'Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Green?'

An older photo, almost unrecognized from my review of older captures that I found

new worth in, borrowing new Photoshop skills to resurrect and preserved the native

green hues from the original D2X capture (other hues can be achieved from B&W

through greys with reds/oranges, etc.). I found this the other day on reviewing some

captures from the past with the intent of finding 'hidden gems'? Is this one, or just

something that is 'fools gold?' Your ratings, critiques and observations 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! Enjoy, however belatedly.

john

I think it's a near hit, but ultimately I'd call it a miss. The hit part is the color cast and the lighting overall, the way we gradate from shadow to light and the way that affects the color, in addition to the artistically captured wall texture. The atmosphere created is very nice. The problem, for me, is the subject, who's not rendered all the well, IMO. He's not in the kind of darkness that seems mysterious nor does the pose you caught him in seem all that interesting. He's just kind of there, or more accurately, neither here nor there, in a sense. The fact that he's centered in this very linear composition could give him a sort of bang and emphasis but it really doesn't and so it further adds to a kind of lack of visual dynamic and muted interest. Were he to be sitting two seats over toward the light and adopting a more interesting bodily expression, that could have made a lot of difference. And were he sitting in the last chair, even as he is, looking out of the frame, with his bag just where it is, that might really have grabbed my eye.

Comments that are thoughtful are especially welcome, whether positive or negative or in your case, both thoughtful and a little negative.  Taking the trouble to be engaged, then to analyze and explain yourself is a somewhat large task and speaks to the power of the photo, even if in the end it 'misses' in your mind.

In my mind, it's a positive, with drawbacks, but then I have worked it up with color correction, so the room is gray with his face and the right of the room in colors approaching red from sunset, the same room in somewhat wine color (partly) and most of all, black and white, and they are all engaging, and in their own way.

I watched and was engaged by a Lynda.com tutorial by some amazingly talented photographers (I looked at their work), and one main step in composition they said they like to see is 'symmetry', and this has it in spades - your suggestion of moving the guy doesn't.

Whether a hit or a miss, it pays to look over old captures that escaped one's less educated eye the first time around or that one was in too big a hurry to look at in the rush to download something that was sure fire a 'winner'.  

Also, it takes all kinds, and as you surely note, I cross genre and other boundaries in my postings.  Nominally with an interest in 'street' you can see me doing my Martin Paar thing as well, portraits, sports action, architecture from time to time and other things I seldom post.  I just like the look of a good photo no matter what genre, and I don't like to be put in a little bag that says 'street photography skills only'.

I'm extremely thankful for the time and effort you spent in convening your point of view.  I'll give it careful consideration and as usual commend it to other viewers to read.

Thanks Fred.

john

john (Crosley)

I liked this one when I first saw it and when I worked on it adjusting colors with Photoshop, for its ambiguity, for its symmetry, and its textures.  Just look at the texture of the wall and how nearly the whole photo is monochromatic, with a small exception, and that is the case in all three or four versions I worked up.

Regrettably this man was too aware for me to stand and choose different poses or move around or I might have had more choices -- what you see is what I got, in one photo only (the other i took was blurry with better hand positioning, but blurry is blurry, and in that case it did NOT work and could not be cured. (Blurs sometimes can be cured, and as one prominent member (or maybe now former member), has shown us, an entire portfolio can be comprised of blurry photos, and succeed almost beyond any expectation.  

It just takes more insight than I have.  

I'm not defending -- just explaining, and not denigrating your well made critique which I have taken to heart.

Oh, a final note, the bag plays an important part in breaking the overall symmetry, and is absolutely essential to any worth this photo may have -- a sort of 'grace note' to the composition that keeps it more interesting (in my mind of course).

john

John (Crosley)

Seeing it from the thumbnails, it does jump out - and I think that's the part that reveals what (for me) is the best part of this photo.

It's its simplicity, at first face. Fred described it better than I could, but the gradient and the line of the benches make it a composition that is clear. A solid foundation to move into the more subtle parts of the photo.

The wall - lovely texture, and the overall greenish hue works well here (to be honest, no matter how you achieved that - it's the result that counts, isn't it?). The broken/skewed seat, exactly where the light is, while the seats looking impeccable are in the dark - that's a nice, darkish, nasty note. The man is looking in the right direction, but ultimately, I agree with Fred from a compositional perspective, he sits in the wrong place. I would have prefered to the left, in the dark. The bag is, in my view, indeed in the right place.

I tend to not think in hit or miss terms anyway, so I won't go there. There is a lot to like here, small reservations notwithstanding.

Between you and the wonderful critique of Fred G. above, there's little for me to add, other than to say that when I found this in my review of old downloads, I just stopped in my tracks, AND the color is in the original with some, but not much contrast control/adjustment.

Using automatic controls for color and contrast on Photoshop CC, I came up with quite different results, also postworthy as well as black and white, which I also like.

I happen to like the man sitting where he is, so long as the backpack is there as a counterpoint to add interest, otherwise, I'd agree with you.  Interesting point you made, that somehow I overlooked, about the damaged chair -- thanks for that.  I should be more observant, really -- after all it's my own photo, and I'm responsible for 'knowing' its contents.

I commend your critique as well as that of Fred G. above for those who'd like to see worthy analyses in process.  It doesn't matter so much whether this is a good or a bad photo, but it's a 'different' photo, both from the usual fare on Photo.net and certainly different from my usual fare, and just that it's worthy  of comment by two of this service's premiere members says something about it, I think -- no matter what the outcome.  At least it's not a 'cookie-cutter' landscape or 'street' photo of something else formulaic.

I like to think this is my more 'art' - bent side.  

If there is any such part of me; some may beg to differ that i even have such a side; ;~))

Best to you Wouter.

john

John (Crosley)

After reviewing the Lynda.com video on composition I have written about before, I note regarding this photo that the subject of graphical balance seems important.

The darkness of the left wall has graphical 'weight' that ordinarily would weigh far too strongly on the photo's balance, and the solution, in my mind at least, is borne by the dark backpack, isolated on the right floor.

That tutorial composition I have oversimplified previously to state that it emphasizes 'symmetry' when in fact it uses the word 'balance' which is quite different, even to a guy who sometimes oversimplifies things --- maybe like me, even.

Dark left side, devoid of detail, is 'balanced' in my mind somehow by the clear, isolated pack on the floor, right, together with its own definition including shadow.  Whereas the guy is at the exact center of the composition and acts perhaps as an = sign, the composition is not thereby made equal by his being in the center, since the graphical weight of the darkness, left, is strong and is hard to compete with the lightness, right.  I think that in this case, the pack performs a special task for this photo in helping creating graphical balance.

Pardon to those who read my misquote about the Lynda.com tutorial using the word 'symmetry', as that was wrong, and prompted me after several years have passed to look at it again and realize that the word is 'balance' and specifically 'graphical or compositional balance'.

john

John (Crosley)