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Author Topic: Gone  (Read 12915 times)

RSL

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Gone
« on: May 11, 2013, 02:00:57 pm »

.
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William Walker

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Re: Gone
« Reply #1 on: May 11, 2013, 02:23:33 pm »

Hi Russ

This is the kind of landscape I appreciate, so, naturally, I like it.

I like the composition with the house and the line of trees, I like the tones.

The foreground seems to me to be over-sharpened, it appears to be quite "crunchy" - or is it my monitor?

Was this taken on your way back to Colorado? Where in the USA is this?

Regards
William
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amolitor

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Re: Gone
« Reply #2 on: May 11, 2013, 03:39:16 pm »

Spot on. This is excellent. Technically superb, and a very nice composition. While there are elements that I had to think about to be sure of, everything I see needs to be there (with the exception of the sensor dust spot in the sky on the right edge, about half way up!)

I did mentally subtract a little acutance, since as I recall you're always preparing output for print rather than the web, but that was pretty easy.

My only quibble is entirely personal, and it is that I find pure landscapes (even of this sort) to be not very interesting. I'd hang a copy of this without hesitation, though. I hang as much for decor as for introspection.
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RSL

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Re: Gone
« Reply #3 on: May 11, 2013, 07:41:49 pm »

How embarrassing. Thanks Andrew. The sensor dirt doesn't show up in the color version and I didn't check it carefully enough after I made the B&W conversion. Worse yet, I know better.

And William: Yes. I shot it yesterday -- about ten minutes west of Limon on US 24 in Colorado. I have another shot of that place from last year -- in color, with cows lounging around in the yard. Don't have time at the moment to dig it out and post it.

The jpeg looks crunchy and it's probably over-sharpened for posting. I made an 11 x 14 print before I reduced the shot for posting. Neither the PSD version nor the print appear over-sharpened, but jpeg conversion always brings out the worst.
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Jeremy Roussak

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Re: Gone
« Reply #4 on: May 12, 2013, 03:21:47 am »

It's a fine shot, Russ, conveying abandonment and desolation. I'd like it more without the fragment of road in the bottom left corner.

Jeremy
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Rob C

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Re: Gone
« Reply #5 on: May 12, 2013, 04:42:04 am »

I liked the double row of fencing: just like another form of war zone; I wonder if they had it mined?

Those old buildings redolent of lost lives and livings (I think the structure is abandoned) always carry a message, even if the surrounding farmland is currently being cultivated. There is still a presence of death in the air.

To ease a writer's pain at the trace of road: the only way to avoid that, were there free space on the right of the image, would be to place the building further to the left. My favourite second-guess of the day - hope I make no more!

;-)

Rob C

Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Gone
« Reply #6 on: May 12, 2013, 09:42:49 am »

It's a fine shot, Russ, conveying abandonment and desolation. I'd like it more without the fragment of road in the bottom left corner.

Jeremy
I agree, but the bit of road doesn't bother me as much as it does Jeremy. I suspect that if you had moved closer to the fence to omit the road, the lines of the fence and trees would not divide the space nearly as nicely.

Eric
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RSL

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Re: Gone
« Reply #7 on: May 12, 2013, 11:50:46 am »

Thanks Eric. I've been conflicted about the road ever since I stepped out of the car to make the picture. In the end, I agree with you. In fact, I even think that chunk of road needs to be there. But even if I'd been concerned about having the road in the picture there wasn't any way to exclude it without chopping the trees on camera left. Those stark trees that provide a leading line pointing downward toward the abandoned rancher's house were the main reason I stopped to make the shot. As it was, being conflicted about the road, I cut off part of the limb on the leftmost tree. Probably shouldn't have done that.

And Rob, if you lived on the Colorado plains during the winter you'd know why that second fence is there. It's a snow fence, and it helps keep the highway clear of drifts. Emphasis is on the word "helps."

Here's the same place last year -- about 4 days earlier in May. The drought wasn't quite as bad then. The trees look "crunchy" to me, but they weren't crunchy before I converted to jpeg.
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amolitor

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Re: Gone
« Reply #8 on: May 12, 2013, 12:43:13 pm »

I think the road is mandatory. It's a different picture without it, and a much lesser one. Not a BAD one at all, but it's tending far more toward very ordinary.
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Riaan van Wyk

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Re: Gone
« Reply #9 on: May 12, 2013, 12:47:05 pm »

I think the road is mandatory.

Same here Russ. Always saddens me to see house like these, left to themselves.

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Gone
« Reply #10 on: May 12, 2013, 02:28:48 pm »

Looks like a great subject to stop by next time and explore from various angles.

Here is my take, if you do not mind:
« Last Edit: May 12, 2013, 03:18:15 pm by Slobodan Blagojevic »
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nemo295

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Re: Gone
« Reply #11 on: May 12, 2013, 03:05:12 pm »

I hate to say it, Russ, but I think Slobodan's edit is pretty darn good. It pares down the composition to its essential elements and the result is a more powerful image. The darker tonalities, vignetting and coarse grain also add nicely to the overall effect.
« Last Edit: May 12, 2013, 03:06:55 pm by Doug Frost »
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Jeremy Roussak

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Re: Gone
« Reply #12 on: May 12, 2013, 03:08:58 pm »

Here is my take, if you do not mind:

That is a truly astonishing edit, Slobodan - congratulations! I think you might have been just a touch heavy-handed with the grain, though.

Jeremy
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Gone
« Reply #13 on: May 12, 2013, 03:13:37 pm »

...  think you might have been just a touch heavy-handed with the grain, though...

Quite possible. Grain is like spices... season to taste.

However, there was one overriding reason I used it so much: I moved the sliders till the initial crunchiness in Russ' jpeg conversion disappeared (i.e., the grain filled-in those white halos) ;)
« Last Edit: May 12, 2013, 03:15:26 pm by Slobodan Blagojevic »
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amolitor

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Re: Gone
« Reply #14 on: May 12, 2013, 03:33:22 pm »

Slobodan's picture is nice, but it's a completely different picture. It feels slightly eldrith,  little spooky. It's all about the building, and the rest is just context. It could be a horror movie still.

Russ's photograph is about sweep of lines, about desolation and abandonment. The building is just an element that fits with several other elements to create a mood and an idea. The road it vital, for me, because it provides an edge to the composition which is threatening to sweep off to the upper left forever, AND because it provides a hint of the larger world, of that which has abandoned, which has departed.
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Peter McLennan

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Re: Gone
« Reply #15 on: May 12, 2013, 04:01:34 pm »

WAY better, Slobodan. 

'Cept the structure is pretty well centered.
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Rob C

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Re: Gone
« Reply #16 on: May 12, 2013, 04:35:05 pm »

Interesting; even current owners of  Hasselblad 6x6 are now reverting to a little Hasselfake on the side.

Rob C

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Gone
« Reply #17 on: May 12, 2013, 06:30:49 pm »

Interesting; even current owners of  Hasselblad 6x6 are now reverting to a little Hasselfake on the side.

Rob C

Yeah, Rob... all habits die hard :)

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Gone
« Reply #18 on: May 12, 2013, 07:52:18 pm »

... it's a completely different picture...

True.

The point of posting such a radically different picture is not to prove Russ wrong, but to indicate the range of possible interpretations of the same scene.

There is much to like about Russ' version. The high-key tonality ("the unbearable lightness of being" comes to mind for some reason), the road, abandonment, departure, fences... And some elements that bother me: main subject placed too central in a rectangular format; the degree of road visibility (I kinda want to see either less or more of it); foreground (too much or too little of it?). In other words, plenty of good elements, but somehow competing with each other, i.e., not completely sure they fall into place in the most optimal way.

I was just two days ago visiting the latest Michael Kenna exhibition in the Edelman Gallery in Chicago. One of the things that caught my eye is how often he resorts to placing the center of interest... centrally. What does not seem to work in a rectangular format, seems to work splendidly in a square (I can see Rob nodding in agreement).

So I took one good element (of many) in Russ' image and tried to make the most of it by placing it into its natural format: square. The rest of it, tonality, etc. is just my personal idea of abandonment, the very concept of which has a deep psychological impact on me (childhood traumas, I guess).

RSL

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Re: Gone
« Reply #19 on: May 12, 2013, 07:54:07 pm »

Looks like a great subject to stop by next time and explore from various angles.

Here is my take, if you do not mind:

By now you ought to know that I never mind, Slobodan, and I always like to see what you're suggesting instead of being told about it. The ability to do that is one of the things that makes LuLa such a great site.

I like your crop, but as Andrew pointed out it's a completely different picture. I had a 24-120 on the D800 when I made the shot, but there was a 70-200 in the car that I could have swapped for and made the kind of picture you're suggesting: one that focusses on the house rather than the house in the context of the trees. One thing I wanted to emphasize when I made the shot was the delicate limbs of the barely starting to leaf out, trees. That gets lost in your version. The family that occupied that house is gone, but the trees are about to spring into life and produce the kind of resurrection that's there in last-year's picture.

Again, your crop is good, but it's a completely different picture about a completely different subject.
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