Dry summer

www.jossphoto.com

Awesome, love the tone/feel of your images.

after looking on this I am feeling always be ready to capture some thing. Nice shot with excilant tones and composition...............Regards..............

Great capture.

This is a very tight crop for the magnitude of what is happening.

Beautiful image and perfect timing!

Really awesome.

i can just say: Amazing...!!!

I'd love to see the image that is buried under this graphic re-orientation.

Congratulations on being there at such a wonderful moment, having a camera ready to go and the presence of mind to make this photograph. You obviously go into the world with an open eye, a skillful hand and determination in your heart.

Please consider respecting that moment in your processing decisions as much as you respect the possibility of that moment in preparing yourself to capture it. I think you will be surprised at the level of appreciation you may find for a more honest representation of those rare moments that make up much of the best parts of your impressive artworks.

When the treatment of a photograph overwhelms the photograph itself, I believe that is a good time to reconsider the treatment or the photo. This photograph (or some certain parts of it) deserves serious attention.

This artwork might suitably be titled "Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain". It certainly made me think about who you are and the various processes that created it, even more than I could force myself to consider it's visual content and value... t

perfect!

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I don't know...I am uncomfortable. The image of the horse is crisp, and there seems no attempt at creating an impressionistic or gritty image--in fact, quite the opposite: heavy post-processing to make the light romantic (almost too cushy for my taste)--and yet I see this nearly surreal dust all over that confounds the message of the photograph. An unsettling and somewhat disturbing photo, but not because it creates a subjective impression but because the message is not eloquent. IMHO

It's surreal -- being able to be in that place and time and wait for a horse to shake off dust while maintaining near perfect composition? Seems to be a ton of post processing work and would like to see a tutorial of the layers--perhaps the separate images combined to make this seemingly surreal image as it appears here.

 

There is high skill in this image, no doubt about that.

I'm with Animesh, and also the pre-POW comment by Tom Meyer. The post-processing has produced a lighting effect of a surreal nature, but if you look at the length of the shadows, it's something closer to mid-day. I'd guess 9 am or 3 pm in the summertime. In my experience, you don't get this sunrise/sunset quality of light at that time of day. With outdoor photography, there is such an element of chance - waiting for good light especially (and I do admit - the photographer had to be there at the right time to capture the horse shaking off the dust). But if we can achieve good light at any time of day by PS manipulation, have we lost some of the fun and "sport" of photography?

Heavy post-processing manipulation rarely works, since it tends to overwhelm most photos. In almost all of your photos, by comparison, the strong post-processing gives a surreal effect that would be impossible with a more restrained treatment--and who says that every photo has to be realistic anyway?

 

This is wonderful work, as is the entire folder. Congratulations on having this one selected as photo of the week.

 

--Lannie

Josephine, Thank you for inviting us into your "fantastic" world. It really did capture me away from the daily realities. I trust your judgement in choosing to process this image so that it fits into the fantastic world you have created in your portfolio. I love the incredible feeling of movement and texture that I get from "Dry summer". I understand that photography today is no longer soly a way to capture and reveal reality, but a way to create different realities if we choose so. I consider "Dry Summer" to be highly original. I have never seen an image of a horse shaking off dust before. The warmth of the yellows and oranges in the backround add to the feeling of dryness. The little bright spec in the window of the barn gives me hope that there is someone else "in the picture". I am charmed.

Well... I like the subject matter, but I don't need such a heavy treatment - basically I agree with what Tom Meyer wrote. Composition is probably not as framed, but the end result is well composed. Okay, I'll also join the "wow, nice colors!" crowd... But in the end, I'd like to see a much larger version of this image. I probably know about 200 photographers on the net who can come up with a good-looking manipulation of this kind at the size of this POW; but I'm sure I know at most 10 who can execute something like this for a large size publication or print.

 

Most people believe that size hardly matters when it comes to Photoshop: very wrong ! A few centimeters width on a monitor at monitor resolution is just too small to tell whether the dust clouds are well done or not. If they are not, for me, then the picture fails. Sorry for being among the last few here who still care about execution and technique - especially when it comes to studio work or Photoshop work...

 

Dust clouds, like most intricated textures and patterns, are among the most difficult things to master with Photoshop. All I can tell here, at this size, is that there is a "strange" area near the tail (on the right of it), and another equally strange area on the ground near the left edge of the frame. By "strange", I mean that IT LOOKS AS IF it COULD be poorly cloned, leaving blurry marks of brush fade-off in some places. But again, I can't be sure of that: it's just too small.

 

Now do I like this picture...? Well, it's respectable work, but no, I don't like it. Just not my taste. I generally prefer a real photograph when it comes to natural scenes. If a horse shakes off the dust on its body, out there, in front of me, then I'll find it amazing enough, and wouldn't want to add any software flavor to it: recording the action beautifully with a simple click will then have more value to me than all the post-processing in the world. The same goes for all animal shots and scenaries: I just don't see the point of making nature look un-natural. Just the way I see it... Regards.

I had to have a drink of water after I saw this. It defines, parched, arid and drought because of the dust flying off of the horses body and the golden almost fire like sky. The horse, the sky and the little shack in the back speak volumes. Great shot, great subject, great photographer.

The way you represented your vision of a Dry Summer evokes to me a feeling of strength. The way you captured the horse, in pretty elegant manner. It reminds of the bird fenix that rises from the ash. The horse, seems to me, rises from the "ashes" too. The whole your portfolio is full of child's dream and child's play. I love it, I understand it.

Seems to me that the photo is not manipulated in PS. It's pure.

7/7.

Interesting, but way to over-processed for my taste.

 

So, is it well done? absolutely. But not what I consider a good 'photograph'.

This photo reminds me of Doug Burgess's photo of the smoking man, except that that photo was not shopped, or at least not noticeably so. I like this one precisely for that same sense of overstatement, just as Doug's smoking man is so thoroughly lost in the smoke that he is difficult to make out. I personally do not mind that one uses Photoshop to achieve the effect, and the other does not.

 

Given that I like it, would I have shot it and processed it as is? No, I would not, for two reasons. First, I like to record the world (in most instances, not all) pretty much as I find it. Second, I do not have the requisite Photoshop skills to go too far in the direction of surrealism with any hope of getting good results. Even so, I can appreciate it as a genre of photography that is worth doing, even though it is not the kind of work I do. I see no contradiction there.

 

I have learned more from Marc Gouguenheim than from anyone on the site. Yet, my work in general no more resembles his than it does this photo. I am finally left to advance two values of my own: (1) that photography has many variations and that toleration is best, even when one does not do the same kind of work; (2) toleration implies for me not merely a passive toleration, saying simply that others may do what they please, but a kind of active toleration which applauds others for following their own vision. I do not want to be pulled apart on the horns of what I see as a false dilemma. This, to me, is good work. It is not my favorite work to view. It is not what I do. I can still appreciate it for what it is.

 

--Lannie

A "real photograph"?

 

That's like Magritte's "This is not a pipe"

 

The photo is a little processed, but why not. I, at least, like the result.

Josephine wrote about her photographs:"...I want to make my own world, fantastic world, world without sufferings and anger, without envy and lie. I want that my world would be full of beauty and dreams, cleanness and love. And I invite you in this world to find and feel harmony inside yourself..."

From that I concluded it's about a real photograph. I don't do digital.

I prefer to look at the meaning and symbolism, which is for me here a kind of awakening and growing.

Sorry Josephine, but it is way too over worked. The shadows of the hut and the horse do not match the direction and angle of the light source. I don't believe that this was a random act caught under these conditions, but rather staged (ie. someone throwing a bucket of dust on the horse to set up the photo).

Something bothers me about this photo.

 

It gives me a sense that something wonderful happened, but that very something is hidden behind a thick patina of both embellishment and denial. There was a story to be told here, and instead of telling it, the artist has turned it into a tall tale.

 

I'm not objecting to the techniques & manipulations themselves - they work to great effect in Josephine's other images, such as Never Talk To Strangers.

 

But what makes those images work where this one does not is this: the power of the story told by the final image is greater than that of the story inherent in any of the individual elements.

 

Here, however, I'm too busy mourning the obscured magic in the individual elements - they're too pregnant with stories of their own. I feel like I'm being teased, like a child whose parent changes the plot of a favorite bedtime story.

 

Technically, I can't fault it very much. The perspective of the building in the upper left feels disjointed from the foreground composition, but otherwise it's a well-realized expression of a complex and evocative mood.

 

Even so, I can't help having the same childlike response I always had in the bedtime story situation: "Stop! You're not telling it right!" :)