venicia_l

Great idea. Great shot. Do it in red!

VL

Just a stunningly beautiful model, composition and graphic design. What does the Braille say?

VL

Panya,

After seeing thousands of slot canyon images, one tends to get "immune" to the subject. But yours is one of the lovliest I have seen of this subject. I hope you have this framed, large, hanging on your wall.

I like your portfolio. You have a very observant and perceptive eye.

VL

Hardly official. Just long-standing custom and widely-accepted "style" in the printing industry.

Using quotes to surround the name of your own work is analagous to using them when giving your own name. But when someone else refers to your work, they are using an alias, hence the quotes, or, more elegantly, italics.

VL

Michael, beautiful image.

When placing a title on a piece, it is not correct to use quotation marks in the title, nor to use "by" in the title line. That punctuation is for a printer, when listing your work in a publication. Most printers, however, will use the more correct form; the title only, in italics, no quotes, followed by a comma, followed by the artist's name in a Roman face (non italic).

Boat, Patmos, Greece, Michael Seewald

On the picture "frame," your title should read, simply:

Boat, Patmos, Greece, Michael Seewald

VL

This is a perfectly atrocious snapshot.

The shot suffers from over-all lack of detail and soft image quality. In addition to overall poor definition, contrast is exceedingly high and harsh in the shadows, robbing them of detail, yet the overall image suffers from lack of contrast and flat lighting with the sun at a high, very unflattering angle. Colors are drab and uninteresting.

The main part of the image is falling out of the frame toward the bottom left. The hazy, indistinct sky and line of hills at the top is too close to the top margin, forms unneeded tension with the top margin, adds nothing to the composition and is otherwise distracting and vague. There is no coherent compositional theme and the background seems to have been included in an effort to get everything into the frame.

VL

Beautiful. Cropped just a little tight.

VL

Sorry Manolis.You anxiously await comments about focus. But there is no need for that. There really is no need for any of you who have continued this shameful, aggressive, abusive misuse of the rating and critique sections of this site. You have made a mockery of any honest and meaningful exploration of photographic technique or creative process.If those of you who have rated this mundane, purposeless image the highest points actually believe yourselves to be viewing a premier example of the photographic process, you are either delusional or brain damaged.

But we all know what you are doing and the contempt you show for anyone other than the ridiculous circle of back-slappers you all have become.

This image warrants not even the slightest second look. It represents nothing more than a meaningless snapshot, devoid of any value. It is, however, missing some hapless sheep, wandering about and bleating mindlessly in "me-too" fashion, as you all do.

VL

Jay. Thanks so much. I must try this.

VL

Beautiful, arresting image, Jay. I think the expanse of green foreground adds to the drama. But it would be interesting to see the shot with more sky.

Would you share your technique in achieving this image?

VL

Another dreary, muted, foggy or smoggy Tuscan landscape.

It is simply meaningless to explain in text that this is

"At the last golden light of the evening, jst after a summer storm."

There is nothing in the image that gives the viewer any clue that this scene was shot in the evening (or any particular time of day), that a storm has passed or that there are golden rays of lingering sunshine.

There is no hint of any of those qualities or events. And if the image itself doesn't say it, no amount of textual explanation makes a bit of difference.

The light is directionless and leaden. Not glowing and sparkling. The "mist" is simply a uniformly-abscuring shroud. It does not throw forground into relief, it doesn't provide charm, it just hides color, texture and form from view.

The foreground is empty and amorphous. Forms in the distance are overexposed or hidden in glare, uninteresting and add nothing to the composition.

Perhaps, some of the difficulty is the lens used. A zoom is not well-suited to this task. Internal flare may be significantly responsible for very poor local and global contrast. I've never heard anything particularly positive of the brand.

Who can tell if the photographer's "manual focus" technique succeeds here? The softening effects of mist and lens are indistinguisable.

It's very possible that the original scene was quite lovely. But the photographer has again misunderstood that sceneic beauty and beauty on film are very different things. This scene requires substantial understanding of photographic technique to let the viewer share the original beauty. It takes a lot more than just aiming the camera and firing the shutter.

VL

???

How do you know it's a composite?

VL

John,

"Mint Fiat 1500."

I've had an 850 and a 124. Both fine cars, but consigned to the dark recesses of memory when I got a Mazda RX2 in 1975 (more power than any tiny car should have), and then a 450SL

The situation with Maria and her obsequious flatterers is quite hopeless. Sad. Fiercely determined mediocrity is hard to budge.

We have a single, tiny Italian restaurant in upcountry Maui. They make pizza to die for. Best in the islands. Beer and pizza, the universal antidote for frustration.

VL

People were feeding the pigeons on the front lawn of the Honolulu Zoo.There must have been thousands of birds, constantly landing andswooping upwards in a coordinated kind of rhythm. The sound waswonderful. I shot into the mass of wings and bodies, intending only torecord the abstractness of that mayhem. I didn't know the child was atthe center until I got the slides back. Capturing him and his look ofwonder and the bright splash of color in the otherwise monochromaticimage was pure luck.

VL

Just the essentials. Marvelous simplicity. The trumpet needs a trifle more air next to the bottom frame. That or crop even tighter into the instrument.

VL

Jan,

Simply perfect.

VL

Great!

Great timing. Great composition. Wickedly difficult exposure. I thought it was a picture of cloud tops too.

VL

Cortes,

Thanks for the comment. I don't know why the image looks pixelated at your end. It's not low resolution. But I posted it at a time when I didn't realy feel I knew how to use the S2 Fuji EX software as well as I do now. I also was having problems with this site's JPEG compression. Maybe I'll reprocess the image and re-post it.

VL

Thanks for the comments. The day was leaden overcast, dripping with humidity. The boats were under a huge rain canopy. I wish I could have done more with the scene. I get to Molokai about once a month. I don't always have time to do this, but I intend to try to capture these forms again.

The image suffers from poor depth of field, poor focus, loss of detail due to these faults, possible camera shake due to hand holding. The exposure is poor with a large part of the central area of interest obscured by featureless white dust. This area would be much more pleasing to the eye about 2 values lower with detail visible in the dust cloud and the other highlight values, now without detail, then visible.

The out of focus foreground is distracting and annoying. This kind of image demands detail in the high texture area, missing here due to lack of DOF and possible camera shake. Loss of image quality may also be due to scanning or printing - no way to know by looking at the screen image.

Usually, the issue of manual focus wouldn't bear commentary, but this photographer has wrapped her self up in a "true-believer" affectation with manual focus, as though her use of that method imparts some special extra quality to the photographic experience. It doesn't and it's a shame she doesn't let the AF (very robust on this camera - far better then most photographers) do the job allowing her to pay attention to the other problems (exposure, composition, quality of light) that are repeated constantly in her work.

The true-believer attitude seems to permeate as though using the technical achievements of the camera-maker somehow denigrate the photographic process. One may as well demand that the photographer also manually hold the film flat in the film gate, bypassing the machine-ground guides that do this so well for us. After all, that would get the photographer much "closer" to the photographic experience.

It's a pity that some amateurs get caught up in this sort of Luddite thinking. Working pros welcome every technical advance there is to help them get the image. The silly objection to AF is a throwback to the early days of the technnology when it appeared first in consumer-level cameras. Pros rejected it then. But not for long. Once Nikon and Canon got it right, no pro in his or her right mind was without it. But the silly objection continues, as though boasting, "I only use manual focus," somehow aligns one with those hardy photographers - pros Maria, pros! (The typical neighborhood "hot rod" who drives a stick shift and thinks that real race car drivers only drive manual-shift cars is amazed when he learns that Formula One machines and Indy cars all have automatic transmissions).

John, your assertion that you can better this photographer's work is out of place and completely inappropriate. It's demeaning and proves nothing. The purpose of critque is not to boast that one can do better than the photographer. The purpose is to help the photographer with constuctive suggestions, (whether they sound negative or positive). There's nothing wrong with using an image of your own to illustrate a specific point (maybe about technique, focus, exposure, composition, etc). but to boast that you can show up the photographer is just plain mean. I certainly understand your frustration with the silly mate rating, and bad manners this photographer has demonstrated, but your challenge will achieve nothing.

VL

Au contraire. Not 90 % out of focus, Maria. Selectively focused. A concept you have yet to comprehend. And that gives me ever so much more opportunity to see things you can't.

VL

Again, typically, Maria remains absolutely closed to any critique of her work. She stomps her feet and performs her distasteful personal attack on anyone who dosen't find her unremarkable, amateurish work worthy of the highest accolades.

Maria, it is beyond any ethical behavior of you to respond to my honest critique of your work by accusing me of being motivated only by money. In my entire career as a professional photographer, I have never encountered someone like you, able to convince himself or herself that "professional" equated with anything negative about this field. Quite the opposite in fact.

You have some twisted notion that someone who earns her living (money) by this work is somehow suspect in judgement or motives. Since this is the way I put food on my family's table, I find your response particularly offensive.

The fact that you have such a poor understanding of the work that professionals do is irritating. The fact that you are closed to any real critique of your work, other than silly congratulations is pathetic.

Grow up. Just because beautiful Tuscan scenery presents itself does not automatically make your photography good. Your images are mediocre at best. I suggest that you look into taking some classes in photographic exposure techniques and learning to really see the quality of light.

VL

Somewhat interesting composition of textures with some potential to be an interesting photograph. However all the potential is lost by the execution. The lighting is, once again flat and uninteresting, failing to do justice to the texture and colors of the forground which are left bland and lifeless.

The sky is unsaturated with haze and flat, dull light resulting in obscured and ill-defined, boring clouds.

The photographer continues to show no appreciation for the quality of light, its direction or intensity. There is no indication of the ability to control this most important aspect of a good photograph.

VL

Marvelous. This and the first one.

"You wanna piece o' this? Huh?"

or,"Yeah? You and what army?"

VL

Ha! Just a guess. Her gaze is so intense. Thanks so much!

VL