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Comments 14

brick__window June 16 2006, 09:43:48 UTC
Shame it gets cut off at the top, i like the picture but that bothers me a little.
Was this originally shot in B/W or did you Photoshop it?

En waarom blijf ik Engels tegen je tiepen?

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mistress_elaine June 16 2006, 10:07:07 UTC
Ik vermoed dat je niet de enige zult zijn die het jammer vindt dat het beeld aan de bovenkant is afgebroken. Ik heb die beslissing echter heel bewust genomen. Ik heb allerlei verschillende versies uitgeprobeerd, en deze vond ik het mooist. Met het hele hoofd erin werd de foto tamelijk statisch. Misschien had het wel gekund als ik nog veel meer "negative space" had gehad, zodat het hoofd heel klein ergens rechtsonder in beeld verscheen, verder alleen omringd door een heleboel leegte, maar goed, veel meer "negative space" (negatieve ruimte? Dat klinkt raar...) dan dit had ik niet. En ik vind het zo wel een aardige compositie, dus...

Oorspronkelijk was het een kleurenfoto. In kleur zag hij er ook best aardig uit, maar ik vond hem in zwart-wit strakker en indrukwekkender. Vandaar de conversie.

Yes, why indeed? :-)

En gewoon uit nieuwsgierigheid: wat is jouw voorspelling voor Nederland-Ivoorkust vanavond?

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brick__window June 16 2006, 10:38:54 UTC
Hm, ok, fair enough, daar zit wat in. Het is ook absoluut een goede foto maar mijn aandacht blijft maar naar dat net afgesneden puntje gaan.

Dat had ik natuurlijk al kunnen zien als ik naar de tags had gekeken bij het bericht. Maar dat soort dingen bedenk ik altijd pas nadat ik op submit druk :)

Vanavond, ik heb 1-0 voor Nederland staan, maar het zal niet makkelijk worden. Wat jij?

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mistress_elaine June 16 2006, 11:01:00 UTC
Tja, ach, kan gebeuren. Dit soort dingen blijft subjectief. Blij dat je het in elk geval een goede foto vindt. Dank je. :-)

Ik had tot gisteren ook 1-0 staan, maar vandaag ben ik in een optimistische bui, dus ik maak er 2-0 van. En 2-1 tegen Argentinië. En daarna... ach, wie zal het zeggen.

Ik zit in elk geval om zes uur voor de buis.

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mortsleam June 16 2006, 15:13:08 UTC
Hmmm. I don't think I quite buy your explanation. I understand that the negative space might make the picture seem static, although with such an active surface I don't see that as a problem, but this doesn't seem like the only alternative. Because the crop is so close to the top of the head I think it causes a bit of frustration. The viewer follows the natural progression and foresees the conclusion and when he gets to the sudden crop his expectations are overturned and he needs to see that last little bit. He needs it reeeaaal baaaad.

Perhaps if the crop were ever so slightly smaller, taking away say half of the little cone at the very top, to just where it starts to taper. That way, even though the viewer can recognize that there is more to the image, and even that it probably tapers to a point, they won't get the same feeling of just barely missing it.

Then again, it's no secret that you enjoy the occasional bout of light torture.

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mistress_elaine June 16 2006, 15:29:48 UTC
Tee hee. I don't think Babelfish did my words justice there. I wasn't saying that the negative space made the picture static; quite the contrary, I love the negative space here. What I said was that the composition with the whole top of the statue in it struck me as static, and rather too "normal". Keeping the whole head in might have worked had I had far more negative space at the top of the image, so that the head (the whole of it) appeared as a small detail in the bottom right corner of an otherwise overwhelmingly empty photo, but since I didn't have more negative space, I did it this way ( ... )

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mortsleam June 16 2006, 15:45:49 UTC
Actually, that's what I meant. It wasn't Babelfish, it was my Dutch/English dictionary and good ol' context. What failed me was my ability to write in my native tongue. I was quite proud of being able to glean your explanation, though I'm sure I lost much of the nuance. The stuff about optimism and the World Cup was completely lost on me. Is there no dutch term for "negative space"?

What about terry cloth slippers? Like the kind they give you in health spas. Have you tried bandaging the toenails? Wrap 'em tight enough and they just go numb.

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mistress_elaine June 16 2006, 18:39:40 UTC
Ah. OK. I see. Yes, writing in your native tongue is hard. I know all about that. :-)

Impressive translation skills there, Morty. You understood enough of the World Cup stuff to glean that it was about the World Cup. Not bad!

I just Googled "negatieve ruimte" and got a number of hits, but not enough (and not all relevant enough) to convince me that it is in fact an existing Dutch term. If there is a Dutch phrase for the concept, I don't know it. That's what you get when all you ever read about a given subject (film, visual arts, photography) is in English rather than your native tongue. I had a surprisingly hard time the one time I had to translate a text about film-making into Dutch; I knew what all the English words meant, but couldn't for the life of me come up with the Dutch translations, since I only ever hear and use those words in English. Talk about overexposure to English ( ... )

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