User ID

Accurate observation but a sad failure to enjoy the entertainment value of vapid posturing and earnest cluelessness. Play or be played. You cannot opt out of that binary choice.

User ID

Nope ! The entertainment IS the point.

The rare incidental learning experience is a 3rd order harmonic at best.

aellman Loc: Boston MA

When all else fails, use an insult.

User ID

When comedians speak of a “tough audience” they mean you :-(

aellman Loc: Boston MA

Get over yourselves. There is no one answer. This is the most pointless thread I have seen in a long time.

Chromodynamics6 Loc: Beverly Hills Ca.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

...But worth suffering through a violent $#!t storm — sometimes.

aellman Loc: Boston MA

Forgive me for being doubtful about the worth of such suffering; plus the use of the word
"harmonic" in this context is "a giant leap for mankind" and highly suspect. I urge the
poster to check Merriam-Webster online. It's very informative.

RodeoMan Loc: St Joseph, Missouri

Sometimes its the "moment" that tells the story.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

You're right - photos capture an instant in time. But that doesn't mean that a captured instant can't tell a story. Perhaps your definition of storytelling is a bit too narrow. When is a photo ever NOT going to tell some sort of a story? For that to be the case it would have to be completely meaningless. That situation is perhaps much rarer than you realise. Even if somebody posted a shot as an example of a meaningless photo, what they would be saying is "This is what I mean by meaningless", and that itself gives the photo meaning.

You mention a "look in the eyes during a portrait shoot" - I would say that's a good example of how photos can tell stories. A look can speak volumes, as they say. And it doesn't have to stop at people. We could include the look of loyalty and attentive obedience that a dog can convey with a mere glance (the list goes on).

I'm sure you're aware that some people derive entertainment from ridiculing others. Typically that involves them ridiculing people or things that they don't understand or relate to. Most of us would describe that as a low form of entertainment. Is that what we can expect from you or can we expect better?

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

They may understand it better than you think. It may just be that their understanding is different from yours.

The Wiki article on Alfred Stieglitz's Equivalents talks about his intent in producing that series of abstract images. They were not supposed to tell a story and were partly a reaction to having his images analyzed and interpreted by critics. This is from the article:

In 1922 Stieglitz read a commentary about his photography by Waldo Frank that suggested the strength of his imagery was in the power of the individuals he photographed. Stieglitz was outraged, believing Frank had at best ignored his many photographs of buildings and street scenes, and at worst had accused him of being a simple recorder of what appeared in front of him. He resolved immediately to begin a new series of cloud studies "to show that (the success of) my photographs (was) not due to subject matter ..."

An image does not have to have a story. Someone who feels the need to find one leaves themselves open to disagreement. If they take a disagreement with what they say as ridicule then that is on them.

User ID

Okay I looked up Third Order Harmonic in your suggested source... acoarst there’s no entry cuz Webster’s doesn’t tend to list intact phrases.

I have no clue why you would take the term apart and look up one word out of it. I have no interest in what you found in that manner, as that would be rather uninformative at best.

You seem perplexed at what you found vs my usage. Well, thaz what comes of atomizing a term. Smithereens.

Electric Gnome Loc: Norwich UK

For me I prefer an image to be about something rather than of something. Image 1 peaks my imagination, and image 2 does nothing for me personally. Both are cracking images technically. Each to their own, there is no correct answer.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

So true.
Who said that an image has to tell a story, a "professional"?
You know that everyone will come up with their own interpretation of an image.
Whether a back story exists or not...
For some images, one may exist.

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

To my mind there is a significant difference between a “story” and a “theme”. Personally? A “story”, although sometimes of major significance in an image, is not a universal sine qua non of all images. A theme, however, which is infinitely broad in interpretation, should be a requisite, perceptible component of all images.

The two presented examples?
I see the first as a thematic Approach in which the circle and or functional means of radially based mensuration are the collective theme.
In the second I perceive the story of disueitude resulting from long disuse. ...and these are strictly personal perceptions satisfying to me and requiring no substantiation by anyone else’s perceptions.

My statement is, of course, open to endless semantically based disagreements and qualifications, so... have at it!

Dave