pascalagneray

I think you are the only person on PN for whom I go though the pictures and I end up looking at the captions with as much anticipation as the pictures themselves. They crack me up...this one above especially and the "don't make me repeat myself"...It gives a good insight on the way you look at the world...Let's say... with a large dose of humour, a teaspoon of detachment and a tiny sprinkle of sarcasm.

What do you see here?

Your series on falls is really inspiring.

First warm night in Chicago area. The sky was beautiful tonight.

For Dumas old eyes

I like the expression on the boy's face, his thoughfulness and pose. The background with the layer of trees is beautiful and so is the motion of the dead tree trunk. I did a couple mod though, so I am atttaching it (I do it for my own fun, nothing else). It's a different way of looking at it, not necesseraly better.

7/7...this is a very powerful picture. I had to add it to my favorites folder.

Balthazar approved of it so I submit for critique. Let me know what you

think. If you don't like it, it's OK. Thanks for visiting.

6/7. I love the texture on the snow and the tire thread showing exaggerated. A very nice idea and a perfect composition. You have a good eye.

Should that be under street, architecture, landscape? I have no idea.

I've always wanted to go there. When anlarged, your picture is really enjoyable to watch. The only thing that could be improved is the burnt out section in the waterfall. If you lower contrast and/or saturation a bit and darken the picture, you might be able to get rid of it. This is the waterfall Ansel Adams took some of his best picture...it's neat to see it from a closer perspective. The greenery is really cool looking...beautiful colors.

I assumed this picture was from a professional and what I said about Ansel Adams, I meant it because I had the exact same emotional reaction seeing your picture than I did seeing soem of hiss Yosemite pictures. I am saying this to you because too often compliments are overdone or exagerated to pet others ego but in this case, I did not care and said that just because I felt it was the truth. I am not an expert at judging pictures so you can't take my word as the word of a professional judge but the fact that it was genuine, for all it's worth....it was. I looked at the rest of your portfolio and you are no slouth, you have some very good stuff...very good indeed.

This is different. It's simple and it works. The colors are great, so is the sense of motion.

I think that the mystery of being is in accepting and enjoying the subtle

dance of dualities. We are all the same, (come all from a tiny atom size

place before the big bang and will return to this tiny speck one day

maybe), so we are physically one and the same if time collapses, well

in theory at least. Being cannot be without us being separated and

fighting for survival in our own flesh, being can't be without duality and

the sense of self yet our goal is often to erase that difference and melt

with others and the universe, that's why it's a play of analysis vs.

synthesis, like a wave form swinging from our will to exist, separate

ourselves and our will to integrate, be like others, understand other. This

situation you see abovee somehow triggered this realisation when I saw

it inside a French church by the ocean (Varengeville) because they face

away from each other yet are forever very close to each other. I know

some couples just like that (alive people) and there is nothing that can

be done to fix the situation except the realization of our paradigm

entrapment. This is what Buddhist monk are capable of seeing while

most of us spend our life blind. Inside a church sometimes, the divine

comes down and gives us a glimpse of reality as it really is...it's

humbling and exhilarating...that's what art tries to emulate with varying

degrees of success. By no way do I pretend to have achieved that...I am

way too inexperienced to be able to create those feelings...you have to

be there to get it but I can still talk about it and dream to one day to be

able to do it. If you have suggestions to modify the above analysis or

picture, your comments are very welcome. Thank you for being here.

The hands look like they are from an actual human standing behind the veil. This is a wild picture, I missed it last time I was here. I don't know where you live but in the States, we have a lot of born again Christian, very often people who have seen the very dark side of things, gotten very scared by it and swung very far the other way. This is a country of extremes. This type of picture will unevitably attract them and potentially create controversy as to what is the signification or meaning of such a display. Being very sensitive, some will find it offensive of course even if the aim was to protect and not hide. Isn't it interesting? Language and communication can never be assumed to be clear. So many wars and death have their roots in simple misunderstanding and cultural differences, assumptions of other's intentions. This picture has un unknown message as far as I am concerned, it' s a Small Christo, nothing more really and I find it elegant and dramatic at the same time, not offensive one bit. I am all for religious display and disagree with people who blow up Buddhas statues or behead cathedral saints, this is not a destroyed sculpture...it's all there, just a bit more mystical which might not hurt...who knows? Maybe the face is really badly designed?

Are you ou French btw? Alain is a very French first name. It's funny you should talk about the tilt and shift. Dennis Aubrey who is on PN and whom I met on a couple occasions swears by that type of lens (he takes a lot of church insides). I think he had the zoom you mentioned and just bought the 24mm prime. He says it's absolutely great...he has a 24x36 sensor like you. You should ask him. which one to get..he will have educated and valuable advices. Me I will stick to the aps-c format for budget and portability reasons. Since I do not enlarge to poster sizes anyway, I do not need all the horsepower and cost associated with it except for rare occasions. Actually, I moved from a 30 D (still apsc)to a G10 which has a tiny tiny sensor but still gave pretty decent pictures if taken in bright situations. If you talk to an Hasselblad user, this is a joke of course but so would the Nikon d3 or canon 1d, 5D, etc... so I see all this as relative and I have decided to buy the rebel T2i very soon. (a cheap and light 7D). I was debating over the samsung NX10 or even the fujifilm HS10 because I really value size (I used to carry 4 lenses around and ended up not going to a bunch of remote areas because of it so I switched my priorities) but decided to stick with canon since I already own lenses. Now I am back to my old greedy self again and plan on getting the 70-200 L lens ( in F4 and without IS)...Hopefully, this will be a good and livable set up.The 10-22 EFS, the 100 macro, maybe the 50mm prime too and the 70-200. For traveling, I'll leave the primes at home. If you have recommendations Alain, I am all ears.

heavily post processed. Let me know what you like or dislike. Thanks

When enlarged, this picture truly gives you a sense of the place as being spectacular, grandiose. It almost gives you a vertigo. It's been a while since I felt that...It's the imbalance from the stability of the left that feels safe versus the chasm and the ocean on the right which pulls on you as if you were standing by a very high vertical drop. Unsettling but exhilarating. I have the 10-22 EFS, it's not a bad lens, very contrasty but quite good for a small format wide angle and not cheap either (I paid like $750 for it) I think this is the best picture you have in your portfolio...the 2 men in a boat is not bad either but the comment about old lens and poor equipment might been meant for it instead of this one) Regardless, I absolutely love this picture. I am putting it in my favorites folder and give it 7/7

This is an excellent picture. If Cartier Bresson were still alive, he would do work just like that.

I mostly operate thinking that I am on my own here except for Jeff Long who checks my stuff regularly, otherwise I assume no one really pays attention and I might add that it's entirely my fault since I do not really cultivate any frienship and I even left some people down probably to whom I apologize if they ever read that...So your comment surprises me in a way that makes you realize something around the lines of..."well, I might not be as isolated as I imagine" and overall, that's a good feeling. Thank you Jack. Now it's my turn to go check out what you've been up to.

Ther is another stunner but it looks a bit blurry at the bottom. If the bushes are sharp, man...that's a killer but we'll never know...at PN it's the potage stamp rule (more than 20 pixels and you can't upload)

4 minutes is a daring exposure time...the clouds become out of focus at that speed but man it has a great atmosphere. You suceeded. I will have to try that one day. Thanks for the lesson.

What a dreamy atmossphere you created. It's called "picture perfect" I believe. like a poster or a calendar picture. What I really like is that you did not crop the upper foreground nranch which has all sorts of rhythms to its motiion and offset the otherwise pretty powerful symmetry. It brings the colors from left to right. Without it, that shot would be almost dull, too perfect. The only thing that could disappear without hurting is the dark blob hanging from that branch. It almost look like a bat in heaven. I find this picture very pleasant to look at (imho)

This picture caught my eye at small scale. Larger it suffers from having no sharp focus anywhere. If the center (around the sun) was sharp, all the rest would fit well out of focus to give the impression of speed which you achieved just fine. Also, I would crop the dark bottom. Otherwise, it has a very catchy feeling to it.

Thanks for looking