Please ignore the "critics", invited or otherwise.
Why don't you take your own advice and share your opinion about the image instead of your opinion about the critics, who, btw, were indeed invited?
The compaint is the equivalent of saying that in every single portrait made by camera and the mind of man, both eyes are obliged to be crisp at all times or, somehow, it becomes difficult to understand "what it's about," as it were. It may have been the Karsh technique, but the world did not fall at his feet: only the sheep felt the obligation.
Not at all. The complaint is that the bar crossing the image is slightly out of focus which makes focussing on the object, taking in the entire image, and specifically the patina, more difficult. The remark was not about the "eyes". Besides, in this day and age, people rave on and on about how eye-autofocus and extreme shallow depth of focus work extremely well on their camera, which, as is quite evident if you look at some modern photography, primarily results in a single whisker in focus and not much else, including a second or third eye.
I would suggest the difficulty, in this specific case, is more likely to reside within the eye of the beholder than in that of the rusted, mask-like object and the presentation.
These situations are why I detest the very nature of critique: it attempts to bend the free will and the spiritual nature of the supplicant into the image of that of the more clever (?) advisor; it is but a public power display, best ignored for your art's sake and that of your own sanitiy, for you will find as many experts giving conflicting views as there are experts.
As in Slobodan's line: when everybody thinks the same nobody thinks.
Please, just do your own thing and be you. Others who know how can teach others that don't how to use cameras and Photoshop, and still, dare I suggest, darkroom work; what you have to say is your business, not theirs. Don't even ask.
Rob
Nobody tries to bend anything. A suggestion was made that
perhaps one could try it with deeper focus so as to emphasise the patina. It was simply a suggestion for a different approach which the suggestor specifically claimed was uncertain to yield the desired result. It showed empathy, and although modern times don't favour this ability, it isn't such a bad character-trait to have. Even towards people offering suggestions...
Personally, I like images that are a bit unsettling, so I think I like it as it is, but I do see how the rendition of the bars might present difficulty in taking in the image. The image bends the mind, both visually as well as mentally, and that, one way or another, is actually a pretty remarkable feat.
