toystory Untitled

3-th of series

Love it

Love the eerie mood of this great shot.

Delicate and evocative. Beautiful image.

Great ! Very good atmosphere and perfect usage of DOF. Congrats !

I love the fact that you're using old cameras. It makes me wonder:do you use conventional darkroom, as well? This image is delicate, nostalgic and beautiful in it's simplicity. Pozdrawiam :)

Of course! I do not represent me true balck and white photo without darkroom, but these pictures be scanned from negative. Pozdrawiam :)

beautiful and nostalgic

perfect composition and DOF

this picture is absolutely concussive! i started to write my thoughts but fail to express them more than one time. Maybe is better like that...Anyway, thank you for make me feel all these dimensions you apply here and i hope many others can understand and feel and see through the vision of a little child as they were once, in a frozen minimalistic time coming out through a camera obscura. Thank you Christopher for this shaking picture.

Beautiful! Maybe the best out of a great portfolio! Looking forward to seeing more!

 

Regards,

 

Andreas

Interesting Subject. I like this photo, simple but good.

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this is rather wonderful. i love the bokeh. something about loss of childhood or maybe loss of a child in this picture that comes across at an emotive level.
there is something i don't like. the lighting does not feel even and there appears to be darker parts. i wonder if the photographer had used the blur tool in photoshop and the touch had not been so even.
thematically, it is a winner though.

Wow, I loved going through the whole photographic postings here by Christopher and my mind ran from Duane Michaels to Rodney Smith to Robert Parke-Harrison to complete terror! What a sick and wonderfully creative mind! I love it!

Anyway, how can one really evaluate this photograph in the normal way? The pixel peepers and techies are in complete melt down mode I am sure. The image is about context and concept and I do think it is wonderful except for one thing, I think the context is not quite complete or fully realized. I think there are large gaps, although I love the images in this set, am missing connections. In fact, it might only be because of the repetition of this trike at the beginning and end without seeing a clear (any?) path between. It might be just that I am too obtuse, but that is how I am seeing it. I think sequencing images in these sorts of works can be as important as the images themselves. I would love to hear interpretations of this work!

I get a very somber feeling when looking at this for some reason. I took a breath when I first saw it and my heart sank.
The only thing that I did wonder is, where are the pedals?

Very thought provoking. Love it!

So much space to the left not been utilized and thats where the cycle should be and should be hidding to the right not the opposite way around, there are baisc elements in photography should been always conceded, never mind the miss of DOF which is also very distractive in this image and do not add anything pleasant.

I am sorry but thats how I see this POW, so sorry for the photographer he do have much more better images than this which do deserve been selected for discussion, other wise my compliments for his image been on the first page and wish him all of the best always.

Bah! Breaks all the rules. No context. Is pointing out of the picture, Front wheel is not entirely sharp. Background is odd. But if a viewer gets nothing out of this photo, it's because that viewer has forgotten or never learned in the first place how to see in the deepest sense of the act of seeing. The universe of childhood is here, if the viewer is able. Someone once said, "Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art." I think it requires spirit to appreciate (or even to see) this photograph, because I believe spirit produced it.

My friend, Stephen please look at the cycle rear tyre and the carved bar going to back IS sharp while the background at that zone is blurred , this is not a natural effect at all which could be preduced by a camera but a sever manuplations work, what we have in our mind when we catpure and image, stories, thoughts and any other things are not seen by the viewers as long as they are not withing the image itself.

The Art when humilated is no more Art but this is my personnel opinion and not necessary I am right, I am not an expert but I do have a taste and feelings like others and this image unfortunatly did not fullfill my satisfactions at all.

Thank you my friend Stephen and wishing you all of the best.

Rashed, this is not the kind of photograph that I would produce, and it may not be the kind of photograph you would produce, but I can't bring myself to say that this is a humiliation of art. On another point, your raise an issue that should be discussed: do our stories, thoughts, or any other reasons that caused us to press the shutter have to be seen by the viewers within the image itself? I would answer that in three ways: 1) the viewer is free to make his or her own interpretation and create his or her own stories and thoughts from the photograph, and they may not coincide with those of the photographer; 2) the photographer has expressed his or her own story and thoughts in the photograph, and it does not matter if this story or these thoughts are understood or even seen by viewers, as long as the photograph expresses the photographer's story to the photographer; and 3) if the story or thoughts expressed by the photographer also resonate within the viewer after seeing the photograph, then that is probably an exceptional photograph because it strikes a deep and common chord. This struck a chord in me, and I think Christopher was successful in communicating something to me. It appears that this photograph did not fulfill your satisfactions at all (I don't want to misinterpret your message, so I try to use your own words as much as possible). You did find some specific elements that were not natural effects, and I can see these as well, but they don't matter to me -- I'm seeing (and feeling) something else.

I state all of this in the friendly spirit of discussion, just as you have done. Thanks.

 

Thank you my friend Stephen, I do approcaite and understand all of your points and respect them too, the friendship discussion is the right spirt of Art and you are a wonderful artist my friend, thank you again and enjoy the rest of the day my friend.

Good idea, but flawed. Too much empty space. The horizon is not needed. The trike is headed out of the frame; it should be on the other side. The front wheel is not entirely in focus. The blur around the side seems like a blur tool was used.

i feel this was shot from indoor through a window. This produces the blurring somebody is referring to. And it also gives a feeling of peeking inside as if we were a kid. Very nostalgic thanks also for the emptiness of the frame.

"But if a viewer gets nothing out of this photo, it's because that viewer has forgotten or never learned in the first place how to see in the deepest sense of the act of seeing."

It's admirable to have strong opinions and a strong aesthetic, yet I find this statement way over-the-top.

I wouldn't have couched my thoughts in terms of so-called "rules" as Rashed did.

I can see a search for something spiritual, or one might call it loneliness, desolation, nostalgia, depending on how it strikes you.

There are several other photos in Christopher's portfolio that seem to be going after a similar emotional endeavor and I am drawn to a photographer who pursues a vision and who tries, with consistency, to be expressive.

I love the subject matter of this photo which, to me, is space and a tricycle. I can't get past the blur, which feels self consciously imposed, no matter whether it was created in camera or in Photoshop. I think it is the main thing I stay conscious of when I look at this photo, and when I stay conscious of an element like blur rather than content or feelings, in this kind of photo, I find that distracting to what the photo is really trying to do, which I would think is not to get me to think about blur per se.

Part of my problem with the blur is its consistency everywhere beyond the tricycle. That consistent blur seems heavy and seems to burden the space rather than allow it to breathe. That may have been the intention of the photographer, to close in and flatten the space, but it doesn't seem to me that it was.

I don't have a quarrel with which side of the frame the trike is on or whether it's facing in or out of the frame. An interesting discussion might be about how those differences would make us feel differently and which feeling or emotion the photographer might have been after.

I'll say right from the start that my opinion is heavily biased. I've been an admirer of Christopher Falcman's work since I first discovered it back in 2006. I'll also admit that he has influenced some of my own work. There seems to be a bit of discussion here about whether this is "real" (for lack of a better word)...meaning whether the effect was created in-camera or not. It could have been, but what difference does it make? For me, the emphasis here is not on the "effect", itself, but on the effect it has on the viewer. I hate to use the word "dreamlike", but that's appropriate here, I think. Some elements of dreams are vivid and sharply focused, while others are blurred in our memories, so for me, there's a reality here that is disconnected from the reality of the so-called real world. There are no "rules of photography" that are applicable to this photograph, nor should there be. I see this as pure creativity and an outstanding example of an artist-photographer at work. The photograph makes us think, and isn't that what it's supposed to be all about? Chris has created his own little world in a lot of his photographs. Parts of that multi-layered world are fun, while others may be a bit disturbing. I'm glad to have been invited in to have a look around. Congratulations, Chris...wherever you are...on your POW.