chelsea

When I first looked at it, I thought it was coral, but couldn't figure out the dark area. Wondered why this was photo of the week. After I minute I felt like Marie Barone in that episode of Everyone Loves Raymond, where she made the abstract sculpture. At any rate, I find it a bit overexposed on the left, but other than that, interesting patterns.

Very nice. This is a subject shown so many times you begin to think "not another one"...but your depiction here brings the novelty back! Colours, lighting, sharpness...VERY nice.

Nice shot, but I'm finding the background just a bit too busy, competes with her outfit.

I love the composition on this one. It's difficult to find a good pattern in frost crystals, nice catch! Nice and sharp with a good background. I can enjoy the pattern just for what it is, or let my mind wander and imagine all kinds of things from this.

One of the "wood nymphs".

Ah, a person after my own heart, one that enjoys butterflies.

 

(But...this looks more like a Milbert's tortoiseshell than a red admiral.)

I agree with N. Ahmad. There has just been far too much pretentious posturing in POW critiques, and not enough constructive suggestions. There seems to be a trend towards this new fad of pretending that viewers should be looking for aspects beyond the ordinary in every little ordinary thing. Fine, but to a point. It is good to try another perspective, but some critics are just getting far too anal about it. So what if there's lots of the traditional "nice" subject matter posted on photo.net. Hey, I'll admit to it--I LIKE my pretty flowers and cute little chipmuncks and lovely sunrises/sunsets. Everyday life provides me with enough doom and gloom and thought-provoking meanings on the negative side, so I'm going to indulge in and enjoy my little feel-good images. Gee...and some have posted their ponderings on why there aren't more women participating. Perhaps they're too busy having a good time to mull around these discussions. And I think the photo.net elves are having a good time picking out stuff to stir it up.

 

Getting back to the POW itself. I agree with cropping off the top. My first impression as it came up on the screen was that it is too dark. Although the irrigation line itself creates an interesting perspective, the red ball is annoying. I do enjoy the other fine images this photographer has posted.

"I for one would appreciate it if those of you who have comments on the rightness or wrongness of war would privately e-mail each other. The comments spoiled my usually pleasant visit to Photo.net."

 

Photo.net does have a chat feature with a couple of rooms, one for general photography and another one called "web nerds". Perhaps we could get the Photo.net Elves to add another room to the chat...call it "Free for All"...let everyone who wants discuss all the off-topic aspects of POW have at it.

This is an example of the subject itself taking over the picture. When I first saw it on the photo.net homepage, I thought it was a newspaper article or some type of print taped up inside a window with a reflection shot taken from the outside. Clicking on it brought up a larger image that filled my screen, and I thought what the heck, this is a terrible picture. It was only after scrolling down and finding out what it was that I began to appreciate the meaning of what was being presented. As far as a photograph itself, I would only rate it at 4.0 or 5.0. (If I really want to nitpick, I think the upper right hand corner should be cropped off a tiny bit.)

Lovely shot. Shows what you can capture when you haul your keester out of bed in the early hours. Paying attention and being prepared to make the most of your "luck".

Have you now, branescu? Then put some up and let's see them! What's the expression? Oh yes -- show or blow.

 

Anyhow - on Tony's wonderful shot, what I like the most about it is the perspective. You can imagine that you are either looking up through the trees at the birds flying by, or you can imagine that you are seeing the image reflected in a body of water. Having tried many times to get a decent shot of flocks of geese flying past the setting moon in early mornings, I can appreciate the timing on this one. Good catch!

I often get annoyed at the side-tracked comments of people commentating on others' comments, but then the thought occurred to me: maybe this is part of the point of POW having similar themes. Whether intended or not, it has certainly brought out a lot of discussion about photographers' integrity and how they view and respect their subject. Something I find interesting is seeing photographs from several people who have shot the same subject at the same place, and the different perspectives those photographs will show. The photographs we take are often a reflection of ourselves and how we view the world around us. Maybe what all this is bringing out is making us THINK about our subjects, not merely viewing the scene for its artistic quality, whether we've got the scene composed properly or the exposure just right--but what we feel about the subject. Does it have an impact on the person behind the lens, or just for those viewing the finished image?

 

Sometimes a photograph isn't taking a camera and composing a piece of artwork by recording how the light reflects off a subject, sometimes it IS just a record shot....a record of a split second in time of a view and a happening.

 

About the photograph itself (getting down to the nitpicky evaluation of photograph)--I find the background to be a bit too busy, my first impression is that it is a bit washed out. But as a record of a time and place, my eye wanders around the image, the more I look at it, the more detail I find, the more of a story that it tells.