Critique #47 *Open Theme* 5 Participants

[raid]

Shiro-kuro: Yes, the poodle effect is funny.
Let me know how your photos will comeout when using filters.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

I think the colors are wonderful . At first I felt the lamp was to centered ..it was the first thing my eyes went to ...Then I saw the man who seems to fixate on the light and ignores the beautiful view ... so I start to see this subtle humor and I like it .... and the more I look the more I like it ........... Now I have to wonder if this was your intentention .....if it was not ...light is to centered and I do not like the way everything is bunched up in the right corner

gabrielma: This is a very sharp, intrigue image. My eye is drawn immediately to the lamp on top of the post. From there it is drawn down and along the stones to the right to the people and the ships. I reluctantly force myself to look to the left of the lamp post since there is a lot of image area there. But there is nothing there except for hill and darkness. Compositionally the hope is that the left side of the image nicely balances the far more interesting right side but to my eye it does not. If the idea is for the eye to begin in the darkness on the left and then be drawn to the happier area on the right then this doesn´t work because the lamp post interrupts the flow. Individually there are some beautiful elements in this image (beginning about a third of the way over from the left at the two larger stones) but as presented as a whole it doesn´t quite work.

Excellent, you pointed out virtually all I wanted this photo to do.

shiro_kuro (Charley), you were right, there is a bit of humour in this (I like to find humour in things); I laughed when I saw the man staring at the light, on and off, so I worked my way to the point from where I took this photo. It was a beautiful sunset (to his left) and dusk just lingered on, nice shades of pink and purple on that horizon, but he'd just frequently look towards the post.

AusDLK (Dave), I understand your "distraction". I'm beginning to shoot more pictures that I think would have more "distracting" elements, and then compensate with straight-forward non-mind-challenging (or, rather, eye-challenging?) ones. People like adherence to rules and clichés (subtle and explicit). And that's what drew me to this scene: the cliché of the beautiful sunset (not seen) and the aftermath, dusk (seen), in a quiet, desolate (almost abandoned) landscape; there are many other elements "worthy" of contemplation, and the man is contemplating the lamp.

Hence why I put the lamp post right in the middle, forcing you to see it, also dividing "emptiness" and "busy-ness". This is during the first weeks of palpable Spring (if you look carefully, the river is flooded -- a sure sign of Spring taking over, here in Minne-so-tah), and what we tend to do during the first days of Spring is focus on the landscape.

This frame is a little bit curled, and a few parts of the scan exhibit this; I've been trying to scan it properly, without success. I don't want to correct the image with Photoshop, but that may be the only recourse.

Thanks, all.