ICE MUSHROOM Iceberg in Greenland More photos in my Galery of my website

Beautiful photograph. I love the color. It's one of those photographs you only get if you're in the right place and the right time and then know what to do with it. Congratulations on a splendid piece of work.

Carl, in taking a look at the rest of the portfolio, you nailed it ... I see relatively weak compositions of absolutely stunning subjects ! And in some of those, I can clearly see where I would have tried to photograph from a different perspective. In this image, it's not nearly so obvious to me that there is a better perspective, though looking at the photo again, as fascinating as some of the other forms are, you're right that the bright, centered "mushroom" does demand attention.

 

Now I'm especially glad I posted here, because I went to your gallery and am very happy I did ! (I don't spend too much time here on photo.net and usually look at the top rated photos rather than exploring galleries). In contrast to fair compositions of stunning subjects, your gallery is full of wonderful compositions of, in many cases, ordinary subjects.

 

- Dennis

The layering of colors and mountain-like spire

make this one spectacular. Here's my ice

mushroom, apparently formed by different forces.

Superb!

Best picture of the year.

 

People mis-quoting the Rule of Thirds, are forgetting the rest of the Rule - static subjects should be centered. The ice floe is static and center is correct.

You misunderstand the term 'static' as applied to composition. It refers to eye movement throughout the picture space, not the nature of the subject matter.

" People mis-quoting the Rule of Thirds, are forgetting the rest of the Rule - static subjects should be centered "

 

Bob, sorry, but this simply fails. The rule of thirds comes way after symetrical (static, centralized) compositions in the History of Art. There is no such "rest of **the** (?!?) rule". There is no such rule stating that "static subjects **SHOULD** be centered". Yes, centralized compositions are more static, but that's certainly not the same as to write what you wrote.

The compositional question of "centering" the main subject (or not) misses the entire point of this image. By the way, the supporting line of ice elements along the lower right-to-middle provides sufficient visual dynamic to settle any "centering" issue.

 

This is a nature photograph, or at least it ought to be. Icebergs are spawned by the glaciers they break off from... so how well does this iceberg tell its particular "nature" story? To my eye, not very well. Why? Look at the puzzle piece that is this iceberg. Then look at the glacial wall in the background. It's possible that the iceberg sheared off from the area on the right. Even if it did not it seems as plaubible a working hypothesis (at least viewers would have something else to visually chew on and debate) to go with that should have guided the photographer in his presentation of this image.

 

But there's more. The ice elements at the left are needlessly distracting. Including them in order to "balance" similar elements in the upper right effectively centers the iceberg. But if those, at left, were to be cropped then the relationship between the iceberg's shape and the "negative" puzzle shape (we can tell that something has sheared off from it) on the glacial wall at right becomes more apparent.

 

Then the composition begins to make "natural" sense, not because the subject gets placed off-center, but because it gets visually related to the glacial wall's complementary space. By intentional emphasis (bring out contrast and detail in the glacial wall's character) by the photographer telling the story, this photograph becomes much more than a pretty picture of a fine image capture ... which certainly it is!

Fantastic image. Reminds me of a Roger Dean painting!

Nice subject. Nice photo. You gotta love ice. Lovely blues.....

I don't see any pixellation but then haven't been zooming it.

I am also a *little* confused as to why the photo "A Town Without Glass" appeared in the middle of this discussion, followed by a post saying "the D100 can't pick up reflections off glass".

Now maybe I am pointing out the obvious here but bear with me....I can see NO REASON at all for someone to have posted that photo in this discussion other than to perhaps try and illustrate that a D100 will pick out windows as black because it can't show reflections. The only problem I have is that almost every window in that photo is covered up with black shutters. Go figure ? Am I being daft ? Oh well. If so, please explain presence of that photo and forgive me...

As for the whole "Golden ratio" argument, it's an old one and a good one. I personally have been tending recently to take lots of pictures with wide angle lenses with a tiny subject right in the middle of my crosshairs and I really like what I am getting back. Rules are there to be learned then when you know the rules you do waht you want. If someone preaches that no-one can EVER break the RULES and produce a successful picture, then I would wager that their photography will never be anything original or of any particular interest.

Love the Ice.

BobbyX

"try and illustrate that a D100 will pick out windows as black because it can't show reflections."....thats exactly why i posted it.Not just the D100 but any digitial. It can show reflections but not refraction...penetration of glass. Its odd the 100's of windows ALL have black shutters...zoom it. Theres a few shutters in the scene thats it.

 

The entire point was only my questioning the tools ability to properly display the complexities of this highly reflective and transparent object. I'm still going to buy one lol.

Paul - I am really sorry but there are only two windows in that scene that don't have shutters ion - top middle of the middle building. You are obviously not very familiar with European architecture. I would guess it is France, Germany or perhaps Austria....

'Tis an amazing phenomenon. I happened upon something similar, but different, one cold day in 1979.

 

http://www.saugus.net/Photos/page10.shtml

gorgeous and creative work! ..