"Cobblestones of San Juan"

Well done Wilson. I liked this image very much when you first published it. It has great depth and texture.

The "flip and rotate" LCD screen is wonderful for shots like this, as it saves one from lying on one's belly in a wet puddle. Unfortunately these Canons do not give a crisp image at mid- and distant range (I know, I used a Canon G5 for a year or two) compared to the better lenses on an SLR.

When will Canon put Superb quality lenses on their top-end G and S series of point-and-shoots?

Very well seen and clever shooting.

Thank you for sharing the "technical details" with us. The "merge" and powerful composition makes a lot. Eyecatching and amusing work of an artist.

Wilson, this is a great execution of a very clever idea. I love your series at the Mukilteo lighthouse, I live near there and frequently go to the lighthouse and ferry terminal to watch the gentle hubbub.

mike

well, reflection or no, tilt or no, clean screen or no, I love it. Love the perspective, the color,

the creativity. In fact, I am thrilled to have discovered your whole portfolio- I will be back

often to learn from you. Your perspective is rarity-- thanks for sharing.

Wilson, I add my appreciation to that work of yours.To me the reflections are reflecting part of realty that is taking place in the upper part of the image.The woman with her load looks as if just entered the image from another reality what makes it very interesting. The technical ability of yours, and using the light , colors and forms is outstanding in all your works ,this one is no exception. I Congratulate you for being chosen POW. ! Pnina

I think Wilson is an excellent Artist, who really knows where the interest is in what he looks at. In this image he has found the perfect location and camera angle , dividing the space into three distict sections. We have the foreground area of the reflection, the middleground of the cobblestones with the woman and the background where everything seems to be going. The high horizon line and central vanishing points really has us going up the hill and over. The reflection IS interesting, I think, because it doesn't mirror the buildings as we see them. It gives us new information about the scene. Using creative licence with color etc. he has balanced the woman nicely with the blackened windows on the right. It's a clean world which contrasts the action of the woman hauling trash. All in all it is the abstract qualities and lack of descriptive story information that frees us to wonder what the image is about. I think that is a good thing and renews my interest.

Who ever thought old cobblestone would make an interesting foreground? Different and well done.

I agree with the "magic in the daily life" concept mentioned above. Looks like there was rain that washed out mundane reality exposing the chimerical side of San Juan. Thats exactly the feeling this photo gives to me. Having said that I have to admit that (for me) the picture approaches the "kitch" border but never really crosses the line and that's really pleasant .Well done to the photographer for this outstanding and well balanced shot.

I love everything about this image but the thing thats strikes me most is the depth. Using a complete brick in the forground was a great idea and the water really enhances it. Colour is excellent too.

 

makes we want to go and try the same thing - which is the wehole point of the web site so I think your image is worthy of picture of the week.

 

 

Dave

To have or not to have de reflections on the lowerside of pic?

Both ideas are cool!

Good work anyway!

Carlos Loff Fonseca, Lisbon

As stated earlier, I like what you've achieved - the unusually low capture angle, the mellow light and hues, the simple equipment in this particular instance : just delighted you achieved this recognition, Wilson.

The pic's "un"real"..it does almost feel like a painting...the coloured walls and the highly textured path....the reality hits you with the reflection in the water. Its an element that has added an interesting "duality" to the whole composition...

I'm very grateful to have this image chosen by the Elves for PoW. Even though this is not suppose to be the best image, but rather a stimulus for fruitful discussions, it is one of my personal favorites.

 

I am thankful also for all the different comments and think that they illustrate very well of how different people view an image and arrive at some very different interpretations. Whether one thinks favorably of it or otherwise, I appreciate all the angles.

 

REFLECTION: I always am fascinated by reflections as it gives a photograph, a 2-D art form, that missing third dimension. Depending on angles, distance, condition, etc., reflection serves as a natural mirror-image tool, as a window to another world, as an abstract, etc. To me, the fun is in experimenting a different way to make a reflection, or find a new way to incorporate a reflection into an image. To me, for this particular image, in addition to aforementioned, the reflection also plays an integral part in the resulting composition, gives a bit more information about the weather beyond the horizon, and perhaps helps present this image as an island (visually aside from the actual fact that P.R. is an island.)

 

COMPOSITION: This is one of those things that may work for some and may not for others. Understandably, the fact that rule-of-thirds being thrown smack in viewers' faces may put some people off, I feel that it was most successful to have the sky, pavement (establishing point,) and water puddle all together with a near-far perspective to communicate depth of image. I patiently waited (feeding mosquitoes) for passerby to be in frame in hope of obtaining scale reference. The lady works much better here than a few other captures (she and her dad walking toward the camera at left, or couple guys turning the corner on the right after few drinks.) I agree that it would be better if the lady is tack sharp from head to toe, or be a bit more of a blur (BTW, you'll notice her feet are sharp as her stride hit the ground while body continues to be in motion.) I'd just might blur top of body to see what it might look like.

 

COLORS: There isn't really a whole lot of saturation increase as Puerto Rico Old City is full of colorful buildings and the late afternoon sun further increase the saturation naturally.

 

MANIPULATION: Other than taking 3 different portions of 3 different images and combining them in to one, there wasn't anything else that I did to it. The 3 images are identical in framing, but with different exposures for highlight, midtone, and shadow. In essence, it is a low-tech, psuedo HDR for JPG shooters (reads digital compacts.) Just make sure to bring along a tripod or some sort of support.

 

Thanks again everyone,

 

Wilson

^_^

Frank, Bolti, Cyrus, thank you much for your kind words. I hope the following will be helpful to some.

. . . exposure #2 . . .

. . . and last.

Hi again, Wilson. And thanks for your reply and added images to explain the process. One thing is missing for me which is to know the exact focal length and lens used here. The only thing that I can't understand is: why did you shoot all this at f8...? When going for near-to-far perfect sharpness and the best details you can get, and when you have enough light to do so, I'd say that f11 or f16 make more sense, don't you think...? I haven't seen a large print of this POW, but at f8, even with a wide angle (which always provides more DOF), I'd worry about missing some details somewhere. But then again, there could be another "trick" used here to try to get better details, and I'm wondering where you focused each of the 3 images: same place or 3 different places? If I had to shoot this, depending on the lens and its DOF properties, I'd probably go for f16 and a single focus point for all 3 images - and use DOF tester to be sure that everything is sharp from front to back in each of the 3 frames. I believe details would be slightly better that way. How did you do it exactly, and why, please?

This is a lovely image, Wilson. Excellent technique to create a spot-on

exposure. The perspective - being so very close to this ground - adds a great

deal of interest to what otherwise might have been an average pic.

 

My only critique per se is the DOF seems a little shallow - or perhaps not

shallow enough. Regardless, this is a very nice image. Cheers!

Wilson- Nice to see credit given where credit is due. Finally :) As for the image, it's wonderfully interesting. Thanks for all the explanation. This makes it even more interesting :) Congratulations!

My first impression was that the lighting was "wrong" and I'm still having a hard time getting past that. Now granted the image does work on many levels but if I can't get past that then I'm sorry to say it will always feel a bit contrived.

Wilson you are really great. Beatiful picture.

Daniel, Jayme, SP, Tomaso, thanks for commenting.

 

Marc, typical of digital compacts, in my case the A620, its minimum aperture is f8, so I had to make do.

 

As for focusing, I manually select the focus point (Canon calls it "FlexiZone") to the area I was exposing for (bottom edge of brick in 1/15 exp., curb near the lady on 1/30, and area between tree and lantern in the 1/250 frame.) Basically it's psedo hyperfocus with sharpness from edge of water & brick all the way back to small tree on the horizon. The softness in top of the lady's body is due to her movement captured at 1/30 (you might notice that her right foot is indeed sharp.)

 

BTW, the focal length was at the widest end of the A620 which is equivelent to 35mm FL (not all that wide in today's world of 24, 20, 17, ultrawides) on traditional 24x36mm film format.

 

Lastly, one point that you might find interesting is that I will not be able to capture this low of an angle if I were to use a DSLR due to its greater distance between the lens axist and edge of camera body. Although a combination of a SLR, tablepod, and right angle finder can get you pretty darn low point-of-view, it won't be nearly as low and as convenient as a digital compact equipped with flip screen propped with a quarter or two (or Euro coins.)

 

Wilson

^_^

Well, many thanks, Wilson ! This was very interesting in many ways.

I really like this very much.

 

Only one tech issue is the water reflection on the left side, the white window frame that is leading into the crack can use some distortion or darkening as it is flat on the same plane. This is minor, but worth very much mentioning as it is smack dab in the face. even erasing and a little part of a rockw ould solve this.

 

Great work!