[Frogfish]

Pentax K-5
FA43/1.9

Great shot Mike ..... As are many others in that Flikr stream !

[Mike Cash]

Great shot Mike ..... As are many others in that Flikr stream !

You're too kind. I get lucky with subjects is all.

Pentax K-5
FA43/1.9 Limited

[loco]

loco, i love that moon thru the trees...really lovely effect!

Thanks very much, Mike!

My goodness, that 9 stop filter shot of yours is amazing! It's like a painting or fantasy world. Brilliant work!

[pencilnink]

Two shots from awhile back.

Fa 31 F4

Fa 31 wide open

[axl]

both shots wide open with bounced flash:

[axl]

[cfraz]

I get lucky with subjects is all.

I hope to one day have subjects that are as talented at composition, lighting and color as your subjects are! I suppose if I study the craft of photography diligently and work hard, it might happen.

[Mike Cash]

I hope to one day have subjects that are as talented at composition, lighting and color as your subjects are! I suppose if I study the craft of photography diligently and work hard, it might happen.

I am the Blanche DuBois of the picture taking world....I rely on the kindness of others. I'm sitting here trying to think of any photo I have ever taken which has any photographic merit at all and which did not rely on the efforts of others to put it there. I can't think of a single one. Others make my pictures; I just take the pictures. I don't even do the composition. The diagonal method does that for me 99% of the time.

Now that I stop to think about all this, it dawns on me why I can't take a decent landscape picture to save my life....there's nobody there to put it together for me and plop it down in front of me.

[v5planet]

I am the Blanche DuBois of the picture taking world....I rely on the kindness of others. I'm sitting here trying to think of any photo I have ever taken which has any photographic merit at all and which did not rely on the efforts of others to put it there. I can't think of a single one. Others make my pictures; I just take the pictures. I don't even do the composition. The diagonal method does that for me 99% of the time.

Now that I stop to think about all this, it dawns on me why I can't take a decent landscape picture to save my life....there's nobody there to put it together for me and plop it down in front of me.

I've seen you speak enough on this subject to know I'm not going to persuade you otherwise, but I think you do your talents a disservice when you choose not to take any credit for your results.

If it helps you find inspiration with your landscape photography, though, you could anthropomorphize Mother Nature and think of her as the grand architect of the compositions you just happened to put a lens in front of.

[Mike Cash]

I've seen you speak enough on this subject to know I'm not going to persuade you otherwise, but I think you do your talents a disservice when you choose not to take any credit for your results.

If I ever feel I deserve credit for something I will unabashedly stand up and proclaim it. I'm not being modest here; this is what I actually think. My wife and children could all testify that I have an obnoxiously high opinion of myself.

[mark lj]

I for one think your shots are beautifully taken Mike. I only take landscapes but I find them a lot easier to take than the ones you've posted here. Lovely style.

Some great shots of your kid Axl - real personality/character shots. Some moments to treasure in the future.

[Mike Cash]

Look, it's not that I think my photos are crap. To be perfectly honest, I have quite a few that in my opinion are simply gorgeous. It is just that as the guy what took 'em I happen to know that I didn't have anything to do with putting in them what I find gorgeous about them. I just believe in giving credit where credit is due and not taking credit where credit is not one's own to take.

Composition, for example....as I mentioned earlier, the diagonal method does my composition for me in 99% of my shots. Notice the wording? I didn't say I use it to do my composition; I said it does my composition for me. The full extent of what I do when I shoot is to try to not get extraneous crap in my backgrounds. I don't attempt to compose anything. I have no skills for composition. If all the elements are in the scene, the diagonal method will take care of it for me when I do PP. If it doesn't, nobody ever sees the photo.

As this is the FA Limited Club thread, I'll use an example from the 43/1.9 to illustrate the point:

Pentax K-5
FA43/1.9 Limited

Now, I freely admit that I am well pleased with how that picture came out in the end and am proud of the result. But that is entirely different from taking credit for it. Is it nicely composed? I like to think it is. But I had nothing to do with it. Want to see what it looked like when I took it? Here's a screen capture from lightroom with the crop tool and diagonal method overlay:

Eyes -> Hand
Hand -> Hip
Knee -> Foot

It's just a simple matter of choosing aspect ratio, sizing the box, and sliding around to fit key points on lines and intersections. And I can tell you from having done countless hundreds of these over the last few years that the better the dancer, the easier and quicker the fit. The smaller kids or people who don't dance so well yet, I have to bust a sweat to get a good crop. The good ones, like magic the lines, angles, and key points are there and everything just falls naturally into place. It is utterly inexplicable and I never cease to be amazed at the phenomenon. All the more so since these aren't posed shots.

Click here to see a few more screen captures showing what I'm talking about (short Flickr slideshow). Take notice of how the lines, angles, intersections, etc interact with the elements of the scene of each shot.

I don't take credit for the dancer's beautiful dance because I had nothing to do with the beauty of the dance. That's all somebody else's work. I certainly had nothing to do with the costumes. I had nothing to do with the way their positions fit so well with the cropping method I use. If I did, then certainly I should be getting the same results for the less-skilled dancers, which is not the case by a long shot. I can't take credit for the colors. I had nothing to do with those. The only thing I really had any input over is putting a small flash out in the audience, something any moron can do and hardly something to pat myself on the back about. Not original or creative by any stretch of the imagination. A good idea? I think so. But too minor a thing to get a big head about it.

See my point, guys? There is a fine yet clear distinction between being pleased with how a photo came out and recognizing what portion....if any....is directly attributable to the dope standing there mashing the shutter button. I eat it up with a spoon when people like any of my pictures and I love to hear what they have to say about the content of the picture, but I am extremely circumspect about accepting personal praise for the pictures. They're by me, yes, but they are not about me.

The last couple of years at the dance recital we have put up a photo display in the lobby with shots from the previous year's performance. Last year they had everything set up and before the doors opened I checked out the display, noticed a small placard with my name on it attached to the display, and removed it. The teacher was worried about what happened to the name tag until I told her I took it down, and was baffled as to why I did that. I told her it was for the same reason she doesn't go out on the stage and stand next to the girls when they dance. The photos were there to show the hard work the girls do, to show them to their best advantage, to please their friends and relatives who came to see them....not to aggrandize the guy who took them. I did my bit by taking them, processing them, printing them, making a display for them....and then it was time for them to go stand on their own, just them and the viewers, without me standing between the photos and the viewers saying "Look what I did!" I loved it when their relatives went ooh and aah over how beautiful the girls looked in the photos, and I was proud to have had a hand in that, but that was the point of what I did.....not to have them feel the photos were there so they could praise the person who took them. I am seriously not into that. At my photo club's annual exhibit I make it a point to go sit all the way across the hall from wherever my photos are hung up. I want people to be able to look at them as much or as little as they feel like it, without feeling they have to try to come up with something nice to say to the photographer who is hovering over his shots .

I know I'm a damned oddball, but do you see where I'm coming from on this? Trust me, it has nothing whatsoever to do with modesty, either genuine or false.

[mikeSF]

Mike, your shots make me ill... with envy! Nicely done, I haven't had much chance and the weather here is socked in with flurries.. nice flat light at least.. but all grey.

thanks Chex! much appreciated.

[axl]

Mr. Cash, interesting reading...I made my conclusions on it
Anyway, how come you are using 43ltd? It wasn't so long ago when Takumars were doing the job? What swayed you to AF ltd lens?

Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy to come across your shots here as I try to avoid Takumar clubs (temptation so big inflicted by countless good shots, combined with my MF (in)abilities would resul in huge money wasting experience ), I'm just curious....

[Chex]

I know I'm a damned oddball, but do you see where I'm coming from on this? Trust me, it has nothing whatsoever to do with modesty, either genuine or false.

Your the man! A lot of the was news to me, so used to using the old rule of thirds etc.. and wondering why my composition looked lacking, just hopping into Lightroom and messing with a few pics using Diagnal method overlay sure works!