Chief Leatherlipsby
xtabintunComment by e301: From the Critique Club
Hi James.
I really really like this image, with just a couple f minor points that detract from it for me: those are, quickly, that the blue in the sky has gone i think too far in saturation - it's become too unreal for the rest of the image, and has left the clouds looking more like a PS effect than anything real. The second thing is the half presence of that tree to the left - I'd have either tried to include it completely, or to remove it altogether. I just don't see the benefit of including only half of it, even though the colour is nice - but it isn't worth stretching the composition for, to my mind.
But this, overall, has wonderful, precise, different qualities of composition. I love the balance of elements - the low horizon, the face looking out of frame, the curve of green, the one tree with the last leaves hanging (Oh man, you shoudl have got rid of the red tree: it would make it such a strong, simple, and yet different composition). The light, the sense of highlight and shade on the face is fabulous, and wonderfully controlled.
The hidden messages are strong here too - and that's perhaps what i most like about it. The strange-face turned away from the bright colours and the autumn tree, and your composition placing him so that the sense is a deliberate turning of the back on such obvious and cliched things. 'I will not look for the bland, for the bright blues and greens, and those things that all the others find so comforting and compelling; I must look to my own world, and the important things of that.'. Great sense of message, great, and under-rated message.
you score will most probably have been strongly affected by the blinkered, who will have looked only for images of soldiers, firemen and the like, and either do not possess or cannot spare the brain-time to see this as fitting the challenge. You need, I think (and having looked at other images of yours), to be more blunt and srtaightforward with your choice of subject, if you are to break the six barrier. But who cares, with an image like this?
Ed
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