Gavirate Bench fog

Thank You

WOW, this is one GREAT image. Only one thing wrong with it. That's the fact that I didn't take it. Impressive 7/7 at he very least

Great mood! Best regards!

Excellent capture. Greetings

bella foto! prospettiva perfetta!

wonderful shot, beatiful compotition

Che dire...?! Non ci sono parole, adoro la nebbia come soggetto fotografico. Se passi da bologna per favore chiamami che vorrei conoscerti. Ancora tanti complimenti.

complimenti, veramente bella!

Great mood and composition!

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Before writing a contribution to this thread, please consider our reason for having

this forum: to help people learn about photography. Visitors have browsed the gallery,

found a few striking images and want to know things like why is it a good picture, why

does it work? Or, indeed, why doesn't it work, or how could it be improved? Try to answer

such questions with your contribution.

 

Well, it seems I am the first one who will comment today - this POW wasn't shown till a few minutes ago. Just a note to tell you how glad I am to be surprised by this amazing picture on the front page this week. I saw it a couple of days ago, rated it a 7/7, and didn't comment at all, because I thought this was so obviously a great picture, that I couldn't find anything to suggest about it.

 

Thinking again, and now that it's made it to POW, perhaps I will add something - not a suggestion, no, but a feeling.

 

The way I "read" this picture - and what makes it so outstanding to me - is that this bench is the place that we leave behind for others to come, when we leave life for good. To me, this is the most beautiful and most simple way to show in a single frame, that there's a continuity after death: the people we leave behind. When writing this, I'm thinking of my two sons...

 

Please accept my warmest congratulations on this true masterpiece. A picture I'd be really very proud to have taken, and more importantly, a picture that really moves me. A picture that made my day a couple of days ago - and I wanted you to know that. Best regards.

Well, I agree with Marc that it's a fine photograph, but the "reading" is a bit over the top, IMO.

It may well have that effect on Marc, but it is a comment on Marc, not the photo. In another hour, week or year, that reading may change completely as a consequence of the viewer's state of mind.

The excellence in my opinion comes from two elements that distill the moment. The juxtoposition of the soft-focus/flat-tonality background with the sharp-focus/contrasty bench in the foreground captures the visual essence of the fog; and the cold b&w tones of the bench echo/convey the penetrating chill.

I can sorta see the "leaving for good" thing because of the fading of the human figure, but only by the power of suggestion. It could just as well be the the overpowering envelopement of the individual by the fog (it really is damned penetrating and annoying when it's present!) And that stone cold, damp, hard-on-the-ass bench does not seem as something to want to pass on.

From the first line on the page from the elves.. the strength of the photo is it's capture of the day/moment/time .. on which each viewer can build their own reaction.

and I have no suggestions of any weaknesses to improve.

By effectively and creatively using the tools of photography (particularly light and focus, but

also texture and depth), this image uses symbolism to hit universal chords in the viewer. No

matter how we individually interpret these symbols and meanings, there is a sense of

universality here, that each one of us individually has come across this bench somewhere,

somehow, and can simply and directly relate to what is conveyed by a figure disappearing

into fog behind the solitary focal point in the foreground. If good photography is about the

capture and expression of significant moments, this one will do. Bravo!

The photo certainly invite symbolic interpretation, but that interpretation is, I believe, best left up to the individual. I think the most wonderful element of this photo is the strong contrast of soft enveloping fog with bitingly hard stone. The other critical element is the figure, and to me the person poses a more subtle question: coming or going? On first viewing, I thought "going", and that's what I imagine was really happening. But due to the fog, the actual tones and positioning are consistent with either interpretation, and I can visually flip it back and forth. Perhaps the effect would be lost in a larger print, but as it is, it's a nice twist.

It has mood and emotion but the crop is too tight and just causes too much tension for me. While I have seen many shots of the same 'type' (empty park bench, person walking away from it) this is definitely one of the better ones. The tonality is just wonderful.

 

It doesn't have nearly the emotional impact for me as it does for others. I guess that's the beauty of art.

The POV ,the fog, the man walking, emotion..oh my, a wonderful image..

Excellent photo -- nice plan to setup the tripod and anticipate this shot. I would guess this is a common trail for the photographer. My only minor gripe is the framing and signature and backwards copyright, sort of distracting from the well-done image.

I'm very honored for all Your apreciated comments.

Thank's to everybody.

:-))

"It may well have that effect on Marc, but it is a comment on Marc, not the photo. In another hour, week or year, that reading may change completely as a consequence of the viewer's state of mind."

the very definition of art... t

very, very very good.

 

i look at your portfolio wow

what an artist

Marc expressed the same emotional interpretation that I had of this wonderful photograph,

and Wayne articulated the technical elements that I found so appealing. After the first two

comments, I have little to add, except that this image really resonates with me, and

congratulations and thanks to Max Bianchi.

Aesthetically it is lacking, and the message is a bit forced, as if the photographer set out to create something with an emotional punch. I do not feel that punch as Marc does. I feel that I am being manipulated to try to make me feel something about the receding figure, the empty bench, etc. I even get a certain didactic sense from the photo, as if I can be taught to be reflective, or that I should be more reflective about passing into oblivion. Combine all that with Dave's remark about the tight crop, and then note as well that a concrete bench simply is not all that pretty, and the regress of benches even less so, and I find myself feeling a bit cold about this one. It's a worthy effort that does not quite work, in my opinion.

 

--Lannie

"I feel that I am being manipulated to try to make me feel something about the receding figure, the empty bench, etc. I even get a certain didactic sense from the photo, as if I can be taught to be reflective, or that I should be more reflective about passing into oblivion."

 

I think I can see what you mean here, Lannie. In a way, despite of what I wrote earlier, I felt what you just expressed as well, to a point. It is true that this photo is so composed, so ideally organized, and the bench in the foreground so much "in your face", that we do get a sense that the photographer is somehow teaching us some sort of moral lesson. But to me, it's just the picture's organization that induces such a feeling. I was knocked off my chair my the depth of the "moral lesson", and then only realized it could be a moral lesson, and almost seen as a cliché as well. But if you come to think about it a little more, no picture in the world is a true moral lesson. No picture in the world teaches anyone anything. A picture may well be composed in a blunt way, a picture may be very organized like this one, but it still leaves the viewer entirely free to accept or to reject what he's given to see. Remember Magritte's "this is a pipe"... you can agree that this was indeed a pipe, but if you see a horse, that's ok too. In fact, that's what Tom Meyer wrote earlier: the very definition of art. I personally like the fact that the photographer here went for the most direct, bold and blunt composition, to send what ever mssage he wanted to send. It's courageous, in a way: he may not have thought about that before shooting this image, but choosing such an "in your face" composition, tight with the bench so present, he was already exposing for criticism there. But no, he said it the way he saw it, and that's that. Not a pipe, but a cold bench - as cold as a tomb, and perhaps even shaped a bit the same way in fact...

 

But since I'm back here writing, I'd like to know 2 things from the photographer. 1) What this picture posed, or post-produced, meaning was the image planned as it is ? Is this silhouette in the distance a passer by, or somebody posing for the photographer, or was the silhouette added later - which means that this could be a montage as well...? 2) If this picture was "pre-planned", which message did the photographer want to convey with it ? Or if this was a grab (which I still doubt somehow), what did the photographer himself read in it...?

Typo errors again... sooooooorry !

 

1)"I was knocked off my chair my the depth of the "moral lesson": please read "by" instead of "my"...

 

2)"What this picture posed, or post-produced, meaning was the image planned as it is ?" : please read "was" instead of "what".

I don't feel forced by this composition. I think it's well executed with the fog adding the needed mood