refuge from the hail

Good Morning, This may be nature but it's also truly fine art. Very beautifully done. Well composed, my only small critique is the lone horn jutting into the image from the left looks a little disconnected but this is a very slight critique as I said. Really like this a lot. Take care.

Regards,

Holger

This is pure photography. I love it. It's got everything! A story, action, drama, color, contrast... I love this. My question is, where were you!?

Seven. at least I rated with seven, but the average which was 6,00 is still the same! I hope it will take it counting later! I will check!

Best regards Jose!

PDE

P.S. It now shows it, OK!

Hi Jose, How can one critique an image like this? Capturing it must have been a great project. This is a haunting image and very well photographed with immaculate use of light to draw attention to the center of the image. You captured the action of the hail perfectly. The use of color and exposure works great to compliment the wonderful composition. It is true art and one for the wall. I love this photo. Regards, Morne.

Beautiful creation and excellent composition.

Simplemente perfecta!

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My first impression is: jumbled confusion, like a Picasso cubism, it is not immediately apparent where each animal starts and ends. But that is a good thing IMO, that makes it interesting. The crop bothers me somewhat, but if you consider confusion to be the theme, it does add to the confusion IMO.

Fantastic photographer with an exemplary portfolio but this, I'm afraid it falls terribly short on many levels. Perhaps it's because I spend a lot of time viewing photographs but I've seen this exact scene several times, the cattle huddled in their Cabarceno stall, waiting out the rain and watching the "wildlife" workshop hoards pass by with their strange, noisy machines clicking away. So, for originality, I score it a zero (here's a more compelling composition of the same scene by another PN member). Aesthetically, it appears over-processed, the vivid colors belie the somber tone, I want the image to be melancholy but the saturation won't let it. I also find the "hail" to be artificial. I don't know if it was actually hailing but it doesn't work, it distracts me even further from the photograph.

I find very little to like about this particular photograph but I'm grateful to PN for once again leading me to the portfolio of another outstanding photographer.

I agree, at first glance it appears a jumbled confusion. Then it becomes apparent. I like the idea & the center portion with the animals' heads. I find the intruding horns without heads at left intrusive and hurt the complosition. Exposure? Very good

Jeff, even though the two photos are of tightly groups of long-horned cattle, I find they are significantly different photographs. I do like the symmetry and order of Marina's version, yet the chaotic assemblage in the rain of Jose's version has it's own charm and a different story. These can be noble-looking creatures, but the trials of life (and perhaps their ultimate fate) is well-captured in that of Jose.

I hadn't seen Maria Cano's image that Jeff linked to before, but it actually gave me something to talk about here as I compared the two shots. While I think that Maria's arrangement of the animals might be more rare--to get such symmetry--it actually points out why I find Jose's arrangement more interesting even if more common. I certainly understand the attraction to Maria's arrangement but I think it would get boring over time to look at. Great for a magazine, an ad or whatever, as it captivates for that initial moment, it is quirky but I don't know that it provides anything more. It sort of is what it is but I don't see it going deeper. It is a very nice photograph.

On the other hand, and I know it is emphasized by Jose's style of presenting an image, I just get more of a sense of content and potential for discovery in Jose's presentation--and it doesn't matter if it is more commonplace, there is something more mysterious and evolving in the more common often. That said, there are some things, including the hail possibly--which I do think is real although wondered originally--which, for me, keep it from realizing the full potential I have a glimpse of here.

But I made this comparison as I thought it was actually the most interesting thought I came up with here. I think Jose's image is nicely done but I don't think it quite moved much beyond where I also see Maria's, both are nicely done photographs.

On the one hand, it is difficult not to appreciate the tremendous skills in processing the photographer has, and it would be unfair not to commend him for the great tonal qualities he achieved here. But, it is equally difficult not be off put by a rather weak composition and lack of focus in this picture. Because, this image, to me, lacks any soul and is not really a documentary image, what with the darkening of the image to the point where bare outlines are rendered almost invisible by the dominant downpour, it has appeal mostly as a saloon photograph, the type one sees in an Audubon Society coffee table book, the kind of fare Marina Cano has made a career of, "Wildlife Art". But, a Marina Cano, this is not, not with the one horn jutting out of the left side of the image like a sore thumb. Given the nature of the image, I would have cloned it out. The other horn slightly to the right of it could be easily disposed of, too, leaving the central focus on the triumvirate in the middle, which, devoid of the aforementioned distractions, would have elevated this image to the real of, well, "Wildlife Art". Those are my two cents.

Why, in this terrific hail storm, are there no splashes at the bottom of the frame?

This is pretty interesting , but it's not a straight photograph, I don't think. Looks like digital art that started out as one or more photographs. Tthere doesn't seem to be any fall-off in light or differences in focus throughout the frame, which would not be the case if it were a straight photograph.

Am I wrong?

Martin, I don't know really if you are or not. But it does suggest something--maybe the reverse of what we normally discuss here--if it looks unreal or phony, does it matter if it was real?

Generally, I think there is more discussion about if something looks real but isn't, it bothers some people. But I think if something doesn't look natural, whether it is or not, can be as much of an issue. Sometimes, being real and looking unreal is the point of an image, it makes it resonate and makes us question. But would that be the case here? If something looks awkward or off, then it might just be awkward and off. Being real doesn't mean it works.

With a picture like this (and I'm not sure what I mean like that), I'm not really sure at first what I think of it (do I like it, not like it, impressed with it without liking it, etc.). So I naturally gravitate toward trying to figure out what it is exactly that I am looking at.

So I wonder, in this case, whether my "forensic analysis" is correct: that this can't be a straight photograph because the focus and the lighting doesn't seem to vary in different places in the picture. (How on Earth could the eyes be lit this well in this kind of darkness? Well, maybe it's the darkness that isn't real.)

If I seem to display a proclivity for thinking that it's important to know what something is, at least in a general sense, I think you are reading me correctly: I do think that knowing what something is is a virtue in and of itself (although it is also true that you can make some kind of an aesthetic judgment without knowing this).

Una gran foto y al mismo tiempo un gran trabajo en PS...Excelente!!!

I cannot appreciate this photograph because my eyes are being drawn away from the main subject by the rain. I can't focus.

3

OMG this is an incredible photo...i love it!
Simone Pomata

I think that evaluating a photo has to be of what we are presented with,it can be a stright photo or processed one, what we see is what we have to evaluate from.
For me it is an interesting animal composition and I find it skilfully executed. The light is revealing /hiding parts of the animals ,the diagonal water drops vs. the horns direction is interesting and the side horn( LHS) which is as if unbalancing the composition, is the ellement IMO that adds to the whole . The link and analogy to Marina's composition is again, imo, in this case, not to the benefit of her ( the same animals) composition.

I don't really like this image. It has taken me this week to figure out why.
I have the feeling that the post processing is the reason. The image is blotchy (dodge and burn?). It is supposed to give the impression of the rain/hail falling. The very (too) well defined streaks in the foreground don't have the necessary dissolve. The hail is too two dimension to be really credible. I find the eyes and horns overdone. In the absence of detail in their coats, the poor beasts look like they have a severe case of ring worm around the eyes. There are too many horns for the few faces. I also believe that you could see the breath of these bullocks in that high relative humidity.
Of course, I could be way off base here. I usually like pictures of the bovine species.

"There are too many horns for the few faces."

I agree that there is at least one, if not two, "floating" antlers (i.e., unconnected to a head, per the usual relationship of antlers to the body). So, I do think the picture shows a lot of skill, but it's not quite finished.

As to whether it's important to know whether it's digital art or straight photograph, I think it certainly can't hurt. I think you always approach things from a different perspective depending on what they are, whether the thing you are approaching is food (main course vs. dessert), writing (fiction vs. nonfiction, comedic vs. dramatic), etc. In certain arenas (a newspaper or nature magazine, for example), it would matter very much whether a picture is a straight photograph or digital art, although that is not the case here.