Pet.

What's interesting is the relationship between the girl and the snake. Looks to me like she just released it from her bag of magic tricks in order to dazzle the photographer, and so she's standing there pleased with herself (the hand says everything).

 

Yes, that's exactly the story that brings the elements of this picture together. Even the dramatic sky fits and the ramshackle house!

 

I liked the picture as soon as I saw it, but the obvious story comprised of the elements 'snake' and 'little girl' would be: snake crawling towards little girl, little girl is scared and screams. That's not the case here, the sake is crawling away, and the little girl has a winning smile on her face. Thanks, Dino, for bringing this together for me. Of course the reality of this little girl in a 'third world' country might be grim, but still, the picture looks enchanted - maybe because to somebody in the 'first world' the scene is so surreal?

The elements of the picture conflict with one another. I can see the burned clouds looking slightly ominous (certainly not happy clouds), the shacks in the background with the girl looking like she could be a poster child form developing world poverty. And then, there's a snake in the foreground. Except, the expression on her face is one of... and that's where my mind draws a blank. What's her relation to the snake? She looks like she's posing for the camera! Adjusting her hair, getting the best angle of her face for the photo...she's the element in this photo that conflicts with the rest of it. I personally do not see any connection with her and the rest of the image, including the snake. My mind starts flipping through a mental catalog of elements to replace her - and it all depends on what kind of picture you want.

 

The tones and lines in this photograph are very nice. At first, the head in part of the window bothered me, but if you blur everything ( I cross my eyes so everything goes blurry) so you forget about the content (meaning) of the elements, the picture is very well balanced in terms of light and dark, and well composed.

The positive sides of this pic is composition, the negative side is the technical one (tonal rendition).

 

The pic has a strong diagonal composition with an unusual flow to the bottom left (where the snake is going). The contrast between the child and the snake on several levels (weak - dangerous, good - evil) adds even more interest.

 

But the tonality looks rather flat and liveless and that's not only the JPEGs fault.

To me its the perspective , very near perfect. It seems to force you to look at the photo as a whole.

Technically is very good but not stunning.

Many elements of the composition have strong symbolic value and that makes the photo open to different interpretations (probably more than the original intention of the photographer). This is what I enjoyed more about this picture. Well done and congrats for the well deserved POW.

Roumen -- I suspect that scanning a negative with a flatbed scanner is always going to produce rather murky results. Have you considered printing it with an enlarger and then scanning the print instead? That might help people to get a better grip with the technical aspects of the shot.

 

That said, assuming that you planned all of the elements then 'bravo'! I love the mythic dimension of this photo -- the snake seems to have emerged from the little girl (or at least from around her feet) and is now heading out of the frame... out into the world. This effect is emphasised by the strong diagonal right-to-left motion -- it's hard for the viewer not to feel threatened by the snake that is now heading towards our frame of reference.

 

These elements obviously have strong biblical connotations that raise this photo far above your 'average' developping world photo and into something that resonates intriguingly on other planes. As well, the physical conjunction of large snake/small girl can't help but produce a very strong gut reaction even in those with non-Judeo-Christian backgrounds.

 

Congrats.

 

jon

"I still like this picture because it's different and original." - Marc G.

I?m not agree with this. I live here in Brazil and I can say... this is not different and not original picture. This is absolutely commum picture if you go to Mato Grosso County or Amazonas County, in Brazil. This doesn?t call my attention, because I tired to see picture as this one around here. This is a typical tourist foreign snapshot. I bring this picture of Rosa Gauditano only for you see what is possible in this country.

That doesn't matter, Paulo. The fact that most have never encountered anything like it covers a multitude of potential technical and aesthetic faults.

excellent composition. there is an important lack of sharpness in girl's face due to postproduction i guess. anyhow, absolutely a good photo.

regards.

I enjoyed viewing it. Period. No need for me, nor am I sufficiently qualified to critique it.

 

If there be any element of discontinuity of the three elements, that may be why I like it. I love surrealism, so I don't need connection.

 

Someone get that kid a puppy, please.

 

Murray

A schooled composition, a dead snake, I know snakes in the sand, I have a daughter, and

have lived with indiginous populations in the third world. For me, This photo doesn't ring

true. It is something that could be interpreted as profound to a western sentimental

mentality.

Comparing your photograph and mine I've found the old saying "Never work with children or animals" to be true of both. I see yours as more of a documentary/snapshot, whereas mine is more staged. The concept of having a nonchalant attitude for the child works very well here to evoke a feeling of innocense and playfulness. I like your angle as well.

I see this photo being of a young lady who has just killed this snake and posed it outdoors as her trophy. Perhaps the snake has been a pest (not pet) in her home. This would explain the look on her face and the 'hap-hazard' composition - I think it does add to the moment of the shot.

 

It is an interesting picture regardless of the 'truth' of the story!

I'm with Tom on this. This is a real world picture, posed to some extent, but with a real look at an interesting part of life: a young girl in a poor part of trhe world, and she has a pet snake. What is good is that it shows both the common theme of children wanting pets, and the unusual of both the pet and the situation. It also has a level of ambiguity to it.

I like this one! The composition really makes a statement about the environment outside of the captured photo, and like said above, the snake's "S" shape really draws the eye right to the girl. Although the contrast seems a bit strong, in my eye it really fits the image well and the B&W goes far to give the image a somewhat creepy feeling.

 

Well done, Roumen! L:)

A marvelous shot especially because of the composition. Would I stand that close to a snake to compose a photograph -- I don't think so! The young girl looks shy and pleased. The background informs us of her environment. Great job!

Despite the ennui voiced by some commentators, I am of the camp that finds great appeal in this image. From what the photographer chose to include, we can get a pretty good idea of the lifestyle of this young girl. Challenging circumstances, to be sure, but also evidence of pride and discipline, as the area is quite neat and tidy. Most striking is the child's reaction to the photographer: a mixture of curiousity, shyness, and excitement at the change from her normal routine. Her apparent material poverty, the environmental extreme suggested in the print's tonality, not to mention the nearby snake, are what we might expect would occupy her mind. Instead, it is the foreigner and the camera grabbing her attention. The resilience of childhood, and its ability to adapt to circumstances most of us would find difficult, shows through. Indeed, one might view the snake as symbolic of what she endures, or even symbolic of her close association with her own environment. Sure, we've seen such things before, either in person or through images, and we know much of the non-photographer non-internet world has similar challenges. For me, however, this resilience never ceases to amaze. It is one of humanity's most compelling traits, and something I have long endeavored to capture in my own phototaking.

 

Incidentally, I'm not so sure the snake is dead, as many have suggested, nor even if it truly is a pet. From the scan I can't quite pick up tracks in the sand, but the posture of the snake looks very much alive. A tossed prop is unlikely to end up in such a realistic manner. More times than I care to remember I have stumbled across cobras and Russell's vipers, and this is the posture they presented just before my heart skipped some beats.

I see a snake, and a girl behind, smiling at the camera, in front of a line of wooden houses, perhaps located at a beach. Heaven is probably cloudy. It can be easily seen two main lines of disposition of all these elements in the photo: a horizontal one traced at the bottom of the houses wich levels the "weight" of the houses against that of the snake, and a tense diagonal one from bottom left to top right containing the snake and the girl. She is placed in an annoying situation because the attention moves from the snake to the girl, but does not stops here and tend to move right towards the right wall of the house, and upwards to the heaven. So, house and heaven (equilibrated with the snake) takes preeminence over the girl. Finally, the photo is taken with a 24mm lens wich adds "spontaneity", but back preeminence too at the expense of the girl.

 

What have we got, then? The girl with a decreasingly protagonism (small, photo-centered and confronted to a preeminence house) seems to be the middle point between the heaven and the snake. It could contains biblic connotations, but... what about the house?

 

In my opinion, taking out the house and the wide angle lens would help the story, perhaps (I'm not sure) right centering the girl. I would try to test a 50mm f/1.4 or a 85mm f/2 lens, at its maximum aperture to blur the back houses, giving significance to the main subjects: the wickedness of the snake and the innocence of the girl.

Great photo! I only wish the girl did not have a smile on her face. I thik it would have been a more powerful photo if she was sort of somber or something. Any alternate takes?

strange perspective for strange photo.

Chudesno folio Rumene!!!Pozdravi ot Yambol :)

great photo! Can you teach me ;) ?