Bloody touristsby
GautiComment by amber: Hello from the Critique Club!
This is one of those images that requires more than a quick glance. First impression? It’s a ‘nice’ picture of a waterfall with some people who are only there to fulfil the challenge of ‘five’. However, on closer inspection there’s much more here.
I love the humour behind this image - a beautiful scene ruined by humans who are so busy talking they̢۪re not even noticing the fantastic rainbow.
The rainbow leads the eye into the image then the viewer becomes almost cross-eyed as one eye is drawn to the waterfall and the other is drawn to the people! As much as you fight it the eye keeps being drawn to the tourists; they compete with the natural scene for attention . This creates a tension for the viewer, leaving you a little irritated, which is the point of the image. A moment like this, with a rainbow and perfect sky, is usually momentary and time won’t stand still and wait for the people to move. So this picture ‘speaks’ to photographers!
I don̢۪t even mind the tourist̢۪s feet being cut off, as some others have commented. As the viewers we want the people to move, but without the image of their feet they are effectively and symbolically rooted to the ground like trees - as far as this image is concerned they will never move! This reinforces the meaning of and the tension in the image.
The image is well balanced: The lovely dark blue of the sky and its shape is balanced by the shape and lightness of the grass. The blue of the sky is also echoed by the blue jeans of the tourists; the orange of the woman̢۪s jacket is picked up in the rainbow; and even the white of the waterfall is echoed in the stripes of the boy̢۪s trousers - all creating a subtle sense of balance in the image. The darker top-right side of the picture is well balanced by the lighter bottom-left.
Excellent depth of field. I particularly like the way the waterfall is frozen in time, as if its waiting for the people to stop talking before it continues to flow!
Focus is sharp - not easy considering all the elements involved.
Exposure is spot on: There is plenty of detail in the dark cliff on the right-hand side of the image, showing lots of texture.
This well taken image works on many levels: It̢۪s humorous, but it̢۪s also a story about the frustrations of photography. It also says something about how humans interact with the world and people around us. It creates a tension in the viewer that means the image is doing what the photographer intended.
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