Restoring the fences

Hi! here you have one of the photos from my recent trip to Sarajevo.

One citizen was repairing his fence in one off-centre neighbourhood,

close to the front line of the bosnian war.

Nice lines.

 

I don't see the fellow repairing his fence -- he seems to be standing there with his arms against the road(?). I would prefer more contrast, definitely. Also, more separation between the top barbed wire and his eyes would have been better.

Hi Oscar, My guess is that he's trying to keep the slope from coming down. So that would indirectly (at this particular moment) be repairing the fence. Right? Anyway, nice piece of documentary photography! I agree (a bit) with Niranjan. You could increase the contrast and just a tad more room between barbed wire and eyes would perhaps have made it a bit stronger. But apart from that I like the composition with the wires drawing the viewer into the picture.

 

What I find unfortunate is that there is not so much emotion in his face. Difficult to read a story here. He looks a bit weary, tired, perhaps sad - but only in a mild way. And he seems to be looking at you. Is that correct? It's difficult to see. Well, more apparent character would have made it easier for me to relate to him, and so to appreciate your photo more fully.

 

By the way, in this folder I really like the tunnel - go see! Cheers,

Indeed, "The Tunnel" is excellent!

 

This image doesn't evoke much of anything for me. Can't see what he's doing, and the barbed wire cuts his face in half. Also, it needs some deeper blacks.

Since everyone comments on the contrast, I took your photo into PS and got the image above. As you can see, that, combined with a border and unsharp mask, seems an improvement. Mind you, what is and what is not the right tonality is pretty much subjective and dependent on the monitor used. Mine is appalling at reproducing shadow detail, for instance.

 

Aother thing, I've come to really like the fact that he is fenced in. Trapped in his own small property, but also protected. A fitting metaphore for the Balkansm, unfortunately.

Thanks Jeroen, for your good work on the computer. I guess I have to improve my computer skills! I am also glad about your comment and how do you find a meaning in the picture, exactly what I tried to express.

Kind regards

Oscar,

I have many photos like this, that have an emotional meaning to me, because I was there, or I have a relationship to the participants, but when I show them to others, they don't experience the emotions I am having. When critiqued, people then look at the purely visual, and (rightly) find fault.

 

My experience here is that the bushes and the house all distract from the emotional meaning.

 

The man's face, his emotion and his situation are what is meaningful, but how to show it to others?

 

I resort to Photoshop to try to change the photo or reduce it to something that might communicate my meaning. Now that I have looked at your photo for some time now, I have come to focus on the man and the look on this face. His emotion and his situation. Reducing it helps me to really see what I think you saw.

Ha, now it looks like Bill Cowher doing hard time after the Steelers blow another big playoff game.

Uncanny resemblance.

people mending fences in sarajevo instead of tearing them down is scary to say the least. A lower angle would have helped to convey the the feeling of the man being behind the fence.

Composition is OK, nice lines of the barbed wire. Wire covering his head doesn't bother me (at least you can still see his eyes)... otherwise I have very little feeling about this one way or the other. He's obviously doing something, but without your textual description it's difficult to fathom what that something is!