The yellow tell tale

...annoys me. As well as not having moved a bit backward and included

all of the left-hand side curve in the sail more to the left.

 

After having stared at this for a while, I guess I need your input on

what works and what does not: it is truly appreciated!

I like it. First thing it says to me is wind. I don't think I'd have noticed the out of focus cable unless you'd mentioned it. I think my eye very quickly follows the mast and the cable to the centre of the frame, then follows the curve of the jib(?) back to the left. (If anything, the blur almost reinforces that sense of motion for the eye.) This drops me into the blue triangle of the sky, and then I'm into a rotor effect with the 4 sections formed by the 2 blue triangles and the sails, and the circular lines formed by the seams in the jib, the curl of the upper section of the jib around the mast, and the wisps of cloud in the r/h blue triangle. The movement gets reinforced by the yellow tell-tale - just big enough and yellow enough to stand out against the sky and sails, but not so big as to overwhelm them.

 

I think that if you'd moved to the left, you'd lose the proportional relationship between the two blue triangles, and risk losing the 'rotor' effect that's got me so worked up. You'd also risk centring the yellow tell tale, and lose the sense of the boat's forward movement, and of the wind coming from ahead of the bow, that you get by having it on the left side of the image. I also like how the edge of the mainsail, very highlit and intense, runs so deliberately out of the bottom lh corner - hope you wouldn't lose this.

 

Hope this helps. Best, Jeremy

I find the composition very strong and feel, like the previous commenter, a kind of rotor effect, swirling me in along the wind.

First some naming, then I can explain why I am unhappy with this.

 

- The top sail is the foresail of the boat. "Jib" is generally correct, but in this case "genoa" is a more correct term, given its size and cut.

 

- The steel cable to the lhs bottom corner is the "lower shroud".

 

- The aluminum bar sticking out of the mast, where the steel cable with the yellow tell tale seems to finish, is the "spreader"

 

Now, what I really dislike is the way the top of the genoa is nicely curved and I have composed this just behind the spreader: you see a tiny fraction of blue circle coming to the right of the spreader and this goes on my nerves: I wanted a triangle to the right, and enhance your "rotor" effect with a parabolic shape to the left.

 

I had composed it like that, where moving to the left was rather a few degrees inclination of the camera+lens, but I guess a small wave might have moved me+camera with respect to the boat+mast. This being old-fashioned film, it took several weeks to see this fault.

 

All this told, Jeremy and Luca, thanks for your feedback: it helps. I will go even stronger for the "rotor effect" next time I'm sailing on a big boat.

...any comments on the interplay of the red halyard running bottom-up along the mast AND the yellow tell-tale? Each of them was supposed to add a spark of colours in its sector of the "rotor"

Wonderful design and a strong use of light. You won't get comments from me on sailing, but I enjoy the photo. I just finished a sailboat simulator for a Software Engineering class I'm taking and would rather forget about all the pieces and parts of a sailboat.

 

I think you could select the yellow and red, and punch them up in PS to give them more impact. There seems to be a lot of noise in the top sail. Maybe a better scan would help?

Well, you seem to know exactly what you want from this, so all I can say is that the out of focus cable doesn't bother me. It suggests that, despite the tension on the cable, there is enough freedom against the wind that it can move.

 

The red and yellow have different rolls. The yellow is the calmer colour, and, as if to represent this, its straight and bellowing in the wind. The red is an energetic diagonal soaring into the sky, rigid against the mast. They do more than provide extra colour... they have different characters that could easily represent the balance between the rigid structure of the yacht( the tension in the rigging, etc... I assume the mast can bend a little?) and the relaxation and freedom of sailing.

Salvator, I don't talk sailing... I will try talking composition...What took my interest is all the triangles that are composed here, I have counted many..not only the sails but the cables on the blue and the blue themselves, the big sail and the lower one.. triangls, triangles...very interesting, the tell tal looks as something that does not belong, and with its color looks like the "cherry on the cream"... the red is not red enough to be significant. It gives the feeling of wind under the sails.

It is interesting to explor that unusual constraction of composition, even you are not comletely happy with it. Pnina

This is the kind of shot I'd fuss over, looking closely at the composition with the camera on a tripod.

 

But I doubt that a tripod would work very well under these conditions, so I think I'd be inclined to burn a lot of film knowing that you can't fine tune the composition as easily, hand holding under these conditions.

 

The OOF line doesn't bother me at all since it serves it's purpose as a leading line towards key elements that are in focus. As is, I think I'd crop a bit off the top to emphasize the red line.

like so . . .

Carl, with due respect, imo it is too tightly croped and takes the swing out of composition.

After going back and forth between the two versions several times, I see that it's the weight in the top sail that has the curved lines relative to the bottom with its angular lines that contributes to your idea of swing. I've set up more of a balance (tension?) between the two areas, but maybe the curved lines are more important than the single red line.

 

Interesting observation.

 

"It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing."

 

Duke Ellington

It looks like I just got home with 7 ratings, but with one of the most interestig debates among those in my portfolio!

Let me contribute as well:

• @David I have always had problems with my scanner in these kind of situation, and seem to have grown too lazy to try to fight the noise. You are right, though, there is too much. As for the selective enhancement of the yellow and the red, that's usually a step further the place where I put the limit of the PS'ing...but your suggestion is valid and I might consider it.
• @Stephan I find it interesting your interpratation of the red and the yellow. Actually the red is nothing more than a rope used to hois a sail (halyard) which we were not using and therefore was attached to the mast (which does bend, incidentally). It is a good accident that it happens to be red, and matches well the reading of red as leading line and yellow floating in the air.
• Tripod/fine-tuning of composition Carl, I knew you would have been bothered by the fine tuning of the composition. What I usually do, is to lay flat on deck, braced to something, and try to compose. In this case it did not work, since I wanted to frame just the higher part of the sail and I had a 20mm on 35mm film camera, so I had to stand: no hope to get the fine tuning...and I shot a full film in a minute or two. This is the best result. Rumors have it that tripods are useful to shot other boats, so that you decrease the erratic movements of the camera in making it move together with your boat and therefore slower than it would otherwise. I've tried to improvise something when I met this fella and indeed it is true.
• Crop/no-crop I've been longly debating myself what to do here. The fact is that the seams in the genoa (the rounded lines in the top sail) help a lot the swirling rotor effect, as Jeremy called it. So I want them in. On the other hand, there is too much sail in to top of the picture, and this seems (I am told) to squeeze the sky. What is here to me was the best compromise of the two worlds. The red rope would have been enhanced if there was light on it, but the first dogma of sail pictures seems to state you have to backlit them, and therefore no possibility to get any light in there.

I thank you all once again. Now, if you like sails and skies, you might also want to check out this other one. That was another hard decision to frame.

BTW,Salvator, nice to meet you, my name is Pnina. Thanks you....

I do not know, but I find it interesting by rotating the photo this way... ???

Wow ! Once more a successful picture ... Highly graphic, combined with the circ-polar typical contrast...

Mauricio, thank you for your suggestion. As a matter of fact, before posting this version, I have rotated this many times, and eventually convinced me that the horizontal version had some more merits. I liked the vertical which you propose since has the good point of putting the sky at the top, whereas what I do not like a lot -a posteriori- in the horizontal version is that there is a large amount of sail, and not sky, to the top of the picture. On the other hand, the problems I see with the vertical version, is that it makes me feel sea-sick (what is quite something) since the angle of the mast and the sails becomes quite innatural and backward leaning. It might be a bias, I reckon...

I can underline your "sea-sick" remark, you're right, the horizontal one is much better grounded, yet not being without dynamic. It's a happy coincidence that you have a sense for the abstract nature of the beautiful surroundings you seek.