williams_gallery

A well made portrait - the older person with the child in the background (who I read as crying/hiding) adds to the image and nicely contributes a bit of visual and psychological unbalance to the solid triangular compositional structure of your primary subject - creates a bit of tension.  The image works in a lot of ways - nice work! 

This is a perfect photograph - the pose, the light, expression, the printing - well done! 

This image stopped me for sure - the best images ask a question and allow us to fill in the details - this does it for me, as well as being well executed.  Nice work.

Matt

This is a visually exciting image - I am especially interested in the spiral form that forms a "point" to the top of the gesture - the image reads like a non-representational painting for me.  I appreciate your treatment of the color as well - muted and creamy.  In the photo world it reminds me of the abstracted work Ernst Hass did in the bull ring. 

 

My primary criticism is in the title actually - although you as the creator are aware of the actual live subject that this image is abstracted from, I as the viewer am not.  I would just point out that part of the pleasure in looking at extremely abstracted or non representational work is in the detachment from literal - for me anyway - is that viewing this kind of work should not be an exercise in trying to figure out "what it is of" or "what it is."  Non representational work is wonderful in that we can just enjoy the presentation of color, composition, dissonance and harmony etc. without having to bring in the confines of making the image "of" something. 

 

Nice image!

I don't think the sharpening/oversharpening comments are fair, seeing as we are all viewing these images on various types of monitors, calibrated to various settings, both in color temperature, sharpness and overall quality. I know when I scan negs and make "prints" for online, they always need significant sharpening to get the likeness of an optical print with a good enlarger lens. If we were all in the same, actual gallery looking at a real print, then the final details of print quality could be debated. But for me, images on the net are really just an index of sorts to actual work - they are pictures of the pictures. If no actual print exists, then I would have to question why a photographer would shoot through a process doing the best they can technically, only to settle for the mediocrity of internet presentation.
That said, this image is well executed technically (I'm not a studio photographer but took enough classes to know how hard it is to do.) However, this image doesn't conjure thoughts of Fall for me. This image simply invites me to study a form I would usually look past, and to take joy in seeing the intricate cracks in the surface and the delicate balance it maintains on the glassy surface. However, for me, the cool, metallic environment surrounding the leaf causes a conflict for me - one one hand, the reflection is reminiscent of water, a natural element, but the reflection seems too perfect and clean to be natural, and so it feels like a object out of place. The surrounding space seems a backdrop suited to an advertisment of a PC or something. That's not a slight, but I'm just saying it is an interesting choice to present such a natural object against such an unnatural backdrop. Perhaps the photographer intends the background to be as minimal as possible, so that the leaf can be studied without distraction - this sort of works for me, but as a whole I feel the image lacks visual unity. Maybe I am asking too much of what is probably a visual study - in this it succeeds.

Yeah this is one of your strongest images. It isn't as intriguing as some of the others I looked at, but the vignetting, the pastel palette, and the perfect capturing of a moment which is not time or place-specific, makes this an image a lot of people can appreciate.

 

Matt

I agree with the other comments - very strong composition, and the details keep me moving around within the frame. This is exactly the kind of landscape I'm working on in Pittsburgh right now, but mine are going to end up as Polaroid transfers to paper.

 

Matt

Naw - the color is fine - I might have even gone more blue, and the band of black at the top unifies the image with the image fall-off at the bottom. I tried looking at this image cropping that part of the frame with my borwser, and it kills the meaning of the image that way, I think. As is, I get a feeling the subject is in a sort of womb - without it, it's a good portrait, and that's about it. The is indeed some beautiful light! The little violet petals make this a very feminine image, and make me feel this person is being interrupted from making images of them - gives the image a context. Good work.

 

Matt

Wow - Very graphical - I love the graininess and the "techicolor" saturation - had you considered Photoshopping out the powerlines? I don't know, they might be important to you - I'd like to try the image without them though. The repetition of form from the trees, to the first set of the clouds to the second set is so simple and pure, the lines seem like they shouldn't be there. This is a very one dimensional image which reads almost like a cut-out montage, despite the fact we know you are conveying quite a bit of space. I don't want to be reminded that this was made by a guy on the ground with a camera - that's what the lines remind me of. As in film, it removes my "suspension of disbelief." Really great landscape.

 

Matt

Perplexing expressions, and I enjoy the tension between the middle subject and the one with his hand on his head. The contrast is a little flat for me, but it looks like you might not have much density in your neg (or it was just underexposed if a Polaroid) to work with. You've really gotten to something nice in this image expressively speaking.

 

Matt

I forgot my one criticism - have you tried cropping the left side of the piece, just barely enough to get that light bulb and whatever it is on the edge there out - it's distarcting for me - With the guitar playing figure and the closeup portrait, that is the anchor of your image compositionally for me, and my eye has to fight wanting to keep going over to check out that light bulb :)

 

Matt

Phenominal, well-conceived piece. Your training as a painter shows in this photograph. Expansive, layered - I love it!

 

Matt

A wonderful portrait - period. It doesn't matter if people "like" or "dislike" the background, composition etc. The piece is what it is, and can't be any other way. This is the artist's vision, and what anyone else would have done would make it their work, and not the work as it is. Beautiful image - everything works!