City near the sea

I like this one a lot also. A subtle blending of images creates an impressive and colorful collage effect. The difference in scale brings depth to the picture. Very well done. This has something of the effect of a freshly unearthed fresco on some ancient wall, the paint peeling away and showing other pictures underneath.

To Jack McRitchie : thanks a lot for your attention to my shot!

To Jack McRitchie : thanks a lot for your attention to my shot!

I think it's an incoherent mess. I can't find anything about it that hangs together; or any dynamic generated *because* none of it hangs together. It's just a flaccid color dump to my eye.

I agree with Jack's comments and disagree with Julie's. Before reading the image tags and the other comments, I suspected that the image was the result of compositing. To me, the title is a significant clue to the image's success. Svetlana fused cityscape elements with with beach ones; tis was not done haphazardly.

I don't like this much, and I love so much of Svetlana's work. It feels very craft-like to me, almost like a project. It doesn't stimulate my imagination and doesn't provide much for my eye to appreciate. It's a little hard for me to tell how many original photos were used. But I'll say this, if the foreground boy is part of the same original picture as the background ocean bathers, my guess is I would like that photo. That, to me, would tell a good story. As it is, though, this photo seems to be concocting a multi-layered story that feels overdone.

On balance I like this one. Attractive mix of colors and the boy provides a strong central element, which says beach or seaside. The battered wall speaks of distant (to me) settlements on the Mediterranean, Black Sea, or similar, providing a touch of Romanticism to a typical shot of childhood.

In my mind, what works here is the ocean superimposed on the wood texture at the top. Both compliment each other well, where the wood creases mimic waves. Also, the color and shape of the bare skin people blend in with the yellowish patches on the wall. The boy seems to be walking out of the wall of an old building like an apparition. I can also imagine this as a home movie being projected on a desolate house, that was once inhabited by people and happy memories... a child, sunny beach. The ghost like nature of the double imagery is even more highlighted by the disembodied hand on the right with a partially clenched fist, suggesting, there are more things going on that are outside the frame, but part of the story.

Fred, to me, it's quite clear that " . . .the foreground boy . . . being part of the same original picture as the background ocean bathers. His hat and bathing suit (maybe, underwear) confirms this in my opinion.

Michael, do you think a kid taken from another picture couldn’t also be wearing bathing attire? Do you have other reasons for assuming he’s from the same photo? I’m not saying he couldn’t be from the same picture. I’m saying I (emphasis on I) would have no way of knowing without the photographer telling me. If it’s “quite clear” to you, you may just have a better, more discerning eye than me.

Fred,(and everyone) - I suggest you read Svetlana's explanation of this series in her reply to me on the picture "City Near the Sea" Also, I'd like to say I'm familiar with most of the commenters here and think it's remarkable how much the nature of each shows through in their response to the photograph.

Thanks, Jack. Though there are several photos in Svetlana's portfolio with that title, I believe I found the one where she responded to you. It seems like the photo may be a blending of a bunch of frames from a movie/video, which doesn't surprise me.

 

As for the comments revealing differences in viewers, I agree. And I'm pretty sure we'd both agree that, even so, considering criticism that comes from a variety of sensibilities is of great value. Any photographer, myself included, will have to balance the weight given to critiques even knowing that there are many sensibilities operating with varying tastes. A photographer can do anything from completely dismissing a critique to giving a critique a lot of thought and learning something important from it, regardless of who gives it. Sometimes, it's the objective words of critique that ring true (or false), sometimes it's the words combined with the history of the critic, sometimes the words combined with the known particular taste of the critic.

 

While we do learn about each critic from the ideas they present, we have a golden opportunity to learn about the photo presented as well by absorbing the various critiques and giving them their due.

 

You've long been one the most valued commenters on the site and it does not go unnoticed or unappreciated! LOL. I see line breaks here are still impossible.

I agree, some of the photos in her series are remarkable in their naturalness in blending the two exposures together. I wonder if such results are possible using digital cameras. The camera that I use has a feature for shooting double exposure, but have to be two consecutive exposures. I like Svetlana's experiment of rewinding the camera and double exposing the entire 36 frames. Since it is hard to remember each of the 36 previous exposures, its fascinating how the effect of randomness has produced some of the pleasant surprises in that series. My favorite is the one with the young bathers, who seem to be swimming over a green wall.

I see I misunderstood Svetlana's description of her process. I now get what she did. I do find it interesting, and admirably experimental, though it actually has little effect on my response to the photo(s).

In my opinion, our sensitivity may be different, as Jack pointed out, but our various childhood experiences can also be different, which in turn give a different aproach to this image. A great collage, or rather a snapshot of the carefree childhood of a little boy at the seaside and in contrast the old townhouse as a disappointment, or perhaps a remorse over the world that alredy changed, is over and is not what we imagined when we came back for years at the same place......

Our sensitivities are different, our childhood experiences are different, our genders are different, some of us went to public school and some of us went to private school, some of us are married and some single, some grew up near beaches and others near the woods, some both. Perhaps one among us broke his leg running on the beach as a kid. Perhaps one among us lost his or her virginity on the beach. OK. Got it. It's very personal. And yet, we do have a shared language with which to critique photos and some degree of objectivity is possible, where the critic can, with a bit of effort, step outside his or her own zone in order to assess a photo less subjectively. I'm not saying one can be completely objective, but I sometimes think too much emphasis is put on our subjective relationships to photos, especially when our backgrounds are used to explain or excuse the fact that we don't like a particular photo. In both cases in this thread, it's been people who like this photo that have brought up the personal proclivities (sensitivities or backgrounds) of everyone in the room. That's telling. I worry that it's to suggest that if you don't like this picture there must be some sort of personal reason why that's true as opposed to it simply being not a very good picture. Now, I don't know how we disentangle all this. I just don't necessarily appreciate when excuses are made or personal reasons divined for criticism. I think the critiques should be addressed on their own terms and not chalked up to the psychology and/or background of the critic. Again, I think some balance has to be achieved between the subjective and objective forces at play here. A critic can be seen as having personal reasons for his or her review of a photo but a critic should also be given credit for some degree of objectivity in making an aesthetic judgment. That objectivity seems much harder to deal with when it's critical or comes up with a negative assessment of a photo and that's so often when the background and personal sensibilities of the viewer or critic are brought up.

I actually sympathize completely with Jack McRitchie's astonishment and disbelief of the motives of others when I read critiques that don't coincide with what I see in a picture. How could anybody look at this thing and think it is anything other than [gawd-awful, magnificent, boring, astonishing, whatever the particular picture provokes out of me] ..... I write down **exactly** what I feel about what I'm looking at. I've learned not to disbelieve what other's write, even when what they say they see seems impossible to me (LOL), ..... but that doesn't mean I don't, in my heart of hearts, yet feel dark suspicion of their motives. As they, or at least Jack McRitchie does of mine. Such will it ever be. Ironically, this is BECAUSE what I wrote is so truly what I felt about what I saw and see in this picture. If I were lying or motivated by malice, I would be comfortable thinking that other's were equally dishonest.

I am grateful that my photo was chosen for discussion as a "photo of the week". And I am grateful for all the opinions that I heard. All people are different - and this is important and interesting, otherwise the world would be boring. And everyone can see (or not see) in this photo something special. I used here only the possibilities of color film, without using the possibilities of computer programs . One shot is a boy on the beach near the sea. Another shot after a while is the wall of the old house.

Fred, Svetlana's comments tend to support mine of 10/24. Of course, this is retroactive and goes to her intent for the image. Clearly, I had no way of knowing that as of 10/24.

Nothing wrong with this picture, it stands as an original on its own, well done.