the view from the tip, aspiring for regenerationby
GilesComment: [commenting following your request for opinions on the forum]
I scored this a 4. It is a pretty good idea but I didn't found the image conveyed it too well.
In first place, while I am familiar with the sight of a landfill from my studies and could tell what the foreground is immediately, I suspect many could not.
In this sense your choice of DOF works against the concept, as it does the lack of some element in the foreground to suggest inequivocably that this is a landfill. Typically, It could have been some discarded and recognizable appliance with perhaps some pleasing texture to it to get you extra score, or anything making clear that this is a proper landfill, not the scene of some occasional fly tipping.. A collection of new and old elements, suggesting we are facing years and years of continuos landfilling, would have been quite effective.
Perhaps, a digger at work, as you have in one of your outtakes, would have worked well in that sense and also given the idea that things might be about to change, if that was the intention.
The background could have been far more attractive, if your intention was to suggest that the landfill could one day be regenerated and made habitable. In that sense, a more appealing natural light and a background lighter than the foreground would have helped.
If the intention was, as you say in the comment, to highlight the source of the trash, ideally you could have framed so to create a connection. For instance, show some road from the town apparently leading to the landfill, perhaps with a rubbish truck on it. Or a set up with a human figure dumping rubbish from an household bin, perhaps.
In general, while I personally don't downscore heavily for that, I think the blown highlights and less than excellent WB and bokeh might have worked against the image scorewise. Many undecided might have gone for a 4 or less because or that, while it could have been 5s or 6s.
In general, downfills offers quite good chances for shooting against the sun, with all the dust flying in the air and the stark shapes of the diggers, provided that they let you approach while at work. Salgado has some excellent images of that kind on his 'workers' series, for instance.
The last thing has nothing to do with the image but more with the audience. Regeneration is significantly more promoted and advertised in the UK than in the US, I suspect. It's not that in the US there are not regeneration projects, but int he UK the government advertisement and pressure have been considerable, so vvery few people don't know what that is.
I don't think that this is the main problem, but one additional consideration.
Hope this helps.
Photographer found comment helpful.
