Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: Jeremy Roussak on September 01, 2018, 03:40:20 am
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I seldom feel moved to comment on feature articles, but some of the photos in this one are truly wonderful. What a way to have spent a year!
Jeremy
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+1, beautiful photography ...
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Superb. Highly imaginative, innovative and well-executed photography.
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To my eye many of these images rank among the most creative and beautiful that I have seen for a very long time - a fascinatingly different take on nature photography but more than that excellent commentary on a nature v development issue, a good element of humour, and some real artistic flair - very well done and for my penny a very productive grant result.
Excellent - made my morning - thank you to all involved from grant decision through to execution and delivery.
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As is my usual want I scrolled through to look at the images. I then went back and read the article and was even more engaged. Lastly (and strongly recommended) I visited Paula Van Every's website. Many more images, also presented larger for the peepers amongst us ...
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She is really very good. The Luminous Endowment has done a superb job of "surfacing" real talent, with real ideas.
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I am not much of a wildlife photographer or fan but these images could make me a convert. Very well thought out with superb execution.
Victor
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Fantastic imagery. The lyrical visual quality of the birds and their lives, the brutal industrial concrete, the endless vitality of the water, and then, the light she so clearly can see and capture. Great stuff.
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A stunning accomplishment. Fine art of the best sort.
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Fabulous photographic essay, and narrative by the photographer.
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Kevin,
A very worthy recipient of the Endowment that Michael started!
alan z
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It's good to see, this got supported. Great photography. Thanks.
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As is my usual want I scrolled through to look at the images. I then went back and read the article and was even more engaged. Lastly (and strongly recommended) I visited Paula Van Every's website. Many more images, also presented larger for the peepers amongst us ...
I agree.
I just visited her website, and there is a fine set from 2016, including the ones in the LuLa article.
And then she returned to the dam this year, and I believe the new images are even stronger that the 2016 ones.
Fantastic work.
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Thanks for reminding me to visit her site, Eric: there are indeed some gorgeous photos there.
One thing that puzzles me is the prize-winning shot (on the LuLa page). It's fine, but it doesn't strike me as anywhere near as good as at least half of the others and I wonder how it got to be singled out.
Jeremy
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I seldom feel moved to comment on feature articles, but some of the photos in this one are truly wonderful. What a way to have spent a year!
Jeremy
Thank you so much for the kind words and especially for taking the time to start a discussion on my project. I’m accustomed to submitting or responding to images for feedback in forums, but it was an almost surreal experience to see a topic on my dam bird project started by someone else. I felt so honored! (I’ve been observing since your thread opened but have been flummoxed by LULA’s security protections for posting.)
Trying to respond to your question about the “prize image”: were you asking about “Small Dispute”?? If so, it was a winner in a 2017 state outdoor photo contest with particular constraints. LULA awarded their grant based on the initial application set, with none singled out. Most of the images in this article were shot during the year of the LULA grant and just scattered kinda randomly through the narrative.
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As is my usual want I scrolled through to look at the images. I then went back and read the article and was even more engaged. Lastly (and strongly recommended) I visited Paula Van Every's website. Many more images, also presented larger for the peepers amongst us ...
Thank you so much for your encouraging comments, and for taking the time to look at my portfolio. I am so pleased (and relieved) that some of the photographers frequenting LULA found my work interesting.
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Superb. Highly imaginative, innovative and well-executed photography.
Thank you for these comments on my birds. (Imagination is my strong suit but execution is always my challenge.)
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To my eye many of these images rank among the most creative and beautiful that I have seen for a very long time - a fascinatingly different take on nature photography but more than that excellent commentary on a nature v development issue, a good element of humour, and some real artistic flair - very well done and for my penny a very productive grant result.
Excellent - made my morning - thank you to all involved from grant decision through to execution and delivery.
I’m honored and humbled by your comments, and especially pleased that you saw so much of my intent, including the humour that lurks in some of them. These birds often make me laugh but I’m never sure I can capture their comedy - or their drama - in images. Thank you so much for taking time to say these things!
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She is really very good. The Luminous Endowment has done a superb job of "surfacing" real talent, with real ideas.
Thank you for this, and I’m pretty sure you’re the same guy who did the very nice LULA article on women photographers; if so, thank you for that too!!
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I am not much of a wildlife photographer or fan but these images could make me a convert. Very well thought out with superb execution.
Victor
Thank you! I am not a wildlife photographer either, to be honest. I am a landscaper by preference and practice. I first approached the dam bird images as landscape pictures with birds and concrete in them. Of course that changed as I got to know the birds. Then I began to focus on the actors and considered the dam their stage set.
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Fantastic imagery. The lyrical visual quality of the birds and their lives, the brutal industrial concrete, the endless vitality of the water, and then, the light she so clearly can see and capture. Great stuff.
Thank you for taking the time to look, and to think, about the dam bird images. I am so honored by the way you describe them, which is exactly what I’d hoped to do but feared I could not.
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Thank you so much for the kind words and especially for taking the time to start a discussion on my project. I’m accustomed to submitting or responding to images for feedback in forums, but it was an almost surreal experience to see a topic on my dam bird project started by someone else. I felt so honored! (I’ve been observing since your thread opened but have been flummoxed by LULA’s security protections for posting.)
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You're more than welcome. Individually, there are some cracking shots, but as a series they're outstanding.
Trying to respond to your question about the “prize image”: were you asking about “Small Dispute”?? If so, it was a winner in a 2017 state outdoor photo contest with particular constraints. LULA awarded their grant based on the initial application set, with none singled out. Most of the images in this article were shot during the year of the LULA grant and just scattered kinda randomly through the narrative.
Yes, it was the success of "small dispute" which I found a little puzzling. It's a fine shot, without doubt, but there are many others I find more appealing. On the other hand, I am not now nor have I ever been (nor will I ever be, I expect) a competition judge!
Jeremy
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I agree.
I just visited her website, and there is a fine set from 2016, including the ones in the LuLa article.
And then she returned to the dam this year, and I believe the new images are even stronger that the 2016 ones.
Fantastic work.
Thank you for these kind comments about the dam bird project, and for taking the time to visit my rather limited online portfolio. This has encouraged me to go back and do some updating! It’s a chore I neglect rather badly.
A note about the progression of the dam bird images: I do think I’ve become bolder and taken more photographic risks as I’ve worked through this project. Part of it may that be the validation of winning the LULA award made me bolder in 2017 & 18. But part is that the setting has such severe limitations. The “stage” is a finite size with shooting spots limited to about 40 yards and a fixed angle, so I struggle to find new ways to photograph it. Sometimes the Birds help me out!
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Fabulous photographic essay, and narrative by the photographer.
Thank you!
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Joining the accolades.
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Kevin,
A very worthy recipient of the Endowment that Michael started!
alan z
I’m honored that you thought me and the Birds worthy. The endowment is a wonderful gift to the world of photography. I had a chance to promote it on a radio show just last week and will do so again in a newspaper interview next week. We who win these awards can be some of its best spokespeople.
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It's good to see, this got supported. Great photography. Thanks.
Thank you for the comments, much appreciated. The support from LULA opened doors for me that would not have been opened otherwise.
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Yes, it was the success of "small dispute" which I found a little puzzling. It's a fine shot, without doubt, but there are many others I find more appealing. On the other hand, I am not now nor have I ever been (nor will I ever be, I expect) a competition judge!
Jeremy
Contests are funny things, it’s true! Each has its own rules, written and unwritten, that drive what’s submitted and what’s ultimately chosen for awards. That particular contest (which is the only one I had ever entered until the LULA competition) is sponsored by the state Wildlife Federation, and I always enter because I’m a big supporter of their work. But it’s honestly not the best fit for my images. It leans towards documentary photography, and rules don’t allow for much post processing, so I have to choose an image that works SOOC. The LULA competition, on the other hand, seemed perfectly OK with the more “fine art” approach I prefer to use.
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Joining the accolades.
Any many thanks to you for that! It’s been an humbling experience to read this thread about my work.
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She only used M43, not $10,000 worth of camera gear? How can this be? Sarcasm aside, what counts isn't image quality, but quality of the image.
Kent in SD
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A pleasure to look at.
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She only used M43, not $10,000 worth of camera gear? How can this be? Sarcasm aside, what counts isn't image quality, but quality of the image.
Kent in SD
Ah yes, and m43 with a kit lens no less. Heresy :). I confess I was nervous the day I picked up my first large prints because of all I’d read and heard about the impossibility of printing an m43 file at any size, but my printer reminded me that it wasn’t so many years ago that 10mp was a huge digital file, and large prints were made regularly from them.
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A pleasure to look at.
Thank you.
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Brilliant work, Paula!!!
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Outstanding project, Paula. I think the real key to your path to success was establishing the conceptual and aesthetic lanes you wanted to follow from the get-go. That, as you suggest, is fundamental although not always possible until you're ankle-deep into the waters.
A well-deserved winner of this annual award.
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Brilliant work, Paula!!!
Thank you!
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Outstanding work!
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Paula,
Just when I think that there are fewer opportunities for originality and sheer beauty in either landscape or wildlife photography, you come along and show these qualities in both. Outstanding and inspirational work and may we continue to see more of it here. Your website is now among my bookmarked favorites!
Cheers,
Ray
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Outstanding work!
Thank you!
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Outstanding project, Paula. I think the real key to your path to success was establishing the conceptual and aesthetic lanes you wanted to follow from the get-go. That, as you suggest, is fundamental although not always possible until you're ankle-deep into the waters.
A well-deserved winner of this annual award.
Thank you for this interesting comment. I can’t explain even to myself how I narrowed this project down as quickly as I did because I am typically an experimenter who chases too many rabbits. The first image I made of these birds grabbed me, and it charted our course for the next year. Once I got the LULA award, I began experimenting more, but within the framework I’d already set.
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Paula,
Just when I think that there are fewer opportunities for originality and sheer beauty in either landscape or wildlife photography, you come along and show these qualities in both. Outstanding and inspirational work and may we continue to see more of it here. Your website is now among my bookmarked favorites!
Cheers,
Ray
I am honored by your comment here. What snagged me on the dam birds was that I had made an image that I liked, and that felt original. So I turned it into a project for my own pleasure, one thing led to another, and they ended up here on LULA and in their gallery events.
And I reckon if you bookmarked my website, that will propel me to keep it up!
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Wonderful work. When I saw these photos I was reminded of the lighting in The Blade Runner movies. Congratulations.
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Wonderful work. When I saw these photos I was reminded of the lighting in The Blade Runner movies. Congratulations.
Thank you so much. The best bird scenes I find beneath the dam are quite cinematic. The trick is getting them rendered the way they look. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't!
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Dam! Woman, you are good! Thanks for the inspiration.
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:) thanks for that!
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Beautiful work. Among the best I’ve seen lately on LuLa or elsewhere. just stunning. Keep up the good work. Im looking forward to see more.
vid
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Beautiful work. Among the best I’ve seen lately on LuLa or elsewhere. just stunning. Keep up the good work. Im looking forward to see more.
vid
Thank you so much. I’m honored.