Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: David Jilek on August 05, 2012, 09:32:50 am
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I like this image a lot but I feel its just missing a little something. Maybe not. Thoughts? I'm not sure if I would like it with more contrast or not.
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The lighting of the grass draws my eye away from the tree. For me, the tree is in the way of a very nice image.
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I would be tempted to lighten the entire image just a little. You might try two or three lighter variants and then look at them before deciding. A tiny bit too light would kill the lovely mood, but just a bit lighter might help (or it might not.)
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It's missing the 'why' or the purpose you compose a shot. There is something you want the viewer to see. The tree looks to be standing in front of it and is very nondescript in itself. It's processed in such a way to induce a loose facsimile of banding across the sky and I can't see why. I just see no why. The how is easy, it looks over processed, perhaps in a plug-in like Topaz or FX Mystical or whatever. Not being a fine arts guy it could be me missing something, but this is what I see when I look at this image.
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What were you after when you made this shot, David? Was the tree what grabbed you, or was it the fog? I think what the other posters are saying is that they can't see the point of the picture. I can't either, but I'm sure something about the scene drew you to the shot.
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Well, I'll stick my neck out here and say that this picture does not fall short in making a point - a deeply personal point that would probably vary from person to person to quite an extent.
For me this image is to be be listened to rather than looked at. It is saying a lot to me. Maybe you can turn up the volume a little by responding to what you hear in it David.
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Walter your correct its more about listening. This struck me as very much like something from the Barbizon school. More a French landscape painting. There is a strength in the isolation and the softness to me. Its not a image that is supposed to hit you up side the head more of one you keep coming back to for a little taste of something but not sure what.
Two hours later the sun burned off all the fog and the tree was lost to the forest in the background. I do like the comments on this one. They all express a different point of view. No one is right or wrong. I bet if we look at this image ten years from now all of our responses might be very different.
David
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...For me, the tree is in the way of a very nice image...
I am inclined to agree.
A slight increase in contrast would also help IMHO.
Regards
Tony Jay
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David, I love the mood the image evokes for me.
What I am however distracted by is the vignetting. On my screen it seems to be 'clumpy' in the corners. The dark corners seem to be just too prominent and not graduating enough into the image. I'm not sure whether it is a characteristic of your lens...or your processing effect. I would personally have a play with the vignetting a bit, because for me that is what is making the image not quite work to the best of what I think it could.
I wouldn't increase the contrast, because I think it may lose the feeling of the softness of the image ...and that there is some sort of ambiguity about it 'standing out' and 'not standing out' which I quite like.
Sensor may need a bit of a clean as well and a bit of chink removal during processing - top left corner.
Julie
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"Sensor may need a bit of a clean as well and a bit of chink removal during processing - top left corner.
Julie"
Julie, it's a bird - it always is in landscape.
Actually, I rather like the picture; if anything, I might be inclined to find another shot with a slightly larger 'bird' and clone it across, if only because I recently relearned how to do that after having realised I could no longer do it...
The viggy looks like the wrong hood had been used - I'd make it somewhat bigger, lighter, but more graded - just a suggestion of darkening. Overall, I'd like to see a colder, more wintery colour running through it all. Fog and warm colours only go with clothes, not nature unless it's freaky weather.
Boy, I feel expansive today! Must be something I eat.
Rob C
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Julie, it's a bird - it always is in landscape.
Yes, a perfectly round bird with no wings.
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It is a Cheshire Bird, Russ.
" ... and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the beak, and ending with the cloaca, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone. "
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I like it as it stands, although the vignette is a little heavy-handed. It's attractive to look at and I don't mind (I never mind, really) the lack of "message". If it were mine, I'd probably have put the tree off-centre, more likely than not to the left, but that's not a criticism.
Jeremy
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I like it as it stands, although the vignette is a little heavy-handed. It's attractive to look at and I don't mind (I never mind, really) the lack of "message". If it were mine, I'd probably have put the tree off-centre, more likely than not to the left, but that's not a criticism.
Jeremy
Quite right, Jeremy; anyone seeking messages should check their telephone or fax or even, dare I say it, their postbox.
A picture is a pìcture; give it a break!
Rob C
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David, I really like the idea behind the shot, I love the lighting and the tone and the nice 'Old Master' painterly feel to most of the image. I also don't find the subject matter confusing or ambiguous, as the image for me is simply about shape, texture, lighting, colour and mood, which you have definitely captured. However I have to agree with Jule, that your sensor needs a good clean and I will also agree and say that I am not at all keen on the corner thumb print style of vignette. Also when I view the image at 100%, the artefacting around the upper branches of the tree and the posterization and weird blocky coloured banding in the sky and fog are very noticeable, yet none of these artefacts appear in the foreground grassy area, which is both soft and pleasantly grainy.
So I as I say, I really like the idea of the shot etc, but there are just too many problems with this version of it to be a winner for me I am afraid.
If this is just the effects of using a very high compression ratio on a large dimensioned but low res image, then try resizing down to about 800 or 900 pixels on the longest side first, then save it out to a medium res JPG at a compression ratio of 10. You will end with something like a 150k to 250k file, that is small and easy to upload, yet still big enough for the forum members to view at a reasonable size, but not compressed to the point where it noticeably affects the image quality.
Dave
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I will be reprocessing this image and giving it a second go around. Hang tight it might be later this week but it will happen.
Thanks for all the great comments.
David
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I am frankly astonished at the posts from competent photographers that don't seem to get this image. I find it very expressive and most of the suggestions so far seem like nitpicking to me.
Yes, clone out the round dust speck in the upper left to make the pixel peepers happy, and perhaps try some slight reprocessing, but don't lose the lovely mood that this image has right now. It's one of the best "landscapes" I've seen on LuLa recently.
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I am frankly astonished at the posts from competent photographers that don't seem to get this image. I find it very expressive and most of the suggestions so far seem like nitpicking to me.
Yes, clone out the round dust speck in the upper left to make the pixel peepers happy, and perhaps try some slight reprocessing, but don't lose the lovely mood that this image has right now. It's one of the best "landscapes" I've seen on LuLa recently.
Yes!
Quite right, Jeremy; anyone seeking messages should check their telephone or fax or even, dare I say it, their postbox.
A picture is a pìcture; give it a break!
OK, Rob, just to show that I'm observant, I'll bite: why the grave accent over the "i"?
Jeremy
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OK, Rob, just to show that I'm observant, I'll bite: why the grave accent over the "i"?
Jeremy
I i ì... goodness, I hardly thought it was possible to print that!
I suspect that it's the combination of two factors: my new habit of trying to use my specs less and less in order to circumvent the effects of too much time gazing at life at one distance - I often think I can see as well without them at this range - and then find that I can't; I am convinced that I am developing dyslexic fingers tips. I appear to make many mnore typing errors than I used to, errorrs such as writing umch for much, reror for error and so on. Another favourite is to hit two keys at once, such as in gopne This trick involves a lot of checking out and correction, but then, if the specs are being denied...
Good viewing on your part!
;-)
Rob
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I am frankly astonished at the posts from competent photographers that don't seem to get this image. I find it very expressive and most of the suggestions so far seem like nitpicking to me.
Yes, clone out the round dust speck in the upper left to make the pixel peepers happy, and perhaps try some slight reprocessing, but don't lose the lovely mood that this image has right now. It's one of the best "landscapes" I've seen on LuLa recently.
Hi Eric, Just to clarify, my opening comments were actually about the fact that "I love the image evokes for me"... I then commented on that I was distracted by the vignetting - which I was - and offered a suggestion of playing with variations a bit. I then commented that I wouldn't increase the contrast because I liked the softness of the image. ..and then on a personal interpretive level commented on how I reflected on the ambiguity of 'standing out' and 'not standing out' which was illicited for me which I quite liked.
Only then did out of courtesy comment that David's sensor may require cleaning... and I din't consider it pixel peeping... it was just something I saw. I have benefited from people bringing that to my attention in the past, and didn't consider it to be an inappropriate comment.. especially after offering considered feedback prior to the last statement about the sensor.
Julie
Julie
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Hi Julie,
I'm sorry if it sounded as if I was attacking your post. In fact you and I both suggested minor tweaks, and I agree with yours. But then others took up the dust speck as if it was a major part of the image.
I'm looking forward to David's reprocessing, as long as it is kept subtle.
Eric
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...posts from competent photographers...
If that is meant for me Eric, then I thank you very much for saying that :)
I have owned several 5d's over recent years and cleaning all the crap from my images is the bane of my life, so yes I am now cursed with always seeing the dust spots, I have become programmed to do so, in fact I even see them in my sleep.
The rest of my review I thought was very positive about how I understood the image and liked the painterly effect and I even finished off with a bit of what I thought was good advice, for the best way to post images on this forum, without the Jpg compression ratios undermining the quality of the image and the viewing experience gained from it.
So hardly nitpicking, more like positive encouragement and a bit of advice I thought.
Dave
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I am frankly astonished at the posts from competent photographers that don't seem to get this image.
I guess that in a way I'm surprised you're astonished, Eric. I think there are two kinds of photographers: There are photographers who paint with a camera, and there are the disciples of Walker Evans, who believe that the proper use of a camera is to reveal the thing itself in all its realness. From what I've seen, most of us on User Critiques tend to be of the second variety, so, when we look at the kind of thing David did here we wonder why he didn't do it on canvas with a brush. The more I look at it the more I like it, but it's certainly not a Walker Evans kind of photograph.
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but it's certainly not a Walker Evans kind of photograph.
I attended and exhibition and discussion at the State gallery here years ago that celebrated the differences between Walker Evans' and Dorothea Lange's approach to the same charter — pumping out propaganda for the FSA.
It is no secret that Walker Evans drew heavily on the descriptive poetry of Baudelaire as a young man learning in Paris and turned the principle to the photograph. Lange brought a totally different set of experiences to her work. I suspect it may be fraught with pitfalls to identify a genre with just a single name. Or to expect all works presented in a particular venue to necessarily comply with that genre.
A change is as good as a holiday. This image is refreshing. It represents another philosophy, another view of the world: just as the work of individual poets and authors speaks of varying influences and preferences.
And ... I agree that it is not a bird, but over such a vast field it is hardly surprising that it may just be the highest jumping diust bunny ever seen.
W
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Hi Julie,
I'm sorry if it sounded as if I was attacking your post. In fact you and I both suggested minor tweaks, and I agree with yours. But then others took up the dust speck as if it was a major part of the image.
I'm looking forward to David's reprocessing, as long as it is kept subtle.
Eric
No Problem Eric... all is good :-)
Julie
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Okay, Here we go less processing.
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Very nice (except, of course, that the "round bird" or dust speck is still there. If you have a recent version of Photoshop, it is easy to clone it out.)
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Well.. the second image is just as unremarkable (to me) as the last.
What might be helpful is for those who claim the imagine is "speaking" to them and that we need to "listen" to the image.. maybe you could fill the rest of us in on what the image is saying? Maybe whatever is being said is for certain ears only?
But "astonished" someone doesn't interpret an image the same as me? Heck, I'd be astonished if they did. You don't think this is going just a bit too far?
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I find the image to be extremely evocative of a moment, that single minute in the morning when the light's filling in and the birds have begun to talk somewhere in the mist, before the fog starts to lift.
That's very nice, it's a moment I like a lot. It doesn't evoke much ELSE for me, but evoking anything at all counts as a victory, I say.
Graphically I find it remarkably dull, it's a photograph that I don't much enjoy looking at. Not that I am normally one to complain about "rules of composition" this is one where centering the subject up seems to have done it no favors. On my eyes, it performs the opposite of eye-leading, it seems to chase my eye out of the frame. There's very little reward for the attentive viewer.
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I attended and exhibition and discussion at the State gallery here years ago that celebrated the differences between Walker Evans' and Dorothea Lange's approach to the same charter — pumping out propaganda for the FSA.
Walter, If your state gallery told you that Walker Evans pumped out propaganda, it needs to recheck its sources. The reason Stryker fired Evans was because he flat refused to do propaganda. Walker always did art, and for obvious reasons Stryker couldn't abide that.
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I was thinking the same thing, Russ. Evans just did his own thing. Sometimes Stryker was able to re-task the work, because ultimately Stryker wasn't about outright lying. Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, the truth served his purposes adequately. Evans did a bunch of stuff Stryker didn't like, though. I think he processed his own film and only sent in selected negatives, both of which were violations of Stryker's processes.
I haven't actually seen the story of why Evans left Stryker's service, but always assumed that it was a combination of things.
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Right, Andrew. It was a combination of things, though the main thing was Evans refusal to follow Stryker's "shooting scripts." The other main thing was that Evans's output, in numbers, though certainly not in quality, was below the output of most of the other photographers.
I'm with Evans, who's always been my favorite photographer, but I also have to go easy on Stryker when I consider who he was and what his position was in the New Deal organization. Stryker's boss, Rex Tugwell, billed as an economist, really was nothing more than a socialist politician, and Stryker was under constant pressure to produce propaganda that would boost the image of the FDR administration and minimize the PR results of its disastrous economic policies. If you do some serious reading about the FSA you realize that even though Stryker was way out of his depth and far beyond his area of competence, he did an absolutely amazing job building the FSA photographic file. All things considered I have to give the man a thumbs-up.
For anyone who's actually interested I'd recommend A Vision Shared: A Classic Portrait of America and its People, 1935-1943 by Arthur Rothstein, who was one of the longest-term FSA employees, and, later in his term of employment, a very fine photographer. There are other excellent books on the subject, but to me, this one is top of the stack.
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Thanks, Russ! I have read James Curtis on the FSA file, but he's got a somewhat biased viewpoint (and couldn't even be bothered to fact check when one of his students accused Evans of staging photos).
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I've heard and read that accusation too, Andrew, but I guess it depends on what you mean by "staging." I've seen some pretty good evidence that he moved a clock on the mantel over the Burroughs's fireplace when he made that series of shots, but I'm not sure that's "staging." Standing Allie Mae Burroughs in front of weathered siding for her portrait might be called "staging" too. But I guess I'd call it "art."
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Curtis' student claimed that "there is no mention of the clock" in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men or at any rate that is the idea we have received in the modern era. Errol Morris repeats this claim in his recent book.
It's false. The clock IS mentioned elsewhere in the book, just not in the more or less famous "inventory" Agee wrote down.
Curtis and Morris failed to check the student's work (presumably because the book is crazily hard to read), which unfortunate.
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Yeah, I have Morris's book. He's a sloppy writer and a sloppy researcher.
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Okay, Here we go less processing.
Well, it's OK, I suppose; but apart from the lessened vignette, which I applaud, I don't like it as much as I did the first version.
Jeremy