architecture IMG_0010.jpg

NICE PIC :)

Spledid work, nice and very well composed!

Absolutely amazing what you have done with this photo!!! So beautiful!!!!  

What I really like about this image is that while it certainly seems to be looking down a stairwell it also looks, especially as you look towards the middle, that it could be an archway or doorway. Really well done.

Excellent lighting, composition and pattern.

I swear, if I see one more spiraling staircase picture with nothing else as a center of interest, I'm going to tear my eyes out!

Sorry Henri, forgive my angst. These things are interesting geometric studies that catch and lead our eye and you have some nice B&W tones there. I've just seen, and taken, hundreds of similar shots. You have led my eye but it needs something to be led to and stop on. A figure on the stairs or at the bottom would help this immensely. An article of clothing hanging, a flag, an old doll lying on a step...anything. Revisit this if you can, and bring a couple of ideas with you. If you can't revisit keep it in mind for next time a similar situation comes up. Sometimes just waiting around for something to happen yields results.

I love these shots myself. So do others:
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Moreover, there's always room for one more. :|

The stair pictures I am personally tired of are those that add a person for "interest." I like stairs just by themselves without messy organic life forms in them. ;)
--chacun à son goût

For me, the photo would benefit if the sense of depth would have been exploited more effectively. It has that geometric/graphic sense down but the photo feels much flatter to me than I imagine was offered by the scene itself and than I can imagine would make a photo that would draw me into it more. I think some attention to the tonality of each layer of the staircase, both in the shadow and light, might allow a feeling of depth that would nicely accompany the graphic subject matter.

Other ways of making this a little different, were that desired, would be to consider lighting that didn't mirror the exact line of the stairs so directly (providing more of a counterpoint) or approaching the shot from an angle that wasn't quite as static and formal as this one. My taste as well would lead me to want something a little less formulaic here.

The winner of the Mobile Photography contest. I guess part of the attraction then is the idea that it's made with a mobile phone, and that this photo shows that in the right hands, a mobile phone can be an awfully effective camera. In an ideal world, all of this would be irrelevant.
In my head, I like that ideal world, so it is not relevant :-) Which leaves me an image that scores high for me for its tonality, the shadow on the left is quite effective. I like the tiled floor, it is a bit a graphical counterpoint to the curves of the staircase. Is it a highly original image? No. Exceptional? Not really. But graphically, for me, it works. I do not see it as more than a graphical study, a play of shapes and forms, and do not expect more from it.
And worst case scenario, in this less-than-ideal world, it is a pretty decent showcase for mobile photography too ;)

I like the shot very much. I don't feel quite so jaded as Louis does with this kind of pic. I've seen a lot of them but perhaps not as many as he has! It would perhaps be nice if there was indeed something somewhere to be where the eye settles - even if was just a bike or (better) a Vespa, but that also is a cliché too. A totally different shot not from the top down might be nicer, but then it won't be this shot. I'll take it as it is.

You're right, Robin, I am jaded by this specific theme in particular, strictly a personal bias. In retrospect, I think my terse expression of that bias, was not helpful in setting the stage for a thoughtful critique of the image. Certainly a lot of care was taken in composition and achieving an extremely competent tonal rendering. I also realize the maker had no hand in posting this here for critique.

Clearly some subjects have been photographed so often that viewers tend to dismiss them out of hand unless one of them is special or extraordinary or simply different in certain key ways. I agree that the POTW may not display a spiral staircase in any unique fashion, but I also agree that Henri has done a good job with its detail, texture and tonality. I particularly like how the upper level involves the tonality growing lighter as one's eye track the curve from left to right.