JDMvW

Very nice. I'm a great fan of this sort of foggy thing and this one is especially well done.

I do like it. When I first saw it I though of Charles Sheeler's paintings and photos.

Perhaps just a little close to the line, but not over the line. I like it very much. A very painterly feel to it.

True enough, I'll give you that.
But on the other hand it also occurs when you feel guilty or wrong on some manner and go to disproportionate lengths to rationalize a bad choice.

Gordon, do the words "disproportionate response" convey anything to you? I guess I am just too subtle. Sorry about that. Next time I'll whack you-all with a plank first to get your attention. ;)

Only if you truly wish it. I can't understand why you seem so out of joint about this discussion. I can't see that anything I or anyone else said that was any kind of criticism of you. I wrote a total of 13 lines about the issue, not counting quotations. You wrote, well a lot more.

Eh? ? ?
As I said already, whatever bugs you. Whether you agree with me or not is of no consequence to me at all, but you do seem to be somewhat the odd man out on this picture. As the rest of us already said, the HD business can be overdone.

They are? I don't see them at all until I crank up shadow detail a huge amt or bend my monitor screen to a weird angle. Not too obvious or objectionable I think, but whatever bugs you. Still can't see the moon in it.

But this picture is the PoTW, not the series. What moon? What stars?

One of the best things about the PoTW is that it leads you to the photographer's portfolio. In this case, I can appreciate the HDR pictures, but as I've said so many times before "when you can tell it's HDR, it's HDR too much."
That being said, this particular picture is very successful in my view. It reminded me of some of the photographs I've seen of nighttime Moscow during WWII with AA tracer and of course some of the victory celebrations at the end of the war (LINK). And I'm not saying that Hartman's picture is derivative or anything of the kind.

Wow. I confess I have not read all the comments above, merely scanned through them.

But I do want to compliment Orhan on a very nice photograph.

I like it as it is, since it gives such a profound sense of place.

Maybe it's just compression from the tele, but isn't it sort of "not good" to have glass and glass doors right behind the basket?

Actually aside from cringing at the thought of glass splinters entering my neck, I like the shot.

It's pretty tough with the light both mixed and different in intensity.  Perhaps a little toning down of the brightness from the fluorescent lights and bumping up of the light on the left? Cropping some on the right is probably also good.

The composition is a square-on view, but the light really makes this shot. Talk about your golden hour!

I like this very much. A great combination of abstract and representational.

When the "effect" becomes obvious (like facial botox or a comb-over), there's too much of it. Michael has put his finger on it exactly, I think.

Will this era of photography come to be known as the age of the "surrealists"?

I'm sorry if my curiosity about the branch/whatever detracted from a more general discussion of the picture's virtues, which I still think are many.

However, as long as we're at it, I just can't quite see in the original how that diagonal branch is attached to the main trunk. Doug's explanation/schematic is one answer, but that really doesn't show up without the yellow lines, to me anyway. The top of the diagonal branch (the "real part" so to speak) seems to float in space, and then the transparent diagonal goes down like a shadow, to be sure, but like an overlay too. No doubt the fog is taking on a more tangible aspect with the shadows and sunlight.

Despite not doing much "pictorial" work in my own photography, I am always a sucker for a little fog and bits of architectural detail like this. My first impression was fairly positive.
However, I was a little bothered as I looked closer, first of all by the diagonal branch which seemed to me to be discordant with the dominant vertical lines of the picture as a whole. Then I noticed that the diagonal is transparent in places. This reinforces my view that this element detracts from the picture rather than adding to it. It's harder for me to tell if the background trunk is also layered in. These are not fatal flaws, and the picture is interesting; but I find it less mysterious than just curious.

Perhaps Andris can tell us what the intent was here?

My first reaction was that this would be one I wouldn't comment on, since it is very much unlike what I normally go for.

However, it's certainly very interesting, and for me that means a lot.

When I find out she's really a fencer, and this is a study for her, it makes me like it very much.

I think the Elves "have chosen wisely" as the old knight said.

While I would never, ever take a shot like this myself, and probably could never do it if I tried, either--I can admire good work when I see it. Benedetto Croce indicated that one test of good art was whether the goals of the artist were realized. It looks to me like that has been accomplished here.

There's a reason places like Kansas and all are called "big sky country". The picture is a great indicator of that sort of space -- and I like the original photo too!

Since no one else has said anything, I'll start it off. First off, I think the picture is well worth discussing. I like it, not that that matters.

My only question is the cropping. At first I was a little disturbed by the houses on the sides being chopped in parts by the frame.

I dragged the image over and tried cropping it a little more to include only entire structures. When this is done, there are too few (only 4) and the effect of repetition is lost.

So then I duplicated the houses on either side and made it wider. This is too static, so in the end, I'm back to thinking that the cropping of the houses is better at suggesting a sort of infinite series than showing complete houses would have been.

In short, I think that Sherwin has done very well.

Mark H's comment made me curious. With a little toning, the shot loses very little in monochrome. I like the color better, myself.

I'm always a sucker for these silhouette pictures, and I think this is a very nice example of the breed. The composition seems right on to me.