Psychological Portrait

What an impressive piece of work!

 

Reminds me very much of the paintings of Norwegian expressionist Edward Munch. Similar dark tonality and theme, swirling, rounded edges. Look, for example, at the Munch painting here:

http://sunsite.dk/cgfa/munch/p-munch11.htm

 

Very interesting portrait. I love the way the subject holds his face while leaving his right eye barely visible. Good capture.

Bravo, really excellent. If I was to be super picky, it's a shame the wrists are in focus more than the face... but then the slight de-focus adds to painterly look.

The hands are beautiful. The tones are amazing. What a sense of feeling. I think this is a picture of Yuri's friend who is also a photographer, he just looked at Yuri's portfolio and is now considering giving up photography. Tremendous once again, Yuri!

You have done it again! Marvelous and very well done. Congratulations on POW, AGAIN. :))

Congratulations on POW, truly you are deserving. I have to agree with Ken, your ratings of my photos take on much higher signifigance after viewing your portfolios! You are a true artist! I want to be like you when I grow up (as a photographer).... Bravo Yuri!

Deserves it, no question, truly does.

This is a great capture, although I hesitate to use a positive term to describe what is so clearly a time of pain for this man. The implied motion is almost dizzying, and certainly enhances the dark feeling. As outstanding as this image is, it is not something I would care to view regularly (though this is not a criticism by any means).

 

Taking an initial look through your exceptional portfolio, one can see a multi-dimensional talent, able to capture and evoke a range of both positive and negative emotions and moods, and who is comfortable and accomplished with a variety of film types.

 

Creator of the POW is becoming a habit for you, and it would not be going out on a limb to say you'll probably be back again....and again.

This POW is 10/10. Those lights and shadows WOW. It should be right close to Rembrandt...

 

Congratulations Yuri.

 

ps: I'd like to know how you took it.

 

Used to be the corporate memory around here was about six months. Seems it's shrunk again.

 

Thanks, elves, for the pointer to the photographer's body of work, but we all traipsed over and looked at Yuri's portfolio 5 weeks ago: the last time he won POW. Very nice, innovative and all that, but isn't it time to move on to the works of others?

A very excellent image. I like it a lot. Yuri says no PS and I believe him. However, lots of his images in his portfolio obviously have some extensive PS adjustments yet do not say so. I'm sorry but this makes me suspect with all your images. I cannot look at an image of yours without wondering, for example, how much extensive curve adjustment did you do to make a certain blue so bright and saturated, or how much selective levels adjustment occurred on an image to give a certain effect. On many of your images Im left wondering how the original chrome looks. But based on your technical details Im supposed to believe the chrome/neg looks for the most part like the digital image I see. I'm not anti-digital PS processing or against any of this per se. But theres something about presenting images with no explanation when its obvious with some that such adjustments are what may have created the strong "punch" or effect that makes the image so special. If PS is used above and beyond the realm of slight tonal adjustment, typical burn/dodge and sharpening I think it should said so. If you did nothing, say so. If you did something, say so. Thats all.

Or maybe Im soooo jealous and am just a sour graper. :^P

Nice shot. Looks very grainy, but this is good! Subtle tones and shadows work well here too. Congrats.

Matt Fetterley asked "did the subject know you were taking his picture?"

 

I imagine that he didn't notice. He would have been more concerned with the fact that his right arm had been severed just beyond the wrist.

 

Can no-one else see it?

 

It's a fantastic image. Whilst, from a technical point of view it's interesting to know whether PS has been used on images, why this constant disapproval if it has? Surely what's important (artistically) is the final image. If PS is cheating then surely so is photography - we should all learn to paint properly.

If I had to visually describe depression this would be the definitive statement. Excellent, but somewhat troubling work

This image places me with a strong dilema.

 

I'm trying to balance my appreciation for the wonderfull textures and composition vs my dislike for the perpetual display of photographs which dramatize the negative aspects of the human condition. Why can't you people take pictures of people being happy???

 

I'm not so much disturbed by the rather dark nature of the image because it's not clear if the subject might just be deep in thought or inflection. That is the mystery of the image and why I feel it succeeds. Yuri's work is far more complex than simple cliche's.

 

What disturbs me are those who rate this image higher because it *is* dark and gloomy. Up your medication please.

This is certainly one of the most interesting and photographic images we've seen as POW - Yuri's winner of five weeks past notwithstanding. Let us, first of all, nip this idiotic Photoshop argument in the bud before it starts.

Look at the picture. As you see, he is wearing a black jacket. On his left arm the cuff of his shirt extends beyond the jacket sleeve; on his right arm, as often happens when wearing a jacket, the shirt cuff is inside the jacket sleeve. Hence, the appearance of his right arm being "cut off".

Yuri, as his two POWs in five weeks will attest, is a fine photographer. But a quick look through his otherwise fine portfolio reveals that his Photoshop skills have a long way to go, to catch up with his eye; Photoshop is not yet his thing. He is obviously far more skilled with the camera than with the mouse, so I think we have little to fear from him in that respect. For now, anyway.

My initial thought on seeing this chosen was, 1) Great image; and, 2) with all the thousands of images (nearing half a million) on this site, couldn't they find one by somebody who hasn't yet been chosen for POW? Second week in a row for a repeat appearance. But then I thought, well, hey, if they (whoever "they" is) were going to choose a portfolio to plumb for repeated POW choices, they certainly could have done worse than Yuri's. At least his work consistently shows honesty, integrity, and originality, or efforts toward it.

This image has a really painterly, Old World look, dark and dramatic without being overly so. Whether a spontaneous capture or a setup, it matters not. The swirl of dirt away from the window center effectively conveys a vortex, in addition to providing a neat internal frame. Great work!

It's rather dull and obvious, is it not? Mystery?? This leaves no room for mystery.

Someone said it's good the watch is black; is it good the watch is a plastic Casio? The watch looks awfully out of place. You had no choice, but it is one of the factors which preclude this from being a great picture.

In purely visual terms, it's nothing extraordinary, and in terms of impact, well, I think painting would have been better. Why not exploit the strong points of the medium? Too many photographers have imitated painters for too long.

After a bunch of POW's that left me puzzled as to their merit, the elves finally hit the nail on the head.

 

This is a work of art that stirs my soul, and I cannot stop staring at it.

Yuri's portrait shows some sort of mental anguish; this photo by Sebastiao Salgado, of a man in Mali shows human misery. I am not saying that the first one is not original; far from it. What I am saying is there is always some coincidence happening in the world, somewhere -- a sort of mental convergence.

Otlichno, Yuri!

I am trying - I put my Prozac to 200 mg - still I see a true piucture of humanity which is mostly suffering! Want happy, shiny people? Maybe look in your Bible buddy. This is humanity to me, I am glad for Yuri. 9/9.

I have to agree, but it's the way of the world. Even at the oscars, received wisdom is that "drama" (ie tragedy) is much more likely to win than comedy. Personally, I reckon there is enough real misery around the world (800 million malnourished, massacres, terrorism and war) that I don't need to wallow in someone having an emotional trauma on the big screen. Otoh, I know plenty of mathematicians who look a lot like this guy while trying to understand a problem. Maybe he's trying to read through Wiles's proof of Fermat's conjecture? Still a great photo :-)

Granted this is an excellent sample of the "painterly photography" category, with substantial part of its aesthetic values derived from the characteristics of, not surprisingly, traditional paintings. While viewing this photography, I can't help being reminded, once again, of an old witticism associated with the demise of pictorial photography as a fashionable trend, which stated that - if photography is any good at all, why can't it stand on its own feet?

 

I feel reluctant to dismiss this question as out-of-date even today, given the obvious inclination that POW on this forum has been selected far more often from images of higher pictorial quality, than from those seemingly more plain looking, yet not necessarily less meaningful HCB style works.

 

Roland Barthe, the French avant garde literary critic, contemplated in his reflective book "Camera Lucida", why some photographs appeal more to him, and the contemplation drew back to the special capability of photography to capture the elusive and transient quality of the subject and its existence situation, both spatial and temporal. Susan Sontag has argued in favor of similar points in her "On Photography".

 

On the other hand, while many people are enthusiastically recommending this photography for museum collection, may I suggest a thought of consulting certain museum curators if at all possible? It could be very interesting to know where their opinions are, after decades of fine-arts movements to challenge and demystify the status of traditional paintings, after the movements of minimalism, conceptual arts, anti-form, so on and so forth, the interest left in museum to host photographs which are excellent mimics of, say, seventeen century Dutch paintings at its "Golden Age"?

 

Excellent image, this photograph still is, as much as its concerned aethetic value goes. Congratulations. I'd just like to throw in a different angle in viewing it.

Very few photos have the impact this one does on me. It pulled me right in. Immediate thought was "A photo from the holocost?" The anguish and dispair in this photo immediately transported me to another place and time.

 

Just, WOW!