Old pile fondation

"The last I checked, this was a learning site. A lot of us are going to analyze things to death, and offer alternative treatmetns, because that is how we learn. (It is also within the rules, if anybody cares to read them.)"

 

Yes, Lannie ! Obviously, a useful reminder...

Thanks for the very interesting links you added to this thread.

 

Last link - http://www.erfoto.lv/index1.php?module=My_eGallery&do=showpicbig&pid=14908 - is an interesting picture, but one that deserves being viewed larger imo, because at this size, I can hardly tell what I'm looking at.

 

2nd link - http://www.erfoto.lv/index1.php?module=My_eGallery&do=showpicbig&pid=3588 - is imo a very nice photo, with a real text-book composition. I like it a lot, but I think there'vejust been too many photos like this all over the world, so your POW here rates much higher in originality imo. (Would love it in bw too by the way.)

 

1st link - http://www.erfoto.lv/index1.php?module=My_eGallery&do=showpicbig&pid=16221 - is the closest to this week's POW. And I think the very original angle you chose is aesthetically inferior to your POW. Yet, what I like a lot in this alternative take is the light itself, and the way the light is reflected on the ice. Colors seem more natural too. Still, the POW wins in terms of composition for me.

 

That said, and after so much discussion about the colors of this POW, I would like to clarify that I wasn't suggesting "better alternatives" in my earlier post - just trying to find out HOW IT REALLY LOOKED THAT DAY, and HOW IT COULD LOOK WITH COLDER LIGHT.

 

What I would really like to hear from you, Vilnis: what were the actual colors that day ? And... Why did you add a warm filter - i.e what was exactly your intention when adding it ? Regards.

Whoever selected this photo for discussion surely guessed correctly! It is great! I think it would be interesting to see the results of "expanded exposure range," or, just lightening (dodging) the left side. Cheers to all!

I love the low perspective; it emboldens the leading lines of the piles. The pile on the left strengthens the line and the sensation of being drawn deeper into the scene. I would think that the effect would have been lost with a higher persective shot. A wonderful photograph.

At first I thought the photo was of wax, or embalmed walrus corpses. Very odd image--hard to process at first glance. I like the texture of the nearest piles and the strange color tones. I probably wouldn't hang it on my wall, but it would be interesting to see in a magazine like National Geographic.

Great picture Vilnis! There is "something" there that keeps drawing my attention each time I startup PNet. Probably the scenes compexity. Regards.

Make this black and white!!!!!!..EC

Your perseverence paid off. Thanks for the narrative. I enjoyed reading it!

This picture to my mind is not about colour at all - as someone else pointed out all the different versions don't make a lot of difference (except that god-awful blue/black thing). It is about texture, and what makes it special is the contrast between the crisp, hard, cold inertness of the ice and the smokey smoothness and tempestuous imminence of the sky. It is a picture which depicts elements of the soul of our planet, its contradictions and inner tantrums.

 

That Vilnis has seen this in a real landscape is wonderful, and that is something which cannot be faked by filtering or postprocessing.

 

It is a tad unfortunate that the sunlight is not further left to balance the image a little better and to pull the eye along the pier a little easier, but I doubt nature would have been so obliging and the quality of the light would probably have been quite different a short time both before and after the shot was taken.

I like Dale's commentary. Personally, I can't see this as a comment on pollution or things like that. Just the color of the ice is not much to go by, and it isn't that dirty anyway. I am quite struck however with central mass of ice gobs, and how they contrast with the cloudy sky, the crumbly flat ice surface to the left and right, and the dark, feathery masses of the trees in the background. But what I like best perhaps is how the rocks now have captured the flowing movement of the water, while the water now lies flat and still.

 

Did Vilnis have to walk out on the ice and clamber onto the pier, to be able to shoot back towards the bank? At least, something like that seems to have happened. Even if there was nothing to see looking outward from the bank, that is quite an interesting and inspired manoeuvre.

 

I don't think the picture needed that little bit of warming filter, but it doesn't really hurt either, and perhaps Vilnis did need it, in that awful cold! Attempts to cool the picture tend to make it too blue.

 

Thank you!

Vilnis acording to your explaination, u did a great job in Conditional circumstances. i think its a life time shot very hard to get this kinda shot again.

 

Congratulations.

I agree Landrum this is a learning site. However, if you agree with a blue

version I'm afraid there is nothing to talk between us. What is your "learning"

point manipulating images digitally BTW?? Pushing colors from one edge of

spectrum to another one? Is that the way you consider learning in

photography should be? Quite sad, don't you think? Learning is to try

improving composition, lighting, idea itself and not a digital post-processing

everyone can do. Stay there in cold and wait the right moment, unique light

having perfectly composed frame- that is a learning experience I appreciate.

Does that making you uncomfortable? So you will have to accept there are

still people thinking this way, and not a digital way.

Miroslav, would you please explain to me the practical difference between using a warming filter during the shot and adding the same effect through Photoshop afterward? When the optical effects are virtually identical, there is no real difference, and whatever is warmed with a filter can also be "unwarmed" with Photoshop.

 

I say again that color is a relevant variable in color photography, and I should not have to say that. As a relevant variable, it will be discussed when the discussion turns to the hues used in color photography. Hue and saturation are as relevant as composition and "lighting": indeed, hue and intensity ARE lighting.

 

As for difficulty, I have hiked and climbed alone from the Smokies to the Andes. I am no armchair photographer or adventurer.

 

Get off your anti-Photoshop horse and recognize that it is simply one more tool among many.

 

Besides, if I am not mistaken, this photo was warmed AFTER the fact, was it not?

 

--Lannie

"Besides, if I am not mistaken, this photo was warmed AFTER the fact, was it not?"

 

The shot was taken with a Tiffen Warm Polarizer, according to the picture details

 

Regards