"Cobblestones of San Juan"

Absolutely brilliant image. On reading a couple of the other comments here, I do agree, but I still think this blows most other photos on this site out the water!

This is a wonderful view of a city street. I like the perspective, low to the street. I also like the colors of the buildings.

Simply fantastic. My congrats. Regards, Kelvin.

Excellent shot. Great composition, original angle, superb colors. Congrats !

Fernand.

This image has been selected for discussion. It is not necessarily the "best" picture the Elves have seen this week, nor is it a contest. It is simply an image that the Elves found interesting and worthy of discussion. Discussion of photo.net policy, including the choice of Photograph of the Week should not take place here, but in the Site Feedback forum.

Before writing a contribution to this thread, please consider our reason for having this forum. We have this forum because future visitors might be interested in learning more about the pictures. They browsed the gallery, found a few striking images and want to know things like why is it a good picture, why does it work? Or, indeed, why doesn't it work, or how could it be improved?

So, when contributing to this thread, please keep the above in mind. Address the strengths, the shortcomings of the image. It's not good enough to like it, you should spend some time trying to put into words why that is the case. Equally so if you don't like it, or if you can't quite make up your mind.

Let's make sure this forum is a wonderful learning resource for future photographers!

Thank you and enjoy!

Wilson, I am sure there will be considerable discussion over "manipulation" of the image what with making three photographs and merging them. I just love it. I looked at many of your other photographs and marked you as "interesting" so I can find you again and again. I'll do that anytime I feel I need some inspiration. You have a marvelous portfolio. Congratulations on being chosen for POW.

 

I love the red and yellow colors--bright sharp and inviting. They seem to form the background to the wonderful cobblestone detail to what I see as the subject. An unusual composition, but the wet cobblestones are so very sharp they drag the eye right to them.

 

My only wish was that there would be more sharpness to the buildings in the upper portions of the photograph. Possibly stitching a fourth photograph, focused on that area, might achieve that. I don't know. Then, of course you would be manipulating too much for this audience.

 

I noticed several well manipulated pictures in your portfolio. You do wonderful work. Keep it up. Very nice -- Very attractive, and they certainly do grab the eye.

 

Willie the Cropper

The low perspective and the deep rich tones really does it for me on this photo. All of your work is full of creativity and imagination and this shot is no exception. Congrats, Wilson. It was long overdue.

Wilson, congratulations on being the 1st POW on the revamped site. All has been said about the DOF, the great and saturated colours, the excellent light, and I agree.

 

But. And what follows is what photography is all about for me - and I won't even have the answer, but here goes: I saw the photo and I liked it, for the obvious reasons (colour, nice angle of view, DOF etc). That was my first instinct. This being the POW however, I had to start analysing WHY it worked for me. And just there the trouble started.

 

I couldn't immediately find something in the photo that bound me beyond the first impressions, and that troubled me personally, because I can SEE that it is a great photo. I know the woman must play an integral part. Is she throwing out rubbish - not so great. Is she coming to someone, leaving a lover - now we're talking.

 

And although I am not great on manipulation (removing or adding objects) I have absolutely no problem with what you did here - I can only wish I knew how to do it myself.

 

I suspect that, except for the deliberate troublemakers, this POW CAN NOT degenerate into a manipulate v non-manipulate discussion - and luckily for me, you decided to leave the power lines in! The power lines, like the woman, play an integral part of the image. It binds the two buildings, and also binds a concept of visible v non-visible.

 

So all in all, a great photo, nice to look at, and I still don't have all the answers as to why, but I bet at the end of this week I will. Regards. - JH -

Congrats, Wilson, wonderful perspective in this image, good puddle reflection and very colorful.

Beautiful E', of impact and looks at that the artist has much originality and creativity butﾅ we are still in the field of the photography? Or the photography and solo an instrument of start for the espressività of the artist? I hope that because of English mine pessimo does not come misinterpreted. I am using the translator of google.

Congratulations Wilson

i guess the water is the key element of the image... all the picture above the water in fact, is playing with warm tones, it gives a deep sense of heat. if you put the water into account then you have a clashing subject... a hot place that anyway affords itself to leave the water be lost, flowing on the ground...

 

technicaly is a great image, as many from wilson, and water reflections and contrasting color tones are one of his favourite and recurring subjects, look at this one from him as example.

 

less recurring but still part of his style is the human subject. we can say that he prediliges humans doing visible strong actions, and this picture confirms his style... the out of focus human gives dynamism to the scene, also concurring to the sense of hot and fatigue that the uppert part of the frame would convey without water.

 

I dont' think this will sparkle another discussion over manipulation, expecially becouse he clearly states in image's details that mixed up details obtained from braketings, very much like hdr images, but done manually - and to me this is a plus. After all a photographer had the purpose to render the image as his eyes saw it, it is not unnatural looking, nor the effect is evident or overdone, and i don't think we would have known it if he hadn't stated the tecnique used into image's detail.

 

a great capture, a good choice for pow.

This is an astonishingly good photo. The only nit that I would pick is that she appears to be carrying out the garbage, but I realize that one cannot always control all elements of a photo.

 

Congratulations, Wilson. It looks you were literally on the ground to get this one.

 

--Lannie

Somehow I missed this one the first time around ... but great technical detail, composition, and story to tell. The very close reflection is quite nice. Such detail in the cobblestones! Great shot ... wondering if you shot other compositions without the human element or perhaps other human / animal elements?

Frankly, I would have liked the photo more with the reflection cropped out since, the water isn't reflecting anything of significance. The reflection part seems to be a bit of an afterthough as well as a "cliche". I think the texture of the rock, colours of the walls and the figure is enough for the composition -- strong, bold & clean.

A photo that certainly has some appealing color and depth. Is there a story, the woman

demands our attention and is she doing something important? Maybe that will be the crux

of the discussion. Apparently, emptying the trash wont carry this, but is that what she is

doing, I don't know, but what matters is how one looks at this--it is pivotal I think and if

she doesn't work, the photo isn't going to work.

 

I have to second the statement about the reflection, it absolutely serves no purpose here.

It does not give us any information, we already know that the street is open above, it does

not

add any "missing" element, we know the buildings are orange and are there and the sky is

blue, so what is it doing for us? It is pretty, but is that enough?

 

My only other comment is that I feel the upper right side is not holding its own and thus

the eye is being pulled over to a relatively minor element. I think the pinkish wall and the

light orange are the culprits and a burn is probably in order to bring balance here.

 

Bottom line, I think this image suffers a bit from being a little disjointed, but has some

potential. The irrelevant reflection could be removed, the light balanced and maybe we

could not think of the lady as removing trash. This was technically well done, if it is a

montage of sorts, but I think the message is lost amongst the wonderful colors and

technique.

What can I say ... composition and originality are incredible. Great tones of color also. Another title could be of more help. Congratulations.

Nice... I'm quite amazed reading that the reflections at the bottom serve no purpose. Well, ok, it is true that they don't bring any new "information", but they are, precisely, reflections. Their purpose is, imo, 1) to frame the shot nicely (aesthetics), and 2) to present us with the "little unseen wonders" that surround this casual woman in her casual daily outing.

 

Wonders of daily life... That is imo what this picture is all about. And both the reflections and the "overly" wonderful colors are welcome in this perspective.

 

What I found interesting too was to read that a woman carrying garbage out wasn't very nice, or was uninteresting somehow. I disagree. Ok, we could have had a pretty old lady with amazing wrinkles walking her dog and facing us, or such... but that would be an entirely different (and a much less original) picture. Here, the magic (and originality) of this POW (as I see it) is, that this very common scene - a scene we'd rather not show in general - becomes wonderful.

 

When I first saw it his POW actually reminded me of "Le chateau de Dame Tartine" - some kind of wonderland casttle made of candies, which was part of French kids litterature when they still read books, that is before video games were invented. :-) Or perhaps you could somehow find analogies with some scenes in "Alice in Wonderland".

 

In short, it seems to me, that Wilson was trying to OPPOSE "garbage" and "a pretty (magic) world". And therefore, I love these almost cartoonish colors, as well as this cartoonish angle, and I think this is a strong concept, not just a pretty picture.

 

As for the negatives... Well, there won't be much...

 

1) Shouldn't the verticals be more vertical - or at least be more vertical towards the center within the picture's width ? Here, the shot looks slightly tilted, walls seem to "fall to the right"...

 

2) The woman seems a bit blurry. I'd prefer her to be tack sharp - or maybe more motion blur could be interesting too. Here it's kind of half way...

 

But these are just 2 minor glitches in a very good and clever picture. As for the PShoping, no matter how much manipulation was performed here, I'd say it's ok, because it is *conceptually justified* - I can't imagine "Alice in Wonderland" filmed without Special Effects. This picture really doesn't pretend to present a daily scene as we see it every day: on the contrary, it is set out to create a wonder-world. Wilson showed us magic where we normally wouldn't see it. (Isn't that what a photographer generally does, anyway...?)

Wilson, Many of the travel photos in your portfolio are outstanding and creative images of attractive and unique places that make me want to visit the location. Unfortunately one of the few unattractive, mundane, and technically questionable ones was selected as POW. To me the most distracting elements are the leaning buildings and the obvious seam between the sharp foreground cobbles and the out of focus midground cobbles.

 

Any foreground object of significant size will be attention grabbing and should be worthy of the attention. Unlike the other reflection photos this reflection is insigniicant and uninteresting, and even the first row of cobbles is domianted by a single relatively bland block.

 

Many of your other photos have strong seamless diagonal lines that lead the eye around the scene, but this scene is broken into blocks by dominant horizontal lines. Although there are a few interesting aspects, the overall arrangement of the scene isn't nearly as aesthetically pleasing to my eye as some of your other images.

Very good. I think it's more a well done technical piece than a beautiful one. It tells a story of early morning life where she lives. The DOF is excellent. Sharp through out. The puddle & reflection keep the eye moving through the photo and lead the eye right up to the subject. I like the less saturated color and the fact you left the power lines in. They work in this type of shot. Congrats Wilson

This image has some attractive features. The colorful buildings are certainly photogenic, and it's always nice to find an unexpected subject to use as a focal point. The low angle lighting is also well chosen, although the blending of the exposures to even out the light goes a bit too far in my view.

 

Compositionally, the problem is that this shot, I suspect, was originally set up without the woman, so that the colorful reflection was the intended point of interest. As mentioned earlier, it is divided into four blocks with the least interesting feature - the cobblestones - in the center. Another way to look at this is that there are two lines of symmetry that reflect objects that are too dissimilar.

probably you are right: he composed without the woman and then, as she popped into the frame, he decided to shot... anyway i don't think wilson would have posted the image without a woman anyway, he too would have realized that the frame is too "void" without some secondary point of attraction other than the pond.... also he would have realized exactly what you pointed out, the reflection was too small, perspective lines were really different into the reflection... the image would have had less impact.

My eye goes straight up the street to the sky and that is it. The woman is out of focus and

in the top corner, indeed the colours and detail are around the edges of the image which

leaves blurry cobbles and the sky in central position.

 

Overall the image is colourful and eye catching but the composition is not strong enough

to keep you looking or wanting to come back again and again. Would I hang it on my wall

- No.

 

Congratulations to Wilson on getting some recognition here and everyone go and look at

all his other great images.

Well deserved recognition. I'm partial to your work in and around Chicago, but only because I'm biased :)

 

The movement of the woman makes an otherwise static scene more dynamic, IMHO.

Overall I like this photo because of the cobblestone detail in the foreground. I also like the woman carrying the garbage as it adds interest. However, the almost cartoon-like quality of the buildings sort of bothers me. It gives the photo a surreal look with a lack of contrast that is not evident in the reflection. Possibly this was done with the shadow-highlight tool that tends to be overused by photographers in general. I also think the photo works both with and without the reflection. It gives the image some balance and symmetry and does not detract compositionally.

I would agree with those that have remarked that Wilson has a series of very beautiful photos in his portfolio, but this photo is not up to his usual levels.

 

For me this weeks POW has only one interest which is technical: the wonder that the stones in front of our nose can be as sharp (almost) as the last house in the street - a wonder that only can be of interest for beginners. But that cannot make the photo interesting to me. The woman carrying garbage (?) seems mainly to be a disturbing figure to which can be added the electric lines crossing the street and the tilt of the buildings. The reflection in the forefront does, again in my eyes, neither add interest to the scene.

 

Bottom-line for me is therefore a POW with very beautiful colours and one open question: What is there to be found at the end of the street. The ocean, mountains or only the prosaic aim of the walk of the lady ?

 

Go and see the beautiful portfolio of Wilson if you don't know it already.