Worldwide Published Photographer Critiques Your Black-and-White Photos: A Conversation with Dotan Saguy

In this episode, award-winning black-and-white photographer Dotan Saguy joins me to critique a new batch of reader-submitted photos using his own teaching method, which he calls DIM: design, information, and moment. Along the way he shares the backstory behind his own book cover photograph from Venice Beach.

Check out Dotans's Instagram: @dotansaguy

Website: https://www.dotansaguy.com

Worldwide Published Photographer Critiques Your Black-and-White Photos: A Conversation with Dotan Saguy

In this episode, award-winning black-and-white photographer Dotan Saguy joins me to critique a new batch of reader-submitted photos using his own teaching method, which he calls DIM: design, information, and moment. Along the way he shares the backstory behind his own book cover photograph from Venice Beach.

Introduction

"Hello everyone, welcome back to the channel. Today I'm here with award-winning photographer Dotan Saguy. Dotan has published many photography books and specializes in black-and-white photography, and today he's going to be critiquing your photos. Hello Dotan, how are you doing? Thank you for joining me today."

Hi Martin, it's good to be with you, thanks for having me on, appreciate it.

"So, for anyone joining us for the first time, the idea is that I'm going to show you photos from people who submitted them, and I would like to ask you for constructive critique, probably as if they were your own."

Sounds good, I'll do my best.

Dotan's method

I don't know if you know my method, I teach a method in my workshops, I have an online workshop as well, but I like teaching in person better, and one of the things I teach, and this is starting to happen again, by the way, with the pandemic kind of going away, I actually had a workshop in Venice in the fall, with Leica, so it's starting to happen again. One thing I always teach my students, both for looking for the right photograph, and when they're editing their work, is to look at the photograph, or through the viewfinder, with DIM. This is a methodology I teach, which is basically to always look at things through three different criteria: design, information, and moment. So this is how I'm going to review these images, it allows also, when I review my own images, I do the same thing, and it allows me to keep a distance, because we tend to, when it's our photos, it's our babies, and it's hard to judge your own photography, so it really helps to have a tool like this to remain objective, that's really the challenge.

"All right, let's look forward to it, let's take a look at the first one, what do you think?"

@stefankurzeja

So, this is a black and white, it looks like a woman in a coat, looking back at a crowd in the fog, or there's some smoke that's kind of obstructing the view of the background. If I look at it through the lens of design, purely design, I think the design here, with the subject standing in the middle and all this mystery around it, there's a very good figure to ground, essentially figure to ground means the contrast between the subject and the background, so that the subject pops, that's all figure to ground is. So there's great figure to ground, and in terms of design it's actually quite pleasant, and it's a photo that, if you see it in a stack of other photos, it kind of pops out, because the design is so deliberate, it's very minimalist in a way, so I think the design is quite nice. If I go to the information, remember the acronym, DIM, design information moment, if I go to information, I would say the information is not so great here, but sometimes it's intended by the photographer to have a photo that's a little mysterious, or that lends itself to different interpretations. But if this was photojournalistic or documentary in nature, and I'm just being shown this particular photo, I can't see the face of the subject, so I don't really know what they look like, or what expression they have, which is very important, as humans it's something we read a lot into. So not being able to see the face of the subject, we don't know, and there's very little, it's a very mysterious photo in terms of information, and you may or may not like that. In my case, I would say I would have preferred a little more information, give me something, at least enough for me to make a story in my mind of what's going on, even if it's not the actual truth of what the photo represents. I like to give my viewers, when I take a photo, enough that they can make up a story around it, and here I feel like I'm a little short of that, not enough in the subject itself, and then the background is also so smoky, I don't know if it's a crowd of people watching a game, or if they're protesting, I don't know, maybe I haven't looked long enough, but usually these things should come to you fairly quickly, because when people see a photo and can't make sense of it, they just go to the next one. So that's why I like to give viewers, in my own photos, enough that they can cling on to the photo and stay with it a little longer, that's really the goal, when you're showing your work to somebody else, that they stay longer on each photo. So this one, I feel like it's not enough to make me stay, that's on the information side. In terms of the moment, I would say the moment is more tied to the design here, maybe this is someone passing by in the foreground, and they're in the middle at the moment the photo is taken, it's also the smoke and the environment, maybe there's something that provoked that, maybe a flare at a game or something, so maybe that's the moment, but it's not a super strong moment. So, in other words, if information is lacking and the moment is not a peak moment, then this photo is all about design, and that might be fine, some photos actually stand out, especially minimalist photos, sometimes design is enough to carry a photo, you don't need information or a moment that much. So when you review it as your own work, you have to be aware this is all based on design, and then you have to ask yourself, is the design strong enough to carry the photo by itself. In this case, I'm still not totally sold that it is, but it might be for someone else, people like different kinds of photos. I'm more of a documentary person, so I like to have a little more of a story and information behind it.

"Ah, thank you, all right, moving on."

@Chongqing

So, the second photo, I'm going to use, you'll hear this, by the end of this you're going to be tired of hearing about DIM, design information moment, but this is my method, so I'm going to follow it again. In this case the design is actually, for an urban environment that could be fairly chaotic, the design is very well thought out, and pretty well executed given the circumstances of where this is shot. I would imagine some suburb, or a dense urban environment with lots of tall buildings and cars and streets. In this case there's a symmetry, you have those three cars, the tree smack in the middle, the buildings are kind of bookending the photograph, one building on one side, another on another side, even those cones are placed sort of almost at the thirds, and then you have this young adolescent boy just crossing the screen, and he's on the third. So I'd say this design clearly has been thought through, you can even see that his face is popping up in one of the very few blank areas of the screen, so the figure to ground, at least for his torso and his face, is pretty good, not for the rest of his body, it's kind of more against the car, but you can see his foot, so there's no problem distinguishing the subject here. Design-wise it's well executed for where it's at, it depends what the photo is about, and I would see this maybe as part of a documentary, a larger body of work, I'm not sure as a street photograph that the design is enough to carry the photo, but if this was part of a series of photographs on some suburb, telling the story of the people living there, maybe the design would be strong enough for that. As a street shot, I don't know, the photographer is working with some very challenging backgrounds here, and it's layered, that's another positive part of this design, you get the subject and the cars, then the tree, and then the buildings, so there are several layers, a little bit of interest there. Now, if I go to the information, this is a young person carrying something, I'm not sure, it looks like a bag, and he's just walking, you can tell what the environment is like, so there is information in terms of representing the environment the subject is evolving in, but other than that I don't really know, this photo doesn't tell me much about the person, other than where they live or where they're walking, and I don't get more information than that. As far as the moment, I'd say that's probably the weakest point of this photo, it's done a lot in street photography, where if there's nothing interesting in the street, photographers will just photograph somebody walking through a background, people do that a lot, there's an interesting advertisement, maybe I can have somebody walk through the frame with the advertisement in the background, it's a typical, I would call it a little bit cheap, kind of technique, of finding a nice background and just waiting for somebody to walk through it. Sometimes there's an interesting juxtaposition, because the person walking through is either completely opposite to the background, or in this case, you'd imagine this is just somebody who lives there, happens to, I don't know, maybe he's coming back from school. There's nothing really transcending about the person walking through, so I'd say the moment of him walking through, at the third of the frame, again, I think it's an image that's more carried by, or wants to be carried by, its design, rather than by information or moment. And that's fine, I think when we learn photography, we all first go, if you read photography magazines or blogs, it's mostly about design, that's the part people master first, and I think it's a good one to work on first, you learn the rule of thirds and all these other things that can make your images better. And I think here, there's definitely effort to make the design work, but again, can this photo be carried only by design, when information and moment are not so present. I think it's well executed for where it's shot, this could have been a lot messier in terms of design, so it's well done for where it was shot, but it's a challenging thing to pull off in this type of environment, and the fact that there isn't information or moment to really support it, I would say, like the first photo, it's nice enough, but again I would like to see more information and moment, so that everything can work together to really lift up the photo.

"Okay, moving on to the next picture."

@shorty.shots

Oh wow, okay, this is interesting, this has a lot more. So again, if I look through DIM, some people are going to start getting mad that it's so methodical, but I like it that way. Here, it's a much more mysterious, more provocative photo. With the first two photos, I'm not sure I got enough from them, or that it made me want to look enough that I had any kind of emotion, it was more like, okay, nice, I can see what the photographer wanted to do design-wise, and it's cool that they made the effort. This one, I would say, is emotionally more provocative, because there's a silhouette that's kind of framed in a window in the background, and it's very interesting how the position of that body, I don't know if it's a mannequin or an actual person, but it's a very unusual way of portraying somebody, it's mysterious, you can't see the face, but this is more about the silhouette and the stance, the body position, and interpreting what it is, is this person dead, or is this just a mannequin lying against the wall. But your mind starts going, trying to make up stories, and this is what I meant with the first photo, you've got to give enough to the viewers so they can start making up stories about what the photo's about, even if it's not, in this case, I bet all the things I just said, that's actually not what the scene was about, but the fact that I'm going there means the photo is making me think, which in itself is a big success, I appreciate that in photos, when they start making you think and question things. So, staying with the design, I think this is very well executed, because you have that figure to ground again, you can clearly see, you don't know if it's a mannequin or a person, but there's no question there's a human body, fake or not, in the centre of the frame, centre top of the frame. There's the way the light is represented in this photo, some natural vignetting going on, where the centre is bright and the surroundings are dark, really draws your eye to the middle, that's something you want, it's hard to focus on the subject when there's bright stuff on the edges of a photo, so here the natural frame that's created really draws you in. So I think, in terms of design, it's well executed. The information here is really more about the mystery, or the lack of information, there's enough to kind of make you think of many things, which is all you want, really, in the information, when I say information, people assume you have to give every single detail of what's going on, not necessarily, whether your information is successful is if it makes people think, and if it makes people come up with stories, that's the only thing that matters, how much information you give or how little doesn't matter, as long as there's enough that people will react to it. And in terms of the moment, it's really the body position, with the feet up like this, that makes you think, nah, it can't be a person, it's got to be a mannequin, but then you're going back and forth, and you're not sure, and what is he doing there, and what are those buildings in the background, so there's also the layering. It's not a peak moment, but it's more the kind of discovery, of stumbling upon this mysterious silhouette, that kind of triggers that idea of a moment. So I like that one, it's different, and makes you react.

"Very cool, thank you, that was very interesting, I never thought about that, but yeah, you're right, it makes you think and create your own ideas."

Yeah, at the end of the day, that's what you want, to create an emotion with the viewer, this is how I think street photos, especially documentary and photojournalistic photos, are judged, what kind of emotion does it leave the viewer with at the end of the day.

"All right, so moving on, but moving on to the next one."

@jhemming

So here, this is a street shot, it looks like a businessman with a mask, and there's this nice kind of side light that's coming through, and there's another person standing on the other side of the street, and it's a pretty clean design, even though it's an urban environment, there's not a lot in the street, I don't see any cars or anything, it looks like maybe a pedestrian street, but the way the light is projected, a lot of the photo is in complete darkness, and you just see that maybe morning light coming through between buildings, casting this spotlight that's lighting up those two subjects. Design-wise, I'd say this is one of the shots that's all about the light, and I think the light is beautiful. I love that the photographer lets things fall into complete darkness, there's a bit of a school of thought, sometimes I hear students say you can't let things fall into complete black, or be completely blown out, everything has to be within your tonal range, you know, maximum, and I don't agree with that, I think there are lots of really great photographs where things are blown out and it works, you have a subject with a completely blown out background, but it still works, and you have photos like this, where things fall into complete darkness, and it also works. So I have no problem with the fact that things are falling into black, and I think in a lot of ways it simplifies the design, and makes you focus much more on the subjects. In terms of things I'd like, the main character here, to me anyway, is the guy in the suit with the mask, all the way to the right, and I don't love that he's so far to the right, like almost falling off the frame, he's very close to being cut off, his arm could have been cut off, his hand is going up, like maybe he's trying to protect his eyes from the sun, or maybe he's hailing a cab, I don't know, but he's so far to the right of the frame that I'm almost losing him, and the other person is all the way at the other end of the frame, slightly better positioned, but not quite at the third, where you typically like to have people. So it's this odd placement, where there's a big void in the middle and nothing at the thirds, and the subjects are kind of off to the side, I'm not sure that's ideal, I would have loved to see at least the main character at the third, or further from the edge, and that's something that's harder to do when it's a vertical shot, I tend to prefer horizontal, I think we all do, because we see horizontally, that's kind of how our eyes see, so vertical shots are a little unnatural, not that I never use vertical, sometimes when it's really necessary. I could argue here maybe it wasn't, when I went to photojournalism school, I would come back with some vertical shots, and my professor would always say, are you trying to shoot for the cover, because photojournalists especially only use vertical shots for the cover of a magazine, there's not a lot of use otherwise, maybe if you do a whole page and the page next to it is text, but if the photo is going to be used in a paper magazine, you want to shoot horizontal, if it's for a blog or online article, you want horizontal too, it's very hard to present vertical, there aren't a lot of places it works, and when it does, it's for the cover of a magazine. So I'd say try to shoot horizontal, unless the subject really requires vertical. In this case, I don't think the portrait orientation was the right choice, and as a consequence the subjects are placed in odd places, so I don't love that part of the design. Now let's go to the information, it's clear what's happening, but it's also clear that, to me, it's not that interesting, it's again somebody walking through a background, this is another case of a photographer finding, oh my god, I love the light coming through this building, let me wait, and oh my god, am I lucky, there's somebody standing right in that light, maybe if I wait for somebody walking through, then I've got the photo of the year. So this is one of those shots where there's not a lot happening in the street, and people resort to just waiting for somebody to walk through the frame. Information-wise, there's not a lot in it that's interesting, it's not as thought-provoking as the last photo we saw. And if I go to moment, the moment is just somebody walking through a beam of light, with a mask, either hailing a cab or about to cover their eyes because the sun's too strong, it doesn't make me dream of a beautiful story, it's just a guy in a suit walking through the street. So again, I think we're back to a photo, like the first two, that relies mostly on design, and there are some great photographers who work with that premise in mind, where information and moment aren't that important, I'm thinking like Alan Schaller, for example, shoots in New York, this is very much an Alan-Schaller kind of frame, working with light and shadows, people passing through the frame, but if you do that, you have to nail it, perfect, it's got to be this amazing design, and I think the design here has flaws. There are some aspects that are good, I like the dark areas, the quality of the light is great, but the placement of the subjects doesn't work for me, they don't have a strong enough relationship with the background to make it interesting enough just based on the design.

"All right, thank you, all right then, moving on."

@robshum

So this is a reflection in a place I know very well, because it's in my hometown, it's in LA, yeah, downtown LA, there's a mural, a very famous mural of a woman in the background, and I can bet that the person is photographing from inside the window of a Starbucks across the street from this mural. So I see exactly how this was made, and I think it's quite creative and astute, this is shot a lot, this is like showing me a photo of the Eiffel Tower, this is the LA equivalent, but I've never seen it done this way, and I think it's a self-portrait that's quite creative, very layered, using reflections. So, if I go through my DIM, I would say the design is quite successful here, because you've got a reflection, it's hard to know what's what, but there's basically a reflection, a mix of reflection and shooting through the glass at a subject on the other side of the glass, it's a blend. The photographer is using the fact that in any dark area the reflection will be less strong, so the area where his camera is, and part of his body, is making a dark area that lets the camera see through the glass, and whatever isn't shielded by his body is reflected, so the rest of the photo is him and the reflection of what's behind him.

I actually use this in a current project that I'm still shooting, although I'm almost done, in a ghost town called Bodie in California, if people want to check that out, it's on my website. I don't use it for street photography per se, because it's a ghost town, nobody lives there any more, but I use it, not for self-portraits, to photograph objects inside the abandoned buildings, because they're full of old objects, and at the same time capture the landscape outside, I blend the two, and people would think they're double exposures, but it's just playing with the reflection and the properties of reflected light.

So I think it's quite creative to use that for street photography, and I think the design is well done here, because you can see what's happening, there's enough separation between things, everything's very carefully placed, so you can easily distinguish that there are three different people, or at least the representation of three different people. So that's quite successful, and I love what he did with the hands of the person at the counter behind the glass, as well as his own hands on the camera, there's almost a mirror image of hands, but of two different people, that's pretty cool. In terms of design, maybe I would have liked to see the face of the photographer slightly more, I think that part could be brightened a little, but that's more of a post-processing issue. So, anyway, I like this design, the information in it is really just, it's a self-portrait, that's really the information, but it's a very creative self-portrait, it's almost like he has somebody inside his body through the reflection, that's pretty cool, and then there's the person in the back, so the information there is just about a self-portrait. The moment really comes down to the moment of the person at the counter, who's kind of almost asleep, or in deep meditation, so that's really the moment here, but I think this is more about the design and playing with reflections, and in this case I think he pulled it off, I think this is one where the design is actually strong enough to carry the whole photo, even though you do have a little information and a little moment, I think this is really based on design, but the design does work to carry the photo. So I like that a lot, I think that's very clever, a great use of layering and reflections.

I'll just end on one thing, for people watching who aspire to do more with reflections, I think there are two things very common in street photography, or opportunities for it, reflections and shadows, urban environments are full of reflections in windows, sometimes when it rains there are puddles, fountains, all kinds of opportunities for reflections, same thing with shadows, depending on where the light hits, people's shadows on the ground, and our eye, as humans, we've evolved so that our eyes basically discount reflections and shadows, so it's very hard to see them unless we retrain ourselves. So I highly encourage people who feel stuck creatively in an urban environment, who don't find anything interesting to photograph, that's very common, talking to my students, and myself included, shadows and reflections are tools we can all use, as long as we retrain ourselves to see them, you really have to force yourself to seek them out, they can make for great, very creative, different kinds of looks. So if you're stuck in that mode of just finding a nice background and waiting for somebody to walk through it, try looking for more shadows and reflections, it will open up your horizons in terms of what can be done.

"That's a very interesting approach, shadows and reflections. All right then, what do you think about this one?"

@mccurdy.photography

So this is another interesting one, this is somebody who looks like he's taking a selfie, or taking a photo of something, there's a mural in the background, so this is a layered shot, it looks pretty heavily processed, but it's done okay, it doesn't bother me too much, it has kind of an almost cartoonish style, it's almost not a photograph any more because it's so processed, but somehow the processing sort of works for the subject matter here. So, in terms of the design, one thing at a time, I like that the subject on the right-hand side is sort of working with the mural in the background, there's some kind of mirror image, where him and his phone, and then the background is this woman, or a young woman, with a spray can or something, or she's aiming at what looks like a picture of a rocket, I don't know if she's drawing, but there's something between him holding his phone and her holding whatever she's holding that works, there's a mirror sort of image there, and I like that he's at the third, and she's at the third also, it's a very balanced image. The one thing I don't love in this design is, his figure to ground, it's very good with her, you can very easily distinguish the mural, and she pops in the mural, he's kind of, you can see his eyes, and they're lit by a little bit of light coming through a building or reflecting off a car, so his face is visible, but the rest of his body, his hat, even his hand and the phone, is a little hard to read, because, again, we're going back to figure to ground, and his figure, I would say overall, is not sufficient. If you flash this photo for a second and ask somebody what they saw, they may not even see him, or may not be able to distinguish enough of him to really latch on to the photo and look further. So it's really hard to make a subject pop, and in this case I'd argue that, design-wise, he doesn't pop enough for this to really work on a design level. I also don't love, so he doesn't pop enough, but then, if you look at other bright areas in that part of the image, you see the car, and you can read the license plate, it's a Kia, that car is actually pretty well lit, even though he's not, so he's fighting with a non-subject that's also very, because the depth of field is very good, I guess the person was trying to layer things, you want to layer him with the mural in the background, so you have to keep a decent depth of field, but as a consequence everything else in the frame is also very sharp, including that car, that's very well lit, right behind him, so as you're trying to read him, your eye just keeps going to that car, because that's what our eyes do, they go to the bright parts of the image, that's evolution, that got us to go to shiny objects, bright objects, so when he's fighting against this background of a car, it's hard to distinguish him, it makes it even harder. That's another thing I don't love about the design. I would also say the processing was well done, but I do see there's a little too much vignetting, you can see at the top, especially, at the bottom it's hard to know because it's kind of naturally vignetted by the shadow in the street, there's a lot of shade there, but at the top you can see that it should be bright, the left side of that mural should be just as bright as the centre, and the sky at the right should also be just as bright as it is behind the buildings, and it's unnaturally, really heavily vignetted, and I would say, it's okay to vignette, I love vignetting as a tool to bring the eye back to the centre and to the subject, but in this case it's just too much, there's way too much vignetting, I would bring that down a bit and make it a little more natural. Another thing, keeping on the design, there's not a lot that's interesting, and if you cut this frame in four pieces, top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right, the whole bottom left quarter of the frame is basically void of any information, any subject, any visual interest, and it has one of the brightest parts of the image in it, which is that lamp post at the bottom, and the planter, that whole area is super bright and completely devoid of interest or information, so that's also not ideal. Information-wise, it's fairly simple, but it's kind of interesting, I would say, just because of the mirror image of what he's doing versus what she's doing, and your mind, as long as you find him, because he's kind of camouflaged in this background, but if you find the guy doing the selfie, then your mind starts thinking, what's the relationship between the two, is he doing something like what she's doing, I like that part, it makes you go into an information sort of rabbit hole, where you're starting to think about what this is about. So this is good, moment-wise, it's the moment of him taking the selfie, and, I guess, the fake moment of her painting whatever she's painting, so I like that too. So I think overall it's a good image that has kind of all three aspects, which is neat, but I would say there are a lot of design issues with it, mainly because of the figure to ground of the main subject, and then some things that can be remedied, like the vignetting, that's just a post-processing issue. I would also, if it were me, definitely darken that car in post-processing, just so you can barely read the logo and license plate, because you can dodge and burn, that's totally okay, you can't start Photoshopping stuff out of the picture, but that car, with all its visible reflections, can be darkened more, to really fade into the background, and as you do that the subject will pop slightly more. So that's something I would try if this were my image, anyway, that's for what it's worth.

"Thank you, so what do you think about this one?"

My photo - Prague

So this is an interesting one, we'll go through design first, so these are geese, I guess, by a bridge, in some, it looks like a German town, or some kind of old town in the background, this is a very old bridge, maybe it could be in France, it's somewhere in Europe for sure, this isn't anything like what we have in the US, too new.

"[Laughter]"

So the person tried to play with a design, there's a couple of tools being used here, the foreground is completely blurred out, but you can still distinguish that it's the neck of one of these geese in the foreground, and it's kind of reaffirmed by all the geese lying in the background, I hope they're geese, because otherwise...

"[Laughter] Just swap, do a search and replace, geese for swan."

I don't know if they're swans, I think their necks are long enough for swans, but okay, I'll call them birds, everybody will agree on birds, that's how good my wildlife knowledge is, not that good. I think it's interesting, there's a creative use of blur, and the contrast between blurred and sharp areas, and here I think it's done well enough, because even though the foreground is blurry, you can still distinguish what it is, especially in the context of everything behind it. I do think it wouldn't work without the other swans, you'd still distinguish it, but it's nice that it's being backed up by the background, there's sort of an echoing of that same shape in the background. What's nice is, I think your eye just wants to go to what's blurry first, and struggles with it a little because it's blurry, but the fact that it's blurry moves your eye to the background, and then starts letting you explore the rest of the frame, including finding that village in the background and the people on the bridge. It's nice, I was saying earlier, you want people to linger on your photos, you don't want them to just be stuck and move on, the creative use of this blur in the foreground does that, because the subject is so big you first go there, but then you realize it's blurry, and then you go to the rest, so I think it's successful in making the eye travel the image, and that's important, for people to stay on your photos. So this is well done in that respect, I like that the face of the swan, or bird, is in the middle, I think this looks very deliberate, so the design is well done from that perspective, the bridge is hanging at about the third, at least the top of the bridge is at about the third, so that works, it leaves a third of sky, there's a little texture in the sky with the clouds, so it has that aspect too, and the tonal palette is nice, it goes from basically all white, from the swans, to some very almost black areas, so there's an interesting tonality to this image. So I'd say the design is well done, I like the actual design, and I think what makes it work, and where it wouldn't have worked otherwise, is that the head of the bird is completely above the bridge, not touching anything else, it's almost touching that little post at the point of the beak, but not quite, and the fact that the figure to ground is completely pristine makes it work. If the bird had been at the same level as the bridge, basically completely on top of the bridge, it wouldn't have worked at all, I think that would have completely killed this shot, but the fact that the head is completely above, really sticking out and not touching anything, is what makes this shot basically what it rests on. So I think the design is well executed, the information, this is one of those things where the information isn't that important, it's just, okay, it's a bunch of birds by the river, and there are layers, you can sort of see where it is, and the kind of place that it is, but there's not anything transcending about the information, and the moment is more about the placement of the subject than the moment, so there's not really a strong moment, it's really more about where things are placed in the image. So again, we get a lot of these images that are just based on design, and that's okay, I like this type of work, I see a lot of it in my students' work, typically when they do street photography, and there's nothing wrong with that, as long as the design is solid, I think it's pretty solid in this case, it's a good design, and again, just like we saw with the previous image, where there was a creative use of reflections, and very clever placement of different things in the image, and very good composition, I think the same can be said here, it's pretty cleverly done with the use of blur. If I had just one nitpicky thing to say, it would have been even better if there weren't any birds right behind the neck of that bird, there's a part of the neck that's almost merging with the back of a bird, about halfway down the neck, if it was all dark ground, water around that neck, and the neck was completely clear of anything behind it, except for the bridge, of course, that would have been perfect. This is almost there, but not quite, so anyway, that's the only nitpicky thing I could say about the design here.

"All right, you're welcome. All right, so, to the last shot..."

@dotansaguy

Right, I wanted to... oh, you want to show me my own stuff? Oh, this one is absolutely perfect.

"[Laughter]"

Okay, so, I don't know if people will see it, but this is from, this is my 2018 book on Venice Beach, and this is the cover shot.

"Do you really want me... do you think, critique this? I mean, I can... I used the same criteria for my own work, I eat my own dog food, as we say here."

You used it because you liked it, right? But is there something you would improve, or do differently?

No, not this one, no, I think, frankly, the reason it's on the cover is that I find it pretty perfect, but it's not just skill, or whatever, it's just luck. I think the reason people photograph a lot of backgrounds with somebody walking in front of them is because there's often not a lot going on in cities, and it's hard to do street photography and find great moments, and that day I was blessed with an incredible scene, and I don't think I appreciated it for what it was, for how rare it was. It was one of the first times I was getting serious about shooting in Venice, and when I stumbled upon the scene of this woman and her five-year-old son playing with these snakes in the sand, I didn't know how rare that was, I just assumed, oh, it's Venice, it must be happening every day. I have never, the book came out in '18, this is an image I shot, I think, in 2016, so it's been five, six years since this photo, and I've been to Venice almost weekly since, and I've never bumped into a scene like this ever again, in six years since this moment has passed. So this is just to say, sometimes it's not just skill, a lot of it is luck, of finding what you find that day in the street, but you create that luck in a way, by going out often, and kind of knowing where to look. Obviously I wasn't going to boring areas of LA, I had done a lot of that, and hadn't had much success, and I ended up finding Venice as a much more inspiring place, and that's why I was going there that day, and I kept going there a lot, and eventually I bumped into interesting stuff that ended up in the book. So, just to say, this is an image, the reason I like it so much, is because it has the design, I don't think I would change much about this design, and then the information is just captivating, makes you think of all kinds of stories that may or may not be what happened, but who cares, your mind will start thinking, is this a biblical Adam and Eve moment, there's all these things that just come to people's minds when they look at this photo, and then the moment of this woman facing the snake is also kind of epic. So it has all three of those elements on steroids, the design is on steroids, the information is on steroids, and the moment is on steroids, and I think that's what makes it such a great image, to the point of being on the cover of the book. But, yeah, I wish I could make more images like this, and I would, if I could, honestly, but this is pretty much what I aspire to, and, you know, ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent of the time, fail to actually achieve, but thanks for reminding me what I should be doing more of.

"Yeah, yeah."

But this image, I think, embodies why this method of DIM really works, for street photography at least, in my mind, is when you hit the ball out of the park, to use a baseball analogy that might not resonate with the European side, and other, the Americans will be like, oh yeah, but everybody else will be like, what's baseball. But if you knock the ball out of the park in all three, D, I, and M, you end up with something that can be on the cover of a book, you can still make great images without all three, but when you do, it just sings. So that's what I'll leave you with, on this one.

Closing

"Thank you very much for your analysis, and thank you very much for the in-depth critique."

All right, any time, happy to entertain.

"Perfect, so thank you very much for joining me today, and I wish you the best with your upcoming project."

I teach in-person workshops, and other workshops that I do myself, I don't have any scheduled right now, but if people are interested in taking a workshop with me in the future, they can email me, and I'll put them on a list that will get notified when I do have workshops.

"All right, perfect, so, you're welcome, thank you very much, and I'm looking forward to seeing you next time."

Sounds good, all right, thanks Martin, take care.