I looked at Igor's comments, went back and looked at the image again a couple of times. I like it as it is. For me the large "blank" space in the middle is a very effective compositional element. In the first couple of seconds my gaze falls past that empty space to focus on the ship, then goes back to check the emptiness again, then the clouds, then back down to the ship. At which point I realize I need to step back, as it were, and look at the whole scene. There is tension because of the empty space, but the whole scene holds together nicely.
On a related but different compositional matter, I was just reading a discussion of works by Canaletto, a Venetian painter back when. A great deal is made of his use of unnatural perspective by which the critics seem to mean that the scene must have been composed as though with a wide angle lens, there is no way the human eye could take in everything he presents. I've stood in the spot where one of his paintings was done, and I know it would take a 10-15mm lens to capture that scene. But for me his paintings work, maybe because I sometimes think in wide-angle terms, and the critics are maybe expecting him to stand with eyes front and capture just what he can see without turning his head. Which may be what is going on with your image as well. stan On Oct 20, 2011, at 6:44 PM, Brian Walters wrote: > 'Morning all... > > Thanks Bob, Larry, Ken, Tim, Ann, Dave, Chris, Igor - and all who took a > look. > > A couple of responses.... > > > Igor - thanks for the detailed critique. I tried your cropping > suggestion and it works well although I like the uncropped image as > well. This seems to be one of those images that 'grows' on you (well, > me anyway). I was unsure about the darkness of the clouds, but the more > often I came back to it the better I liked it. > > The black background and white border are both set by the current JAlbum > settings and apply to all of the images in that PESO gallery. I don't > like the absolute black background either and I've been meaning to tweak > the JAlbum style sheet to change that. I've tried a light to mid grey > but the background colour also applies to the index page and a light > grey doesn't seem to work well there. I'm leaning towards a dark grey. > I'm less concerned about the white border but I'll play around with that > as well. > > > Dave - Thanks. I don't know what you Kiwis have done to deserve the > year you've had but you should have a bit to cheer about tomorrow night. > > > Cheers > > Brian > > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > Brian Walters > Western Sydney Australia > http://lyons-ryan.org/southernlight/ > > > > > > On Thursday, October 20, 2011 7:28 PM, "David Mann" > <[email protected]> wrote: >> On Oct 20, 2011, at 1:14 AM, Brian Walters wrote: >> >>> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1370864/PESO/slides/_IGP3239a-peso.html >> >> Given what's all over our news lately (a stricken container ship which >> hit a reef just out of Tauranga) one of my first thoughts was that it was >> leaking so much oil it'd turned the ocean black. >> >> I do like the photo, especially the clouds. > > > > > > On Wednesday, October 19, 2011 2:39 PM, "Igor Roshchin" <[email protected]> > wrote: >> >> Brian, >> >> I very much like the idea, technical part (the exposure, the silhouette >> appearance, etc.), but something in the overall image doesn't quite work >> for me. >> >> First, I thought it was the large gap between two interesting parts: >> the ship and the clouds. >> I remember having a similar reaction to one of the pictures posted here >> several year ago (I don't remember who did it, may be Godfrey?), >> that also had something high at the sky, and something at the very >> bottom, I believe, also right on the water. >> >> I was thinking if reducing that gap would have helped that, - probably >> not. >> Cutting out the clouds completely would not help either, - you need >> something at the top to complete the picture. >> >> It might be that the low profile of the ship is responsible for that >> impression. So, that part is relative to the overall dark area. >> So, I just tried to do the following cropping (using just the browser >> window >> to obscure the rest): about half of the black area >> from the bottom, about half of the darkest portion of the clouds from >> the top, and probably nothing from the sides. >> That seems to work better for me. >> >> There is one more component that didn't quite work for me: >> the combination of the black background and the white border. >> So, even without doing the cropping, getting rid of the white border >> and black background helps (even thought I like and use this combination >> myself very often). >> I'd choose a light off-white, maybe light-light-light grey/bluish >> overall background for this photo. >> >> I hope you don't mind me "butchering" your nice photo. :-) >> >> >> Igor >> >> >> >> Wed Oct 19 08:14:34 EDT 2011 >> Brian Walters wrote: >> >>> I spent a couple of days at an old lighthouse keeper's cottage last >>> week >>> and got up early one morning to catch the sunrise. I was a bit late - >>> the sun had cleared the horizon before I got outside. I managed to get >>> this shot of one of the many bulk carriers anchored offshore. >>> >>> >>> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1370864/PESO/slides/_IGP3239a-peso.html >>> >>> >>> Comments and suggestions appreciated. >>> > -- > > > -- > http://www.fastmail.fm - mmm... Fastmail... > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
