conrad_drake

I was intending to rate this photograph, however I decided to critique it as I couldn't quite put my finger on what kept bringing me back to it.

Suffice to say, I keep looking at it.

 

 

 

 

Ah, yes, that's him.

And I'm sorry about the photo above - it seems that the URL gets recycled with allsorts of stuff. The photo I wanted to show was of about 6 m of face heaving up onto a reef in Fiji, sucking hard off the reef and with an outrageously heavy lip. And it's ridable

Brrr!

Repetition, jucstaposition, rhythm, theme. You've got some of these. Enough to make me look again.

 

But composition, texture, theme, symbolism and/or narrative is a little light on.

 

Why the space at the right of frame?

Why the two "blurs" under each stack of light.

Why the connection between them.

 

The problem I have is that the implicit or explicit story is not there. Abstraction still needs to invoke at least emotion if not actually telling a story.

 

Let me try by applying two different titles, suggesting two different (if literal) interpretations.

a) "crow spirit riding across cloud fields "

b) "Ganymede, cupbearer"

 

Getting really farty - pick dense, cryptic messages. And then claim that you'd created the image to express the message.

Isi stated:

I do, to some degree, agree. The technical difficulty in capturing the shot is painfully clear to any surfer. And there are some more asthetic photos in the folder such as "hooking it" which reminds me of ASL's Grambough(sp) - which is meant as the highest complement.

But, just as the finer points of dressage, F1 or the tour-de-france are lost on the casual observer, it may not be clear to the non-conniseur what a stunning sight this photograph is.

The image captures the essence of a particularly overwhelming and covetted experience in surfing (golfers - think of a ball clearly rolling towards a hole-in-one)

Indeed, upon reflection, I'm also struck by how the image draws on symbolism and aesthetic conventions from surfing magazine artworks going back to at least the 70s. Captain Pigdog anyone?Add the inspired choice of cross processing which pulls in colours that I feel resonate with early 70s surfing mags.

Personally, I like the composition: the contrast of empty but active & confining space with the concentration of the surfer on the grail of safety represented by the tiny, distant patch of clear water in top right corner.

Sure, I'd move some of the lip if I could to emphasise "threat swirling around safety", but this is real life.

Nuff said.

CD

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speaking of raising hackles amongst those in the know...makes my skin crawl.

I'm rather fond of the play between the sense of perspective formed by yourself and the wall plug and the sense of flatness & width from the width and horizontal line. Add the interest of the quixitotic gaze and it's a photo that's pleasing; causes one to stop and pause. And perhaps, to come back and re-examine.

I note that the rear leg of the 'hopper is out of focus, but some of the foreground grass is in focus. Which suggests that you've focussed too close in.

 

I must add that having just spent some frustrating hours chasing slaters aroung the garden with bellows on full extension, I have some appreciation of just how hard it can be to photograph these critters!

I'll bite. The best thing about this photo is the models expression and the way you have framed her eyes.

So I've taken the liberty of cropping it to emphasise that.

The problem I had was the lack of negative space in front of her - I am tempted to crop even harder to get that in balance. Which removes the curves of her sholder, which is an anchor point.

I tried to balance that by replicating some empty space to the model's left. Which then showed that the framing of her head was too close (as others have commented). At which point I gave up - I'm pretty happy with the above.

Both photos shot within seconds - anyone know why the lower right

hand portion of the photo became so dark ?

 

As noted in the details, I'm not 100% happy with the cropping.

I'm impressed by the composition - the combination of the rail and cropping choice make it very east to get sucked into accepting the illusion.

 

I'm curious as to whether this is the whole mural or just a part of the whole.

It's an effective and pleasing study of geometry. And the lighting (esp. the shadows) works well.

 

Is that pretentious? Depends on your definition. Personally, I like it. You could probably sell it to someone "hipper" than your dentist - does that make you pretenious?

 

I particularily like the POV - lining the tops of all the posts up was a good move.

 

More DOF might be nice, but maybe it's a JPG artifact (Forground rails are shadowed)

Rather than add to the adoration, which would be easy but superfluous, I'll add a comment prompted by the Picasso quote on the front page.

Painting was irrevocably changed by the arrival of photography. I am wondering if this (and the 'kill your darlings' work) is a inevitable reappraisal of film (concious or unconcious) as a result of the arrival of photoshop and digital 'non reality'.

It certainly reminds me of both the phantasic images of Rosemary Laing. I can't find a copy of bulletproofglass on line but one of the test images ended up on here.

Coincidently my shockingly poor memory was jolted by a Australian Financial Review magazine article pushing this exact line. For those outside its reach, it mentioned also Patricia Piccinini, Tracey Moffatt, Simryn Gill, Bill Henson and the Americans Barbara Kruger and Cindy Sherman. Most of whom I am woefully unaware of.

This is here as part of the

discussion on images vs photographs.

Breathtaking, in a subject that's been done so often. But this is one of the 'good ones'

 

I like the framing - it adds to the sense of scale and drama.

 

CD

 

One up for the elves!