Re: "Real talent" and composition

[fj834@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Dr. George A. Themelis)]

>The point is, I think that if you work hard enough at anything, you too can be 
>one of the 'talented' ones. You just have to have that 'passion.'

Thanks Bruce for the interesting thoughts on "learned talent".
I agree with this conclusion. 

>Recently our 3-D photo club hosted the PSA Club competition and I have to 
>admit that all of the pictures that I found most appealing (as I recall) were 
>shot in the one of the wider formats. 

When judging a picture, the format as a geometrical area should be
irrelevant.  I mount my pictures in the frame that I feel works best for
the specific picture.  Unfortunately, when I joined the Detroit Stereo Club
I discovered a bias by the judges for the wider formats.  So, I ended up
using a wider (7-p) for most of my slides just to increase their chances of
success, even though in some cases I felt that the 5-p mount was more suited
for the picture.  Some full-frame twin SLR slides I had to remount from 5-p
to 7-p mounts and, get this, some Realist slides I had to enlarge and mount
in 7-p mounts!  That's sad...and I think that the inexperience of some
judges is to blame in certain cases.  An experienced judge should not be
affected by the sheer size of the image and should actually substract
points if there is a lot of uwanted/uncropped space.  But seeing a picture
of the top of a lighthouse at the center of empty sky getting a high score 
just because it fills the screen with (unwanted IMO) sky, does not give the
right message to me.  John Vala, honorary judge in Detroit, can perhaps
give us his perspective from his judging experience.

>My favorite slide of the evening was one by Dr. T. 
>Was that a wider format or Realist?

Thanks!  That is a close-up of a bear from the local zoo, shot with two
Minolta's X-700 and 135 mm lenses and won first place when the subject was
"Wild" in Detroit.  It was mounted in a 7-p mount in a way that the bear
was sticking her head out of the window ("ready to attack the judges if
they gave it anything less than perfect score -- fortunately she did not
have to", as I mentioned in an earlier posting.)

Looking at the statistics, I am not very happy to see that twin SLR slides
have higher changes of success.  This happens for a number of reasons. 
There are good reasons and bad reasons.  The bad reason is judges being
impressed by something unusual, something that they don't see too often. 
Again, from my experience in Detroit I feel that judges tend to underrate
some good Realist slides and tend to overrate some average twin SLR slides
based on reasons other than good stereo photography.

George Themelis, Cleveland OH USA, member of the Detroit Stereographic Society.


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