Bridge into Silence

Congrats! I like the winner version the best. It has a feeling of vastness which is missing from the square versions.

only "change" will remain untill the end.......and its enough for us as act to feel this change and be among the witnisses......this picture is also a change in the sight to eye.....a part of many changes...

I agree with Doug and have the same feeling about the image. There are some good elements but maybe too strict compositions or the interesting elements are not emphasized well. There's maybe "too much of nothing". Anyway congrats to POW.

As an attachement I send horizontally cropped version. I tried to emphasize the rider in the middle and get the focus more into the image so the fist triangle construction is cropped little as well. And not to suppress the dust which makes all the feeling it is horizontal stretched format near 3:1. It's a pitty you did't send larger version. It would look more dramatic.

Regards,

Lawrence of Arabia!

 

That is an interesting crop...

... and I get away the sky as well and with this format also suppress the strict lines that were too strong in the composition, imo.

Just noticed you have a POW, congrats :-). This is one of my favorites of your burning man series.

I prefer the panoramic crop. having thought about it a little more this image is largely about symmetry and you clearly placed the camera carefully to be absolutely central as regards the subject. The problem is that the shadows, especially the foreground shadow, breaks the symmetry and draws the eye away from the subject, at least for me it does. The Mountain horizon line also breaks the symmetry.

 

I can't help think that if you waited a short while for the sun to move then you may have been able to get symmetry with the shadows centralised. Softening the shadows might remove their dominance.

 

The panoramic crop removes the unsymmetrical elements from the image.

I prefer the panoramic version. It places me in the tunnel with the rider. All distractions are now removed without the loss created by the square crop.

 

After careful self-analysis I realize my preference for a cooler, dust-free environment really affects the emotions this image generates for me. I really have no urge to visit a desert and this image serves to remind me of this. So, in this regard, the shot is excellent!

Gup Jeffries

Nice work!

Anthony, what I meant was 'more square', by cropping both sides off a bit. The overdone cropping ruins the whole feeling of your piece and would be better left alone, either horizontal or verticle.

 

However, cropped properly the balance would be improved. I cropped the piece and left the original part in the background, but darkened. (Boy this work to show imporvements is really helping my PS abilities.) The density was changed a dash as shown in first sample by someone else to make it stronger too.

This works for me on several levels.

 

It's an excercise in restraint, in that we are too often tempted to boost the contrast of nearly everything. In this image, the muted tones from the dust are more realistic and we have the deep red to compensate.

 

The compostion works perfectly for me, in that I want to see the interesting geometry of the lines and their shadows, but I also want a sense of place. The openness of the site, both in width and depth, seems to be an important part of the story, so please, let's not talk about cropping off the sides.

 

I'm all for perfectly symmetrical images, but in this case you have some imbalance due to the location of the lone figure, so making the shadows off-center adds a bit more tension to counterbalance the symmetry of the installation.

I am surprised by how much I like the suggested panoramic crop because I am not usually a fan of panoramic photos. I am not really sure why that is but for some reason I often have a hard time getting excited about them. In this case I can imagine a very large print of the cropped version and getting the same feeling of being there that the photographer mentions for the original. I think the panoramic crop also helps strengthen the importance or the rider in the composition, though I am not sure he (or she) is the primary subject.

 

In the original (screen print) the blown out highlights do not work for me at all and some of the suggested modifications do not offer an adequate solution for improvement. I doubt if the photograph as shown here would print very well on paper because of the extreme contrast in the sky. I think the panoramic crop also has greater color impact because it shows the red fabric more prominently and has fewer other colors to compete with.

 

In the end it all boils down to what the photographer is trying to convey and how he wants to accomplish this goal. Success for the photographer does not always relate to success for the viewer. The version the audience appreciates may not coincide with the photographers personal concept. The photographer is free to do as he pleases unless he is being paid (or wants to be paid) to please someone else. Ultimately here are as many ways to take (or modify) a photograph as there are photographers.

 

A very interesting and well done series in my opinion. I also liked the version with the second rider and the photograph titled, Out of the Dust.

I thought Michael was the king (or at least the primary proponent) of muted colors and now I see he goes around darkening things in his cropped example. These contrast adjusted suggestions make the ground look wet, which I am sure it was not. It looks like the original post was adjusted for contrast but with a more subtle touch. Less is best in this case.

I?ve been thinking about this ?So what? comment and the more I do the more it aggravates me.

 

Unless you have been to Burning Man, saying ?So what? to this image is akin to a man saying ?So what? to a women who is trying to explain what it is like to give birth.

 

If you had been there you would say, ?Oh yeah, that is exactly what it is like.?

 

On the other hand I really like the panorama crop Robert, and if it were my piece of art that is portrayed in the picture I might even think of doing it that way.

 

I think Carl?s interpretation is exactly what I would hope would be made from this.

 

Between taking about 6 pictures of this I had a great conversation with one of the artist?s responsible for this installation. That is what Burning Man is all about.

Dennis, you are right, I do love muted colors. I don't know about being the 'king' though. But I do love a rich image over one that looks washed out, even if it was reality. I take strong over weak anyday. Whatever makes it strong, that's my answer.

 

But garrish color is not my style, but it is OK on others art in my eyes, I've got no beef there. Blessings, MS

Congratulations, Anthony, on POW. After seeing the various croppings, I find I do prefer the original. However, the blown out clouds bother me just a little. As an experiment, I used quadtones on this to see how that would work. Since the image has quite strong lines, I think it works that way, too. It seems to enhance the dust, which, as you say, is a part of being there. I'll post for comparison and discussion.

Love to see it Kim.

First of all I have to say that I respect your work @nthony and I'm also guilty of (mis)using your photography in this case. But on the other hand I wanted to express how would I shoot it if I were in that place. Not just take a photo of beeing there but to use all the interesting elements and to take an interesting photography. Having the POW is just like beeing on a hotseat and to confront your photography with the views and thoughts of other photographers and I don't envy you this.

Hey Robert, I'm okay with it. I'm always interested in what other ideas and suggestions people have to offer. In the best situation I'll learn something new, in the worst I can deny it, but most likely I'll learn something from it anyway. As far as your version goes, I think it is pretty damned interesting indeed. Strangely enough, I am sure there were more than a handful of people walking around there with some sort of mask-like contraption on that would have made them see it precisely that way.

Unless you have been to Burning Man, saying ?So what? to this image is akin to a man saying ?So what? to a women who is trying to explain what it is like to give birth.

If you had been there you would say, ?Oh yeah, that is exactly what it is like.?

On the other hand I really like the panorama crop Robert, and if it were my piece of art that is portrayed in the picture I might even think of doing it that way.

Technically, it is lacking with blown highlights, but so what. My first though on seeing it was, its the playa. My second thought was, welcome home. My third thought was to note the man at the end of the journey.

As for the panoroma, it is like a man talking about firsthand childbirth. The lack of the mountains ringing the Black Rock Desert ruins the image. Those mountains and the playa below ground the image to a place and an experience. Sometimes content trumps technique, and I enjoyed this image not in spite of its lack of technical perfection, but because of the content and what it represents. Many have shared this journey and know it is a home, loved like many other homes I have head.

Content aside, with a better exposure, I think the panoramic crop has value, but that is because it retains the journey and the fact that the journey is about people.

I hope your camera survived the playa. It is worse than glitter. :o)

thanks for sharing a nice moment,

Sean

Sorry, thought I did attach this...

good +

He's the last surviving human being on earth, and the tire on his one-speed girl's Schwinn is about to blow, and he will never make that glint of the sun on that wet rock that hints of a spring on that distant mountain. Most of the water having long since escaped the atmosphere, the era of human beings is about to end, and we are witness to it.

 

That's why we need the expanse on each side, and all the dust, so that the mind's eye can have a tabula rasa, a "blank slate" upon which to write our own imaginary interpretations. (That is also why I prefer this version, which gives freer scope to my mind's eye, which has always been better than my photographic eye.)

 

Michael, I love your crop, and the composition is beautiful, but the uncropped version gives freer rein to my inner vision, hallucinatory or otherwise.

 

Kim, I live the quadtones version, which emphasizes even more the starkness of this particular burning man on this burning desert.

 

Anthony, thank you for "Apocalypse When?"

It's really funny to read about interpretations of this photo by people who have never been in this Burning Man project. It is like "trying to explain what a particular color looks like to someone who is blind, by someone who is blind". That's just a note to them who defend the original photo and don't actually have the experience of @nthony.

Maybe you should tell us your own interpretation @nthony, if it is possible. But I'm affraid it isn't. And it should remain so.

Robert, are you saying that the subject of this photo is Burning Man, or a portion thereof? That is, is it a documentary photograph and NOTHING MORE?

 

Is it not also a free-standing work of art subject to interpretations by various viewers?

 

Besides, whatever might have been Anthony's purpose in posting it, does not the meaning inhere in the minds of the viewers of it, rather than in the photo as object? May we not use artistic elements produced by others in order to construct in our minds various possible meanings, or are you saying that there is only one meaning to this or any other photo?

 

The fact is that, as ART, Anthony's reason for posting it is completely irrelevant. As ART, it doesn't matter if it was shot in Nevada or in the Gobi Desert.

 

Finally, the meaning of the photo as ART has absolutely nothing to do with Burning Man--unless that is the meaning that one wants to ascribe to it. As I interpret Burning Man, it is a massive exercise in free expression--and free interpretation. As such, it is a spring board for generating new creative thought, not for codifying it and saying, "THIS is what this photo means, and THIS is what Burning Man means."

 

Why don't you tell us what it means to you?