Stop
by puzzled

Comment:
Quote: "If I were more clever, I could write something symbolic about this image"

Oh, the symbology of this image is so easy to interpret!

Here we have the ultimate bucolic scene. Gently rolling pastoral land, and the abundant evidence of a man's honest labour. It's an ordered, timeless world, ruled not by clocks and meeting agenda, but by the sun and the seasons. The land here is both harvested and nurtured, a perpetual cycle of mutual benefit.

But in the foreground, there appears in the rank weed heads the evidence of another, wilder world snapping and snarling at the very borders of Shangri-La. A world of haste and neglect. A world consuming itself in ruin. This malevolent land yields nothing. Quod Severis Metes.

Separating these two incompatible foes is a road; a protective membrane that guards the gentler land from infection by its chaotic neighbour's primitive excesses. And just in case those damned weeds don't get the message, there's a bloody big sign.

See? Nothing to it!

1185 W. Georgia
by zeuszen

Comment:
Oh! No comments before mine, but I like this photograph very much, so I will have to risk making a solitary fool of myself.

It's an image with some delicious contradictions. At first it appears made up of regular geometric shapes, but it's actually not. With the exception of the big triangle at upper left, every shape is just a little imperfect, irregular or asymmetrical. No line takes the easy, "natural" way to a corner of the frame. The effect is one of tension and restlessness.

The point-of-view also seems initially comprehensible, but a further moment's study shatters that illusion, too. Is it a building seen from above; seen from an adjacent, taller building? Or seen from below, from beneath some sort of overhanging structure? And what is that reflected detail? Is the whole image perhaps a reflection? I've even turned it upside down, without comfort. My every effort to rationalise it has been defeated.

Knowing something your views in these matters (from the forums), I expect that this irreconcilability is no accident. I'm not dismayed, anyway; my inability to master it is one of the things I most like about it.

The other is purely graphic. In particular the lovely gradient across the windows on the left side, and then the gentlest rendering of the window detail on the right hand side.

So that's it; bold shapes, delicate detail and bags of enigma. Can't wish for much more than that.

Taking pictures
by puzzled

Comment:
I entirely agree with the two very clever ladies below. This is a beautifully textured and balanced image, and it's one of those all too rare photographs that rewards a couple of minutes' consideration. I love it.

Magic garden
by LevT

Comment:
There's a beautiful woman trapped in there, Lev. I see her right eye, just to the right and above centre. I see a garland of flowers in her hair. I see her raised upper arm, starting left centre and extending up through the top of the frame. And I see her breasts at lower centre and right (well, OK, I always see breasts). And now that I've found her, I cannot look at this image and see anything else.
This is a beautiful series of photographs ... well conceived, flawlessly executed and beautifully processed. Oh, and the titles are a final sublime touch.

Marion-in-middle-age.jpg
by dragonlady

Comment:
Well Ed, I'm not and she looks OK to me too. The mattress has a nice gradient to it ... I must look for one of those. As well as the delightful candour of this self-portrait, there are some nice details. Especially the eye peeking out through the hair; gives the photograph a jaunty, slightly conspiritorial air! There's still a tiny hint of Roman Polanski there somewhere. I think it's the haircut.

Pit stop
by LevT

Comment:
I like the idea that she could stop off at her church on the way back from shopping, and line up her groceries right on the floor next to her. France is a largely Catholic country, and their practice of that faith must be more informal and unselfconscious than how I remember my own experience as a child, when a visit to the church was a formal occasion, demanding best clothes and (most importantly) safety in numbers. Taking the groceries would have been out of the question!

A chance encounter
by LevT

Comment:
Ah ... well I cannot agree with the comment that severs this at waist level. Although that hat in this setting is initially incongruous to the point of being alarming, it's the man's comfortable stance, a sort of slouch from the waist down, that gives this photograph its durability. The hat is a certainly a curiosity, but the stance is charming! Especially as it is juxtaposed with the rigidly geometric, formal "body" formed by the column supporting the bust at the right of frame. There's a certain whimsical interplay between these three characters: the man considers the painting, the subject of the painting stares back at him (sadly, I think), and the bust lady shyly averts her eyes.
And aside from all that, the photograph simply looks good ... the processing is terrific.

(edit for spelling)

Message edited by author 2006-02-11 17:22:37.

Oasis
by LevT

Comment:
Well, what an undiscovered gem this is! Been here over 4 months and had just 6 views before mine. And yet it deserves so much more.

I've just spent 15 minutes with this photograph. Me getting into it, and it getting into me. And it was worth the effort. It became more absorbing and rewarding the longer I looked. I'm still not sure I drained it of all its possibilities, but I gave it a good shot.

My first impression was that it is a theatrical kind of image. It has the look of one of those tiny worlds that are created on stage in the theatre out of just a few props and some artful lighting. Totally convincing, yet actually surrounded by a great black void of nothing. It's the lighting you've used, of course, but there's more than that ... because of the few well-chosen details you have judiciously revealed, the scene is actually more convincing than if you'd let us see everything. That's a technique right from the theatre. And also from strip-tease, of course.

It also recalls those beautiful Flemish and Dutch Masters, where the artist has included plenty of detail but has suppressed or muted most of it, and commanded our full initial attention for the intended point on the canvas. It was done partly with light and partly with meticulous compositional skill, just as has been achieved here.

The viewer is reminded, in looking at the restraint in the way you've put this image together, of the aphorism "Less is More", usually attribited to the architect Mies van der Rohe.

My next thoughts strayed to the location depicted. I have just such a small library; a couple of thousand books, two deep wing chairs, and a discrete LCD screen for the football. It's an oasis. This scene conveys the same feelings for me. Quiet, reassuring; sanctuary.

But the most absorbing aspect for the viewer is to speculate on what the image means. What's it about?

At first I thought it was about death, or more accurately about mortality. The empty chair and the book set aside with the spectacles marking the page is an obvious symbol of an unexpected departure. But is it a permanent departure (i.e. death)?

I think not. There are some clues supporting a happier, more optimistic interpretation. The book is open, not closed. Closed would have been much more symbolic of death. More final. And the pages are fresh - crisp white paper, and only recently fanned open (the book has not slumped into the flattened resignation of abandonment). There is definitely an "I'll be back, and soon" look to this scene.

Contrast it with this equally absorbing photograph:


On the face of it, these two images have a lot in common. But they actually have quite different meanings. JPR's photograph is unequivocally about mortality. Nobody is coming back to sit in his chair.

Your chair, however, is about something else entirely. I think it's about sanctuary and self-sufficiency. It's about understanding and preserving the values that truly matter in life, and regularly returning to those things as necessary. Those values are represented here by the comfortable, lovingly-worn chair; the books; the honest simplicity of the floor; even by the fact that the spectacles worn here are not those used outside this place. This place even has its own costume.

So, it's a deceptively simple scene constructed from just a few visible elements (and some invisible elements), and yet it is filled with buried allegorical treasure. I'm happy to have been the first pirate to have dug it up.

Call Me Yellow
by hdogg4u

Comment:
Greetings, Hiral, from the world famous Critique Club!

Every time I press that button to get another image to critique, I pray that it won't be a flower. The only thing I like less than a photo of a flower is two photos of flowers. So you see I am uniquely qualified to judge your image! So let's go ...

Well, the composition is pretty good. Rather than simply cramming a small subject way over in a corner, you have found a way to have the subject dominate the frame but still satisfy the off-centre requirement. That's very well thought out - much better than your relatively modest finishing spot in the results would suggest.

So why did you finish lower than your good compositional idea deserved?

First reason would be focus. This kind of photograph really demands precision in focus, depth-of-field and exposure. That's really all the image can be about; the only interest it can have, unless the viewer is a flower nut. So it's got to be executed perfectly, and this isn't. The focus is soft over most of the flower, and the impression is one of indecision. Uncertainty. You haven't mentioned what lens you used, but at F11 I'd have expected that reasonable sharpness should have been possible over the whole flower, as long as the focus was even close to accurate. Given the long exposure, I am assuming you used a tripod, so maybe the softness is partly due to some miniscule movement of the flower? After all, 1.3 secs is a long time - nearly long enough for the poor flower to start to wilt!

Another issue was probably the dead-looking leaf peeling back from the stem. It is an unattractive little sucker, and seems to steal attention away from the real star; the bloom. And along the same lines, the commenter who mentioned the background may have a point - the light background band does seem to direct our attention to the wrong part of the subject.

So, my conclusion is that this was a good idea and a fine composition, but your execution of the details has let you down a bit.

On a brighter note, this critique led me to your portfolio, where I found this:



What a brilliant photograph that is! Fabulous subject, terrific composition, and a very thoughtful and interesting take on that particular challenge topic. And to top it off, the technical execution of the B&W was excellent as well. It's a photograph of which anyone at DPC could be proud. So I hope my promotion of it here will make up a little for my less enthusiastic reception of the flower image.
Cheers,
Paul

Calm
by Tej

Comment:
Beautiful. This looks so simple, but it is actually quite demanding of any viewer prepared to make the effort.

It first raises questions of scale; what could initially be taken for small seedlings are actually seen to be full-grown trees! Careful examination reveals many fine details, including the very strange shapes of the foliage in these apparently alpine trees. Which in turn leads to speculation about the location and altitude of the scene. And the drifting bank of cloud allows just a small and tantalising glimpse of a serious-looking background slope. The inevitable conclusion is that this must be one of the worlds wild and remote places.

The photograph works on two levels. First it is physically very beautiful, comprising just a few simple elements combined with harmony and confidence. And second, it is a pleasing mental exercise, because it triggers an absorbing chain of thought in the mind of the enquiring viewer.

So it has both beauty and purpose; a rare combination!