STEERAGE

Any comments on thus photo, or the presentation?

Thanks for viewing - Cheers

Wayne, this is interesting. I like the exposure and there is descent depth. My eyes are drawn toward the passenger window and the plants outside it. The plants are not interesting though. Your title though has the steering wheel as the central focus. For me that is a conflict and leads to confusion. I'm thinking some fill flash to lighten the inside of the auto. Cropping the lower edge up to the dash and the left side to the roof line should help bring in the viewer to the steering wheel.

 

Just my 2 cents worth.

 

Jesse

Interesting that the Stieglitz forum has "Steerage" as one of its pictures :-)

 

This picture doesn't do much for me. The composition is good. The folder/presentation as a whole is interesting in the way you have showcased the wrecked car and its relationship to its surroundings.

Wayne, I understand your fascination with the scene here. I would have photographed it too, and probably spent a lot of time on it.

 

But when I first looked at the photo, I looked away immediately and did not want to come back to it. It just seemed too complicated, too unpleasant, with too many conflicting elements for me to take in, process and enjoy.

 

I've now returned to it several weeks later (this forum moves at a glacial pace!)...and I like it better, but I still feel you have given us too much. The detritus at the bottom edge of the picture really doesn't add much -- in fact it detracts.

 

Subject to the limitations of the equipment and your position, what would begin to achieve simplification is to go inside the car, like the picture I have attached. The world outside the car is still there, but now you are inside the car, seeing the outside through the no-longer-there windows.

Interesting subject, but yes, it's a bit busy. I don't like the crop because it takes away from the fact that this is an old junker. I would have experimented with shooting this subject from all kinds of vantage points, maybe even inside looking out.

Thanks for all the feedback. In retrospect, I think maybe one of the failures in giving it too busy a look is the inclusion of the sky thru the window - the light band is distracting. If only I'd lifted the camera a little? Ahh - hindsight!

The title was fun. Pun on the steering wheel of course; and juxtaposition of the one-time elegant curves of the window and headliner with the deteriorated present.

BTW, Chuck, I did use a roll of film on the subject from different vantage points, some of which are in the presentation.

Cheers and thanks again.

Glenn often zooms in / crops very tightly and this results in a loss of context. The uncropped version is definitely better than the crop, I'm with Chuck on this one.

I think the crop is a step in the right direction (by focussing more on the interior of the car) but the change in image dimensions is detrimental.

 

Could do with being a touch brighter too IMO (in order to see more of the steering wheel)