Woman with umbrella #2

Sensational use of the XPan to make a candid photograph. Everything is in its place. Even the lack of a CWND filter adds to the image, providing a slight vignette to give it an other-worldly look.

 

I've tried to do similar things with this camera. I find it hard to use as its lens is so slow (f5.6 with the filter), but results like these are a credit to your technique and photographic eye. Well done!

Congratulations on Photo of the Week!

I enjoyed looking at your entire folder full of black and white images. Beautiful tone, contrast,and a keen eye for composition. I see some other POW candidates in there as well. Quite possibly the best black and white images of street life I have yet seen!

Peter Christoph

This is one of many interesting images from an accomplished b&w portfolio. Congratulations! Also, this a very nice rendering of a nice day on the beach in the beautiful NW--seems like it's always coats and sweaters!

An original POW, the panoramic format makes this an interesting candid-photojournalism type photo. Was this staged in any way ?

Now this is more than a photo I can look at all week; this is a photo I could look at all year. Great job. I love your work. I only wish I could someday produce photos of that quality.

 

Sincerely,

Justin Winokur

 

Wonderful composition. I would love some more information about your camera and darkroom technique (chemical processing then digi, or is it a scan from your print?). You have a distinct and striking style. I really enjoyed your portfolio.

 

Congrats on POW. Great shot.

I love this one. This is really great. It's elliptical and mysterious, it suggests thousands of contradictory narratives - it's like a film still. I don't need to ask about this one, I get it. I'll be a little disappointed if I find out that it was set-up, but even if it was, it's still extremely imaginative. Thank you.

I had never seen your work, and I would thank the elves for bringing it to my attention...

Not much I would change to this image... I love the composition, and the scene itself - especially this amazing woman with her umbrella so brilliantly opposed to the lively " dialog " between man and bird at the back... This is really alive... Sincere congratulations !

 

Other picture that truly grabbed my attention in your folder:

Early morning... Ferry worker resting... Wedding at Salty's... Molly and Gabriel...

 

 

Looking at Bradley Hanson's photos creates a sense that you -the viewer- are the actual discoverer of the subject of the photo. This is true artistry.

I LOVE this type of "slice of life" photography that creates a big canvas with many elements that seem unrelated. The viewer then gets drawn into the image by putting the composition together. Most types of photography will bore me if I see to much of it in a short time, but this kind of work never pushes my nerves.

 

My only nit is the left side seems a bit stretched and might need some cropping, but I'm wavering between 'maybe' and 'not sure'.

 

Nice image!

Very nice picture. While the whole picture is full of life the eye is driven towards the woman with the umbrella. The rest is decoration. Perhaps a slightly bigger version would allow us to see more details in her expression? Good use of B/W material. Never have thought that Tri-X can be grainless, at least I don't see any. What is it developed in?

 

Cheers,

A fascinating and intriguing assembly of components. You can stare at this every where. I'm a fuss pot over horizons, but it was only afterwards, when I became my boring old self, that I noticed the slope. So I'm thinking the slope's no big deal at all. I'm also thinking that may be there's an excess of black coats here. Any way, a great tale about anticipating potential from a guy who carries an XPan in his saddle bag.

This is great - I just wish you had stepped back and panned to the left; you missed Death & Antonius Block playing chess...

 

I love the strong contrast in this image; it lends itself to surreal/mythical interpretation. The angelic looking seagull and the outstretched hand remind me of the Sistine Chapel (I've just noticed the pure black figure underneath too). It looks contrived, but it isn't. Amazing.

 

The horizon isn't level, but it doesn't attract from this picture's appeal (if it really bugs you, rotate it by half a degree and crop the thing).

Congrats on POW.

 

I like the compositional elements and the mood, and it is a very nice impromptu shot that works well in the wide angle format. However, I agree with Kevin Finerty about the sloping horizon. Either this image was scanned at very low resolution, or not cleaned up, but the image seems very soft to me. I think it would be much more effective if we could see the smaller details.

It's an interesting photo and I agree with much of the points already stated. I think I might have prefered it if the people in the background were more to the left of the frame and I'm not sure about the vignetting. To me it closes the picture down to about the size of a regular mf image. Still very nice but I like some of the other shots in the folder a heck of a lot more.

Weird. Different. I agree with people more to the left. It would have given more balance. Maybe a crop at left would make it better.

I love the way this image is separated in thirds/fifths by the horizontal lines, and the way both heads avoid these lines. I am not sure about the seagulls on the left, but I think they should be removed. It looks like the man feeding the gulls and the umbrella, kind of lock the image in between themselves. Cannot tell about the grey tonality, whites and blacks, as the image is too small for these details.

 

Excellent general feeling.

 

Very nicely done.

Nicely done photo Brad. Congrats.

Tris. Have you ever anything good to say about anything? Your diatribes are getting very old and your rating this 3/3 is insulting and ludirous. It's certainly not a 10/10 and could be larger; but 3/3?

Nicely done. Thanks for showing us new angles with the Hassy pano. Sometimes we concentrate too much on distant panos and forget the potential for close in shots. Your picture looks like a scene right out of Fellini. Definetly fellini-esque!

Brad Hanson:

 

At first glance this photo strikes me as being

' candid'. But, my eye is drawn to the umbrella

lady who ' appears' to be aware of the camera, and

your notes confirm this: 'the woman removed the

umbrella to ask if I was taking her photo'. So, I

ask the question: Is a candid element important

to your photo, and should it make any difference?

 

 

 

One more time I'm going to direct you all to Jim Tardio's work. Not because it's excellent work (and some of it is just that) but because it will give everyone a picture to look at which is a good example of this particular Hasselblad camera in action.

Classic car night.

There is significant difference between the quality of this week's POW and the image offered above for review. Please learn this difference. Until you do it is hopeless.

I'm very happy to have been introduced to Bradley Hanson's work. This photo is not my favorite. But

Gabriel at the Beach

is what I would have chosen for POW. I also loved the image of his son, Gabriel, hidding at the park. Hanson's wedding work was particularly intriging for me and the getting ready shots are treated in an interesting way that I've been inspired to try myself. The chosen POW image does not strike me for some reason. I guess it just doesn't move me on an emotional level. Seems like two unrelated images, the stick in the foreground is distracting to me and it just feels static. However, I'm extremely pleased to have been introduced to this photographer's other images -- some of which are truly outstanding and inspirational!!

Absolutely lovely to my eyes. It includes that enigmatic atmosphere I dream to include in every picture of mine. This is achieved thanks to a balanced composition of elements which are apparently stranger, but all together make an intriguing design which catch your eyes and doesn't release it. It's visual bebop. This is a real picture of the week in my book. Best one from MANY MANY MANY weeks.

I love the entire folder for what that matters.

Thumbs up!

I very much like the arrangement of compositional elements in this photo - very balanced in my opinion. I also like the underlying tension at play between the couple feeding the seagulls (light) vs. the woman sheltering herself from the elements (heavy). I tend to prefer photos that have some sort of emotional subtext, and this one certainly fits that bill.

 

However, with all due respect to Tony (specifically his second comment which, if I may paraphrase, was along the lines of "not seeing the forest for the trees"), I think this photo does have deficiencies which should not be glossed over. These shortcomings have already been noted, but the two which bother me are the the lack of sharpness (probably the scan, but how do we really know?) and the sloping horizon (easily fixed I would suggest). The bottom line is that I think the presentation of this photograph could be improved.

 

Which raises an interesting point. A few POWs ago we were discussing "Light". For me, that photo was simply brilliant in the mood it captured, and as such, I was willing to overlook the technical shortcomings which were vigourously debated. In this instance we have another photo with an interesting mood, but FOR ME, not quite compelling enough to turn a blind eye to the technical deficiencies. I raise this issue since during the course of the "Light" thread, Tony was quite vociferous in his assertion that errors in execution should not be readily dismissed... and in principle I agreed. But I couldn't help but maintain that every photograph has a continuum of interest, and at some point that interest begins to outweigh any deficiencies.

 

I guess I'm wondering if this photo has had such an impact on Tony, and if so, where do we draw the line? And if there is a line to be drawn, which is the more important delineator? Is it (the presumably) high visceral impact of the overall photo, or is it the minor nature of the technical demerits? Further, should this line be different for exceptional photographers (such as Tony) vs. midling (or worse) photographers (such as me)? Or does it all come down to subjective preference and my apparent preference for "Light" and Tony's apparent preference for this week's POW?

 

This is a genuine, well-intentioned inquiry... not a challenge. Tony's or anyone elses thoughts would be appreciated.

If a photo engages me (as this one has), then I'm usually prepared to overlook any technical flaws.

 

I actually like the (apparent) lack of detail in this photo; the composition works on the level of a painting for me (its full of surrealist/expressionist motifs), so I'm not too fussed about the lack of detail in the 'figures' (there's enough).

 

However, as Nick suggested, that engagement factor is totally subjective. I can appreciate the composition, lighting, and detail in "Classic Car Night" (its a triptych), but it doesn't excite me like this photo does.

 

I rarely comment on photos (or rate them); most of the photos on photo.net (even the good ones) are just technically perfect cliches. However, every now and then an image comes along which totally blows me away. I see no reason why I should contain my enthusiasm just because the horizon isn't straight!