andrew_mundroff

top notch

i like the bit of wry comment of the walk of fame stars coinciding w/ movie star type mannequins. somehow the contrast between the two female mannequins is jarring. i like your work.

lovely composition. waited for the right shadow!

great shot. the conrast between the strong linear forms of the tent & poles and the big, muscular blobs of the elephants is teriffic.

it's a great image. you should upload a larger version if the resolution will hold.

of all places - columbia! nice shot. well conceived and executed.

i think that the "dizzy" aspect was intentional. i like the sense of movement created by presenting a symmetrical subject in an asymmetrical way. i think if there's any weakness it's the brightness at the right side of the frame, but i'm not sure that bothers me, because the strong diagonal which occupies the left of the frame balances it to a certain degree, or completes the tension across the picture.

great composition. i like everything about this shot.

the moment seems spontaneous and very natural. it's a lovely portrait.

erik, i like the visual play in this one. the barrel and the belly, the pestle looking almost as if he could pick it up and swing at a fastball, and the variety of textures and contrasting formal elements. very smart & well framed, except maybe for the little bit of bright foreground slashing across.

great humor in this picture. i like the composition down to the details, the declension of the flowers, the cuffed trousers, and especially the way the strong horizontals replace the absent monumentality of the statue.

i really enjoy this shot, and i prefer it a bit to the vertically framed version for a couple of reasons. the first is that i think the girl's look here is more reflective, which seems appropriate to the subject, and secondly, because i think the vanishing point at the left of this composition may actually add a dimension to it (a possible connection between the idea of fortune and what lies beyond the pictoral frame). great, deeply felt shot.

this is great. i love photographs like this, where all pictoral effects are the result of the photographer's understanding of the exposure and frame- no manipulation needed, because you nailed it. i'm really enjoying your portfolio.

only thing that would make this image better would be to see the print. it's great!

this is beautiful.

the strong diagonal hitting the curve of the petal at lower right absolutely makes the shot compositionally, and the choice to go B&W really works, because the tonal variations are really nice.

this is not cliche at all, it's beautiful. the light looks other-worldly.

i like this image a lot. it has a deceptive simplicity, i think. you're right this version definitely has more depth and visual interest to it than the B&W version. i think it's well framed, and very elegant, as are your other shots -- nice portfolio

i think it may work better if the tracks in the snow could somehow be brought in a little more, since the composition is mainly about lines. the sinuous lines in the snow could be an interesting contrast with the dominant hard lines, but ultimately i wonder if these elements don't keep leading the eye and leaving it hanging. as it is currently, the compositionally negative space just does not seem engaging to me.

well, you definitely did not squander your luck! nice to see luck and skill come together like this. the more i look at it, the more i appreciate the light. beautiful.

i think it's great compositionally. the aggressiveness of the background, visually, is unique; i like the tension it creates. there's an interesting trick this shot plays on the viewer, which is that we make a connection between the woman's state of mind, guarded, perhaps distrustful, appearance, and the "message" in the background. i think that interplay is really successful. it reminds me a little of that depression era photograph of the bread line, or unemployment line and the billboard in the background (by walker evans, i think).

tobias, i'm new to looking at photography in the digital medium, and i do think that some kind of recommended standards for viewing is a good idea. the screen i've been viewing on is dell's high-resolution and, though you certainly have to be aware of the viewing angle, i can only say that the color rendition, tonal variations, resolution, lack of distortion, all look better on this than on the trinitron i use at work, with anything i view. so, i'm addressing this in the context of other photographs i've viewed on this site.

 

i sense we're in agreement that this just isn't as effective as discussing a print on the wall. thanks again for your knowledgable insights on digital hazards.

erik, this looks like a nice print. my only problem with the composition is the tall foreground (it seems like the bottom right corner could come up almost to the tracks) and the lack of alignment between the tower vertical and the frame.

i think this is a great one. did you frame the shot and wait, or did it all come together at once?

thanks to tobias for his spirited commentary. i'd like to address a couple of points, which i suspect could be display related. i realize, after having now seen this on several different displays that the quality of light and resolution of detail can vary significantly, so i'll ask people to keep this in mind. on my laptop display the foreground light is subdued, just as i remember it, and all of the foreground detail is very legible, not "dark smudges," or shadowy at all. the vertical lines also strike me as vertical.

 

now, for composition, i don't crop my pictures, and i'd like to hear more opinions on the proportion of the floor in the foreground, since tobias reacted so strongly to it. the comment on "margins" suggests to me that tobias feels the picture is heavy on the left side. if he's viewing it very dark, or contrasty this could be. i felt the light off the travertine and the girls' dresses had a lambent quality that is rendered in this exposure, but i did wonder if people felt that the brightness in the background columns above drew the eye TOO much.

 

tobias' comment regarding the hard lines interests me, because it is something i've thought about. the flower girl is actually placed away from any hard line, and the coincidence of the left edge of the arch in the arcade with the space between the bride and groom is one that i enjoy, and that i feel unifies the foreground and background in an interesting way.