justinblack

Many thanks for your kind comments. In answer to Marc, yes, it was made with film, on Fuji Acros 100, in a Bronica SQ-A with a 150mm lens (or maybe it was the 250mm – can't recall). It was made as evening twilight faded into night, with an exposure of around eleven minutes. If you look closely, you can see a few star trails.

Your comment and critiques are greatly appreciated.

Your thoughts and critique are greatly appreciated. Thanks for stopping by.

Hi Sean, and thanks for your kind comments. The new b&w work is a real departure for me – I haven't done it seriously since college back in the early 90s, and I am really enjoying it. After specializing in color for so long, it is nice to get back to the fundamentals of photography. I've been shooting square format Fuji Acros and Neopan, and making quickie Epson flatbed scans to identify candidate negatives that I will eventually want to work with seriously to make fine prints. This is from one of those scans. I'm focusing on building the body of work at the moment, and once I feel I have a critical mass of strong images I'll start printing.

Your comments and critique are greatly appreciated. Thanks for stopping by.

Your thoughts and critique are greatly appreciated.

This image was made in early morning light and with the smoke from a controlled burn

obscuring the far shore. It was a nice variation in conditions from the almost "too nice"

weather often found at the lake. Your comments and constructive critique are

appreciated.

I made this image this past April during a workshop that I taught with Jack Dykinga.

Our students were strung out along this section of the Merced River using the

reflection of El Capitan to add some color to foregrounds along the water's edge. I'm

thinking of making an exhibition print of it. Your thoughts are appreciated.

Made predawn during the June 2007 fire at Lake Tahoe. Comments and critiques are

appreciated.

Your thoughts and critique are greatly appreciated.

Your comments and critique are appreciated.

This study of shape, line, and texture was made on my first trip to the ghost town of Bodie,

California. I had managed to overlook it though I live only an hour and a half away, mostly

because everyone and their brother photographs it. After I arrived though, my creative juices

were flowing. The things that interested me most there were abstracts (my two other most

recently posted critique images), but I did this one relatively straight shot and I think it

works. When I print it in the darkroom I will probably do an edge burn. Anyway, thoughts and

constructive criticism is appreciated as always.

Thoughts and constructive critiques greatly appreciated.

Part of a new body of work... Thoughts greatly appreciated.

You're kidding right? This looks like a bad rip-off of Terry Gilliam animation from Monty Python. I suppose it is amusing from that perspective, but if it is meant to be taken seriously, it's a waste of time in front of the computer.

Ditto to what Doug said. Impact for the sake of impact just doesn't cut it. I'm sure it would have been nice to be there and watch the scene, but here the photo actually seems to diminish what must have been there in reality. The sky looks as if it were heavily filtered for the color. Why is the sky between the clouds deep peachy pink when there are cool blue reflections on the water from the BLUE sky. Also, the saturation in the reflections is over the top, and the composition isn't particularly interesting. The power of the picture is all about the color, which is fake, so what's the point? Even if we accept that this is a creative vision rather than a document of what was there, it isn't very special. I'll never understand why people rate images like this so highly.

Your comments are greatly appreciated.

What we are dealing with in any photographic image is an illusion of some kind of reality or an inner vision of the photographer, whether it is black & white, color film, digital capture, straight, or Photoshopped. In order to actually be able to look into the image and appreciate it, the viewer has to be able to accept this illusion rather than first keying into the technique used to render it. This image fails the test. While others have questioned the clouds and water, I can accept them without hesitation. The thing that bothers me is the lightness/contrast of the boat. It has clearly been singled out with a mask and that makes it look like it's been pasted into the shot, though I suspect it was in fact there in reality. I would love to see the original transparency. I'll bet it would be a more successful image than the processed version.

 

I guess the bottom line for me is that if a heavily Photoshopped image is to be accepted as a successful illusion of the photographer's inner vision, and therefore be readily accepted by the viewer, then the PS work has to be impeccable, with masterful subtlety and attention to detail. In this image, the instant I look at it is screams Photoshop (or more to the point, fake), which detracts from the ability of this viewer to accept the image and really look into it.

 

Other than that, it is a nice enough scene, but I can only look at so many attempts to create perfect sublime moments before it becomes clich頡nd boring.

Your reactions and constructive criticism are appreciated!

Your reaction and constructive comments are greatly appreciated.

This was made on a trip to Zion this fall, during a hike up into the Emerald Pools

amphitheater. Your thoughts are greatly appreciated.

This past fall, I found a canyon in Zion National Park that was in peak autumn condition

over the course of the week I was visiting. I returned over several mornings with some

fellow photographers to make the most of the opportunities. After shooting broader

situations that I felt captured the overall atmosphere of the place, I looked for more

selective compositions focusing on details.

 

Your thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Hi Ashutosh,

 

Thanks again for your kind words. On this image though, I'm going to stand firmly behind my in-camera crop. I like the space in the foreground corners. It sets off and adds shape to the complex pattern of the flowers, creates a flow through the foreground, and gives my eyes a place to rest.

 

Best,

 

Justin

Actually, the colors are quite natural. This is exactly what you'll see post sunset over the Pacfic given the right conditions. Pacific sunsets can be far more dramatic in color. This one is actually somewhat subdued.

I think the composition is nice, and well-handled, if a bit cliche, though the blending of highlight and shadow exposures to maximize rich color and detail in each part of the image draws too much attention to itself. Many photographers doing this sort of work tend to go overboard with this technique, rendering the shadow areas far more open (light) than they really need to be to serve the image. This ultimately has the effect of making the photograph dramatic and striking at first glance, but to me immediately makes it look fake and contrived. I like to be able to look at a photograph and appreciate the content without first being hit over the head with the technique. To me, this photograph speaks more loudly about the technique used to overcome the technical challenge of limited photographic tonal range than it does about the content or whatever ideas, moods, or concepts the photographer is attempting to convey.