Interlace

I have to thank you for this beautiful photograph. I often catch my self staring at this huge ramps and the graphics that they create, telling my self "There must be art in this". Tried to capture it my self, but I was never satisfied. This is realy beutiful example of turning everyday things into fine art. Bravo! Congratulations and my deep respect.

It's a real pleasure to see here this nice photo. I think that the essence of the shot is on the lines (of course) very well captured where the BW looks like to be the natural tone for this kind of geometric draws. Further the square form of the picture exalt the harmony of equilibrium.

Very nice Alex!

 

Regards

Domenico

Industry becomes art... nice design, nice work! -Greg-

I'm in agreement with Vuk Vuksanovic and John Kelly. I would just add:

 

1) that I'm fine without adding a (cliche?) bird - although I dared to like the bird in last week's POW. :-)

 

2) that I may have liked this even better if it was framed just a little larger, to see a bit more of the cranes' cabines (of course, this is assuming no other distractions would appear in the frame).

 

3) that I have no idea how this image was produced, but that I know of a dozen ways to roduce this from about any crossed crane shot, pushing contrast, cloning etc with PS.

 

This third point bothers me a little, in the sense that I can't tell what was post-produced, and what was originally photographed. Maybe the final outcome is only good enough for the net, maybe not. All these are unknown data, which make it difficult to judge what we are looking at. I hope the photographer will tell us a bit more about the way this was produced.

 

As it is, I like the graphics and find the picture odd and amusing in a way. Not a memorable picture that touches the heart, but there is a space in the art world for good graphics and original concepts like this.

Greg S , Industry becomes art...

 

i like Greg's comment alot. i took it in very deep sense.

Nice Geometric form. Good Shot.

 

Regards

Wonderful composition, very stark and simple. Not sure I like the dark top corners, is it vignetting or a grad?

Truly excellent though.

Steve

Very eye catching in it's graphics. Industry does indeed become art. Like some others I would prefer it not be vignetted. Still an imaginative and very good piece. Congrats on POW

This would very well as a series of industrial subjects post-processed in the same way. Certainly has a strong graphical quality to it, and is well composed, but leaves me cold. Perhaps the lack of photographic factors (an illusion of three-dimensionality, light, detail on some object) etc. makes me devalue this image a bit. It should be easier to create a similar image using a graphics package than run around trying to find two cranes aligned just so.

Isn't the emotion evoked by a cold graphic image just as valid as a warm fuzzy one?

 

. . . and I doubt that very many of us could create this from scratch using any technique other than capturing it with a camera. The suggestion also implies that you could have seen all the details in your mind's eye, rather in the viewfinder. Both are quite difficult, actually.

 

Well seen and well balanced, but yes, get rid of the faux vignetting.

 

Only four images uploaded? Context would be nice.

These cranes don't move me (no pun intended). I agree about the distraction caused by the vignetting. To me this image is not only static, what it obviously is, but also sterile. It doesn't emanate a more profound meaning than a playful photographic experiment. The composition is decent but not complex. 'Anyone' can have a chance of having this view angle IMO. If the same subject was tackled with a wide lense at some not-often-accessible viewpoint, closer to the action, I think this idea would benefit from a certain dynamism and more interesting perspective. Being able to spot the operators inside the cabin would also add a tremendous sense of scale.

 

Which brings me to my next point (because I was diverging from the actual image I think) - the image has a sort of identity crisis, is it toy cranes or is it real ones? Just a quick view and the mind is sort of wobbling on the idea - the image seriously lacks a sense of scale IMO.

 

As graphic art, I find it ok. It has potential to be a mass-print targeted at IKEA parents wanting to decorate their kid's suburb room. Sorry for the prejudice, but that's what comes to mind when seeing this image.

Great composition!

Hello and many thank for your interesting comments.

I want to talk about the postproduction on this shot. I've done a very simple work here: first of all a crop from the 4:3 of my EOS 10D to the square format. Then I've desatured the shot and I've regulated the B&W with levels to obtain this result. Nothing has been cloned out, the background was only the sky behind the two cranes. No birds or human figure was on the scene in that moment.

It was the late afternoon and I was backlighting.

A the end, I've added on a separate layer the vignetting effect (just a fixation for me).

Just one thing: this result was already in my mind at the moment of the shot.

Thank you all.

Alex

Thank you, Alex. We now get a clearer picture of the process. Interesting.

For me it's a nice photo with a nice compositon. It seem's both cranes are huging eachother (feelings & machines).

Cranes and cables are cranes and cables. How we see them comes from within us. Alex has rigged the shot so that it evokes from us the feeling of asymmetrical grace from the commonplace rough world around us.

It would be much cleaner without the asymmetrical vignetting, which appears totally artificial--and is. I would personally prefer it without any vignetting of any kind.

 

That said, the geometric shapes are interesting and well-framed. Congratulations, Alex, on having this picture selected as Photo of the Week.

 

--Lannie

Hmmm....I didn't realize that Canon made square format cameras.

 

Too bad about the problem with the light fall off with the digital sensor...I've heard about that.

 

The dark top right corner pushes you into the center of the capture, and out the right bottom corner. Pity. Try flipping left to right...the dynamic totally changes. You now are brougth (somewhat more) back into the frame.

brought...(not brougth)...(bloody keyboard gets confused.)

Alex!! Lo sai che me ne sono accorto solo ora!! Complimentissimi per la foto ( ovvio) ma soprattutto per il riconoscimento che già vale molto qui su photonet ma in questo caso vale doppio perchè sei forse l'unico italiano che lo ha ottenuto.

Complimenti ancora!!

Ciaooo

I like very much the grey degradation texture of the corners, and of course the black&white effect, making a very effective comic aesthetic.

 

The diagonal lines confusing and fighting each other, with the also diagonal metal lines of the structure wich make a very condensed thing but light at the same time

 

Excuse me for my poor english, I would like to say more things and explain better, but just let's say that I like it very much!!

 

 

Postindustrial boxing!

I would just like to say I like the image very much, the vignetting is fine with me if it's fine with you, and welcome to P.N. Being selected for POW right at the start is really a kind of burden I think but you seem to be bearing up to the attack in good form. Your style is clean and quite graphic and I admire the work that I have seen so far. Congratulations.

I commented earlier on aspects that I liked and factors that bugged me a little. But I've kept looking back at this photo because I do like it small, on the P.N page. Six or eight related (same or similar subject, each one different) images might do more beautifully together, like huge tiles, than any one of them alone.

 

One may be less likely to obsess uselessly on the shortcomings of this as an individual image if one thinks of it in multiples, as a graphic designer might do instinctively.

 

One might just print this one image two times, flop it and print it two times more, arranging the four in a star-like symmetry.

 

http://www.tobeycmossgallery.com/Ruth_Asawa.html

 

http://www.museumca.org/exhibit/exhi_asawa.html

 

(Note that Asawa's Black Mountain College was a rescue satellite in America for the Bauhaus..recall Bauhaus photographers and designers)

Just a small note. Alex, the Canon 10D is 3:2 rather than the 4:3 you mentioned. I'm sure just a mistype.

 

I seem to concur with Marc G's comments so won't add my own.

 

Diane

Arrivo tardi, ma dico che 蠵na composizione semplicemente straordinaria. Tutti i miei complimenti!

it's a great composition... but the quality reminds me to photo 101 class ...