Re: turn, turn, turn

[Alan Zinn <azinn@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 05:11 PM 1/4/2000 +0000, you wrote:

>I from the school that believes that panos is a way of presenting a subject
>rather than a particular # of degrees, film size, or camera type.  If a picture
>is a pano it exhibits a unique feature that sets it apart from a similar
picture
>in the classic (3x4) format.  That feature is that no matter how close or far
>from a pano picture you are, you can not see all of the objects at the same
>time.  I've seen this phenomenon in both photographs as well as paintings.  It
>also has something to do with the pano rule of 1/3, which I believe, differs
>from the classic (3x4) rule of 1/3.  The classic rule of 1/3s is typically
>defined as 1/3 foreground, 1/3 middle ground and, you guess it, 1/3 background.
>In panos, the 1/3 rule is 1/3 on the right, 1/3 in the middle and, you guess it
>again, 1/3 on the right.  This gives the photograph 3 subjects that the eye
>(mind) has trouble seeing when the eye is looking at one point.  This is the
>beauty of pano photography that caused the viewer to move his/her eye back and
>forth to see the picture.  I have observed people at exhibits view a class
>photograph and quickly move on while pausing several moments to view a
pano.  It
>changes the viewer!
>
>I have trouble with most 180/360-degree pictures as they are typically of ones
>street or man made objects.  I have nothing against them, I do not find man
made
>object exciting and believe that there are very few places where 360
photographs
>yield truly exciting views. As you pointed out, I do live in some of the most
>photogenic land in the country and I have found only 2 spots where 360 might
>yield an exceptional photograph.  I also find the distortion caused by
>non-moving camera very distracting from 180-degree photographs.   


>At the risk of getting some members dandruff up, I typically recognize a pano
>photo as having two requirements to be successful: 1> a format ratio of at
least
>1:2 and 2> a subject that can be divided into thirds.  A ratio of more than 1:3
>looses a viewer interest by having too many subjects or having a subject spread
>out too far for viewer to see it at once.  
>
>This is my opinion, your mileage may vary,
>
>
>
>
>
>Karl Snyder
>Boulder, Colorado
>http://www.RockyMountainNP.Com/  
>http://www.BlackHornRanch.Com/
>http://www.MtEvans.Com/       
>
>

Karl and friends,
 Why want the wide format in order to cause the viewer to see segments at a
time, which is good, but not want a really wide format for pictorial
reasons?  It seems that that is focusing on the frame rather than the
content of the picture. I think that there are far more ways of dealing with
the picture plane that panoramic photographers don't consider. Why make
arbitrary rules about how to make an image? 

While scenery is nice (or thrilling, or dangerous) to be in I think photos
of it are mostly formulaic and post-cardish no matter how well made. It is
not surprising that so few find in it more than conventional notions of
pictorial space, beauty, and ideas about nature. That seems very narrow
since panoramas offer even the scenic photographer many new ways of seeing.
Seldom do scenic photographers deal with the way nature is perceived or
anything conceptual. Gross generalizations? Show me some work that pushes
the envelope.
  
I think the built environment, like nature, has infinite variety and
stimulates a wider, more conceptual range of expressions. There seems to be
no common mode that has to be adhered to. It may be just a safer place to do
interesting things. Many photographers fear to mess with Mother Nature.

AZ



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