egipto Sobre la alfombra

Perfecta, una foto muy atractiva y con un color exquisito. La escena es realmente excepcional. Mi enhorabuena, fotón.

 

Un saludo.

quiza el angulo con el que has tomado la foto no es el mejor... pero tiene una fuerza de contrastes y profundidad que quita el hipo... menudos dos fotones has subido de egipto... que dicho sea de paso si dices que es otro sitio me lo creo... mis felicitaciones!!

Love the shot, love the angle and colours.

Please note the following:

• This image has been selected for discussion. It is not necessarily the "best" picture the Elves have seen this week, nor is it a contest.
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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.

A very large room with numerous pillars, light evidently coming in through windows or some other opening(s) on the right, a bright red carpet that seems somewhat ornate (to match the pillars), ceiling fans and some other objects that appear to be hanging from the ceiling. Yes, and lots of individual men, most apparently sleeping or resting, one reading a newspaper, and a few conversing in the distant background. This is outside my cultural experience, and I don't know what is happening in the scene. I'll admit I am reluctant to offer a critique of some significant place and some apparently significant activity without having a clue as to what I'm seeing. I suppose I could talk about what I see in terms of light and composition, but that seems pointless when I'm lacking a basic understanding of the scene. I note that others before me did not have this difficulty, and perhaps the novelty of such a room with such a gathering was a sufficient basis or reason for commenting, but I can't get there. From the little Spanish I know, the title says "On the carpet," but that doesn't provide much insight (some would say that's preferable, and I often agree). As a result, I'm getting very little from the photograph, and therefore I have very little to offer.

I am enjoying this image. The photographer saw the shot that I probably wouldn't have seen, I applaud him for that. The cluttered background needed a strong main subject and he found an excellent one. The deep blue shirt complements the bright red carpet nicely.

I have mixed feelings on the composition. I really like the guy in the center, but I would like the background to be either perfectly symmetrical or have the vanishing point be at a third. It could have been dictated by the surroundings, maybe there was something unattractive on the right and he didn't want to crop the left and have a square image.

This reminds me of when I commuted an hour to college one semester, and one day a week I had a class in the morning and one in the evening. It was a long day and I would sometimes take a nap in a vacant floor in the library. I am guessing that these people are doing something similar, killing time, resting in a public area.

The photographer has sensed and given us beautiful lighting, contrast and colour, and the sculptured chiaroscuro effect heightens the impact of all three. By including the person in the foreground and by particular choice of focal length, he has excluded the upper parts of this hall or space. This creates for me a bit of confusion in regard to the balance of the multiple forms and their composition as the truncated upper part of his image comes across as incomplete forms I would like see either the completeness of the arched forms in the upper part of the hall, or, failing that, not have to see the cut off yellow forms above the columns. As we cannot see what lies above the frame to appreciate the first possibility, the present image gains a bit for me by limiting its height to a position just slightly above the tops of the columns. The appearance of the persons in the photo and their disposition is very interesting, although many of the various persons and their positions (lying, sitting, reading, praying?, standing at either side of the hall or space) are quite distant from the foreground. In sum, for me it is a very interesting subject matter, well perceived from the viewpoint of perspective, of light and dark, and colour, but is not fully balanced in terms of its composition. The handling of the composition and lighting are important in the photograph, as we are not close enough to the persons to relate more closely to them.

As Stepnen suggested, there is a sense for me as well that I don't really know this place and yet a certain familiarity with it as well. It has a sense of being a mosque--maybe due to the sense of the architecture and the one person who does seem to be in a prayer position. There also seems to be something like book shelves off to the right edge of the image and some stairs to the left. There also seen to be some men standing in line at a counter.

I sort of end up with a sense that this is maybe a train station or airport or some such place, where people are waiting for extended periods of time, although the lack of seating is odd to me.

In any case, the chosen perspective, behind the unrecognizable figure with its dark shadow, ends up giving me a sense that maybe I am not welcome here or at least that I am not "in" here but rather looking in. The compositional device of this "blocking" of our movement forward can be very effective in such cases where we want to emphasize being on the outside or convey a sense of being stuck where we are.

This is one of those images that, for me, seems to need some more context about the place to make much sense of. Right now, I end up with a sense that I am looking in on something I don't understand and leave feeling the same way--and maybe that is the point.

I like this picture. This is a documentary type photograph that is interesting in both content, composition and timing. The figures in the scene are strewn about in various positions with a dominant figure reclining in the foreground. The figures are tied together in the composition by the interesting interior architecture, forming a classic, yet powerful, one-point perspective. I don't feel a need to understand all the cultural implication of the scene. Everything I need to enjoy, appreciate (or not) about this image is contained within the confines of the four sides of it's borders.

The photographer has timed the photograph to, what appears to be, be a moment of transition, perhaps either before or after a bigger event has taken place. There is a wonderful sense of "fly-on-the-wall" stealth and he seems to go unnoticed in the room. In a picture like this, that feelings adds a lot to the enjoyment of the image for me.

The lighting is subtle, as one might expect in a naturally lit interior. I would love to see a bit more light on the main foreground figure but such is the nature of documentary photography. This sleeping figures position is wonderful and leads us directly into the picture's interior. That pose could have come directly out of a Raphael painting. This is a very enjoyable picture. Well done, Eugenio.

Hello to all of you. I am glad about the fact that one of my images has been considered as “photo of the week”.
I can tell you something about it:
The capture was done in Al-Azhar Mosque, at Cairo. At that moment, I was listening to the guide who explained us the customs of the prayer citizens, and suddenly something captured my attention. It was the fact that some people stayed lying over the carpet, so that I thought they were sleeping. The explanation according to the guide is that they were just reflecting. I asked him if some photo could be taken and he answered affirmatively, but taking care not to disturb. I tried to catch the perpendicular direction of the main subject related to the people who were over the floor at the background as well.


Thank you very much.

Thank you, Eugenio, for your explanation, and kudos for having one of your photos selected. I found the image interesting for the multitude of positions of the people and for its chiaroscuro lighting. It is even more compelling to me, as a non-Muslim, to know now that it was taken in a mosque where my only former visual references, other than to the architecture itself, have been to a much more structured assembly of persons in prayer. This less structured assembly in a period of reflection is a different view of another religion and people and perhaps an interesting one for those of us raised in a Judeo-Christian religion where formal structure in assemblies also exists. Together with your portfolio image "Eco-parking", it does what good photos can do, to show in a very aesthetic manner something that we may not have previously witnessed.

It's difficult for me to get past the speckled and glistening noise in the guy's arm in the foreground, a kind of noise which continues throughout the photo, a bit more obvious when viewed at the large size but evident all over the place.

Perhaps this was a low light situation, and the photo was taken at a high ISO, the shadows opened up, and the color re-saturated to get such rich reds, etc. In any case, something feels very off about this, to me, in that there was an attempt to go too far with the equipment and lighting than could really be expected to produce something I'd want to look at carefully.

Since there is such a created look to this (not a bad thing, IMO, in itself), I wasn't moved to think of this in documentary or narrative terms, so the story behind the place didn't occur to me as being of much interest here. For me, the shot is more about pose, architecture, and color, all done within technically dubious circumstances.

To Fred G.

Hello. I think your opinion must be born in mind, Fred, but I consider that if you are in such a context like this with a Nikon D200, you have only two choices: to shoot or not to shoot. Obviously, I took the first. :-)

Best regards.

Fred, I hadn't noticed the noise in the outstretched arm. It could easily be taken care of I think by putting the arm a bit more into shadow which is but a minor alteration. I have to disagree about the colour and the light-dark effects, which I think add considerably to the effect of this image that was well perceived and goes beyond any technical details. The whole chiaroscuro presentation of columns and differently postured figures on a bright red carpet is special, notwithstanding what I have said about the composition and balance of the upper parts of the image. I am not a fan of many of Eugenio's images that highlight quite extreme processing (apparent colour saturation and HDR) but if there is any here it is done well to my mind and I think he has captured a rich moment in the mosque.

I noticed the noise in the arm too, but it might look worse on screen than in a print and it is probably more apparent in the smaller file size required for posting on Photo Net.

In any case, I bet a judicious application of noise control software (not Photo Shop's) could improve it a lot. I think taking the picture was the right decision. :)

I suppose this is a more realistic rendering of what I think is the same place. Colors are more muted, for sure.

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=al-azhar+mosque&start=194&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&tbo=d&biw=1680&bih=817&addh=36&tbm=isch&tbnid=IjmWw1zXCejgxM:&imgrefurl=http://www.stanouse.com/images%2520Cairo/Cairo%2520Sights/Cairo%2520Mosques/pages/073%2520Main%2520Prayer%2520area%2520in%2520al%2520Azhar%2520Mosque.html&docid=CDZWgnkVEK42DM&imgurl=http://www.stanouse.com/images%252520Cairo/Cairo%252520Sights/Cairo%252520Mosques/images/73%252520Mosque%252520al%252520Azhar%252520Main%252520Prayer%252520Area_jpg.jpg&w=840&h=630&ei=naO-UN_pCerQ2QXe7YHgBw&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=170&sig=118174280015755420056&page=4&tbnh=120&tbnw=157&ndsp=65&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:194,i:9&tx=104&ty=54

I think this POW has a strong atmospher. The natural light coming from the RHS is"coloring"the scene with light and shadows
The yellow upper part is nicely colaborate with the yellow lines of the red carpet.

The blue of the people that are scatered in the BG and the man in blue at the FG are well correspondging with each other, and are building the atmospher,add to it the DOF which is forming (maybe in part) the mosque's size.

Living at the same geographic area, the poverty of many citizens in Cairo are so bad that there are many peolpe living in cemetaries and other places that are replacing a real proper homes. A mosque like that is some shelter/rest as well.
It is a good coposition that are well timed . Nice work, Eugenio!

Interesting comments regarding the noise in the image, just makes you realize how much we now demand from our 35mm photography. In film days, you wouldn't have even gotten this image unless you were carrying--and could change to--a very high ISO film and the noise/grain would have been nearly the same.

Martin, CS6 has a great new algorithm for noise, better than many plug-ins I have seen.

John A,I was aware of the grain especially on the FG figure's hand (seen the bigger form in his files) and I still think that despite this, it is a kind of a nice documentary. Thanks for your recomendation for the CS6.

Hello again. Firstly, I recognize all your interesting comments about the image and I want to give you thanks for all. Secondly, I want to show you my surprise because of the noise, mainly in the principal lying man, I know. I noticed it, of course, but I must expose you the following facts:
- the image was taken at very low light, under these parameters: 800 ISO, f:2,8 speed 1/40 and no tripod of course, with focal distance 25 mm (equivalent at 37 mm in D200). You should know the Nikon D200 is a great camera, but it generates a big noise beyond 400 ISO.
- once this drawback was valued, I did not think twice; I simply captured the image, since I think that the moment is the really important issue in photography. Also must be bear in mind that I could not disturb the silence.
Eugenio Pastor Benjumeda

Eugenio, I think you did a fine job of photographing a very interesting scene and created a very worthwhile image. But a little bit of noise control (on the arm of the figure in the foreground and on the figure all the way over on the left, for instance) might be helpful, nevertheless.

It would be highly unlikely that I would ever recommend to anyone not to have taken a picture they took. The purpose of a critique, or at least of my critiques, is echoed in Eugenio's gracious response to my thoughts . . . for things to be pointed out and "borne in mind." Any photo we take is valuable and I find there's more and more to learn from each photo I take . . . and view.
Arthur, I think approaching the lighting in this way was what the photographer wanted and I imagine the scene appealed in large part due to the lighting. I have no problem with the lighting per se. Some of my problem is with what it reveals, with what the photo looks like.

Eugenio talks about the importance of the moment, especially to photography, and I don't disagree. For me, photography is also, if not foremost, visual. Music is rhythmic and heard (among other things) and novels are -- usually -- narrative and read, or heard on tape. A pianist can play a piece with great romanticism and musicianship and still hit wrong notes. Those clinkers can be ignored in favor of an emphasis on the interpretation or they can be noticed and dealt with in future performances. IMO, all aspects of any craft or art do work together. When considering the work of any medium I find it best to appreciate all the qualities that go into creating the experience of what someone has offered.

Fred, I think we approach the experience of a photograph in not too dissimilar ways. In general, what the subject matter of a photograph communicates is in part related to lighting, angle of view, composition, balance of forms and colour, the moment and place, apparent symbolisms ot evocations of fantasy, what the photographer wanted to show us, what we interpret from the image beyond the evident (the transience or outside the frame thoughts or enigma).

What is in it for each of us will vary even if our approach to reading an image has such elements in common, in view of the subjective nature of our responses. In the present case, what I did not know beforehand was that the strong chiaroscuro lighting is apparently in the nature of this particular environment, as the photo of the Cairo mosque presented in the link above readily attests. What I took from Eugenio's image was the powerful quality of the lighting and the disparate and enigmatic (for me) forms of the persons in varying postures, very contrary to what I had previously seen in photographs of Muslim men at prayer.

That was essentially "what was in the photograph" for me, and what I found almost as intriguing as a Carravagio scene of many centuries ago. What was happening, what did I not see - owing in part to both the near-far human presences and to the contrasty lighting (that might hide some things as well), and what might tell me more?

I enjoy images that do not reveal everything at once. However, recently seeing the photo of the Egyptian mosque in the additional link provided with men in various positions, and hearing Eugenio's description, placed an anchor for me on the image and one that had not existed at all when I first saw his photograph. That diminished my initial interest a little, although my subjectivity doesn't take away from the quality of Eugenio's image. As a purposely wandering spirit, I do not always like to be so comfortably anchored.

I did not want to be funny to you, Fred. I deeply respect all the reviews, and yours too, of course. I apologize If I looked to be gracious, since it was not my intention.
I completely agree with Arthur. Thank you.

Eugenio, there is a language misunderstanding.

Gracious means kind, courteous, and charming. Your response to my critique very nice, friendly, and full of grace, not funny and nothing to apologize for.