'Notre Dame, Paris, Another View'

Puffy white clouds overhead, the poke of the cathedral spire into the

heavens, a long wedge of reinforced riverbank showing high water, an

angled bridge ready for tourist boats to pass under --- diagonals abound

which define this photo with a different view of the Cathedral Notre

Dame, Paris. Your ratings, critiques and comments are invited and

most welcome. If you rate harshly, very critically, or wish to make a

remark, please submit a helpful and constructive comment; please

share your photographic knowledge to help improve my photography.

Thanks! Enjoly! John

This photo also could have been submitted as a 'travel' photo, I think.

Agree?

John

John (Crosley)

(from archives)

For those who know my work, is this a mere 'snapshot' or is this a composition' as many raters seem so far to be opining?

Composition or crap?

Food for thought about composition or just my bland musings about a so-so photo?

john

John (Crosley)

Good photo. great color and DOF. flying buttresses hold my attention.

I knew from long ago when I took this and processed it that it would be seen as a 'simple photo'.

It is anything but, though the subject matter and viewpoint suggest so.  It is, after all, just an urban landscape of a pretty familiar old scene, but done in a completely different way than ever seen before.

I've used some time-honored photo devices that have added to its complexity, driving the viewer's eyes toward the ultimate 'goal' -- the cathedral and those flying buttresses and the spire into the clouds, but I think few understand how technically proficient the construction was to do that.

I won't name the compositional devices now, but I'm very proud of this photo, which I knew all along would not 'score well', but of which I've been looking at for years as one of my best ever urban landscapes.

Gilding the Lilly? 

Perhaps, but then there are some of mine which raters LOVE, which I don't particularly love or sometimes even like much myself, and I often say so.   Some of those high scorers, I'd like to orphan even, but I'm parent of them all, even if those are my bastard kiddies.

This one, on the other hand . . . . .'

john

John (Crosley)

As you point out in your comentary, the thing that apeals to me in this photo is all the lines.  They lead to points of interest in the photo, like the fence in the foreground it leads to a group of people, more than likely they're tourists.  Also the the wall leads to the building which looks quite impressive.  Also the tall point from the building leads to the beautiful sky that is beautifully exposed.

Your commentary is 'right on'.

You did not make the point, however, that they're almost all DIAGONAL LINES, and with each diagonal line, it bounds or can be seen to bound a triangle, a most dynamic figure.

This is a most complex composition disguised as a snapshot.

It's diagonal after diagonal.

Moreover, it's similar to an 'S Curve' with the adaptation of a 'Z' curve, which is almost the same thing, which has the effect of drawing the viewer's eyes to the rear.

Fortunately there is something in the rear for the eyes to be drawn to -- the spire of the Cathedral of Our Mother (Notre Dame) as it rises to pierce a hole in the puffy clouded sky, which in itself for me is a noteworthy sky.

Diagonal lines LEAD THE VIEWER'S EYE, and this photo abounds in them, all working together.

Yet it was composed in less than a minute.

For me, for a cityscape or urbanscape, this photo has all I could hope for in complexity, disguised as simplicity, but it was no surprise it got low rates, especially at first. 

I'll be curious if further raters or commenters who have read this analysis about this photo's complexity continue to rate this 'mediocre' to 'good' -- it's really one of my most thoughtful, and I've been looking at it for half a decade, but just never wanted to post it.

I thought I'd puncture some peoples' expectations of what it is I shoot if I posted it or it would be misunderstood.

;~))

john

John (Crosley)

How many diagonals are found in this photo?

And by derivation, how many triangles are defined expressly or by extending the lines of the diagonals?

john

John (Crosley)