wind.dk

Cracked bark always has something about it and having an almost abstract - and yet not abstract at all - rusty nail in the center, changes it from being merely a texture sample into a neat little snapshot.

 

However in a pseudo-abstract image such as this, it is important that every detail is tack sharp, and it seems to be blurring towards the edges. It might simply be cropped away, maybe a square crop would work just as well, but it all depends on whether there's enough excitement to work with in that particular piece of bark.

Yes the selective focus is fine, but I find the composition to be somewhat off.

 

The other parts that happen to be in focus confuse rather than strengthen the image and I can't figure out whether the main part is improperly centered or improperly off-centered.

When animated this can be a great effect, check out some of Satoshi Kon's excellent animated cartoons for examples. Of course it's usually used to depict subjective hallucinatory vision.

 

In a still image it's rather dull, particularly when it pretends to be reflections in wavy water, which it doesn't even resemble.

This I like. I think it's a bit tilted which it shouldn't be but there are lots of nice geometrical figures there. I'd like a bit more space on the right, if there's nothing there to ruin the composition.

The power plant is a bit too small and the bridge a bit too large and dark, but otherwise I like it. Step a bit closer and slightly to the left and you've got it ;)

... I like the view, but not the distortion and I'd prefer a couple of pixels more space on the left side.

I should visit my local cemeteries more - this looks almost Japanese :)

You've uploaded a record cover postcard, you lucky bastard to live near it.

 

Wish I were there...

Is it sufficiently clear what's going on in this picture? Can anybody

but me actually see it?

 

And what do you think of it in general?

I'd prefer the Sun to be off-center vertically as well as horizontally, maybe cutting away some of the nearest clouds - their fluffyness doesn't seem quite right in this composition.

 

And some people apparently don't know what Cinemascope is or they wouldn't mention it here...

Golden section, yum yum :)

 

Btw, I too dislike the term "negative space" which usually translates simply to "space" or (as in this case looking at the subject matter, not the tonal ranges) "empty space". There's nothing negative about it, but it is used to good effect here.

I wish my neighbor had a yard like that :)

 

I would have said to aim a bit lower to include more grass at the expense of the mostly black top, but then I viewed it on a different computer with some shadow detail and changed my mind. Maybe still a lower aim, but only if combined with a step backwards or a wider angle.

AOC 19" on Neuromancer, Linux/Mozilla 0.9.4: IJK missing

 

IBM PS/2 Color Display on Samsavvy, Win2k/MSIE 5: HIJK missing

 

Apple ColorSync on Deep Thought, MacOS 9.1/Mozilla 1.1: J barely visible, but everything is there including some detail in the dark triangle

 

Olivetti 17" on Junior, MacOS X 10.2.4/Chimera 0.6: everything visible

 

Apple 14" on Eddie, MacOS 8.1/iCab 2.9: J barely visible, but everything is there

 

That's all the computers I have ready with graphical browsers. You wouldn't happen to be using a Mac, would you?

I really like the contrast between foreground and background, and the confusing effect of the bends in the tree trunks coinciding with the waterline.

 

Just one criticism: It isn't horizontal, and with the reflections in the water, this is very very obvious. When you miss it in the field, it's easy to correct in software, so there's really no excuse. Particularly as this picture is otherwise so interesting.

Oh yes, this is obviously completely unoriginal. I mean, it's a three-dimensional scene rendered as a two-dimensional photograph. We've seen it thousands if not millions of times before, and I'm afraid we'll probably see it just as many times again.

There is a picture on Ilford's website http://www.ilford.com/html/us_english/autochrome/auto1.jpg which is around a hundred years old and is also a three-dimensional scene (of inanimate objects even) rendered as a two-dimensional picture. I can hardly tell the difference between it and this months POW. Could we please move on. Could we please have some originality?

OK, sarcasm off. I don't have much constructive to say about this picture, that hasn't already been said, except that the idea of this in relation to a botanical garden makes perfect sense to me. The curves of the chair as well as the stonework reminds me of the architecture and stonework of my local botanical gardens, and I would expect a lot of other gardens to have a similar appearance.

So in that respect I think it's succesful. It's also a lovely abstract composition, which for instance part of a person holding a flower in the corner would ruin, as might separating the shadow from the chair - that would give a nice clinical image with a chair, a shadow and the stonework as clearly defined distinct elements.

This does not seem to me to be just yet another picture of a chair. Wether it has been done almost exactly like this before, I don't know (the twelve chairs picture is not much closer to this than a Hawaii sunset - and now I'm looking forward to see a Hawaii sunset with chairs in it :)

Nor am I going to investigate the matter because in the end, although I think it's very nice, I don't think I'd choose this to hang on my wall, nor anything like it. Purely a matter of personal taste. I'll have to try the upside down trick though.

I like this one. Don't mind the glasses, quite the contrary, I think they add a touch of realism to it, which I prefer. Sort of making her an individual rather than merely a compositional element.

 

It might be better though, if they were not quite as bright and sharp. That would also overcome the problem of disappearing detail and structure which the photoshopped versions suffer from in a direct comparison.

 

I will have to look at this again on a real monitor rather than this LCD display.

Maybe this is exactly the right picture to use for the eternal Photoshop discussion. Because Yuri has done everything right. He took a good photograph, he did some processing in Photoshop. And he *told* us all about it. He even uploaded the original photo, so we can see what the effects are of his photographic skills versus his Photoshop skills (substitute "darkroom" for "Photoshop" if you're doing it the traditional way).

 

In short, we can *learn* from this. Something we can't when people try to hide what they've done to their pictures.

 

Thanks for your honesty Yuri!

 

Now for the picture. I must admit I find it a bit dull, a bit too much like a cheesy art poster rather than a photograph. I like the original better and I don't mind the grain in it. I guess Photoshop is to blame (and suppose something like it could be achieved with a filter or defocusing with a traditional enlarger). Looking at Yuri's folder it's obvious that he often tries to achieve the effects of different painting styles in his post-processing. Seen in this light, the (slightly) processed picture is successful, but it's a matter of taste.

 

The original photograph on the other hand is very nice. Maybe a bit more space above (and below) would make me happier. Perhaps a crop to the golden section (1.618:1) rather than this almost American widescreen (1.85:1 - this picture is 1.80:1) is what I'm looking for.

 

Of course the timing is good. I wont say great. Not because the F5 can take 8 pictures per second - this could be taken even without a motordrive - but because it would play right into the hands of all those who think *everything* that looks a little extraordinary must be photoshopped. They should spend more time looking at the real world. Yes, moonlight can actually look like that, it's not just an effect of the camera optics, yes, shadows on a bumpy surface don't look the same as shadows on a plain surface, and yes, sometimes things or people or whatever actually line up in the most extraordinary way and a photographer can be quick enough to exploit it.

 

To me it happens to be very important wether what I see in a picture is a photograph of a real scene or a montage or something entirely different. I may appreciate all of it, but I look at them in different ways. To avoid wasting my time figuring out how a picture was made, I prefer knowing (something of) what was done to it.

 

So to round off this my second and terribly long posting on photo.net: Well done Yuri, for making this picture, and for sharing your knowledge with us. You've set a good example in both respects.

 

Back to lurking I go.