New home

Considering this site's terms of use mentioned below, I moved the journal to my own site. Please visit at this new address:

Guy Tal Photography

Guy

Bear with me

Having realized it's silly to have a photography journal with no photographs in it, I'm working with my ISP to migrate my service to a plan that will allow me to host it myself. I'll post a new link here when it's all set up.

Thanks for your patience!
Guy

Webshots is using your work to boost their traffic!

Take a look at this page:

http://www.webshots.com/search?query=Scenic+scenic+scenic

My name does not show on the page but if you check the page source my name is listed in there, along with (copyrighted) text scraped from my home page.

Looks like Webshots uses a script that rips data from various sites and embeds it in their HTML so that a search for my name or web site brings up results pointing to their pages offering competing images.

I am looking into the legality of this practice and will post updates when I have more definitive answers. In the mean time - spread the word. If nothing else this is a despicable tactic.

You can follow other people's similar experiences and responses here.

Guy

Art Buzzword Du'Jour: Accessible

Some people consider artists an elite group, living among the glitterati, sipping fine wine at gallery openings, and generating obscure concoctions to sell at absurd prices. This perception is mostly prevalent among these same artists.

Every few years a new trend permeates these conservative estates of the art elite. Those practicing or espousing it are considered daring, edgy, and outrageous. Of course for most of us these cutting edge infractions are about as outrageous as saying "poo" in front of grandma but in some circles even the smallest display of non-conformism qualifies as vastly more interesting than the norm.

Imagine the horror in past years as some perfectly respectable artists declared they wanted to make their art more accessible to the masses, both in terms of presenting it in places where people are free to enter and experience it for little or no cost, and sometimes even in terms of "dumbing down" and simplifying their creations so mere mortals can find them meaningful.

Don't believe me? Just Google the terms "making art accessible" or "accessible art".

Since the dawn of humanity art had been and continues to be created by people in all rungs of society and all walks of life. Talent and creativity have nothing to do with social status. Some of the most celebrated (and valuable) art you can find today was created by people who could barely afford a good meal. Amazing art is found in mountain caves and alcoves in the deserts, sold for pennies on street corners in the most oppressed niches of our world, and often created by people who couldn't define "post modern" to save their lives.

Federico Fellini said that all art is autobiographical. If your art is at a point where you feel it needs to be "made more accessible", you may also want to consider the lifestyle choices that got you there in the first place. An artist who is in tune with his audience should never find themselves in a position where their work is anything but accessible.

"A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession." --Albert Camus

Guy

New article published

My latest article: "In the Name of All That is Good / On the Roles of the Artist, the Activist, and the Critic" has been published this morning as part of my "Essential Landscape" column on Nature Photographers Online Magazine.

You can read it here.

Comments always welcome.

Guy

Site update

Some new images added. More to come in the next couple of weeks.

I'm also experimenting with Zoomify which I plan to use for some images to showcase the degree of detail. Here's an example:

Bryce Panorama

You will need Flash version 9 or higher (I think) to view it.

Feedback is always welcome.

Guy

The Three Essentials of Composition

The amount of questions and opinions on visual composition is just staggering. Almost every day the topic comes up in some forum, followed by discussions that often persist for days and before long lose their original intent.

Often I hear thoughts on the need for books or classes to teach this elusive skill. I have no doubt such books are out there and more are in the works but I suspect most will simply cover some basic principles, then proceed with examples and fine-tuning because when you think about it, two things become apparent:

1. The basic concepts are really very simple.
2. The final result is as much about personal taste and creativity as it is about technique, and these cannot really be taught or learned in any kind of formal training.
   

Sure, there's a multitude of theories about golden ratios, Fibonacci numbers, Feng Shui and who knows what else. I'm sure they all have some bearing on the impact of the end result but I think it's a chicken-and-egg situation. You can either plan by these principles and come up with a composition, or you can find a composition that satisfies you and perhaps more often than not it might fit within these theories. The former approach implies a rigid workflow, calculation, and limiting of your options. I wouldn't want to work like that in the field. My method is to visualize something interesting, set it up on the ground glass or finder and make the one call: does it work or not.

So, for those curious, here's my current take on what composition is all about. Composition in landscape photography is about 3 things (how simple is that?):

1. Framing. This is your most important decision - what stays in the frame and what is left out. Most failed compositions I see don't take sufficient care in this simple task. Leaving out important detail will leave your viewer wondering what exactly you had in mind, while elements that do not contribute to the image, generally distract from it.
2. Perspective. Or, as Ansel Adams said it: "good photography is about knowing where to stand". Don't just reach for the camera when you see something interesting. Take the time to find the best place to compose it from (perspective is the relationship between your camera's position and the things you are photographing). Consider where the best foreground, mid-ground, and background can be found, as well as where the fewest disractions exist (see #1 above).
3. Balance. You have the right elements in the frame, you kept the distractions out, you found the most favorable perspective, now consider the relationships within the frame. Are things distributed well? Is one side more interesting than the other? Are important elements given due prominence? Does the frame as a whole look interesting and cohesive?

That's it. Click.

Guy