NikonGear'23
Images => Critique => Topic started by: armando_m on January 21, 2016, 17:55:32
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What do you think of this ?
(https://armando-m.smugmug.com/Travel/Camecuaro/i-chX72kp/0/O/_DSC7714_DxO.jpg)
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In technical terms, clearly of excellent standard. However, I'm not equally convinced it functions on an image communication level. The boat dwindles in importance against the environment in which it is depicted. A viewer can gain the impression the boat is just a spot decoration of colours in the natural surroundings. Yet, your title indicates it is the main subject. I sense a conflict of interests here.
Perhaps by moving in closer to the boat, or framing the image differently, your intentions would be easier to read.
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Thanks Bjorn
my intention ? hmm ... good question
the scene to me was very serene, an empty boat , a bit of mist on the background, the convoluted roots of the old trees, a person to take the boat out is about to arrive
perhaps the title is wrong, an "untitled" image might be better so the viewer does not have an expectation which clashes with a title
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I think it is best not to over-analyse this picture. I find it very attractive, and rather soothing (not that I need soothing, in case anyone is worried).
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I'm with Bjørn, here! And let me state right off, I frequently find myself making, what I'm reticent to refer to as, the same aesthetic mistake. As an artist, and in a variety of media, my first rule has consistently been Rules? Who needs rules?! But affirmation is good. And, well, who the hell doesn't want their efforts to be appreciated? Besides, you asked for it -- critique, that is.
That said, here's a "trick" I often employ when judging my own work. If rendered in color, I view it in gray scale. If the image appears compositionally correct, or pleasing, in black-and-white then it might also rendered in color. As a method, I find this very helpful adjudicating the relative merits of several autumnal, or botanical, scenes when it's so easy to be dazzled by all the "pretty colors" at the expense of composition. A similar argument can be raised, more so of late, over so-called "HD", and extreme color saturation -- although none of that is effectively new to visual art. (I recently viewed some ancient, highly "HD" images discovered on a cave wall in Portugal. In a word: They sucked!) A bad image in high definition is like awful music, played loudly, in high fidelity. Over saturation is like dry meat slathered in gravy. Poor composition is like [awful] music played off pitch. (A method, incidentally, frequently employed by my country's clandestine operators to elicit information, under torture. FYI: I'm one of those people who has the peculiar affliction, causing the eyes to hurt if an image is projected too sharply against the retina. This "gift" has often helped me spot "fakes", whatever good that's been to me. Or given me cause to confess to acts of espionage I couldn't possibly have any connection with, having occurred years before my birth.)
Now consider this image, were the boat mud-brown in color or scrawled with graffiti. Is it good, or bad? I ask because I have myself taken stunningly gorgeous (if I say so) pictures of garbage thrown into bucolic, rural streams and lakes. From a technical standpoint, they were excellent, meeting every standard for composition, light and shadow, and color -- even monochrome, as per my special method of judging such things! However in any real sense, I prefer your world view! And I personally know of a number of individuals, even institutions or schools of thought, that would judge your image superior to anything I [ever] produced.
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Compared to the usual artistic standard of your posts, I would have to say this image is not really up to the level.
The colors of the boat look so brilliant that they detract the "serene" mood to me.
Maybe I would get much closer to this characteristic trunk and include just the front half of the boat using the same lens. Along with more exaggerated perspective, the resulted image would create a nice surreal mood.
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Anthony, Wannabe, Akira, thanks for your comments!
maybe I'll try one with the boat desaturated to a point
Cheers!
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Anthony, Wannabe, Akira, thanks for your comments!
maybe I'll try one with the boat desaturated to a point
Cheers!
All in good humor! Cheers!
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Get closer seems to come to my mind as well ;)
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Just crop a third of the bottom (half way the reflection of the boat) and the boat becomes centre stage message wise.
Excellent image btw mood wise, really want to be there and go for a ride in that yellow boat :)
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here is another version that I like
some cropping, playing with the sliders in b&w, and burn the bottom portion of the boat
(https://armando-m.smugmug.com/Travel/Camecuaro/i-Lqv9jXB/0/X2/_DSC7714_DxO-2-X2.jpg)
this is probably an example that composing with a wide angle is not that simple
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i Happen to like the colour version better the crop works well, WA you have to go low and deep and on the equal focal plane is my xperience
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Thank you Fons
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I like the 'driving a shim into the scene' character of the intruding boad.
It's gone in the B&W, I'd like to have it back and to emphasis it even more.
A 16:9 does this, I think by enhancing the diagonal aspect, the boad rides in on the shadow
extending (extrapolating) to the left down corner.
I also think the color version matches this idea better.