single photos Waiting for the Day, Palmyra, Va, 2011

i'm a li'l confused: the pov tells me it's a relationship between the flower and the sun; the wide-angled perspective suggests the sky; the exif data says it is 19:25 (nearly), therefore evening; the caption apparently consumes the intervening night before a new day dawns

wtf? 

Rajat, you don't read exif data when viewing a picture!  That's just technical mumbo jumbo. Don't pay any attention to it. 

Ok, that takes care of half your argument. 

The other half...hmmm,  all those competing elements.  Well, you know what they say about relationships: they're complicated!  

Oh, and thank you for noticing how the compositional lines converge so nicely on the sun. 

Great critique Rajat!  I agree with you and think that without the title I might not have been tempted to look at the exif (even after learning that I'm not supposed to).  I just wanted to know if Doug's light source was the Moon or the Sun.  Given that it was taken four days ago, in Virginia, at ~7:25 pm, I'm going to guess it's the setting Sun.

It's surreal looking, the lighting on the grass and flowers seems unnatural and ambiguous, which isn't bad, just different.  It's as if there's a secondary light source behind the photographer.  Anyway, I like the photograph, it's interesting and invites the viewer to look around.

I might have liked to see the base of the flower in your composition so it didn't appear to be growing out of the bottom of the frame and while I realize this is probably a hilly, slanty area, the tilted horizon still bugs me a little by pulling my attention to the right where there's not a lot to see. I might also try lightening up the clouds to separate them from the sky a bit more.

All the leading lines were a stroke of genius, though.  The trees on the right, while not interesting on their own, lead you to the sun, the clouds... lead, the flower... leads, everything leads. Very creative.

Jeff, you're right about several things: One, that Rajat is a good observer; two, that the base of the flower is sorely missed; three, that you're not supposed to look at the EXIF data; and four, that the landscape is hilly.    The sun was the only light source and is providing all that beautiful light on its own. 

Thanks for your thoughts.

I don't feel any compulsion to adhere to the EXIF's proof as to the time of day, considering I'm not a photojournalist.  Although yes, the image was made in the evening, the picture itself feels like a morning.  There is an anticipation in the scene that doesn't translate into an evening theme, at least as far as I'm concerned.    

seems to be my day for compliments! interesting how we each see things differently... to me the light seemed to be failing, therefore evening, and the caption implied morning... to solve the mystery i looked to see if there was any exif data... if it had been deleted i would have assumed i must be wrong... the sun, being by far the brightest object in this frame, draws my eye... these days i've stopped captioning most if not all of my posted photographs... no crutches... allow freedom to the viewer to use his/her own faculties

curse that EXIF info! It has taken all the magic out of my picture! 

Doug, it would never occur to me to look at EXIF data when looking at an image but I am just an old fart who was really excited when I found that my Pentax 645 recorded data on the edge of the film. I also avoid the sun in my shots like the plague but this proves the exception to m rule. This shot is excellent. It has the wonderful feeling of anticipation of a new day and even the clouds are pointing in the right direction. I would have liked to see the whole flower but it's not a big deal to me.

EXIF data has/have led many astray, some into human slavery, others into harder stuff.

I like it, Doug.

--Lannie

Hooray! I feel like I've been exonerated! 

....I guess I should say it has found an audience.

Here, there is a certainly a duel subject; the sunset and the daisies. The daisies seem to be the less important of the two since they're somewhat under exposed. Yet the sunset by how you composed the image is a little too far away to be the main subject. 

I would have composed the picture somewhat differently. I would have moved the Daisies more to the left, thus eliminating most of the space to the left of the Daisies, and changed the camera angle so that there is more sky. Also there is a distinct tilt; high left to low right that needs to be corrected. Finally, I would have given some thought to using fill flash to bring out the details of the Daises.