Neon Bowls
by Bear_Music

Comment by mattrix:
Looks like when you saved thgis for the web your color pallete got reduced to 256 or so, I can see the rgb layers.

Neon Bowls
by Bear_Music

Comment by jonpink:
Nice, but think the dark grey could have been darker perhaps? Seems a bit pushed.

Cottage by the Winter Marsh — Herring River
by Bear_Music

Comment by mycelium:
Here's my input.

I gave this a 7. I will get around to saying just why shortly. I think it's a great picture, and its subtlety of tones set it apart from many of the other submissions. The curvature of the tree on the left holds the image together very nicely. In another challenge, say, a free study, I would probably have given this another point or two.

But the reason I didn't- and the reason I think that a lot of other people scored it so poorly- is that it's really not a shot of architecture. It's a shot that, technically, includes architecture, but the cottage doesn't appear to have anything particularly impressive about its design, nor is the cottage itself even the dominant element in the picture. What I most notice, in order, are the window, the chimney, and the golden light on the grass in the background. Following that I find myself looking at the image as a whole, and noticing the play of light and the understated gradations of tone. By my reckoning, it simply doesn't meet the challenge very well.

Which is not to say it's not a great picture- it is, to which your several sales attest.

Cottage by the Winter Marsh — Herring River
by Bear_Music

Comment by rblanton:
I voted a 5. Your explanations make sense however the light draws the eye away from the cottage. I am sure many folks admire this outside of the expectation of an architecture theme. Framed well and lit off subject to my eye. Telescope houses are not that usual and perhaps a hint of that in the title might have helped. While you can see through the windows, it is to a poorly lit scene beyond so that aspect does not immediately provide appeal to me. It would make me want to catch a picture with those trees lit up by the setting sun however....:)

Cottage by the Winter Marsh — Herring River
by Bear_Music

Comment by Imagineer:
I think this idefinitely above average. I also liked the additonal 'architecture' of the bird house!

Cottage by the Winter Marsh — Herring River
by Bear_Music

Comment by samtrundle:
This is quite charming. It's understated nature is likely both the reason you have made 450 dollars from it, and it's downfall on dpc. I didn't vote on this challenge, and it's honestly not the style of photo that typically takes me, but I still think this should have been 50 odd places higher. The only real complaint I have about the image is, as zeusen notes, a lack of definition in the sky above the house - I think a little blue and some puffy clouds would have really helped - oh well, it's tough to change the weather :)

Cottage by the Winter Marsh — Herring River
by Bear_Music

Comment by GeneralE:
I appreciate the additional explanation about the crop on the right. I think what "bothers" me about that is that, with the smaller room a perfect rectangle shot square-on, too much attention is now drawn to the "missing" cottage off the right edge, rather than to the junction/relationship of the cottage to the marsh, which you state is the primary subject.

Had you been standing just a couple of feet to the right so that you keep essentially the same composition but with a very slight perspective of the cottage wall receding into the marsh it would soften the impact of the missing building.

Since the topic was Architecture, I'm sure a lot of people just expected you to concentrate on the building. Still, I voted on the high side of the bell curve ...

Neon Bowls
by Bear_Music

Comment by cardmaverick:
Was there a lot of editing involved in this picture?

Cottage by the Winter Marsh — Herring River
by Bear_Music

Comment by strangeghost:
Yeah, you were robbed. I doubt that the typical DPCer stopped to look more than a few seconds to critize cropping the house out. The composition as is shows a lot of attention to detail and the elements are are very well balanced in an understated sort of way. Beautiful colors and tones as well.

Cottage by the Winter Marsh — Herring River
by Bear_Music

Comment by Bear_Music:
I didn't expect this to get a ribbon, not flashy enough, but I am stunned that it finished 175th out 0f 221... It's one of my favorite pictures.

Even granted that it is subtle and quirkily composed, you'd think it could at least make the top 50%, sheesh...

Regarding the composition, I wanted more grass than sky, I wanted it to be unbalanced that way. Ditto the tight crop on the right. It's the relationship of cottage to marsh, structure to environment, that i was after. Yes, smoke would have been nice, but it's a summer cottage; nobody lives there in the winter.

Looking at it afterwards (and I mean RIGHT after I shot it) I realized I needed a a little more sky (not much) but the "moment of light" for this shot only lasted like 45 seconds or a minute, I ran out and drove over here in a brief interlude of weak sunlight near sundown on a bleak day in the midst of a bleak week near the end of the challenge period.

The right edge of this image, BTW, is VERY precisely selected, it's by no means an accidental thing. look at the window mullions and the fence slats; give it a hair more on the right, and you get a new slat; a hair less, and you lose a mullion. Move far enough over to end it after the next slat in the fence, and you've got a mullion problem and an "almost complete" window, which I definitely did not want. I wanted this cottage to bleed off "edgily", it affects its relationship with the landscape. The same shot with the whole cottage, had I taken it, would have been an utterly different thing. Had I gone back enough to include the door, as one person suggested, it would have been an utterly different thing.

I particularly like the way you can see the view THROUGH the window.

Robt.

Message edited by author 2013-12-08 12:18:05.