I did capture another image on this walk but that is destined for another forum [img]/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[zx9]

I did capture another image on this walk but that is destined for another forum [img]/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

I was having a poor time with my Alpine Bench Hunt......................... UNTILL THE LAST DAY

[IvorETower]

Bench hut or beach hut ???

[zx9]

Bench hut or beach hut ???

Hunt as in go looking for something, in this case benches in the Alps, I got distracted by some great snow and sun. Though I did take a few mountain hut shots.

[huwevans]

The picture thread is now closed, but if you've got a late entry just pm me. As always, my thanks to everyone who participated.

[parisian]

I hope that most folk actually carry a camera with them on most days. That being the case the majority will see Huw's reminders that 'first view' day is coming up and, I think, quite naturally will look for a shot worth posting.
Few of us blindly snap away and I would hope that a little thought goes into our work; the extra knowledge that the shots taken that day could be for public consumption perhaps makes us try a little harder?

[ermintrude]

I hope that most folk actually carry a camera with them on most days. That being the case the majority will see Huw's reminders that 'first view' day is coming up and, I think, quite naturally will look for a shot worth posting.
Few of us blindly snap away and I would hope that a little thought goes into our work; the extra knowledge that the shots taken that day could be for public consumption perhaps makes us try a little harder?

I always have a compact on me but I dont 'try a little harder' for First View. As I go through the day if something happens that I think says something about my day Ill snap it, or Ill just snap away anyway at what I see/do. Then at the end of the day Ill look over the shots and pick the one that I think says most about my day. But they are only snaps, I dont 'try harder' and set things up or perfectly expose them or anything.

[TheFatControlleR]

I always have a compact on me but I dont 'try a little harder' for First View. As I go through the day if something happens that I think says something about my day Ill snap it, or Ill just snap away anyway at what I see/do. Then at the end of the day Ill look over the shots and pick the one that I think says most about my day. But they are only snaps, I dont 'try harder' and set things up or perfectly expose them or anything.

Ditto, though no compact - unless I happen to have SWMBO Nikon on me. Mine are generally poor quality Nokia shots, occasionally I might happen to have my own camera with me.

I tend to treat FirstView as an adjunct to my own vision (as in eye/goggles) - if I could blink and capture an instant in my day then that's what I'd do, as it is I just take a moment to put a camera to my eye and grab a shot, no thoughts on aesthetics or technical competence (much like my 'photography' ).

[Barney]

I'm crap at remembering to take a shot on FirstView days, but I'm even worse at getting around to posting them.