Dear all,

I want to invite you to visit my website, where you can find some of my b/w pictures from Namibia (http://www.humanxl.com/Victoria/vic-intro.html). All pics were taken with M6TTL and Summicrons: 35 Asph., 50 and 90ApoAsph. All comments are very welcome. Thanks

Adam www.humanXL.com

-- Adam Stepien (adam@humanXL.com), February 19, 2002

Answers

Adam:

Very nice body of work -- thanks for sharing! BTW, what film did you use?

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), February 19, 2002.

Dear Adam,

Okay, first what I liked. I liked all the portraits. You have a wonderful feel for people's faces, and people seem naturally at ease with you when you are photographing them. That's a great strength. I liked the photos where you successfully mixed the commonplace with the exotic. The baby rhino (?) on the couch with the Woolworth still life is my favorite in that catagory. Some of your outdoor shots are very good. The wild cats all give us a wonderful sense of where we are, even when the background is the sort you might find in Kansas. The flowering tree is good.

Now for a few knocks. Too many of these shots could have been shot in Kansas. Machinery, industrial areas, etc. are well composed but not interesting--unless you are specifically shooting for people interested in industrial design. I felt at times you were trying to hard to be an artist. I sense a too-tight technique--like you were following an invisible teacher's orders. There were not enough people. There were the things people made but so few people! Sometimes that works for you. It did not in this case--except with the shots like that of the rhino, the couch and the still life (and there was the rhino).

Suggestions for when you go back to Nambia--which I sense you will. Try shooting as if you are telling a long narrative--I mean actually speaking it. You might even match diary entries with photos. Forget painting--think literature. Above all, relax. Violate the common wisdom about getting close. Stand back more. Try color! And shoot more portraits, more group shots. You have a natural affinity with people--exploit it!

Travel photography, or, perhaps I should call it journey photography, is hard. It is hard in part because the journey without is also a journey within. Dealing with all that is a pain. I hope you do go back. It will be more familiar and that will help.

You have an absolutely stunning web page. One small suggestion. Number you photos and, perhaps, add captions. It makes it easier to critique and adds a degree of individuality to your shots.

I hope this is of some use.

Cheers,

-- Alex Shishin (shishin@pp.iij4-u.or.jp), February 19, 2002.

Dear Adam,

I liked the Nambia images very much. Wart Hog on a couch was my favorite. The portraits are great I wish there were more. Most images have an emotional impact. Keep up the good work.

Steve

-- Steve Belden (ottterpond@adelphia.com), February 19, 2002.

Great stuff, but let's see some more people!

-- Preston Merchant (merchant@speakeasy.org), February 19, 2002.

Great work! powerful !

do you interest Thailand ?

just tell me """"""

-- Puchong Lau (doctorpuchong@hotmail.com), February 19, 2002.

Thank you very much for all your comments.

> what film did you use? I use Ilford FP4+ and HP5+.

> "...even when the background is the sort you might find in Kansas." > "Too many of these shots could have been shot in Kansas." Now I'm quite sure that Kansas will be my next destination. It must be a beatiful place when it often looks like Namibia ;) But seriously, I don't mind to find "ordinary" elements in exotic places and to show them. Maybe that's because for me picture taking is exploring rality I'm in, rather than trying to document specific country, region, nation. If something usual, average but somehow beautiful catches my attention I always try to capture it. I don't try to say: "People, look! I'll show you the real Africa! or This is VERY WILD nad STRANGE Africa!" No. The story I'm trying to tell you is about some place where a woman needs to be married by a White man, where you can find vast arid spaces but also a water tank, cheetah but also a fence which creates the same regular pattern as it does in Kansas or Oslo. And people call that place Namibia, and that's the way I see it.

I have to agree that the pictures should be numbered somehow. I'll think how to do it and to keep the layout simple. More people, more people - OK, I know :) I will upload some more people shots soon. Thank you again

Adam www.humanXL.com

-- Adam Stepien (adam@humanXL.com), February 19, 2002.

Adam

You may hate me for saying this, but I really wish your images were in color. I think then the fact that this is not Kansas would have been immediately obvious. Perhaps I am also saying that the impact of your shots in black and white was not so powerful that the absence of color became irrelevant. I think that in color the landscape and unusual juxtaposition shots would have worked much better -- well at least for me.

I did like the pictures and I do understand your desire to get over the strange wide open spaces that are both unusual and very humdrum.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), February 19, 2002.

I saw your pictures a while back via the LUG, but didn't get arount to commenting.

What really grabbed me was how you captutred some of the ordinaryness, not just the "wow, Africa sure is wild!" that we see too much of. This one does that beautifully - it could be anywhere, but not quite. I wish I could do that.

I'm not sure about the web presentation, I'd love to flip through this many prints but it gets a little painful. A tighter edit? Or an alternative set of pages with several pictures per load (they needen't be that much smaller)?

Michael (South Africa, www.mabot.com)

-- Michael Abbott (web@mabot.com), February 19, 2002.

Adam,

I think I like your photos even more on reflection. I like the idea of getting the ordinariness of life--certainly a relief from the wild Africa stuff. But it hits me how hard the commonplace is to capture. Chehkov, Joyce, Corot, Aget, Steiglitz were masters of the art of the commonplace. But finding epiphany in the ordinary requires intimacy of some sort and yet at the same time a distance (I think of Joyce in Europe writing about Dublin). I'm sure Kansas has its charms, but do go back to Nambia. You have something going there that is quite promising.

-- Alex Shishin (shishin@pp.iij4-u.or.jp), February 22, 2002.