Shoreline, Salt Evaporation Pond

Always fascinating to see what you post Cris, another great shot; great ambiguity re scale

Beautiful image, great color and detail.

I love your work. This image is also a standout. The unusual texture and striking color really make it work well.

That's it. You are now in my interesting people's list. And I predict a POW soon...:-) I still prefer the other one, but this is great as well. Fascinating work. I'm off to see the rest of your folders. Regards.

How often do we see orange? It almost looks like a micro image of some kind of funky mold on orange jello pudding pops. :) Love it.

I live in the bay area, and would love to see how you do this. Send an email, if you feel like being a teacher, or at least a momentary tutor. It sounds extremely fun. Great work. J.

I am so amazed with this image. The detail, texture and saturation in this photograph is so stiking. This is such an original reinterpretation of Natures' beauty. Great work.

Very good capture, Cris. This is a wonderful abstract.

Only critique: oh, hell, forget it. It's an amazing picture. Really, really amazing. Not only because of the incredibly unique capture method but also as a composition and study in color. Fabulous.

The number of times I have flown back into SFO and wished I could figure out a way to get a cool shot of those salt ponds beneath me would be uncountable. It's great to see that someone has figured it out.

 

It's a naturally interesting place, given the colors, but you've captured a great perspective on it, and done a good job presenting it. The faux-digital frame here really adds to the shot in my mind, and points out the potential this has to make a real impact on someone's (hopefully a gallery's) wall.

 

Nice job.

That's really great, I love the image, and the way you are taking them is fantastic. My congratulations!

I spent some time in your folders and hit your website, as well. I reall think your work is interesting and really well done. I love the abstract quality of this image. I will continue tpo keep an eye out for new work from you.

Drew

I've been looking at your images, wondering why more people don't use kites to do their work, and it dawns on me...

 

hey, maybe the idea is somewhat original!

 

As I've said before, it's quite the take on a subject I've pondered many a time. Your other shots are, however, unique in the least. I love the kite perspective, and I love the selection of shots you show in your online portfolio.

 

Nice work, and congrats on POW. Hopefully, it won't be as ugly as it has been in the past.

 

-A

No offense Cris but why bother with kites if you can create this combination of colors and shapes in Photoshop? Is there something more to this photograph that I cannot see? Do a kite-lofted camera and radio-controlled shutter make it a winner? I am at loss here.

The commentators who say you could do this in PS miss the point: "It's the process!"

I couldn't tell without reading the tech notes that was a macro or a long shot. This adds to the image's allure.

I was wondering whether you took these in a random manner and then saw your comment on how you composed your kite shots. I'm not fully convinced, but maybe that's just because I know nothing about kite flying and like the comfort zone of a viewfinder. Whatever the means of composition, many of your pictures are fine work indeed (I especially like the undulating wave breaking on the shore).

Reading your web page was a treat, not only for the interesting and well written treatise on KAP, but for the enthusiasm it transmitted as well.

Thanks to you and these photographs, we can fly.

One of those abstract-type but natural (nature) pictures. Wonderful colors, nice tones, textures and a strong, diagonal composition. Just for the sake of commenting, for those interested in fractals (brown or pink noise... on engineering: science of complexity), I'm sure this image fits very well the 1/f rule (on the power spectrum) and that's why I'm sure most people will find this image "interesting" at least, except maybe to those already making images with fractals on the computer, as already posted by somebody up here. Congratulations on your method, it sounds and looks very original to me. Regards,

... which means ..."the Earth is blue like an orange"...

Chris Benton proved him right...:-)

"Looks like the second POW I predicted in less than 2 months... and now I can't say anything more than John Mc Laine...

"Good choice for POW. Deserving aesthetically, and deserving because of the quirky method of capture. Congratulations."

Indeed, we now know that the Earth is a juicy macro to the angels... (and no, I don't mean Tony Dummett is an angel...:-)

Congrats. Really brilliant work...

This is without a doubt a beautifull image. The texture the colors make the image catch your attention from the first moment you look at it.

A very marvelous shot!

Well deserved recognition. I prefer a few others in the portfolio (e.g. Wave at North Beach, Pt. Reyes) but that's just personal taste. Amazing techique, and your selection of images and colors and patterns achieved are sublime. I love your work.

I love this picture. The rocky shore, the crazy, jagged shapes formed by the drying salt and then that orange that fades out to the bottom left.

As to the earlier comment asking, "...why bother with kites if you can create this combination of colors and shapes in Photoshop?" If Maria was serious about the question, let's just say that there are many wonders of the world that we live in, and Photoshop doesn't have any filters that can render them. This KAP image was taken in a fraction of a second and makes me go "Wow!", not only for it's beauty, but for the way that it was done. I'm guessing something similar can be done in Photoshop but it would take days, and I might still way "Wow!" if you could create this in Photoshop, but it's a whole different kind of Wow feeling that I would have.

If I were to do it, I think I'd have more fun being out in the fresh air, taking on the challenge of getting the kite up, trying to position it, trying to snap the right image, and then going through the pictures on the computer later at night seeing what surprises the lens caught. Besides, trying to create this in Photoshop is not an option for me. I lack creativity and patience to come up with a work of art in Photoshop that could rival this capture of natural beauty.

If I were to apply great skill to take a picture like this I would be very PROUD of myself. If I was a novice and didn't know what I was doing with KAP and snapped a picture like this I would consider myself very LUCKY. Either way, I would be exhilerated with the results and would keep on doing it. Congrats on the POW!

A truly remarkable shot, and a different slant on the old admonishment to "go fly a kite." The textures and colours are superb, it's like a wave of liquid earth breaking on the shoreline with pure salt for spume. Your technique is inspiring, thanks for sharing the details with us.

 

Thoroughly deserved, my congratulations & regards.

Found abstracts to me are the epitome of a photographic eye which I would define as the ability to see things not as functional objects in the environment but as shapes, lines, textures, and colors that can be arranged through tradtional photographic means into a harmonious composition. The colors and especially the textures of this image are quite special. Do we have to know what the image actually depicts or how the unusual angle of view was achieved? On an intellectual level, I find it enhances the enjoyment, but even without any explanation, I find it visually stimulating. My favorite images can be enjoyed on both an emotional and intellectual level.

Congratulations Cris. The beauty you've captured here is so astonishing to me, even after viewing it countless times. A well-deserved bit of recognition.

Any one who has visited Cris Benton's folder before this POW can now resume breathing as we all knew it was just a matter of time before being selected.

 

An echo here to Balaji Rani about 5 posts above: "....POW....should be read photoGRAPHER of the week here..." and perhaps from here on out. The picture of the week is seldom not supported by an excellent collection of remarkable photos. PhotoGRAPHER of the week shifts the recognition from a piece of art to the artist.

 

A response to Magda, above. Well, the thing is this: you can do lots with photoshop, but you can't capture time and, of course, you can't capture the natural world. Cris's images do these two things. Yes, some are abstractions and studies in color and composition -- but they are also studies in motion, time, perspective and natural elements. This combination is what makes his images so unique and powerful.

 

Having said that, I am not a photographic purist and I truly enjoy some of the wonderful digital manipulations on photo.net and elsewhere. Photography has been a field rife with experimentation since the beginning (who can claim that Man Ray's darkroom -- which I've never managed to like! -- work was straight photography?). Having said that, a visual capture of the natural world, because it includes the ephemeral elements cited above, will always be different from a photoshop abstraction in the same way that a photograph will always be different from, say, an abstract painting or sculpture.

 

Again, Kudos to Cris, who has clearly poured lots of hard work and intelligent planning into these efforts, combined them with a terrific sense of humor and produced some wonderful images!