New Construction

wow...really special and unique!! love it a lot!

Simply brilliant, brilliantly simple.

 

Excellent work old boy.

 

Kev

I just finished rhapsodizing about your 5th of July picture and then this. Equally as good in its own way. Perfectly organized with extraordinary dramtatic elements which in no way steal the thunder and repose of that impressive grey house. Again this feels more like a fine painting than a photograph. Maybe it's just me but I think these latest pictures are some of the finest I've seen on P.net. They deserve to be collected and published. And finally, I just want to add an amen to Emmanuel's remarks.

Beautiful light and color, great composition. db

Jeff, super image with great light, I'm not sure on the composition with the house, but the dark sky is superb. Rich.

Exquisite image, Jeff. Superb composition with high quality light, forms and colors. A delight of atmosphere! Best regards!

Yes Jeff, Emmanuel's comment is so fitting, and really says all that is true of this image and YOUR perception of the world, viewed with much admiration by the rest of us. Your sensitivity as a caring individual shows through your work. We as observers are all the luckier for it.

 

Kind regards Jeff, Todd

Jeff I love this shot , very good

Perfect light and colors with great clarity.

Every aspect of this painterly image has already been mentioned and praised, so I will merely add my name to the visitors list and agree that it's one of your best, and is stunning. Cheers

Beautiful light and very original composition. Regards.

I agree with Richard Gale. The light is very very good though.

Jeff, I also want to echo what Emmanuel and Todd wrote. I think the same thing. This is stunning.

Fascinating light, beautiful image!

For me, this is a challenging image. My initial gut reaction is to love it. I like the almost surreal juxtaposition of the simple house and the dramatic background, the main ray of light leading to the stairs of the house being the soul of the photo. But on further inspection, I realize it is a constructed photo. I look at the very left edge of the house and believe I can tell that it has been blended into the background picture. (If I am wrong about that, my critique becomes theoretical only!) The challenge I mention is for me to determine why that factor detracts so from the photo for me. Probably this is food for discussion in one of the forums and not something decided in one quick post, but I'll test the waters here. If I know this is one simple shot, it feels brilliant. You saw something amazing and were able to capture it. If I know it's constructed, it becomes, to me, more ordinary and less photographically pleasing. Interesting that if Magritte had painted it (which he could have!), I would love it and not question it. And he would have constructed it and not come across it. So, is it fair or wise to have different standards for photography and for painting? I guess, for me, yes. Now had this been done in such a way that I couldn't possibly tell it was constructed, then what? I don't normally consider myself a photo purist. In other words, manipulation in photoshop is ok with me. I guess it's a matter of what the manipulation accomplishes and how it is rendered and each of us draws or does not draw our own limits (not limitations) there. What I want to happen with a photo like this is to say, "Boy, I wish I'd have found this" or "Man, I wish I had been there," to live through your vision of the place. But knowing it was put together, I am not able to do that. I am by no means a photographer who thinks all photos should represent exactly what was seen or capture "reality." I'm not even sure I believe the term "reality" has much meaning. I generally prefer that a photo captures feeling and emotion. So that's my challenge . . . understanding exactly why seeing this as a construction bothers me so. --Fred

A beautiful and powerful image made with simple ingredients.

The choice of the moment of the shot defines an interesting geometry resulting of the strong opposition of dark and highlighted surfaces. In addition I like the small scene up left: I think it's the main scene of the picture. Many great painters used this technique: "the image in the image" (see attachment). Ciao, Alx

 

P.S. Thank you for your elegant compliments.

 

The atmosphere that this image projects is absolutely wonderful. Really nicely done Jeff....Congrats! Kind Regards Andrea

The path of light & the clouds really a good finishing touch to this image.

WOW!!! 7/7, Jeff.

 

Alberto

You raise a compelling question. I read your post earlier in the day, thought deeply about it when I was able, and waited until I could offer a semi-cogent answer. Photography and art in general should raise these issues, and I think it's valid to pin it to a particular photo, rather than to raise it solely as a rootless theoretical issue. If this photo becomes a conduit to an interesting discussion, then it has been a success, beyond whatever ratings or "oo's" and "ah's" it may have gotten along the way.

 

First, I'll give some information about the photo itself. It is not a constructed photo, but certainly has been enhanced. I have included a copy of the original photo for the sake of comparison. What bothered me about the original is that the sky seemed drab. The painter in me (which I did for many years) wanted to balance out the yellow in the shot so it wasn't concentrated on that one beam of light and the window. I duplicated the layer, masked out everything but the sky, and then did a linear burn to considerably darken the clouds. At the very end, I noticed a seam along the edge of the mask, which I tried to smooth over with a slight blur on the edge. In the larger version, it looks a bit more blurred than I had intended, but there you go. I'm certainly not above replacing a sky here and there if a shot required, but most of my shots retain all the elements that were there to begin with. An example of a truly constructed shot would be "Painting the Seconds" shot, which is not really my style, but was fun nevertheless.

 

More important--you have raised valid philosophical question. Should photography and painting be judged by different standards. There, I believe, we disagree. Basically, I see both approaches as operating beneath the umbrella of visual arts. I also think that in a sense, all photography is constructed. What is selected to be represented within a shot and what exists outside the frame are decisions of the photographer. In this way, scenes, portraits, still-lifes, and so forth are all constructed prior to snapping the shutter simply by the act of framing them. Additionally, the use of lighting can add drama to parts of a photo and can cause others to recede. Even when I was shooting film in the days before I knew Photoshop existed, I was aware that with filters, choice of lens, and type of film, I could create entirely different scenes. Carrying out this logic even further, even B&W represents a construction of sorts, representing a conscious choice to represent the world differently than we actually see it for the sake of evoking some mood or experience that would dissipate in technicolor. I'm not saying this to be defensive or to beat a dead horse, but to state that photography in and of itself both tells the truth and lies by inclusion and/or omission.

 

I think the struggle for me is distinguishing the difference between truth and fact. If the goal of photography is to establish fact, then you have a point. The fact that at a given time a certain beam of light hit a certain way while a dramatic cloud happened to pass behind a building--the fact that this all actually happened gives this photo importance. Maybe, because it's real, it communicates hope that it could naturally happen again and that anyone could experience it. Now, if we're talking truth, that's a different story. In photography, I can suppress fact in order to establish truth. Case in point: Darren Henry's shot of a suicidal man. The fact is that he did not take a picture of an individual in the act of suicide. To photograph a truly suicidal man would be criminal. It was, of course, contrived. But still, there was an underlying truth to be told. People do commit suicide, and these people can be quite normal-looking, indistinguishable from you or me. Or even more frightening, they could be you or me. I found a lot of truth in the photo. Based on the comments, others did not.

 

To some degree, truth is subjective and has to be experienced. If a photo doesn't ring as true to me for some reason, then it does not represent truth for me. However, it may for you. This photo is a pretty photo, but not necessarily one that depicts eternal or deep truth. I thought it's companion photo posted the same day communicated a deeper message. It wasn't as visually stunning and didn't get a lot of attention. Yet, I liked it better because it felt more important to me.

 

Fred, Thanks for your comment. You got me thinking about some important issues, deeper matters that deserve attention. I don't know if we agree or disagree on these matters, but we're both thinking and experiencing as we go. I look forward to continuing the discussion.

I do like the comp very much. Especially w/ the sunbeam across the long grass. What is in the single horizontal window? All others are dark. Also there is a small paper bag. Is that part of the comp. I like this. Too me it all fits together.

Thanks, as always, for the thoughtful response. I would like to continue the discussion but am entertaining some friends from Europe and have been sightseeing all day and am exhausted. We are headed to Lake Tahoe for several days early in the morning, so I won't get back to you until middle of next week. But you dealt with many interesting points and I think there's more meat here for further discussion.

All philosophical discussions aside, it's a perfectly bodacious image!

I can perfectly hear the tone in that "Welllllll..." It should be followed by a prolonged, "Anyway....." Jan, leave it to you to keep us all grounded. Thanks so much for stopping by and applying the best-darn adjective I could think of to this image. Bodacious! Love it!

Lovely. Congrats !