can i get some feedback on this image?

very little editing work...i usually crop and play with the contrast a bit and that's it...i think the grainy look is mostly the road dirt on the window.

I was wondering if that was the case, LOL, so maybe it's needs to be edited out of the edited look 🙂

Many like it fine as is, but I figured you yourself felt it might need something.

Can we see it in color?
 
back to the scene of the crime...took a quick shot yesterday ...this is what i passed and stopped to look at and then shoot...straight out of the camera. when i took the original i moved in much closer and framed it much tighter.

26224195485_6f0ddea8d8_c.jpg
[/url]trash_small.edited-1 by joe, on Flickr[/IMG]
 
this is a straight shot with very little photo shopping done to it...pretty much out of camera.
it's a closed store front door window pane. someone sprayed it with some sort of frosting to stop folks from looking into it. lower left shows a clear spot where someone must have rubbed against it, top left is a reflection of the shops across the street. clearly the paper stuck to the window indicating that the store had moved is ripped...

for me, this is not a 'wow' image but one that i like more & more the more i view it...i find myself not interested in pics that show a whole scene or that might tell a story...but i am much more interested in vignettes that show only part of the whole and that make the viewer think about what it is or what is going on...

to be clear...i never considered this image great art, but something that i liked the more i looked at it. i was asking for feedback on the image...not high praise or simple condemnation.
 
A few people may be rubbing you up but don't sweat it, I'd have passed this over on Flickr without a second glance to be honest, but I'm trying to figure out if there is more here or not, like the Emperor's new clothes, seeing as you've asked. If you like it then great, you've managed to pick out a subject from a fairly meaningless scene, and by that I mean you've got an eye for the relevant bit. Ming Thein recently wrote a post about a shot that sets the scene, I can't remember the turn of phrase, like the start of a film. They are often very tight (like this) or very wide and lingering, either hinting at what's going on out of sight, or giving you the whole world, so you have to figure out where the story is in it, deliberately skewing the perspective of the viewer; their point of view, not the geometric perspective. So as Lynn said above, this would make more sense in a series. That's how I see it anyway; we aren't party to the rest of the series, the context.
 
How about your thoughts on the image Joe. ??

these are the types of images that attract me more and more...small parts of a bigger scene...i like street photography but am getting bored with people walking down the street type images...i walk and look for something small from a larger whole.
this shot is off the main street and to me reinforces what i know about the area...lots of shops that come and go, it's a high rent retail area where lots of businesses go broke in their first year...of course most here would not know that...i like the present textures in the images and really like the reflection...shops with a tall church one block away (notice the cross)...
it's not a scene/image that would represent much to many folks...sometimes i like images that are just what they show...sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
 
I don't believe single still photographs tell stories nor should they. I believe as Winograd believed. I also think that the best photographs are ones that don't give immediate gratification but get stronger and unfold slowly after repeated views. If you see something get right away no reason to stay with it. You move on. Most of the criteria I read sometime would dismiss the work of many of the greats like Siskind or Gibson. My advise Joe is follow your heart. it will lead you where you need to go.
 
Joe,
I'm not trying to be hostile. In my opinion, this is not a successful photo for the following reasons:
- this "type" of photo has been beaten to death by most known and less known photographers of the 20th century
- the photo itself is not particularly unique in any way - the composition is random, the subject does not convey any written message, the reflection is hardly visible
- the aesthetic is problematic - the grain and lack of solid black distract rather than adding anything
- the photo does not evoke any "feeling" - at least not in me
- in my perception, there is nothing "unique" in this photograph, perhaps except for what YOU were feeling when you took it.
To divorce yourself from this "what I felt" problem, edit your photos only 6 months after you take them, at this point they will "feel" as if taken by somebody else, so it will be easy to trash the dudes right away. I trash 98% of my shots, and that's most likely still largely insufficient.
 
Joe, sometimes you're on the "express," sometimes you're on the "local". This is an image that if you were on the "express", would be a "local" in passing how you got to where you are. I don't think you're "there" yet. Certainly, if this is truly what you are interested in, I would keep traveling, keep exploring. One image does not make a series. If this image was part of a body of work, it might make a lot more sense to a lot more people. At this point, it is just one image. In and of itself, it doesn't hold any context except for your story. In light of what you said, it holds a positive significance for you.
 
Joe,
I'm not trying to be hostile. In my opinion, this is not a successful photo for the following reasons:
- this "type" of photo has been beaten to death by most known and less known photographers of the 20th century
- the photo itself is not particularly unique in any way - the composition is random, the subject does not convey any written message, the reflection is hardly visible
- the aesthetic is problematic - the grain and lack of solid black distract rather than adding anything
- the photo does not evoke any "feeling" - at least not in me
- in my perception, there is nothing "unique" in this photograph, perhaps except for what YOU were feeling when you took it.
To divorce yourself from this "what I felt" problem, edit your photos only 6 months after you take them, at this point they will "feel" as if taken by somebody else, so it will be easy to trash the dudes right away. I trash 98% of my shots, and that's most likely still largely insufficient.

no hostility taken...
i think that i have to face the truth that i just do not see what's unique out there, not now and perhaps never did. every image i see lately just says 'been done before'.
 
Joe something I really find funny
http://theonlinephotographer.blogspot.com/2006/06/great-photographers-on-internet.html

and pt II
http://theonlinephotographer.typepa...at-photographers-on-the-internet-part-ii.html

and Joe over 2000 years of 2 dimensional art and over 185 years of photography and with more images probably being made in the past 5 years than in all of history before that it has all been done. Again follow your heart and work honestly about how you feel in the deepest sense about what you are photographing and let the chips fall where they may.

I have a good friend that gets very nervous when to many people like her work. She says that if everyone likes the work then she is playing it safe and in a creative world safe is a bad place to be.
 
Joe something I really find funny
http://theonlinephotographer.blogspot.com/2006/06/great-photographers-on-internet.html

and pt II
http://theonlinephotographer.typepa...at-photographers-on-the-internet-part-ii.html

and Joe over 2000 years of 2 dimensional art and over 185 years of photography and with more images probably being made in the past 5 years than in all of history before that it has all been done. Again follow your heart and work honestly about how you feel in the deepest sense about what you are photographing and let the chips fall where they may.

I have a good friend that gets very nervous when to many people like her work. She says that if everyone likes the work then she is playing it safe and in a creative world safe is a bad place to be.

i've seen those before...quite funny...and revealing.
 
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