Reunification
by stephan

Comment by stephan:
Well... just four comments... seems the photo really sucked. I agree that it's not a great shot, it was more the theme I tried to convey. See the photo details for an explanation. But even that didn't came across. I thought that most people will recognise the sign and associate it with the history it stands for. Well... apparently not.

I chose this photo of the series _because_ it was busy. I wanted to show the contrast of all the trouble in the history (represented by the sign) and the normality today (represented by the street scene). In all the other photos I took at this location there were tourists staring at the sign and photographing like me ;-) I liked how the people walk normally over the street now when some years ago there was the Berlin wall with fences, army guards etc at this place. I also didn't want to remove the cranes because they somehow added to this picture (in my opinion). They show todays progress and development at the former broder areas.

Anyway 5.2 is actually a good score for this photo, I just would have liked more comments to see how other people think about it and if it was possible to see the things I had in mind when taking the photo.

Reunification
by stephan

Comment by m3megm:
great sign but picture...

Reunification
by stephan

Comment by autool:
Composition: Subject Placement, Cropping, Background7,
Technical: Focus, Exposure, Lighting, Processing6,
Appeal: Is it Interesting, Motivating, Etc.? 4,
Total Averaged Rating6. Autool

Reunification
by stephan

Comment by justine:
Nice work...where is this? Good luck to you. Score 7 Justine

Reunification
by stephan

Comment by alanfreed:
Wow -- where the heck is that? :) Interesting sign, perhaps a little too busy below. It would have been interesting to see it with the camera tilted down enough to eliminate the cranes.

Evening Prayer
by stephan

Comment by Frank Beckman:
Thanks for your explanation.

BTW, Do you know any Beckman's in Germany? My Great Grandfather come to America from Germany and I under stand that it is a common name over there. I think they use 2 n's on the end.

Evening Prayer
by stephan

Comment by just-married:
Stephan, my husband had the same interpretation of the photo that you were going for. Because he saw this intent in the photo, he scored it higher. While I recognize this intent and I like it, in my opinion the photo was unsuccessful in conveying it. I agree with most of Courtenay's assessment below; more of the most would make your symbolism carry more weight. It's a shame that you couldn't capture more of the building -- believe me when I tell you that I've experienced that frustration.

Evening Prayer
by stephan

Comment by stephan:
As already described in the details the photo shows a mosque. So, no there is no cross ;-) I thought one could recognise this because of the crescent moon, the symbol of the islam. But it probably was too small. It was not possible to show more of the minaret because there were other buildings below, which would have made the photo even worse.

But the mosque was not intended as the primary subject. The negative space had a meaning. I titled the photo "evening prayer". A prayer is when somebody talks to god. The sky/heaven is something what many people associate with god. So the sky was a metaphor for god and the mosque was only there to give a hint about that.

Well, only 10 comments... I guess it was too farfetched and not really possible to understand without some explanation and just by looking at the photo. So everybody just saw a boring sky with a too short spire. I don't say that with the explanation the photo is necessarily less boring. I primarily submitted the photo because I liked the colour scale from the light yellow in the bottom right corner to the blue.

Anyway, thanks to all for setting me straight ;-) I hope I'll do better photos in the future.

Evening Prayer
by stephan

Comment by courtenay27:
This suffers from something that I've noticed in other submissions this week, that's relying too heavily on the notion of "negative space". From your title, I'm assuming this is a church but that's the only clue I have because otherwise all I see is a frame full of empty sky and the top of a building with what looks like a lightning rod. This image would have been more clear and had more impact if you actually put the church in the frame so we can identify it and just used enough sky as a background to allow the eye to wander. If the building were still thrown into shilouette your sky, as negative space, would still be quite successful but you would also have a defined subject.
Score: 6
Courtenay

Evening Prayer
by stephan

Comment by vlaben:
I'd say here space took too much importance. I owuld show more of minaret. giving 7