vince-p

That is what's commonly known as a mayfly, unmistakably; this is the form for the most standard of the American and English dry flies used for fishing on the surface water of rivers and streams for trout. Back in the day I could likely have identified the particular species but for now all I can suggest is a fly pattern: Quill Gordon. 

Les, I absolutely love this. It's a beautiful photograph blown highlights crappy background and all. 

I love this photograph. I cannot detect A theme -- I see a girl, I see a beautiful red kimono, I see religion and art and the drama of the body's involvement in both. I wish there were a mark on the paper. I see (structurally) a kind of swirl that begins at her right hand goes up the arm and across her shoulders down her left art and along a line formed by the left hand, the right hand, the ink and the little (glass?) piece, this last paralleled by the way the kimono hem is lying. And that's it. But that is certainly enough. 

very beautiful -- I love the selenium effect. There seems to be some sort of band of flare or fog across the bottom though... Still, a beautiful photograph. 

a great image, beautifully timed, exposed, composed, captured. 

"Anselized for your protection"  -- very good. I had to think for a moment. Don't be spilling that Selenium on the bathmat. 

Les, 

Beautiful portrait. Composed, exposed perfectly. I was really struck by it and saved it to favorites.  I think yes, the background is busy-- not just the right, but the cars and blown sky on the left. But such is life. This is why it's better at such a moment to have a IIIf and TMX or Delta and a 50mm Summitar. Soften everything out. But what I admire is that you did the best with it you could have. She is beautifully positioned, the focus is perfect, you've managed at f/1.4 to have her front shoulder and nose and eyes all looking sharp (I dislike OOF stuff in the front most of the time so took notice of this... I'm writing all this out to teach myself, I hope you know, by looking at it all). There seems to be a hint of blue fringing along her two shoulders but particularly the back (left) one. 

Two immediate reactions I had: I too noticed the pink bra straps and thought, I wonder if one could clone them out in PS; and I was very struck by the gorgeous skin tone and wondered if you'd done something with it in post -- which I then saw that you said you had done. I'd love to know what. I don't know how to do that. (I'm completely self taught on PS so what I don't know could float a battleship.) 

Finally I wondered which 50/1.4 you were using. I am suspecting from the OOF qualities it was the Nikon AF-D.  Nikon makes such amazing tele lenses and a couple of very great wides but they have never made a great 50mm lens. This girl lined up in front of the 105/2.5, that would be something else. 

Anyway despite the cavils it's a great portrait, she absolutely leaps out. The framing is perfect, bottom and top. Unfortunately leap as she does, she didn't quite make it out of my monitor and into my office, but one can dream. 

Vince P

Beautiful. Do you use Silver Efex Pro or your normal post processing for the B&W tones? They're really superb. Or is that just the way infrared comes out? I thought it had more color than that but I'm pretty innocent. 

Les -- oh that Kodachrome. The depth and saturation of that red, the gentleness of the skin tones.... Is that the 50/1.4? Looks like it to me. Beautiful composition.

Dima,

Yes, my first reaction to the picture was, that's beautiful, now just straighten it out.  It's important to know, in Photoshop, or whatrever post processing software you have, how to do this, and also to make sure you keep a copy of the original. He's going to lose a good little bit of three corners (Nw, Sw, and Se... or 10 o'clock, 8 o'clock, and 4 o'clock) so I'd examine it closely to consider those losses. But, yes, I was struck that in three years worth of comments no one pointed out the picture needs straightening.

I'd add that one's eye wishes the whole thing were in focus (see bottom left) but this is very difficult to accomplish in the 35mm format.  With a 4x5 or even 8x10 field camera you could stop down much much further, plus tilt the lens in relation to the film plane in order to achieve focus from very near to very far. Unfortunately our greatest landscape photographers used to work in these formats and our eye -- or my eye, I guess I should say -- brings those expectations to such a photograph as this.

Still, all that taken into account, it is rather magnificent. The curve arrows on the road signs lend a bit of a mystical touch to the disappearing road....

This is a beautiful photograph. I think it is compositionally inspired; even perfect. Tonally, I think it could use a slight bump in contrast.  Even so it is one of the photographs among those I encounter from time to time that remind me what I love so much about black and white film photography.

I'm rarely a fan of titles for photographs; the photograph IS the title, and adding words diminishes it. But here I love the title, because it immediately raised the question in my mind: whose longing, the subject's or the photographer's? It's a question that adds depth to the experience of looking at the photograph, which is a rare synergy. I too was drawn by a picture at the bottom of a thread -- a wide angle landscape "grass is not greener" (which I would love to know the lens for, btw) -- and am very much enjoying looking at your photographs. they are technically excellent, well seen, probing and intelligent.

Daughters of bankers and Protestant ministers, all of 'em. No doubt.

My girlfriend saw this on my screen and said, Wait, that's a picture? She stared in amazement. Then our 3-year-old came over and gaped at it for about fifteen seconds, which is about two minutes in toddler time,  and said, That's cool! So you did pretty good. I couldn't help --defending my manhood -- point out the lens costs like 7 grand. It's still just an amazing photograph. 

Hi. I love this picture. I see it's square so i assume you've cropped it. If there's any way to get all of his boots into the frame I'd do it.  I also would restore what's been cropped at the left, so you get the corner of that table. I think you'd add energy and harmony both with that.

I love this picture for the reasons others mention -- colors, composition, and also the spirit of it; you can almost feel the life of the bird. I'd lose the green frame, I think it's interfering with the green of the photograph in an unpleasant way.  Also, were you at a fairly wide open aperture like F4 or F5.6? I think the plane of sharpest focus might be an inch before the bird, and so he's toward the rear of the minimal in-focus zone.  Might just be my eyes. I might -- seeing this -- and if I remember -- increase ISO in such circumstances in order to gain depth of field.  I know how everyone loves his bokeh but I don't think creamy bokeh is worth the risks....

I thought you might enjoy a famous poem by Gerard Manly Hopkins that this picture rather powerfully evokes. It's an extraordinary picture. Can one buy a print of it? (if so write me back at passaro dot vince at gee mail dot com.  The poem can be found here:

http://www.bartleby.com/122/12.html

The title is Gertrude Stein's famous re-write of the Shakespeare. Matthew I love this photograph, I love the blacks in it, they are like a dreams from a  deep sleep, they make the white all the more dramatic. I keep wishing for 1/4- or perhaps just 1/8- inch more picture along the bottom -- there is something uncomfortable about how close it cuts to the bottom of the dangling petal there; and finally I'm amazed a the richness and clarity of the Tamron zoom.  Altogether lovely job. How about that C-41 huh? I use the Kodak, never tried the Ilford, I wonder what the differences are, well, there's a Photo.net search I now have to do.

This is one of the rare color photographs that one could use to teach Ansel Adams' Zone system; indeed, to teach his sense of the world of solid objects whose very existence is contingent on the play and mood of light. On that front, not only is the light extraordinarily well-handled; so is the color. They balance each other perfectly.
On the negative side, I see only a slight composition problem. The larger you make this photograph in print form the more one (I suspect) will experience a slight imbalance in it. The eyes are directly in the middle, vertically speaking, the top of the head is cut off but the chin is a fifth of the way up from the bottom boundary. I can see that there was no other way to get this much of her face without doing that way -- certainly you cannot move the face down so the chin gets closer to the bottom border -- but it's still a problem that slightly detracts from what remains a very beautiful photograph.