Factory-girl

good~~ exceptionally girl's eyes

The background showing the factory with signs of being out of use, with the roof tips aiming to the up left corner (the corner of memories) is reinforced by the ground with a visible pattern that aims the same corner (like some classic paintings where a pattern in the floor was included), the clouds in this corner I think that become necessary. And we have this girl in the front, walking to scape the frame (as she was going to a future) but just turning its expression of enigmatic happiness to us... She adds some interesting points: her hands that seem to carry something (they don't), but especially the wonderful hair and face.
I was wondering why this image attracted my attention even when it has not anything spectacular (except the girl's face) and has arrived to conclude that it has some power to suggest or evoke things that swim in the mind of many people.
(Sorry for my English)

Bill, your suggested crop would narrow the focus and remove a lot of the story and context. It would neuter this, making it just another head shot. Not a good suggestion, IMO. Critics on PN tend to over-crop, often making interesting photos much more bland, less layered, simplified. Simplification is sometimes better, more often less textured and layered and often more typical and bland. It's probably the most common wayward critique offered on this site. Sorry, it's become sort of a pet peeve for me. Given your assumed monicker, my sense is we'd clash quite a bit. Po-tay-to / Po-tah-to :-)

Lovely photo. Innocent, mischievous, sense of fun and irresistible life force, against the background of immobile, immovable, obsolete structure. Nothing needs to change, it is one of those photos that one joins photo.net for!

Fred,
I would still have had her at left. She's not so much looking back as she's looking over her shoulder at the camera. The post processing for me has nothing to do with the lack of tie-in between her & the building. One simply has nothing to do with the other. It's almost as if there are 2 subjects here

I feel the same, as mentioned earlier, as Thomas K & Pnina. There is no tie whatsoever between the girl & factory. It would have worked better with an old vehicle in the parking lot. Why is she there?

Because she lives there.

The context of a photograph is really a pretty important element--in frame or out of it. For instance, look at how many times people's opinions change here when they find out something new about a photograph they have liked or not before learning or discovering the new piece of information. Sometimes just knowing a person's work and their concerns informs their images with important outside information. Here, Marc has let us know that this is a person who lives here. Even though I didn't see any connection, I do think that knowing the connection changes some of my thoughts about the image--like that it was possibly Marc's own child or a friends and even the nature of the reason the image was made. It didn't change my sense of what the image conveys but did tie up a few things for me--and probably does make it a bit more appealing overall--and certainly raises other questions, which is what an image should do.

This leads me to another thought along the lines of Fred's response to Bill Tate. We have had a few recent images where several here have wanted to cut into the presented image and get to the "meat" of the image, so to speak ,while others have reveled in(or at least recognized) the context or content that the "extra" space added to the impact of the photograph. We all come at photography from different places and even if similar, do have different affinities or views as to how images should work. When I shoot a friend's child/teenager, they always want it tightly cropped, they only see the person as important. My own desire is different, I want more context and often find that the best images IMO, ones that are more symbolic and interactive with the environment, are never the ones the parents seem to want.

I guess I see something similar here about the "wasted" space, which for me makes the image worth looking at. I don't know this girl and have no personal connection to her, so I find the environment, her placement in that environment including her being on the edge facing out and the the rendering of the light to be the factors that create something that has substance and content beyond just subject. I certainly could admire a nice portrait--maybe even the one Bill advocates--but without personal connection those rarely captivate or move beyond their subject. They are certainly important types of image within our culture, but I think there is so much more to be had in understanding other types of images as well.

Last thought (for now). Don't crop! Every micron belongs there. The empty parking lot, the empty buidings, the weeds. Even the dreamy clouds are exactly in the right place.

John, like you I tend to make and often prefer to view portraits or pictures of people that show some context and environment (with some very important exceptions in my own work). However, for me, personal connection does not make the difference in captivating me or moving beyond the subject when it's a closer-cropped portrait. I think the closer-cropped portrait is more dependent, for me, on micro-expression and the photographer's ability to reach inside, to work with lighting and focus, and to arrive at character in a face, which some do quite well.

Long before I knew who this was, it reached me quite deeply and went well beyond the particular subject. I see it as a significant photo and a significant portrait of many more things in addition to the particular person it depicts.

Photo by Annie Liebovitz.

And Avedon's photos, I think, speak to both a particular and a universal beyond the particular at the same time, without providing context or environment.

Photos by Richard Avedon.

______________________________

My opinion of, feelings about, and visual relationship to the POTW did not change based on knowing that the girl lived in this place. I felt a visual connection being attempted and I thought and still think the processing got in the way of that. Carlos H's version, for example, integrates her a little better and she feels a little more at home in the environment with his approach to the processing. The fact is, she photographically is being related to this environment (for whatever reason) and that visually works or doesn't. Knowing that she lives here is interesting information and adds to my overall experience but doesn't change my visual experience.

Fred, again, a good point, but a camera in the hands of a master (and many of linked to here are in context to specific, larger bodies of work--as well as their overall body of work) is not the same as the "portraits" in the context I was suggesting here--and also the reason I used the word "rarely", a key operative word.

My point was that what makes a good, tightly cropped portrait for someone who is personally involved with the subject is not one that is usually going to move beyond being just a "well done" image to those without that connection. In other words, most of us would not hang that 8x10 of our slightly known co-worker's son's graduation photo on our wall. It may be a masterfully done portrait for what it is and we can appreciate that, but it sort of ends there in most cases. My suggestion is simply that in many cases, as you pointed out to Bill, these closer crops can take something with content and relegate it to a more common, less insightful image--but certainly descriptive. Something many are more interested in as clients or even as parents or loved ones. But I think there needs to be a recognition that images live and work in other ways than that one and that is a good thing.

Yes, we do agree on this. It certainly bears repeating.

Marc Apers Has been one of my fav. photogs on here in the past year. I am happy to see him get his due. I had this in my fav.s for the longest time, and removed to make made room for other photos. Congrats to him and its going back in. Cheers.

While I agree to the brightness of the eyes, maybe over white, I think it works to create and effect the sense of mystery that pervades the overall whole of the image. Very cinematic,. I recently watched The Shining, late night rerun and now I draw a parallel between her and the young boy actor.

Great. Another fine pic with no details. I'm always more interested in photographs that show details (easy to achieve nowadays with digital files.) Any other photographers feel the same way?

If you mean that it's hard (pointless?) to evaluate a picture when reducing the size of the file for posting on the web has smudged all the detail, I agree.

Not me. Occasionally the details about lens and settings used might be of interest, but rarely. Those details don't affect my perception of the photo or how I would respond to it or critique it.

Who cares about the camera details! A competent photographer should be able to evaluate the technical aspects of an image, ie lens

focal length, approximate aperture, if no movement in image then who cares about shutter speed, if movement is in the image one

can make approximates about the speed. Lighting can also be evaluated. If you are a tech boffin, you can decipher this stuff. For me

it's more about presentation of image and about content and context of image. Marc provided a narrative, so there is no need to make

assumptions. Either the image speaks to you or it does not. As for cropping. Cropping is for farmers! ;)

I understand how technical details can sometimes help people who are learning but they can also be misleading if one doesn't know all the facts. For instance, I could post an image from a FF dslr that was shot with a 16mm lens and in this on-line format, crop it to the equivalent of a 50mm lens--or longer-- without detectable degradation of the image by the majority of people. The data, 16mm focal length, would then be irrelevant but that should be recognized from the compression exhibited in the image versus what one might expect from the indicated lens. In other words, to get such a shot, one would really want to have used a 50mm, not a 16mm lens.

So, while such information can be helpful as we learn these things, it certainly shouldn't be a requirement. We should all be working to learn to recognize what characteristics lenses and exposure decisions make on our images and then just use those tools, not have to think about them.

As Fred said, it can be used from time to time by anyone, as it was last week for me, to explain or understand or confirm why something is as it is. But it becomes less important over time and really has no impact on the quality or our reading of an image from an aesthetic point of view.

"Great. Another fine pic with no details."
Rafael, I do not want to be judgemental about your preference for POWs with 'details'; however, to reply to your straw poll, I'm not more interested in photographs where the 'details' are available. Marc's image and some of the critique arising from it's selection as a POW is a good example.
There are many important technical aspects to the creation of an image that are not available in the EXIF data. A simple example is how black and white conversion was done to a DSLR capture. I don't think I'd learn a lot by knowing whether Marc's image was shot on a Canon or a Nikon, 70-200mm or 105mm, f/8 or f/11, ISO 200 or ISO 800 etc. as ad nauseum examples.
As well, technique can be part of a professional photographer's pseudo 'intellectual property'. That may be the reason why facets of an image's creation have not been shared.
There are so many images on PN, other than the POW, where the photographer has attached the 'details' that I don't feel deprived not seeing them in the POW.
For these reasons, I would not ask the Elves to select images only if they contain the 'details' (if that was implied in your question).

Very good frame. Likes the final color. Love the aesthetic. Well done!

Re: the object in the girl's hand
The parking lot of an abandoned factory would be an ideal place for a young girl to play hopscotch. Any chance that the object in her hand is a bean bag?
Still, the idea of an area being abandoned industry and then occupied for fun is compelling and so well portrayed by Marc.

Superb image. Love it. Just so well composed and balanced. Intrigued to know how you achieved it. Was it planned for awhile and posed or just a snap shot so to speak? Great shot. 

I like this photo.Very nice intense, not extreme contrast, very well balanced exposure and good timing.The girl's expression, rather cheerful is in great opposition to the choking environment of the factory buildings.Depending on how someone sees the future, black or white, the messages of this photo are controversial.Best regards

Everything works so well together in this photo.  There are so meanings this photo could have.  I love the black and white.