Untitled

Any comments/ratings are welcome. Thank You.

wonderful.

Love that light shining through the mist, 7/7

Mood and lighting is all there, great job!

Great mood !

congrats

db

Great! So, so beautiful capture, here everything is ok for me :-)

Good fogy composition. I like the house that is seen through the fog, well done. Pnina

I know it was the light you were after here but I must admit that I saw the brickwork first - a wonderful rich red colour. Great light too!

WOW, superb!!!

Please note the following:

• This image has been selected for discussion. It is not necessarily the "best" picture the Elves have seen this week, nor is it a contest.
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• Before writing a contribution to this thread, please consider our reason for having this forum: to help people learn about photography. Visitors have browsed the gallery, found a few striking images and want to know things like why is it a good picture, why does it work? Or, indeed, why doesn't it work, or how could it be improved? Try to answer such questions with your contribution.

Despite not doing much "pictorial" work in my own photography, I am always a sucker for a little fog and bits of architectural detail like this. My first impression was fairly positive.
However, I was a little bothered as I looked closer, first of all by the diagonal branch which seemed to me to be discordant with the dominant vertical lines of the picture as a whole. Then I noticed that the diagonal is transparent in places. This reinforces my view that this element detracts from the picture rather than adding to it. It's harder for me to tell if the background trunk is also layered in. These are not fatal flaws, and the picture is interesting; but I find it less mysterious than just curious.

Perhaps Andris can tell us what the intent was here?

I believe I have used the word "exercise" here before in talking about photographs. This is a very good example of an exercise to me. Exercises are situations where we see something and create a photograph to capture that situation even though there really isn't a photograph, per se, to be had.

This photograph captures the atmosphere of this setting very well, keeping the highlights and the fog/smoke streams, even the subtleties all well balanced and even the dark lower left corner maintains reasonable detail(I might have included a touch more myself). Even though there does seem to be an issue as JDM pointed out, the exposure allowed for the inclusion of even the finest of these shadow variations in the light shaft.

But for me it stops there as I don't see that there is anything here worthy of our focus or attention. This approach is not supported by other images in Andris portfolio, so I am not motivated to look much further than the "exercise". The light is wonderfully captured, but overall, I do feel a bit cramped, side to side, while there also seems too much headroom that is not contributing and just pulls my eye up and out. But then, as I said, there really isn't anything for my eye to relish, other than just the capture of light, anyway.

(I do like old brick buildings and this sort of architecture, so there is at least a little interest, but I don't feel that is fully realized here)

The strong shadows, cutting through the fog are an important part of this image. It's unfortunate that the shadow pointed out by JDM looks odd. I might selectively darken it so that the level of detail is the same as on the tree trunk for that same shadow.

The fog and light and shadows through the fog are very inviting to me. I like that detail is maintained in the dark section to the left. At first I thought of cropping much of that out, but the details in there draw me in as an area of secondary interest.

Actually,this shot reminds me childhood.A beautiful atmosphere with nice showing the sun light and little dusts that fluent in the air.
The composition is good and nice angle chosed,too.Strong shot with good details.
Regards(Bobby).

I like the foreground colors and I like the light, but the "transparent tree" thing bothers me. If it's an effect, it isn't well executed, in my opinion, and turns this image into another of those that make me wonder what's real and what isn't.

This could be a really nice reality shot, but the transparency sort of spoils it for me.

The fog makes this picture for me.
very nice work.
7/7

Joe

It seems, as noticed here before, to something like a double exposure. The tree is not really there etc. The question then would be if this adds to a photo or should not be done. I belong to the generation (older) that would not do this. I do like the shot but it's not that special. I guess discussing the technique would me more interesting.

I'm not sure, but the heavy shadow may be natural. Whether it is or not, it's confusing.

Bend rays and awarded POW? I'm disappointed nobody else noticed.

Actually Andri S has so many outstanding images in his gallery. I'm surprised they picked such a controversial one as POW.

The composition and feel of this image is great. The vertical lines of the building and tree keep your focus in the center. But what also helps are the lines of the buildings roof in the background, and then the lines of the light beams lead you to the buildings corner again. If you wander off to explore the image, the lines of the brick lead you back as well as the lines of the ground brick work leading you back to the center of the image again.

But then once I read JDM's post regarding the editing flaws, I am completely distracted by them now. I didn't really notice them before as it was all about the feeling that the image created, but now that is all I see. There must have been something distracting there for you to edit it out which is fine by me, but you should really touch that up. Once you do it will be a fantastic image.

Sorry, even with the interesting light and fog, the photo does little for me. Noticing the obvious transparency of the branch only furthers the urge the ask "why in the world would they pick this photo as POW"? If the intent was to inspire debate, I suppose it is successful. If it was to share and promote quality photography, it falls far short. This is a disservice to the photographer himself, as well as to all the subscribers who enjoy viewing the quality work of good photographers. So many really good and interesting images out there..........c'mon guys, you can pick one better than this.

After reading so much why the image do not work I stay with my initial feeling of WOW what an original misterious, contrasting and interesting capture. Andris getting the sun rays with branches and bricks is fabulous!

This seems to be a somewhat consistent theme in choosing a POW: a photo that has plusses and minuses is chosen from a portfolio that generally has a large selection of much better photos. Andris has a very diverse portfolio, something that I always admire in a photographer who can be so successful with a wide variety of subjects. I suppose the selection of a "lesser" photo will stimulate discussion and differences of opinion more than an "Oh, Wow" photo would.

The bricks on the left and the streaming sunlight (which may or may not be real) is about the only aspect of this particular photo that I find appealing. The rest seems to me to be rather haphazard, especially the diagonal branch, which apparently isn't really there. The building on the right is especially distracting: part is obscured by the sun-lit haze, while the lower portion is more distinct, and the shadow seems to be only "disruptive." I find little that is aesthetically appealing, nor does the photo seem to capture the essence of a particular place. For me, at least, those are aspects of a photo in this category that I think are important.

So the elves have done it again: I've had to be critical of a photo from a photographer whom I really do admire.

I could be wrong about this, but my opinion is that what many are calling a transparent branch is the shadow (on the fog) of the branch that seems to me to emerge from the trunk just above the "transparency". The shadow is, of course, transparent. The trunk is also more visible through the shadow than through the surrounding fog. I, for one, like the somewhat chaotic nature of the elements - verticals of the brick walls and trees, diagonals of the branches and their shadows.