Critique #61 *Landscape* 5 Participants

Charley: I have dared and returned to your image for additional critique. I will try to summarize my follow-up comments in a few points:

1. Choice of Focus: This is one of the strongest points in your image, in my humble opinion. You did not go for a simpler "pretty image" of the reds, but you challnged yourself with having the right half of the image cover the absolutely beautiful tree branches with the colorful mix of reds and whites, while the other half allows us to take a peek at the surrounding. The background is not totally out of focus, and it allows us to recognize what goes on with the greens.

2. Horizontal vs. Vertical: The choice of a horizontal perspective was necessary for a half-half image as you have given us here [full frame]. I wonder how another image may emerge if you cropped out [now] a vertical perspective. Of course, if you had from the start taken an image vertically, there would be more possibilities. Maybe you already have a vertical image of this scene?


3. Choice of Film: You used Fujichrome Velvia, which is a wonderful slide film with sharpness and vivid colors. I doubt it that there are other film types that clearly are superior for such an image. B&W may be a challenge here. The colors would be gone, so the question would be "is there something else?"
That would be another challenge.


4. Subject: The main focus is on the tree branches with the colorful reds. If you had turned the focusing barrel to focus on the distant statue and had you thrown the reds into a dreamy out of focus, what would have been the effect?
I wonder, Charley. What you have done is great, and I am just playing with ideas here. It is good to experiment with wild ideas. Maybe they will result in inferior images and maybe you will be pleasantly surprised.

Raid
 
Warren: My second round of comments on your image goes as follows:

1. Composition: It is as close to textbook perfection as possible. I tried to look at the image over and over, each time imagening a different composition, but I find that you have already chosen an excellent one.

2. Horizontal vs. Vertical: As stated by me in my comment on Lynn's image, I find that both work well for landscapes. In this case, however, I think that have done wisely to go with a vertical perspective. The reason for my preference of a verticalimage hereis the fact that my eyes go from the bottom of the image to the fence and then "up" to the distant mountains. The key word here is"up", and that's why a vertical works better [for me].

3. Shade: There is a dark part in the right lower part of the image, showing us the shade from the tree. Would it have been possible for you to move a little around to minimize the amount of shade shown? Maybe this was not possible and maybe you viewed the shade as an important factor of serenity.

4. Perspective: Right now, the perspective seen is that from a standing person's eye level. In a sense, you have given the foreground [the fence] the same weight as the top of the image[the mountain]. It may be interesting to view other images of the same spot that were taken differently. The scene is magnificent, and most likely you have taken multiple images there. I would have knelt down to a lower perspective too; it would have placed more weight on the fence at the expense of the mountain's role.
 
Gabriel: I now have gone back to your image to complete my critique. I have the following comments:

1. Challenge: I view your image as a challenge to the photographer; if it were focused only on the sunset, it would have been a straightforward sunset image. If it were focused only on the writing shown on the hand rail, it would maybe be street photography. By daring to combine both aspects into one image, you successfully challenged the "rules". It is inspiring to see photographers not blindly follow set rules or guidelines from some books, but go with their instinct to explore new dimensions.


2. Focus: You balanced the focus point between the writing and between the sunset, and this was necessary to make the image as an interesting mix of landscape and street photography.

3. Exposure: The image looks to be on the dark side a little. Maybe this was intended too so that the sunset color come out bold. Also, the writing does not stick out immediately and it is like a surprise factor popping up after we look at the sunset. I would be interested in also seeing a slightly lighter version of this image. Maybe then it is not so interesting anymore, but I am not sure about it.

4. Position of photographer: The hand rails are not parallel to the camera. Would it make a difference if the photo had been taken with the hand rails going in a parallel way? Maybe not. Maybe it would not be interesting. I am not sure which I would have chosen, but it is a factor to think about. This again is a specific choice of image rendition by the photographer. This is the first thing that came to my mind when I looked at this image.


Raid
 
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