Ailton #4

Amazing!! Just amazing!

 

Thank you for sharing.....

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Maybe I'm missing the point? I guess I'm not seeing the interesting points in teh shot,

either from an aesthetic or conceptual point of view. It's nicely done shot, but in my

opinion....Nana has many more interesting shots in her OUTSTANDING portfolio.

 

If I had to offer some suggested changes (always trying to make any criticism constructive,

not just bashing), maybe more contrast would help add some depth to the piece?

 

Beautiful portfolio, though, as I said. You're a wonderful talent.

 

Regards--j

It's interesting how the head looks like a kiwi, in his hands.

BW and lightning are also good (it was not SO difficult, I think), and the result is good.

I can't see any "conceptual" meaning, but it's a beautiful image to see.

ooooh, can you feel the round? And the despair!

 

I'm glad there's no air at the top, I mean that the crop is trimmed to include only his body. And beneath the arms, the background that is visible, is tonally in tune with the subject's skin. Nice light, soft with open shadows.

As an attempt to reply to Jim's comment, I think what's interesting about this POW is simply that it shows a new perspective on something well know. Top view of an egg... oooops... of a head, I meant...:-)

 

I'll add to that, that I really love the fairly low contrast in the picture's skin and background areas, because it helps the neils to stand out.

 

As Doug said, the disappearing background and the light are very subtle, and it's all so well done. If anyone who has no or very little experience in studio photography would take this POW in his hands and enter a professional studio, and if he was asked to simply COPY this picture, I think he would then start to realise how difficult it is to produce such a well executed picture, and how easy it is to make a mess of it.

 

That said, I can certainly imagine that this subject matter may not appeal to everyone. Honestly, I wouldn't frame any picture of the same subject matter in my home either. BUT... it's still very beautiful... Congratulations.

although i am a big fan of light coming in from the left like this, i feel that it seriously undermines the effort at symmetry--one of the key aesthetic ingredients in this picture.

I don't know if this was the intent of the photographer, but when I first looked at the image it looked to me like someone was holding a football in front of them. Neat illusion.

I don't think the idea was symmetry, rather creating a sense of detachment and motion. It's amazing how many different elements create the effects--texture, angle of texture, lack of texture, detail, lack of detail, and the relative size of the foreground and background fingers to name a few. The barely visible detail of the fingers on the right side is very well done.

david.

 

i didn't say that the idea is symmetry, but surely you can't deny that it is an aesthetic component? actually, it's not just the lighting that's "off" in this regard: everything is off to the left and, if you really want to be pedantic, the head is crooked/turned. for a street candid, all forgivable; for a posed studio capture, not really. i am surprised marc g finds all this accpetable--perhaps it is in the context of the air-brush fantasy novel cover "art" that passes for photography here these days.

I like the photograph very much. At first glance I thought of a basketball player with a very small basketball, but it kept my attention long enough to realize just what it was I was seeing. Very clever photographer. I would like to show it on my wall. I have some idea that the shoulder should be a tad more burned in. Maybe not, but I would like to see it that way and then judge it again. Great photograph. It needs a name.

 

Willie the Cropper

The only somewhat symmetrical elements in the photo are the tips of the fingers. These are not evenly lit. So no, I wouldn't agree that symmetry is a component. I think there is a deliberate attempt here not to be symmetrical. I can see that there might be a certain expectation by the viewer that things should be symmetrical. The fact that they are not creates the desired effects.

I'm assuming that the subject posed for this shot. Okay, so it's a guy holding his head while he looks downward. I suppose the pattern of the fingers is interesting as a graphic element. I consider this sort of photo, graphic design. I don't know why he's doing what he's doing...perhaps he has a headache..perhaps he's depressed. No clues as to the "story" behind the photo.

 

Technically well exposed.

Otherwise the pic doesn't hold my attention. A one liner.

It is well exposed with excellent detail. Especially on the fingers of his right hand. I don't really see symmetry here, since there's more of his right forearm visible than his left. I'd prefer to see more contrast as well.

 

Other than the lighting and detail, the photograph doesn't really convey anything to me...doesn't speak to me. It's just another photograph of a guy with his head in his hands.

I don't know. Too much symmetry and it would look phoney, like it had been photoshopped. I think it shows enough symmetry to achieve what Vuk calls the "aesthetic component", but not so much that it looks fully posed (which I'm sure it is).

 

 

I think the idea of the photo, if it had one from the start, was not to portray any specific kind of human pathos, but in reality, it is probably just the result of a collaboration between a photographer and a model. I don't mean to belittle the image, but to suggest that there may not have been any grand theme from the beginning of the session. They got together, this is what resulted.

 

Making emotional photographs is hard. If 5 out of 10 people see, or better yet feel any emotion whatsoever, let alone the emotion the photographer intended, call it a success.

...although, Jim has a point. It IS yet another photograph of a man with his head in his hands. I mean, I've seen this kind of shot before, too. Seems a bit Mapplethorpish.

I think the photographer considered symmetry to a certain point, for instance, in realizing the symmetrical component as a compostional element, but I don't think he was trying to make it precisely symmetrical, for instance, lining the fingers up on a grid. The fact that the light is asymmetrical, as both David and Vuk have pointed out, proves this.

 

Slam dunk!

if it's actually not meant to be symmetrical, then the photographer chose about the most uninteresting and unconvincing way of doing it, which would make the effort far more mediocre than a near miss the other way.

I think Doug is right when he says, "Making emotional photographs is hard. If 5 out of 10 people see, or better yet feel any emotion whatsoever, let alone the emotion the photographer intended, call it a success."

I've always felt that a photograph, especially of a person, should have some sort of visual and emotional impact or effect on the viewer, other than the technical aspects, to be considered a "success."

This is a "good" photograph, but it has no emotional impact on me at all. If you look at it for a few minutes, you can pretty much cover all the possible scenarios the photographer is trying to convey (if any)...despair, depression, sadness, etc., etc. After a few minutes of thinking about it and looking at it, I have no desire to look at it again. There's nothing left to see or feel.

My first impulse was that I was supposed to see anguish. And then it became one of those illusions-- Oh, i can't recall the name right now-- where an image can only look like one thing at a time: you're either seeing a vass or 2 faces, etc. So when I looked at it, yeah, it's clearly someone looking down, but then i saw the hands and thought about them holding something. The head was lost in that moment and became an object being held. Does this make any sense to anyone else? Like the human form broke down into is constituents and made me very aware of the body as separate components while at the same time losing the body. It was this vacillation of body/not-body/body feeling that I had that really made this interesting.

 

Just my 2?... it's a very nice shot.

Vuk,

 

How do you like Irving Penn's work ? Admittedly much more contrasted than this, but here's my point: Irving Penn made a career out of symetrical portraits with side lighting.

One of my least favorites from an very good portfolio. I like the original variation of a standard portraiture, and it has some nice details: the hands, the scalp texture, the background of out of focus shoulder muscles. But to me it is more of a curiosity than an asthetically appealing image and doesn't hold my interest for very long. Unlike all his other B&W photos this one looks dull because it lacks very dark tones.

I'll admit, I don't know anything about studio photography - probably never will either. But this week's POW is brilliant on a certain level. After a quick glance I also got the feeling that it is a player holding a football (not the round one, the oval one)in front of his chest. Then I saw it is a man who is holding his head in his hands. And then, when I looked at it strangely with a sort of weird expression in my eyes and squinting a bit, I could swear he ripped his own head off and is holding it in front of him.

 

Makes you wonder what happened to all those 3D posters we looked at for hours.

This surely is Photography tutorial material on "perspective"! Very original!!

At first glance, this image is clearly open to many interpretations. I thought the subject was a pregnant woman.