[Experimental Work] The Cutest Girl I Have Ever Met ~ Tania Z.

[John Kok]

Hello everyone, my name is John, I am an experimental photographer

I am not sure if this thread belongs here ... i dont know where to put it

Nyways well, this is Tania, shes likely to be the cutest girl ever =)

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Constructive C & C welcome

Sorry about the small pictures, got bigger ones here


Artistically Scientific Side of Things

Please allow me the opportunity to share about my actual experimental work.

As an artist, my work is about expressing a person’s character using impressions generated from photos and words and piecing them together to form a bigger picture.

Rather than on a per-picture basis, kindly consider my work through an overall point of view.

Full lengths of my experimental works can be found here

I would be grateful for any feedback at all as they are valuable for my experiment’s progress.

Thank you =)

[Gavin van Dam]

Don't know how to call this, but considering it's your 1st post and the content of the linked sites... it seems like SPAM to me (even though I do like the J-POP style images)

[John Kok]

Don't know how to call this, but considering it's your 1st post and the content of the linked sites... it seems like SPAM to me (even though I do like the J-POP style images)

err .... lol i dont know how to take your comment ...

thank you i guess ...

thing is, i have 55 photos in this set and its impossible for me to show them all here, even if I could, i would worry about preserving the original idea of the set because of the layout since my work is on a macro scale rather on a per photo basis .. to consider my work means we have to take the whole set into consideration then only we can make sense of the whole picture ..

I hope you understand what i am trying to say lol

plus well, i am in need of feedback to progress my experiment further, please help me

[Gavin van Dam]

My apologies... just seemed a bit odd as a 1st post, almost like advertising.

[SimonDP]

For now we'll accept the OP as sincere in his approach, the links are valid and not spamming. Comments on the gallery as a whole are invited, but only that and nothing more.

[John Kok]

My apologies... just seemed a bit odd as a 1st post, almost like advertising.

No worries mate =)

Well, I will be lying if I tell you I am not promoting my art ... I really want people to see it

What is the use of art if there is no one to see it ?


What I seek here is an intellectual discussion about my artwork, this is very important to the progress of my experimental work

[ThomasBehrens]

Hey John, I followed your link to Famecherry and although I really enjoyed some of the individual pic's you took, I unfortunatly did not get the whole picture. My gilrfriend on the other hand loved it, which has lead to a debate on how subjective art really is and I am now being dragged to an art exibition this week-end when I would rather be watching rugby
Thomas

[John Kok]

Hey John, I followed your link to Famecherry and although I really enjoyed some of the individual pic's you took, I unfortunatly did not get the whole picture. My gilrfriend on the other hand loved it, which has lead to a debate on how subjective art really is and I am now being dragged to an art exibition this week-end when I would rather be watching rugby
Thomas

Thank you =) I am glad you like some of my pictures

I also happen to realize that women tend to love my artwork more than men XD

I am so flattered ! What did you girlfriend say ? haha

[Corlie]

beautiful girl and great pics.Love it)

[Johann van Rensburg]

Just for the sake of keeping the discussion relevant in one thread:

I looked at the links you posted and found a lot of the stuff quite inspiring and refreshing. Certainly something many other photographers may find of interest.
I will therefore give you the benefit of the doubt for now.

What I would like to know more about is your project - as you called it - "living life to the fullest" if memory serves correct.
As you stated, one needs to see the whole collection to "see" the concept.
I saw many shots I really liked from a technical point of view, but somehow the theme does not come through strongly.
To my mind a title as you have given it needs to be very visible in the collection.

Indeed, my artwork is about combining all of the impressions from of all of the photos of the model. In this set I have 50 photos, all displayed in a specific format arranged to simulate the layout of a Triptych but modified to for website publish

My experiment is about being able to accurately express a person using this means.

In my shoots, I capture my subjects exactly as they as despite what she says about herself and what she does in the pictures.

I do not provide any direction nor contaminate the subject with my influence nor point of view.

Everything in the photos, everything in each word and sentence belongs to the subject and none of mine.

I feel that this is what distinguish me and my peers as my artwork has a sense of unbiased realism.

All of this raw data is completely up to the audience to process and interpret to their content =D

But of course, I must constantly work hard on my technical skills as a photographer to improve the presentation of my work to make it better. But this is the general idea =)

As for the background and place i choose, this sort of captures an element of fate to my work. Its like it is fate that we have to shoot at this place at this particular moment ( i hope i am making sense )

As for the title itself I use the model's personal motto to use as a title is because I feel that a person's personal statement to the world strikes the first tune of any possible melody a person may share to the world, metaphorically of course ;-)

Please let me know your thoughts ! =)

[John Kok]

beautiful girl and great pics.Love it)

I am really glad that you enjoy my work =)

Just for the sake of keeping the discussion relevant in one thread:

thank you =)

[Forgiss - Sean Nel]

Hey John,

I like what you were attempting here. It's a bit difficult to convey the story you are trying to tell in a forum context like this one... actually, in a digital age, this is going to be a problem for you in all new mediums with limitless space (unlike a gallery where there are just soo many walls) but limited viewability (unlike a gallery where your eye can be lead to the next image that tells the next part of the story)

As to the images itself... (my personal opinion about the shots and concept)

Your close-up controlled work seems quite good... good exposure control, good positioning, good lighting, but as soon as you go to location, the "look" of the images do not match the previous ones. I don't think they specifically need to match, but then the transfer from one style to the next needs to be better linked to make the "story" more continuous.

You can also see that the model's poses stopped being natural and became more posed (I don't know if this was on purpose or if she was just getting tired?)

Anyhoo... I think you will have it down in a few more shoots.

[John Kok]

Hey John,

I like what you were attempting here. It's a bit difficult to convey the story you are trying to tell in a forum context like this one... actually, in a digital age, this is going to be a problem for you in all new mediums with limitless space (unlike a gallery where there are just soo many walls) but limited viewability (unlike a gallery where your eye can be lead to the next image that tells the next part of the story)

As to the images itself... (my personal opinion about the shots and concept)

Your close-up controlled work seems quite good... good exposure control, good positioning, good lighting, but as soon as you go to location, the "look" of the images do not match the previous ones. I don't think they specifically need to match, but then the transfer from one style to the next needs to be better linked to make the "story" more continuous.

You can also see that the model's poses stopped being natural and became more posed (I don't know if this was on purpose or if she was just getting tired?)

Anyhoo... I think you will have it down in a few more shoots.

Hello =)

Thank you !

Yes indeed, I am currently thinking of ways to overcome the limits or at least make viewing my work more efficient

Yes, what you say makes sense .. hmm ...

Does that mean for the story to be more continuous I should choose a background which is at least in harmony with the other shots ?

Perhaps, or maybe it was even me who was getting tired XD

How can I make my full body shots more natural ? Any techniques that I can try ?

Thank you for your kind encouragement =)

[Forgiss - Sean Nel]

Does that mean for the story to be more continuous I should choose a background which is at least in harmony with the other shots ?

How can I make my full body shots more natural ? Any techniques that I can try ?

No, not worried about the background... more the lighting techniques itself... [I think] you are trying to get a "day in the life" of feeling to your shots? easiest way to do that is to shoot at similiar camera settings through the range... so if you shoot shallow DOF at the beginning, go through with that to the end... if you use bounced flash, keep on bouncing...

It's easy to break appart the set of images at the end of the shoot, so its not really fair. I wasn't there and I don't know what was your limitations on the day... one big thing for me is to keep highlight exposure more or less stable on skin tones (there is more than a stop difference on some images) which makes some images look a bit washed out and not as vibrant as others...

[dexxxter]

i love the closeup work. brings a completely new look at pictures for me.

very nice work

[John Kok]

i love the closeup work. brings a completely new look at pictures for me.

very nice work

Thank you very much ! =) I am glad if my work has served a purpose

No, not worried about the background... more the lighting techniques itself... [I think] you are trying to get a "day in the life" of feeling to your shots? easiest way to do that is to shoot at similiar camera settings through the range... so if you shoot shallow DOF at the beginning, go through with that to the end... if you use bounced flash, keep on bouncing...

It's easy to break appart the set of images at the end of the shoot, so its not really fair. I wasn't there and I don't know what was your limitations on the day... one big thing for me is to keep highlight exposure more or less stable on skin tones (there is more than a stop difference on some images) which makes some images look a bit washed out and not as vibrant as others...

You are absolutely right

I also seem to have a problem with keeping a same white balance throughout my set

is there a good way or method to standardize my exposure and white balance ?

[Forgiss - Sean Nel]

...is there a good way or method to standardize my exposure and white balance ?

Colour charts/targets or grey cards should do the job just fine

[John Kok]

Colour charts/targets or grey cards should do the job just fine

Thank you, I shall investigate

[Surly Ghillie]

What I seek here is an intellectual discussion about my artwork, this is very important to the progress of my experimental work

well i hope you mean that sincerely and won't respond with a bunch of hurt feelings and angst:

Here goes ~

John your work is cool. I cannot agree that there is anything particularly experimental about the body of work as a whole. All you are doing is re-exploring an ancient tradition (which is very cool all on it's own). Fundamentally you are doing photographic essays ; on individual, on character and on personality. Cool challenge to attempt to express it visually (pictures and word pictures combined) very creative but there is nothing here sufficiently unique, neither in genre, or photographic technique, use of language, or in conceptualisation, which hasn't been done before. I am not knocking or trying to discredit, but my comprehension says that to call yourself an EXPERIMENTAL ARTIST" would require of you an element of uniqueness in approach and execution that I don't see here. some very exporable visual essays I will grant, but I suggest you go and look at Fiona's work in the Studio and Visual Impact galleries here. She and others in those galleries could perhaps make that claim; that they practise EXPERIMENTAL ART.

You?..... not yet my youthfull Jeddi..... it's too big a claim for what really is a nice-ish portfolio of pics and writings, that are certainly more than readable (for which; well done and showing much promise), but sorry, they do not open any perceptual doors that have not creaked open on rusty hinges since forever. BTW I agree that the difference in quality between your close up and wide location shots lends a certain disjointedness to the whole.

hope you take the crit in the spirit it is offered?