Abstract 248

Comments, ratings appreciated on rusty abstract--thanks.

Very good picture, congratulations...

sweet!!!

Good Try but Digital makes it just OK . Can be partially tweaked in photoshop. Should be shot with Velvia/Ektachrome 100VS Polarizer. Ideally the shot is suited for Dye Transfer but difficult/expensive. Check www.Ctein.com for dye transfer images of simmiliar style. If you see the real Dye Transfer prints, its 3d all the way. This is one of the subjects that still fall short of film.

Nothing to add about colours, texture and light: I like them all. In particular there is a gloomy, not sharp, light to it which enhances the "rotting away from sight" feeling of it. Some additional details like some lichens or the alike here and there also add to the forgotten atmosphere.

 

The part where I get puzzled is the composition. I do not strongly dislike it, but I am not so sure this is the most powerful way you could do with it. In particular, the emptyness of the right hand side seems not to work for me. It's not a matter of negative space (which is physically a concept I cannot grab) but rather the fact that it is useless and I never look past the brighter red blob. Sorry but I've no real suggestions to offer, and I also think you took your time to think how to compose it while there!

I think the color and texture are great. The lighting really adds to this. I like the nice simple composition, the cross really adds to this.

I'd say one of the rare examples when the rule of thirds works. :-) Regards. Blago

A near perfect abstract. Every quad has something different. The left-most quad is blank, which helps balance out with the activity in the others. The top-most is black, but also the smallest, so doesn't overwhelm, and adds some more contrast. The bottom quad has the cobwebs and has the large rust patch as a frame. The right quad, also the largest, and the rust patches are more spread out than the bottom quad, helping to fill the space. And to top it all off, some nice lighting.

Robert, a beautiful work here with textures revealed deliciously in light. Very well done.

The composition works due to the photographer's assessment of the visual weight of each area. It's a difficult concept to explain. . . . it just looks right.

 

I too am curious about the digital rendition of this, especially the black areas on the left and some of the hard thin black lines, but since I don't shoot digital, I have no way of knowing what is unavoidable and what is your processing for presentation on the site.

Wow... what color, detail and artistic composition. Nice job!

Carl, would you mind elaborate a bit further on that?

 

Cheers, s.

Visual weight?

 

It has to do with balancing various elements in the picture space regardless of what attracts you to them - position in the frame, bright areas, dark ones, hard vs soft edges, etc..

 

Here, I'm drawn to the bright cross, red areas on the right and bottom, and the dark areas that balance them. Without the dark area, you set up a tension between the first two, but you don't want it to overwhelm the composition.

Thanks everyone for your comments. I'd been eyeing this (I think it used to be a very large tank, but much of it has totally rusted away--it has been sitting in a very small clearing in the forest) for a long time and finally I was there at the right time.

 

Salvatore, you've commented some on the composition. I took perhaps ten shots of this, including the bull's eye X in the center of the frame. While the bull's eye X composition is stronger graphically and initially more appealing, I think this almost off-balance "rule of thirds" approach is more satisfying--it provides a certain amount of unresolved tension. Carl's discussion on visual weight is quite good, as is Stephens'.

 

A few years ago, when it became clear I was becoming addicted to photography, I visited two college bookstores and bought several textbooks on basic design. While not always the most interesting prose, I did read and work my way through them (sometimes when I feel stuck I still page through them and pick out some design principle to try to photograph). Bryan Peterson's Learning to See Creatively is a "dumbed down" and kind of cheesey book written for photographers about composition. While the photographs are more oriented towards stock photography than art, his writing is very clear and his photographs illustrate his points very well. I'd highly recommend the book for beginning or intermediate photographers.

 

After all this reading I've come to the conclusion that while you can teach the rules (and any photographer should know the rules), it comes down to a sense of what looks right when you're out in the field. Later, we can theorize about why the composition works or doesn't.

 

Carl, I'm not sure I understand your comments about the black lines--I think they were there in the original capture, but they may have been enhanced when I sharpened this.

 

Carl and Eugene, this photo would have been better shot with my Hasselblad. I prefer the look of Velvia or Provia, even when scanned on my cheap Epson 2450 scanner, to digital capture, especially for this type of shot. I'm going to try and re-shoot this on film.

 

Again, thanks for all of the insightful comments.

Thanks Carl and Robert for having elaborated on the point. I guess there is a personal threshold, which is a function of day, mood, phase of the moon and the alike, on the tension which is perceived between the different areas. I happen to still see too much red whereas you find it balanced off by the dark.

 

At any rate, I find this a very interesting image to look at and find myself coming over again and again, what I guess is a good measure of the success of an abstract...!

I love this one!

Structure,color and shape in harmony.

I keep coming back to this one. Very nice.