What do you think?
Canice sent me this photo to ask me what I thought. As usual, I like to show what the person said so that others that might be feeling the same thing, or have gone through similar situations can read what was said. Here’s what Canice had to say:
Hi Joe,
Attached is an image I took the last night we were in Sienna during the workshop. You now know why I was late for the last supper !!!
You will recall the square was packed that night and we had arranged to meet up for our final meal on the last night. I had worked my way around the square and figured that if I went up one of the streets leading off the square I might get a shot of some people leaving the square with the sun back lighting them. I hear a lot of photography experts criticizing photos because they say there is no way any highlights should be blown. This has me confused because in this image I feel that the blown highlights on the hair make the image much stronger, What do you think?”
Canice, If I had a dollar for every time I had a fellow photography taking my online class with the BPSOP, or in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshop I conduct around the planet, tell me that he or she were told by so called “photography experts” to never blow out highlights, I would be sitting by my pool right now, on my island waiting for my French maid to bring me another cocktail. Something blue and frothy with an umbrella hanging perilously from one side.
In my opinion, you should stay as far away from these self appointed experts…why? Because they will lead you down a one-way path…straight down to the burning fires of mediocrity.
WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE, AND WHY ARE THEY CONSIDERED EXPERTS????? If I were Emma Lazarus, and I were also a photographer, I might have written this on the Statue of Liberty for my fellow photographers, not just for the immigrants coming to America:
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled photographers yearning to breath free from of all these silly rules. The wretched refuse of your teeming shores. Send these, the narrow thinking photography experts, to me:
I lift my lamp besides the blown out golden door.”
Ok, I digress a tad!!!
I really like your photo!!! I’ll usually go out of my way to backlight something. I’ll also try to blow out the highlights since like you I think it adds a different dimension to it; a dimension filled with Visual Tension and Energy.
Canice, if you remember, some of the ways to generate Visual Tension is the use of light, contrast, and capturing a moment in time and leaving it un-completed. In your photo, you have all three. If i were you I would continue up your dedicated path to glory!!!
Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and follow me on Instagram: www.instagram.com/barabanjoe. Check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. come shoot with me.
JoeB
