Project: Diptychs: Photos from ektachrome 200 around late 1970's Thanks for stopping by. All suggestions and Comments welcome.

Steve DeMott Loc: St. Louis, Missouri (Oakville area)

Photos from ektachrome 200 around late 1970's

Thanks for stopping by. All suggestions and Comments welcome.

artBob Loc: Near Chicago

Steve, powerful shots, especially the one on the left with its great contrasts of visual form and content.

I expect diptychs to be more related, however. the stark differences in tonality, shapes, and scaled content bother me.

Steve DeMott Loc: St. Louis, Missouri (Oakville area)

artBob wrote:

Steve, powerful shots, especially the one on the left with its great contrasts of visual form and content.

I expect diptychs to be more related, however. the stark differences in tonality, shapes, and scaled content bother me.

Thanks Bob. I've looked at a lot of diptychs and frankly some of the relationships make absolutely no sense to me.
This was about two different Communist countries and the way they divided themselves from the rest of the world.
I toned down the right side and, yes, it does look better. I do disagree about the shapes & scale

Stephan G

steve DeMott wrote:

Thanks Bob. I've looked at a lot of diptychs and frankly some of the relationships make absolutely no sense to me.
This was about two different Communist countries and the way they divided themselves from the rest of the world.
I toned down the right side and, yes, it does look better. I do disagree about the shapes & scale

Often, the connections are cryptic, based on personal experience. A third shot, that of the Berlin Wall, to give the two the historical relationship. Even a copy of the newspaper shot of the tearing down the Berlin Wall.

I can see the two as wings of photo of a Soviet border guard, with bayoneted weapon at the ready.

NikonGal Loc: Central Oregon

Thanks for presenting Steve. We've had a couple diptychs presented for critique at camera club. I did not understand their relationship. Thanks for explaining yours. I was way off on the subject of how fences keep "in" or "out" as the subject. I like your 2nd working of the right sided one, toning it down a bit. Bev

artBob Loc: Near Chicago

steve DeMott wrote:

Thanks Bob. I've looked at a lot of diptychs and frankly some of the relationships make absolutely no sense to me.
This was about two different Communist countries and the way they divided themselves from the rest of the world.
I toned down the right side and, yes, it does look better. I do disagree about the shapes & scale

I agree that the changes bring the two sides together tonally, and by bringing out the tank traps, also make a shape connection with the barbed wire twists.

The subject matter of the two was always linked, but the eye searches for a linking also of the values, spaces, composition.

Steve DeMott Loc: St. Louis, Missouri (Oakville area)

Stephan G wrote:

Often, the connections are cryptic, based on personal experience. A third shot, that of the Berlin Wall, to give the two the historical relationship. Even a copy of the newspaper shot of the tearing down the Berlin Wall.

I can see the two as wings of photo of a Soviet border guard, with bayoneted weapon at the ready.

Sometimes adding more diminishes the effect of the overall. Adding a third image about the Berlin wall, to me, kinda takes away from the demilitarize zone of North Korea.

Although, the idea of a border guard might add some interest.

Thanks for your comments Steve

Steve DeMott Loc: St. Louis, Missouri (Oakville area)

NikonGal wrote:

Thanks for presenting Steve. We've had a couple diptychs presented for critique at camera club. I did not understand their relationship. Thanks for explaining yours. I was way off on the subject of how fences keep "in" or "out" as the subject. I like your 2nd working of the right sided one, toning it down a bit. Bev

Thanks Bev. I agree sometimes the relationship doesn't grab you right away. The approach for images can sometimes be "A sequence with time", "Connected Images", A storyboard" or "Equivalence: An emotional or intellectual issue". Example: The mast of a Tall Ship and the Steeple of a church can be diptychs depending on the angle of view.

Steve DeMott Loc: St. Louis, Missouri (Oakville area)

artBob wrote:

I agree that the changes bring the two sides together tonally, and by bringing out the tank traps, also make a shape connection with the barbed wire twists.

The subject matter of the two was always linked, but the eye searches for a linking also of the values, spaces, composition.

Your the first person that noticed the connection of the Tank Traps & the barbed wire.
If you could be so kind as to address the values, spaces and composition. I'm always trying to understand different ways that other people look at images.
As you say "Show me what you mean".
Thanks for you input and I look forward to your critique.

artBob Loc: Near Chicago

steve DeMott wrote:

Your the first person that noticed the connection of the Tank Traps & the barbed wire.
If you could be so kind as to address the values, spaces and composition. I'm always trying to understand different ways that other people look at images.
As you say "Show me what you mean".
Thanks for you input and I look forward to your critique.

Steve, I hope this helps a bit. I flipped the right image and cropped it so that compositionally it would match up more with the left. I changed the colors, also to match up with the left. The big problems were the shapes and space. Although the tank traps and the barbed wire twists were similar in shape, they were just too different in scale and placement. Also, the edges in each shot were mostly different, the left's being soft, the right's hard.

So, for harmony, a person wants the color, shapes, lines/edges, values, textures, and compositions to work together. Tough enough, but then the basic rule is unity (sameness) with variety (some differences).

I am glad you seem eager to learn. The above "Form" is an important cause for Ansel Adams being better than many other photographers, Raphael and Michelangelo better than the hundreds of other painters at that time.

Steve DeMott Loc: St. Louis, Missouri (Oakville area)

artBob wrote:

Steve, I hope this helps a bit. I flipped the righ... (show quote)

Thanks Bob.

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

dupe post

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

Hi, Steve,
the immediate, gripping impact of your originally posted diptych was the sense of “Stay out! Stay in here!”
that characterized the borders between eastern and western Europe from ‘61 until “The Wall” came down!
Having seen some of those borders in the late 60s and early 70s, I well recall the visceral response they had upon me. In fact, the right image struck me as typical of aspects of the immediate vicinity of “Checkpoint Charlie” in the Berlin Wall through which I passed a number of times...with shudders ... or relief, depending on my direction of passage.
Excellent diptych. For me, the initial impact transcended concerns about contrast, brightness, etc. In fact, having seen such views in low contrast with limited tonal range, as well as in high contrast, they seemed a quite natural combination. In fact, this diptych brought back the sharpness of some visceral reactions, the memories of which had blurred and waned a bit with the passage of time!

Chacun a son gout!

Dave

Steve DeMott Loc: St. Louis, Missouri (Oakville area)

Uuglypher wrote:

Hi, Steve, br the immediate, gripping impact of yo... (show quote)

Thanks for the wonderful Dave. Hope this brought back a few pleasant memories.
This was a school project using diptychs & triptychs as a visual aid to enhance an experience or feeling of what would normally be just a couple of snapshots.
Spend 6 years living in Berlin in the late 70's and several work projects in Korea in the mid 80's. It is an eerie feeling knowing at any moment situations could get out of hand.

Each to his or her own taste

Steve