The GetDPI Photography Forum

Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!

Magic

Godfrey

Well-known member
As I look at the almost limitless sea of equipment stuff that's accreted in my photo cabinet, overflowed onto the bookshelves and floor, and onto my desk, I glance over at the bookcase and daily see whatever Polaroid photo came up on top where I stack them waiting to be scanned. And that ALWAYS makes me smile.

Why is a Polaroid print always so friendly and fun? Crappy resolution, often poor dynamic range with blown out highs and lows, etc etc; technically not up to even the worst of my cell phone photos. But they work, they sparkle and make me smile. And not only me.

Must be magic.

Similarly, I've now taken two walks with nothing but a Skink Zone Sieve fitted to the A7. No focus, no sharpness, shooting at absurdly high ISO settings (8000 to 25600), f/71, A mode ... Point and shoot at its finest, you can't do much else. And yet, the photos I see in these two walks are strangely compelling and have drawn more views and returned more comments from people than I expected.

Whatever magic is going on, it's fun and very interesting too. I'm beginning to see in these media. I wonder where it will take me.

onwards!

G
 

Tim

Active member
Photography is not exclusively a technical problem. To quote Tom Waits about the privilege of being an artist:

We make jewelry for the mind.
That's a nice quote Shashin...

I like to think of photographs (and paintings) as "food for the eyes"
I love to eat images with the retina, I use cones, rods and all.

:watch:
 

D&A

Well-known member
Will, while reading Godfrey's posting and before seeing yours, I was thinking one aspect of viewing the so called "crappy" image (defined by me for this example as one thats soft, blurred, out of focus, blown highlights, or any combination of these factors or more)...is that our mind is like a canvas and we take what we see in such a deficient print, and fill in the rest by what we perceive. In some ways it keeps the viewer of such an image more involved, rather than simply viewing a perfectly executed print, technically speaking.

Of course subject matter and how it's portrayed plays a role too, but this technically imperfect print from the Polaroid etc., allows us to be involved in the finishing process, even if the photographed subject normally has little photographic merit.

Dave (D&A)
 
Top