HALLOWED GROUND

Comments would be most welcome.

Difficult theme you choose here...not evident I guess...both taking the shot and present it requires some courage and I'll support you for that...your composition put emphasis on ceremonial and peolple that remains which I think is the idea of the ceremony...strong figures and attitudes (symbols) in the foreground.

Thanks for the comments. I knew this one would not win a lot of friends, but I really like it personally (duh!, don't we usually like our own creations?). The men in black are the ritualizers. The ones who are bestowed the duty to pass on all of the mysteries and traditions and rituals of our culture. They are our medicine men. The way I have darkened them is an attempt to represent the mystery and dark side of their existence. Keeping the people in the audience light and realistic was an attempt to show their different reality. Cheers my friend.

I love the halo effect around your medicine men and I do love your courage and originality in posting this. Were you a participant or just a casual observer?

I have a preacher friend (yeah, me, the unbeliever) who invited me to a service he was participating in. It was the burial of about 190 cremains. These were all people who had ended up in the county's hands upon death. Their bodies were not claimed and, eventually were cremated. After a certain amount of time (every couple of years) they put all the cremains into one mass grave in the Potter's field. This one is about five miles from my town. For some reason this one was much better attended than any previous burials. Two Catholic priests, a police chaplain, and my friend and his superior and one other preacher. Some church members from my friend's church sang two hymns, and they read the names of all 194 deceased. Bleak, but real. I tried to give this an air of mystery and the supernatural. I'm not a believer in the afterlife, but I did try to look at this scene as the majority of these people would have, with their faith. I could go on quite awhile about how I saw this. The raters hated it, but I'm used to that.

My printer dumped on me and I have a new Epson Stylus Pro 3800 ordered, but it looks like they are not going to be available until February, so I will not get to print it out until then. I am looking forward to printing it out. Incidentally, Juan didn't care for my version too much. I'm okay with that. I don't like his dog pics either. Guess that's enough said.

What visually bothers me about this one is the grayness of what should be black clothing. I suppose you may have been trying for an ethereal glow, but it just comes across to me as muddy. The halos work much better than the muddy grays. I think the photo would be improved if you kept them and let the black go black.

A really sad but strong story and lesson you tell us with this shot David...we all should care more of our people, neighbors, relatives before it's too late...thanks for this detailed explanation.

Laurent you are sure right about the fact we ought to care more. My country spends untold billions on killing and can't take care of its citizens' health care needs or feed its starving kids.

 

Barry, I gave some thought to taking some of the gray out of the robes on the priest and the coat on the preacher next to him. I am still ambivalent about that, but think I might try it and see if I like it better that way.

 

Thank you again gentlemen for your thoughts.

Thanks for the background on the event. Knowing what I'm seeing adds strength to the image that would not be there otherwise. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a few words can also make a picture very worthy. Screw the ratings, you captured this very well.

Ok here's my take on this, when I first saw the thumbnail it gave me an immediate feeling that the time clock had been turned back and I was out on the prairie at an old time funeral and I liked that sensation, so I think this would work even better in black and white and or sepia. I love the story you told about this situation and your beliefs too make a part of the composition more poignant. This image isn't about ratings but about a fact of life and this is where your photography really works. The halo affect does give some mystery and power to the men in black but I too think leaving the clothing as black as possible would heighten the drama. Don't doubt the afterlife, sometimes I go traveling on the wind to far away places and I ain't even dead yet, I don't think so anyway.

Thanks again for those cogent comments. I love these opportunities to exchange ideas and concepts with you guys. To say nothing of the wit. Speaking of which, Susan you may need to cut back on that caffeine. My diagnosis is those little trips in the wind are coffee induced. Just kidding. My own take is that these trips in the wind are what makes this life worthwhile. I should not wish to be sitting around wasting away, with the hope that I'd get those trips at some later date in an afterlife.

Gotta just keep "following my bliss" wherever the wind blows me.....

Please do not tell me that. Destroying my image of the tough, take no prisoners, cow branding, hard living, rattlesnake stomping, cowgirl image. Next thing ya know, you'll be telling me you eat sushi. Yikes.

 

(Just kidding)

I like my fish baked, and my beef RAW, and my rattler fried!

The ethereal light is gone.

The halo is still around the men and that I like but I'd still like the clothing black black, well maybe some detail still.....did you know there's only two ways to argue with a woman.....neither one works.

Absolutely hideous digital manipulations in the original and succeeding attempts.

Thank you. Nice of you to come over from Flickr to make that comment.

Now, see, if you were a true artist, you'd bring a fog machine to the event, then you could get the ethereal light without digital manipulation. Put a couple of radio-controlled strobes strategically behind the guys in black, and you'd get your halos. Sure, the people attending the service might grumble a little, but that's just because they aren't Artists and don't understand that the most important thing in life isn't life (or in this case, death), but getting good images!

Great idea. Tomorrow I'm running an ad for actors. I've rented the graveyard, and, with any kind of luck, I should be able to restage this whole affair by the end of the week. Hope I get it right this next time.

Flickr aint got nothin' to do with it. What's going on here is a self-congratulatory group missing the fact that the manipulation on this image wouldn't cut it in photography 101. As I noted, its awful, and shows what happens if there's not enough photography up front and too much computer diddling with an image file. I would bet that the original image without the manipulation is much better to look at.

You are absolutley entitled to your opinion. I will make only two comments about your remarks. First, you went over to the dissident cafe flickr group. Now in all honesty, is there a bigger group of self congratulatory butt-kissers around? Virtually every person who commented upon this photo is what I might call a friend although I have never met them. We have a tendency to comment on each other's photos. As a rule, we do not choose to select each others' weakest photos and make comments praising them. Most of these "friends" have made plenty of photos I just don't care for. I and they don't go to those particular photos and make rude remarks. I, at one time spent considerable time viewing your portfolio when you were an upstanding member of PN. What did I comment on, John? The ones that I thought were crap, or the ones that I thought really worked? Yes, I know civility is not your strong suit. It's not mine either, but I make an effort at it. All I know is that it does not do a great deal of good to go around calling photos hideous. A simple, "I don't think it works, the Ps is just way overdone" or whatever would have been a bit more acceptable.

 

I certainly do appreciate the fact that if you were going to rate 3/3 you did have the courage to use your name. I try not to retaliate, but it is nice to see where a rater is coming from. What I do not appreciate is the unnecessarily unhelpful manner of commentary.

 

Cheers

The issue here however is the image, not what I am or am not, or where I choose to go.

The issue is your behavior. I accept the 3/3 with grace. I do not accept boorish people with equal grace.

Like many other you miss the point of critique. Its NOT about friends. For that purpose plenty of chat groups and blogs exist on the internet. Read the photo.net general intents of what critique is for.