At 02:54 PM 9/17/2003 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
My eye didn't know where to go. The wide angle semi-distortion seemed to give
the Pano two centers of interest, if you know what I mean -- a center of
interest both left and right. Or maybe it's because you shot two river heads. I'm
not totally sure. But my eyeball kept bouncing back and forth, right and left.
Thanks for your comment - I intended the brightly lit area about 1/3rd of the way in from the left to be the center of interest. Not a very tight COI, but, hopefully enough to anchor the image. I really don't want a strongly convergent composition in landscapes.
In my mind the major distraction in the image is the apparent 'seam' that runs down the middle of the shot - though it is nowhere near any actual seam created by the pano process. I struggled with the idea of fudging and taking it out in photoshop, but ultimately came down on the side of leaving it in since it was actually there...
It leaves me wondering if this is a problem with pano's in general? Finding a main center of interest? Some place to direct the eye first? Maybe they are just too wide a scene for most people's eyes to take in all at once.
Last night I was discussing panos with a painter who commented that she had always wanted to do them on a curved canvas. Seems like and interesting idea - - mounting the image on a 180 degree arch would re-work they way it is perceived entirely!
But a more fundamental question - why have a center of interest at all? A lot of Elliot Porter's images, for example, have virtually no center of interest, but are highly effective compositions. When you get into landscapes, do you really want to pull the eye towards one center, or should it not just be allowed to roam?
Granted - I did intend to have a COI in my pano shot, but with a lot of landscapes - like http://www.markcassino.com/feature.htm and http://www.markcassino.com/galleries/landscapes/0308land17.htm I try _not_ to have a COI because that would be antithetical to the intent of the image. I don't know if it works or not - but I think the concept could work if properly executed.
thanks again for you comments!
- MCC
----- Mark Cassino Kalamazoo, MI -----
Photography:
http://www.markcassino.com
