The Fortitudes (Sadness)

ery interesting and original work! Good the monocrome!I like it!

Great title, great quality photo. Best wishes, Galina

Excellent depth, contrast and patterns usage. Very interesting photo.

great photo! i love the overall effect and composition, and the tonal balance is great.

 

my only nitpick is that i find the leaves in the upper-right corner to be a bit distracting- my eye keeps getting drawn up there.

Excellent work!

absolutely great and impressive, how this photo represents SADNESS! Perfect image and title!

Wish more people would spend time on this aspect.

Beauty is an omnipresence of death and loveliness,

a smiling sadness that we discern in nature and all things,

a mystic communion that the poet feels.

 

Charlie Chaplin (1889 - 1977)

Nice shot, Doug, but why are people enthusing about the title? Does the title make the picture any better? Should we need a title to tell us how an image should make us feel? Should the title (and frame) be considered at all in evaluating the worth of a picture? Doesn't the success of a title imply some failure on the part of the image, unable to communicate fully on its own? Personally, I see no sadness in this shot. I like walking in woods on misty days so this image makes me happy, not sad. But there you go, those are my thoughts. And do you really not want anyone to rate this shot? Would you rather it languished in obscurity or shone like a beacon to your portfolio on the top pages? ;-)

Perfect!

St. Ansel once remarked that he didn't like to photograph in the East because things were too cluttered. This image has me wondering if his observation might apply here. Maybe too much going on.

Graphically strong, shure emotionally intense but not exactly sad .....

Excellent image with original composition.Congrats,Adam

Properly exposed, nicely framed and cropped. The dark foreground is a very clever contrast to the smooth grays of the background, whereas one would usually find the opposite play in other executions. Simple subject, busy scene. Very good grasp of the emotion you've assigned with its title.

One of the best B&W photos of photo.net - great mood

 

rgds

az

Good point, Ryan Bush. This is about 90-95% of the negative. I think cropping the leaves out wouldn't do that much harm and could in fact imporve the dramatic effect. An interesting observation.

 

One of the reasons for the title (just one) is that the branches are all dripping with melting snow (not visible at this resolution/enlargement). I was reminded of tears, winter tears, which actually fits in nicely with personal issues I was going through at that time. (boy meets girl. Girl says get lost. Boy feels sad and turns to photography.) Regarding the necessity for a title, I do remember thinking them to be kind of ridiculous. Over the past couple of years I've decided that they can at least serve to inform the viewer what the image might mean to the person that made it. As we know, our cognitive world is complex and full of universal and non-universal symbology. What one image means to one of us is not always going to be the same to someone else...and that's ok. My feeling is that a photograph can communicate whatever it wants to, whether thats in line with the title, or whether it's in line with something completely private between itself and the viewer du jour.

 

St. Ansel was right: The East is very cluttered. On the one hand this is a pity. On the other, it's a challenge. I can't be responsible for St. Ansel for working in the West where photography is so much easier. The fact that he took the easy way out, what does that say about him? (I'm joking here)

 

 

Thanks for the many comments.