Moondog

Walt Whitman 

When I Heard the Learned Astronomer

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide,

   and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with

   much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Carlos -

Man, this shot gave me a shiver.  I'm thinking of all the dogs in my life past and present - and what wonderful yet ephemeral souls they were & are.

 

(great poem too)

 

David

A crisp ode to Earth, life, and beyond. The sense of movement in the still of night is magical. I was at Yosemite recently and spent a night stargazing with one of the ranger/astronomers out in a field. Moonlight on mountains instead of water and stargazing, something we city people don't get to do often enough because the earthly lights obscure the heavenly ones. It's a romance with your friend, the dog.

:-->> !

Your photos instill such emotion and contemplation. Every viewer can relate in some way.

Beautiful.  ~~~~~~~~~L

Those are the moments we live for.

Thanks for the Whitman poem. Brought me back to the time when the world wasn't made entirely of words. Great photo, too; good as the poem.

Very nice clean image, striking emotion, well preformed

Carlos,  My hat to this amazing view.  I am full of admiration... really awesome... I might even say lunatic!;))  it's gonna stick in my mind for sometime this image, your dog running free, the calm sea and this mysterious moon above enlightening imagination, contemplation, poetry.  Into my favourite and Thanks for sharing

Looks like album art, Moondog by Van Morrison ;)

Another wow.  Lovely as this would be as a moonlit strand, the dog, diagonal from the moon, coming toward us, takes this to another level entirely.  Wonderful.

Beautiful! 

 

How did I miss this fabulous image?

Una Obra Maestra

(i'm anointing this my fave image ever, sir carlos),,, the wild beauty inside their precious hearts... they make us weep with joy... we love them with our souls... their fearless love for us overwhelms us... they howl to the moon for us ;-} dp

A wonderful classic in every respect! The diagonals created by the water or the one achieved by the position of the moon and the dog , work really well granting great balance to the scene.
The B&W is just great as displayed in all your photos, Carlos.
Take care,
--Mário

You have one more follower. Karl

Really like this one. Well done!

This has it all! Tonal range, originality, perfect composition, DOF, grain. You name it. This goooooood photography!

DG

The title had me smile as I wasn't quite expecting this photo. Rather more something like this, and given Carlos' portfolio, a portrait was to be expected too.... And while one can discuss on the value of titles, sometimes a good title can help set a context, which for me in this case it did.
The photo itself - brilliant, Mário already said it well, so no need to repeat his words.

Lovely mood and composition, well processed.

This is an example I keep in mind when sometimes my

sense of aesthetics goes awry. This photo is a

barometer for quality composition detail and light.

Perfection.

Reminds me Ansel Adams, what a control. Bangash

Very pleasing image, imbued by an element of mystery or enigma that exists elsewhere in his portfolio. I this case, what we do not see seems as important as what we do, and a technical solution to opening up the shadows a little would destroy the effect. I love his approach that overrides technical "niceness" for the artistic or symbolic aim, like the case in his portfolio of the beach photo of a lady and a little girl in an opposite high key and washed out effect that magnificently captures the feeling of place and moment. A very original and successful artist-photographer. One of a relative few I humbly bow my head to.

It's too bad the elves failed to include the Walt Whitman poem Carlos included as an accompaniment to this image, something he's done more and more in recent months. Not because the photo needs such an accompaniment (which has been debated ad nauseum in various PN threads) but because the photographer wanted the poem to accompany his photo, at least as displayed in his portfolio.

You can see the poem if you look at Carlos's photo by another means than through the Photo of the Week link, where you can also view it larger, HERE.

In any case, I had already commented on the photo, which I will reproduce here for the Photo of the Week discussion:

A crisp ode to Earth, life, and beyond. The sense of movement in the still of night is magical. I was at Yosemite recently and spent a night stargazing with one of the ranger/astronomers out in a field. Moonlight on mountains instead of water and stargazing, something we city people don't get to do often enough because the earthly lights obscure the heavenly ones. It's a romance with your friend, the dog.

This photo is quite magnetic. The wonderful quality of Carlos' images is that they incite thoughts that go beyond the image and very probably beyond one's comprehension of what one is looking at (we often need such challenge).

I am reminded of one of Jasper John's paintings that more explicitly contrasts the significances of what is normally seen close with what is usually far away. He demonstrated by it that what is normally seen far away and less distinctly is often clearer than what is close (briefly described, a bullseye of a shooting range close up and a series of heads we normally see close up in opened boxes with eyes blocked off, thereby rendered remote). That sort of anomaly may be what can be also perceived here. The moon is very detailed and "here""(well exposed, preferentially) leaving the natural setting go near black. The dog close up is not very visible, whereas we know more about dogs and almost nothing aboiut the far off moon which is here detailed. The choice of a title is good, moon and dog are the subject, whether joined together, or not (Not is good, because a human might be expected to be on the beach and connected to the presence of and relation to the moon, but such a view would I think have less interest than this one). Moondog. Indeed!

Of course, that is but one possible perception of this enticing image, while not considering another alternative view that the relation between a dog and astronomical territory is very remote to our normal conscious, notwithstanding the dog's superior (to human) geographical awareness. Wolves may howl at the moon (apparently), but few dogs seem to be preoccupied so directly with it, as their geographical mapping requires that they visit a territory on foot (paws) in order to memorize it better than we do. A dog walking away from the moon (if we forget the probable reality that he is approaching his master) on a secluded beach at night, makes a quite original scene.

But the image's compositionally induced mystery also draws one to it, without any ascribed meaning other than what the photo shows us and not. It may make no claim to creating a certain type of enigma other than that captured in the shadows and dark tones. Absence of detail is like a vacuum, it draws us into it. That quality of much of Carlos' work makes this a very worthy POW for discussion.