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..modified from a previous version ..

Fantastic portrait! Capture of expression, light, pose, contrast, (not formal) composition, all are excellent! Lovely face! Merry Christmas.

Beautiful feeling. Wonderful expression and mood. Nicely done. Dan

Very original, excellent B&W! 7/7, John.

 

Alberto

GREAT GREAT SHOT !!! Excelent. I love this photo.

Och a luv it :-)

So beautiful expresion and tonality!!Great!!

 

Thank you friends, glad you liked it.

beautiful bw portrait - contrast framework absolute fine !

Very beautiful, but the old colored one, i loved most, one of the best portrait you have made,,re niels

Excellent portrait,John.Like the composition & effect.

Woww my dear John :) this is a splendid, beautiful, and natural portrait :) great in B&W :) www love her look and the espression in her eyes :) great white in contrast with the black :) superb!

And so emotive tooo : ): )

 

In one word Brillant Piece of Art my Dear John : )

 

Love it love it love it :)

 

Wowww I am amazed :)

 

Kisses,

Biliana

How sweet Biliana, thank you. She's the pretty one. I'm just the photographer !

A very original portrait. The contrast and the pose are complemented by the soft focus and "noise". Excellent.

 

 

Jim Phelps

Excellent portrait John.Great work.7/7.My best regards.

This is not a recent photo, but I posted it again in black and white with a different frame because I must admit it is one that I am fond of. Thank you very much for all the attention given to this image, it is closer to my heart than much of my other work.

That's not a usual John Peri photo , It's beautiful and I love it . Especially the expression and grain

 

I like the whit part on the right , It gives a feeling she is on a plane or train with light entering through a window

great choice for bw image... a fresh look... beautiful eyes... Warm Regards and all the Best for 2008

Its wonderful. Great effect and the looks of the model. So lively and charming. Just a query, why you left the extra space in right side in white shed?

Danny, there are a couple of rather presumptious remarks here .. what are my options, either to let it go or to answer in an equally candid manner. Why not, so here goes!

 

First of all, allow me to say that you have no means whatsoever of knowing what I want to hear, just as I have no way of knowing what you expect either in my responding here!

 

Secondly, I am not after any glory. I am basically just an occasional weekend photographer and I know very little about photo competitions, other than my submissions to PHOTO Magazine for their annual contest over the last three years, on each of which occasions my photos were published. This picture above was also selected for reproduction in a book on Portraiture. I am not by any measure attempting to show off by saying this, just like any other photographer I produce more than my share of nonsense too, and that would be absurd. I just put forward that your theories are unfounded, undocumented and unjust.

 

I am delighted to receive your opinion about this or any other of my pictures, and I fully sympathize that there is much work that you may not like (I likewise have many photos of my own posted that I do not like at all !), but please do not assume through such wide-sweeping remarks what I want or not, or what others may feel about any particular work of mine. You are not the holder of the only truth, some undoubtedly will agree with you others not, as evidenced by the photo above and the response to it both on and away from this site.

 

Kaushik, Hy !

 

As I mentioned at the top of the page, this is a different rendering of an old photo. There are many presentations possible, I was trying something new. The above is the colour version that I posted earlier. I fully sympathize that one may like one and not the other, or neither come to that !

You are critiquing this foto strictly from a form/compositional point of view. This fails to take into account the narrative nature of foto. While this is often done in some competitions, it completely disregards the narrative aspects of the foto. This is done because the narrative (and its interpretation) can be much more subjective than the form/composition. Most of John Peri's work is significantly more narrative than formal (as is evidenced by his model's tendency to be looking directly at the camera). This foto falls into that category. In this foto, the model is looking directly at the camera, which when coupled with the noise, the focus, and the facial expression gives the viewer a sense of dreamy intimacy. It is as if the viewer is being allowed to view the model at a very special, and very private moment. The white space to the viewer's right gives the viewer a sense of depth (and tends to balance her face somewhat), which contributes to this feeling of intimacy.

 

This interpretation, while admittedly subjective, deals with the impact of the foto on the viewer. Which, when all is said and done, is all that is significant. Other viewers may see the narrative of this foto differently, but in most cases, the foto will have an emotional impact.

 

A good example of "bad" composition is Picasso's "Guernica", which breaks many of the standard "rules" of formal composition and is considered to be one of, if not the, best art works of the 20th Century.

 

An example of "good" composition can be found in Edward Weston's nudes. These are pure studies in form, and have very little emotional impact on the viewer.

 

In summary, a complete critique of this foto (and in fact most of Peri's work) should include the narrative and address the overall impact of the foto on the viewer.

 

To quote Ansel Adams, "There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs."

 

Jim Phelps

 

Many thanks Jim, I appreciate it because you do not give a description of your likes or dislikes of this image but how you feel it can be viewed. That's really interesting. Of course, you cannot influence anyone on how to look at a photo, but you can try to imagine how the author may perceive his work and hence others too. That is the very essence of what art critique is all about.

 

As you so rightly say, the "narrative" is the key to the whole thing, not just here but in other works too. Above, she is sitting by a window, is it a train or elsewhere, that's for the viewer to imagine, but it is a fleeting moment captured in the life of the young lady ... her thoughts and actions are there for us to imagine or reconstruct ... whether we remain indifferent or not is up to us. It is an attempt therefore at something more than just a portrait. The original crop may correspond more closely to that definition ..

 

Thanks again Jim, it's this kind of comment that makes me feel it's all worthwhile. Have a wonderful Christmas and New year and all the other friends on PN too, Danny included.

Grainy beauty. There is a very nice balance between her face and the white area in the right.

Excellent B&W interpretation of this image.. Love the texture and composition balance.