Crop it!

June 28, 2006 9:33 AM

Great photography...critiqued by pros noobs. via MeCha and matteo.
posted by loquacious (40 comments total)

I liked it. Very droll.
posted by gomichild at 9:38 AM on June 28, 2006

God damn that's funny.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:38 AM on June 28, 2006

[this is funny]
posted by slimepuppy at 9:44 AM on June 28, 2006

Hee.
posted by jack_mo at 9:53 AM on June 28, 2006

Oh, I SO loved this! Fun mischief. Made my morning. Reminded me of this thread. Thank you.
posted by nickyskye at 9:58 AM on June 28, 2006

That's hilarious.
posted by brundlefly at 10:06 AM on June 28, 2006

But its a one link post! Please view other FPP here on MetaFilter and try and emulate what they've done successfully. Then crop, of course.
- Hal9k [G5 500g HD, 2 Gig RAM, Epson printer]
posted by hal9k at 10:07 AM on June 28, 2006

this post would be better w/some suporting links
posted by alidarbac at 10:10 AM on June 28, 2006

Funny. Thanks!
posted by arcticwoman at 10:23 AM on June 28, 2006

i'm going to have to bow out of this thread before someone breaks my sarcasm detector!
posted by loquacious at 10:25 AM on June 28, 2006

Excellent... reminds me of DPChallenge.com
posted by BobsterLobster at 10:27 AM on June 28, 2006

enough with the blogspot fpp!
posted by empath at 10:33 AM on June 28, 2006

I like how the post is short and concies, but the strike-through throws off the balance, next time you might want to use the 'backspace' key, it's on the top right of your keyboard.
posted by blue_beetle at 10:36 AM on June 28, 2006

Sometimes I find if I shout right before I take the picture I can get people's attentions.

That got a laugh out of me.
posted by skallas at 10:37 AM on June 28, 2006

Usually it is best to focus on the closest object and most times the camera will choose the closest large object to focus on, but unfortunately not here.
posted by obvious at 10:38 AM on June 28, 2006

It would be funnier if it weren't so, so true.
posted by dw at 10:42 AM on June 28, 2006

This is so damn funny. Thank you!
posted by piratebowling at 10:51 AM on June 28, 2006

Try the Fuji
hah.
posted by bonaldi at 10:52 AM on June 28, 2006

One of the better blogs on photography. There are several follow-ups to this one which are worthy reading too. Funny and depressing all at the same time.
posted by Bovine Love at 10:54 AM on June 28, 2006

Mario's Bike on Flickr
posted by bonaldi at 11:02 AM on June 28, 2006

"Oh, I SO loved this! Fun mischief. Made my morning. Reminded me of this thread. Thank you."

Counterpoint: Just because something gets critiqued on the internet doesn't make it great art.

But yeah, good link.
posted by klangklangston at 11:11 AM on June 28, 2006

I find the responses fascinating.
posted by shoepal at 11:12 AM on June 28, 2006

I can imagine similar hilarity if you showed a gallery of Picassos to a group of small children, and record their reactions along the lines of "hey man nice try but your lines are all over the place, try starting with a guy standing in front of a house, and when you get that right you can try doing the sun in the corner with the rays, like this *shows own fingerpainting*"
posted by Rhomboid at 11:35 AM on June 28, 2006

It's a funny idea, but I'd say some of those comments are right on. Also, I couldn't tell for sure if the feedback was real or invented. I'm assuming real since that makes it better. I wish it was more clear though.
posted by willnot at 11:40 AM on June 28, 2006

Not real. There's a satire alert at the top of the page.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:41 AM on June 28, 2006

The Sam Abell critique was hilarious. Too bad he didn't do an Anne Geddes.
posted by Mitheral at 12:34 PM on June 28, 2006

Since everyone else did the sarcasm thing already, I'll just say thanks for posting this. Very cool. It sounds like it's funnier the more you know about photography, but it's hilarious even to the clueless.

I can't help but agree with the commenter who said he'd give an arm to have shot any of these. What spectacular images. Sam Abell's canoe picture caught my eye in particular... that's possibly the finest nature photo I've ever seen.
posted by Malor at 1:08 PM on June 28, 2006

Anne Geddes is a good photographer?
posted by djfiander at 1:34 PM on June 28, 2006

No, she's not. That's what would make it extra funny.
posted by noble_rot at 2:24 PM on June 28, 2006

...that is, because she follows all those crappy rules to a T, so her work is boring and pointless.

Plus all that sycophantic baby-mongering. Yeesh.
posted by noble_rot at 2:25 PM on June 28, 2006

She seems to appeal to some people.
posted by Mitheral at 2:30 PM on June 28, 2006

The joke's on them.
posted by DaShiv at 2:53 PM on June 28, 2006

I can imagine similar hilarity if you showed a gallery of Picassos to a group of small children, and record their reactions along the lines of "hey man nice try but your lines are all over the place, try starting with a guy standing in front of a house, and when you get that right you can try doing the sun in the corner with the rays, like this *shows own fingerpainting*"
posted by Rhomboid

That would be nothing like this.

And this was funny.
posted by justgary at 3:07 PM on June 28, 2006

One of the works critiqued was I think one of the first color photographs, this one ever taken. The critique is that it's not very sharp. And it's not. So I don't exactly see why it's funny someone would point that out. The picture would have looked a lot better taken with digital camera then with the first color film ever made.
posted by Paris Hilton at 3:36 PM on June 28, 2006

Focus is on Wrong End of horse obviously!!

My new catchphrase (complete with pseudo-Teutonic caps). Oh, and Paris, you're getting into the spirit!
posted by rob511 at 4:36 PM on June 28, 2006

Funny--I just did a glassy-eyed skim of the site and thought, And? Not having read the comments.

I arrived back here and feel obviously like the wrong end of the horse for missing the joke.

It would be a kick to have an Ansel Adams shot, and some dork advising him to "consider moving up to color."
posted by BillyElmore at 5:02 PM on June 28, 2006

Paris Hilton just broke my sarcasm detector.
posted by ook at 5:35 PM on June 28, 2006 [1 favorite]

This is brilliant. Assuming Paris Hilton wasn't being sarcastic...

The critique is that it's not very sharp. And it's not. So I don't exactly see why it's funny someone would point that out.

Because these sort of people value sharpness over...well, art. They've borrowed some illustrated books on photography from their local library, maybe gone to a night class on How To Get The Most Out Of Your Digital Camera, and have a predefined list in their head of "what makes a good photograph". But they can't see the forest for the trees. They're too busy rolling out the cliches (not in focus...poor exposure...bad crop...subject isn't looking towards the camera) to notice that, hey, the image actually looks really good despite breaking the rules.

And great art does break the rules. Complaining that this shot is "fuzzy" would be like complaining that Monet fails to capture fine detail, or telling The Beatles to turn their damn guitars down. The sure sign of a grumpy wanna-be. People who make these sorts of comments, or the hilarious ones on the Mario's Bike Flickr post, are doomed to a life of submitting bland shots to iStockPhoto and calling themselves artists.
posted by Jimbob at 11:18 PM on June 28, 2006

And one of the many things that defines fine art - in relation to breaking the rules - is that you really, really need to know the so-called rules intimately before you can intentionally and purposefully break them or manipulate them.

The misguided may argue tha this statement either limits experimentation, rawness or is self-contridicting, but it's not.

Experimentation, play and practice is an essential component of any art, and it's how you discover "the rules" and boundaries to begin with.

This also doesn't limit the role of serendipity, chance or luck in art, for they play their own rules as well.
posted by loquacious at 11:35 PM on June 28, 2006

Goodness, the Mario's Bike on Flickr thread is priceless (as much for the knowing crowing of those who seem to think that because a photograph is by Cartier-Bresson it must be great as it is for the 'next time, use a tripod' gang).

A chap there nails the problem with these technical fetishists, though:

The scary thing is that while Bresson's photographs maybe more than 60 years old to the amateur photography savage trapped in the backwater of pictorialism they still represent the incomprehensible and the avant-garde.

posted by jack_mo at 1:56 AM on June 29, 2006