If you can't make 'em good make 'em BIG!

A place to talk about photography, the meaning of life and anything that doesn't quite fit elsewhere
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Marizu
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If you can't make 'em good make 'em BIG!

Post by Marizu » Mon Jan 07, 2013 1:06 am Etc/GMT-1+01:00

Or make 'em red!

This is something that I hear periodically but it is something that I don't really agree with.

I'm mainly considering portraiture here, but I'm sure that it works for all genres.

I always used to wonder how a painter decides which size of canvas to reach for when they are beginning a portrait. Over a number of visits to the National Gallery in London (not the Portrait Gallery), I noticed that I was drawn to certain images and I didn't really understand why. Eventually, I decided that it was because those paintings were approximately life size.

If portrait is small, then we respond to it in certain ways. If it is larger than life then we respond differently again, but when it is life size, I think that it short circuits some element of our cognition and we innately respond to it almost as we would respond to looking at somebody face to face.
During the Summer, I saw a life size (full body) nude by Helmut Newton in Hamilton's gallery. This image arrested me as surely as Jason Brook's portrait of Paul Nurse. It felt like the photograph was watching me watching it which made me feel uncomfortable.

It seems to me that if it wasn't for daily practicalities, life size should be the default position and it should be larger and smaller than life images that need to defend themselves.

What do you think?

Fourtoes
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Re: If you can't make 'em good make 'em BIG!

Post by Fourtoes » Mon Jan 07, 2013 12:00 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00

I use it all the time.

The studio technician when I did my degree always quoted it at graduate show time. Over the years I guess he'd seen it all coming through the photographic education system. It was in reference to the lazier/less talented (in his eyes) students who waffled their way along and produced a final piece of work in huge prints to make up for lack of content/context.

So maybe there is a point in making them life size to make up for any lack of talent? especially if they are more popular to the viewer at that size.....

Mind you, my excellent work :wink: was printed 5ft by 3ft..........

Marizu
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Re: If you can't make 'em good make 'em BIG!

Post by Marizu » Mon Jan 07, 2013 3:51 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00

Fourtoes wrote:I use it all the time.
Yeah, I know.you do.
It didn't stop you buying that massive Hunter Penrose camera, though :lol:

I suppose that if you are thinking about your image in terms of engagement, then if an image of 'appropriate size' is more engaging then is it a 'better' image? (Even at the cost of pixel peeping sharpness)

The Paul Nurse painting that we discussed in another thread came up because the sheer impact of it compelled John to post. It meant that we were discussing the impact of an image rather than technique or equipment for a change.

I was also wondering at what point do people generally consider the size to get gratuitous?
I also wonder whether that is changing now that a lot of people have massive tellies.
Interesting stuff.

Fourtoes
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Re: If you can't make 'em good make 'em BIG!

Post by Fourtoes » Mon Jan 07, 2013 4:45 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00

And some of those TVs can be tooo big depending on size of the room its in, not whats onit.

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