Colours and textures

Thanks for your interest. Comments and critiques are encouraged.

Nice colors and sharp details. I like the composition.

Looks fantastic. It's the kind of photo that begs for a square crop. I was thinking about a square that includes all of the top.

something like this

Hanna, I like your original over the different version. Your composition is great, and colors and textures are wonderful. Please stick to yours.

David, I thought that yours would be a natural reaction. I think because of the strong horizontal division, it would be easier to look at a square or landscape format. I even took a horizontal shot of this, but didn't like it as much. It's true that the rock is more attractive than the seaweed and should maybe cover a larger portion of the space. I think I like it this way because it's vaguely abstract, looking at the colours and textures of the shoreline rather than the landscape aspect. But your opinion is very welcome, and where would we be if we all wanted it the same way?

 

Brad, it's nice to hear from you, and thankyou for your support.

In my mind it has nothing to do with the attractiveness (or lack of) of the seaweed. It is about making the subject look more beautiful.

 

I like the contrast between the seaweed and rock, and feel that by bringing them closer together, and by introducing the rocks in the center, there is an abstraction. We see the differences between all 3 in a more simple way. Also, the line from the right to left becomes more important. Before it was simply a dividing line, but now it introduces shape/form. We discover the smaller rocks up close, and are able to compare their size to the larger rock. It's more beautiful in a square, not because it is a square, but because it helps the viewer discover and re-discover what is beautiful in the scene.

 

I would even abandon the square and remove more of the bottom.

 

In the original, there is a sense of this, but the emphasis is on the foreground.

Very well put. I agree, and in a sense I was seeing some of that but not expressing it very well.

I was about to say 'how about a square crop' when I saw David's version. I agree that his version works better for me. But it is all a matter of taste. Someone (I think it was the photographer Edward Weston) defined composition as 'the strongest way of seeing'. I think the cropped version does tha for me.

 

(Great colours and idea by the way - and I like that row of pebbles jammed in the crack in the rock!)

Very nicely taken~ I like your version of cropping more, Hanna, by the way. Szia, Iren

Thanks to all of you for your interest and contributions, especially to David for encouraging alternative viewpoints and broadened perceptions.

I think that the original version is preferable to the cropped version. The reason might be that your original version is more consistent with the compositional principle known as the "rule of thirds". In its simplest form, the "rule of thirds" encourages the photographer to place the most interesting elements of the image off-center, rather than dead center, which unfortunately is the case in the square cropped version of the image

I like both versions - this is a strong subject whichever way its shown. I like the opposition of the wet squishy zone and the dry hard zone, with the pebbles in between. If I had to vote, my preference after much uming and ahing, goes to the square crop: my (lazy) eyes don't have to travel so far to absorb the opposition.

 

I have a positive bias towards rock photos, and this is really good.

Very nice. I've seen this particular type of scene thousands of times, but never managed to capture it with such simplicity. Nicely done. 6/6

Thanks so much for your interest and comments. I'm pleased with the response on this, although quite unexpected. Sometimes understatements are underappreciated but I guess simplicity rules here.

Hanna,

I came across your porfolio and this shot has all the elements (literally) that i love about photography. Color and Texture! elisabeth