Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: seamus finn on February 23, 2010, 02:05:15 pm
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Requiescat in Pace.
Ballinafad Village, Co. Sligo, Ireland.
[attachment=20443:Requiesc...in_Pace2.jpg]
Or this?
[attachment=20447:Requiesc..._Pace_bw.jpg]
Cheers,
Seamus
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Bloody criminal! Not your photo, just that a pub should ever come to this
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Bloody criminal! Not your photo, just that a pub should ever come to this
Here here!!!
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Hi,
To me the coloured is the winner.
The red jumped in my eyes.
It is a powerful image.
The B&W version is not working so well, because the red has the same
tone as the roof, so it does not have the same impact.
Cheers,
Fred.
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The color version works better for me. I love the detail in this picture but most of the good stuff (for me) is happening to the right of the chimney's. I wonder if cropping out the left hand side of the picture might strengthen this a bit.
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The color version works better for me. I love the detail in this picture but most of the good stuff (for me) is happening to the right of the chimney's. I wonder if cropping out the left hand side of the picture might strengthen this a bit.
How much of the left are you talking? I like the flower thingies in the windows. Losing 1 window might help the balance but any more than that and I think you lose the original picture. And if you want to lose the original pic then I'd square crop the sucker.
Oh, and I like the color version. It is just a nice red.
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First off....definitely the colour version.
Its a fabulous shot, I love the offset red door and the high contrast.
I can picture in my mind a mid afternoon, a number of bamboo flyrods leaning against the front wall, while inside a group of guys at a table, pints half empty discuss which dry flies will have the best chance of fooling a trout that afternoon and telling the inevitable fisherman tall tales of "you shoulda been here last week"
All of a sudden I have an urge to rig up my flyrod and throw a line in the backyard......is it spring yet?
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How much of the left are you talking? I like the flower thingies in the windows. Losing 1 window might help the balance but any more than that and I think you lose the original picture. And if you want to lose the original pic then I'd square crop the sucker.
Oh, and I like the color version. It is just a nice red.
Yeah, I'd try a crop that removed the far left window.
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Definitely the colour. I'd be careful cropping too much from the left because the branches above the roof provide a nice framing complement to the branches on the right. Might be my eyes, but the image seems to be a little tilted down to the left, based on the roofline.
Mike.
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Thanks all.
Here's a cropped version with the roof straightened (as best I can even with the help of PS grids!)
Background: all over rural Ireland, pubs are either closing down or are between a rock and a hard place thanks to a devastating recession plus tougher drink driving laws. Customer numbers have dwindled alarmingly. Back in the day, some great characters, many of them bachelors living alone, drove in all manner of vehicles to the pubs in the evening for a pint or two, but more so for the chat, companionship and the 'craic' as we say here. Now they stay at home, more isolated and vulnerable than ever. Without being pretentius about it, I see this pub, 'The Angler's Rest', in my mind's eye as a sort of memorial to that generation.
Seamus
[attachment=20482:Requiesc...in_Pace5.jpg]
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Seamus,
I think the cropped version puts the door too close to the centre and makes the composition more static.
No crop for me.
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Seamus, Well, now we've heard from all the croppers, and somehow they even managed to conn you to into vandalizing your picture. For some reason I always connect that term "crop" with "come a cropper," which, to me seems an appropriate association. To my eye the original color version is the best of the choices. It often seems to come back to that -- that what made you shoot the picture in the first place is the definitive vision.
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No crop, Russ - agreed.
Any thoughts on this, anyone?
Seamus
[attachment=20489:Maguires_shop_lum.jpg]
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Well, the crop works better for me but it's all subjective, right. Regardless, it's a very nice picture Seamus.
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I like the composition, but the "soot and ash" contrast isn't working for me.
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No crop, Russ - agreed.
Any thoughts on this, anyone?
Seamus
Seamus, I love the shot, but from what I see on my monitor there appear to be two problems: (1) The whole thing looks over-sharpened. I'm not sure it really is, but it sure looks that way. I especially get that feeling from the leaves on the tree in the upper left and from the vegetation in front of the buildings. (2) The front of the Maguire building and the roof of the connector between the buildings appears blown out. Again, I'm not sure it is, but it sure looks as if it is. Is there a color version of this one? If I were looking at this in Silver EFEX Pro I'd pop a UPoint point into each of the orifices -- the doors, the opening in the lower part of the connector, and the window in the connector and see if I could bring up a bit more detail in the interiors. But that's a style judgment that has to be left up to the guy doing the job. I think the composition is excellent. The buildings certainly are interesting.
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Thanks Russ. Does this work? My first was atrocious.
Seamus
[attachment=20511:russ_best.jpg]]
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I agree with Russ. And the new version works well for me.
Eric
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You got it. Right on the money. Great stuff, Seamus.
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Thanks so much, Ross, for your detailed analysis.
Here's another sample of rural decline - this is in North Sligo, Ireland.
[attachment=20515:gleniff_cottage.jpg]
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Seamus, It's an interesting structure. Sort of reminds me of this one in Florida:
[attachment=20517:05_Apr_05_13_Edit.jpg]
Underneath all that foliage are picture windows, etc., in fact a regular art deco living room.
But on my monitor your new photograph looks as if there's been a snowstorm. If there has been then the picture's okay. If not, it's blown out and, again, over-sharpened.
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Ooops, I think I'm having technical trouble at the transmitter! It's a scan from a negative, I think possibly Kodak Infrared film. I'll go back to the neg (if I can find it and get back to you.
I like the Florida image - it poses more questions than it answers. What's around the corner, I wonder.
Slan,
Seamus
Edit: I've found the neg - it's Ilford FP4 Plus. I'll rescan it later and see what happens. Fingers crossed.
S
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Something like this?
[attachment=20524:mossy_ho...nd_split.jpg]
Flogging a dead horse?
Seamus
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Seamus, That's at least a lot closer to the ideal. Priceless old building. I always wonder how old... Maybe there are ghosts of Druids hiding back there in the woods.
The old Florida place is from about the twenties or early thirties I'd guess. Most of it is pretty coarse construction, but they built a beautiful living room that could look out on the big lake in front of the place. Then, at some point they abandoned it. Down here in Florida it doesn't take more than a few years for the kind of growth that swallowed the main part of the house. Now it's gone, and a brand new, boring vacation house has been built in its place.
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Something like this?
[attachment=20524:mossy_ho...nd_split.jpg]
Flogging a dead horse?
Seamus
That's more like it.
Eric
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Russ, I went down to the woods today looking for the ghosts of Druids and got a big surprise when I found this one at Half Moon Bay, Hazelwood, Sligo, Ireland.
Slan,
Seamus
[attachment=20544:robin_on...wood_man.jpg]
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Seamus, A very interesting druid. From the chainsaw cut on his left side I'd guess he's been in a battle. How appropriate for a bird to live in the hair of a wooden druid.
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New pics as promised
[attachment=20775:Clare_house2_LUM.jpg]
[attachment=20776:IRA_house.jpg]
[attachment=20779:michael_house_LL.jpg]
[attachment=20781:old_rail...house_LL.jpg]
[attachment=20782:shed_door_LL.jpg]
[attachment=20787:gleniff_door_LL.jpg]
Cheers,
Seamus
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Seamus, Looks as if you got control of the process. This is wonderful stuff. The only nit I'd pick is the rocks in #3 that look too blue to me. I'm sure they're reflecting a blue sky, but maybe not that blue. But -- that's a very small nit. These shots don't show any sign of the over-sharpening and blown-out highlights I saw in some of the earlier stuff. The sharpening -- at least for my monitor -- is perfect, and the subject matter is fascinating.
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As usual, Russ, your analysis is invaluable, much appreciated and right on the button.
S