Tom Fenwick wrote:
> Hmm. Perhaps Nathan is not the only one who doesn't like the large
> defocussed foreground area...
I don't usually comment on posted images I don't much like. But since
you ask ...
I don't think I would have liked the big, bright, fuzzy leaves in the
foreground much anyway. For me, though, the image as a whole didn't work
because it was like two different images fighting over primacy. The
enigmatic image of the woman sitting in the woods with her back to the
camera seems to me to be one story, the bright, OOF leaves to be another
story.
With both present, there's a tug of war for attention between a center
that's quiet and almost mysterious and one that loud and in my face. I'm
not saying it may not be a legitimate artistic piece. But with art that
creates such tensions, many viewers may be pushed away.
Didn't work for me. I wanted to see a shot focused only on the mystery.
> This was becoming an interest of mine - here are another couple of examples!
> Maybe I should be barking up a different tree...
>
(groan)
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/8943748@N07/3086057632/
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/8943748@N07/3040480673/
>
To me, these are both more successful efforts than the first. I don't
think either would find a place on my wall, but both interest and engage
me. They each seem to have a central focus or theme, although very
different from each other.
The first seems to me to be an interesting exercise in formal
composition of large, very different areas. I particularly like the
contrast between the highly detailed, sharp, distant area and the fellow
in front. Somehow it's like the way both photographs and often life are.
Things seen small or at a distance hold the promise of great detail,
meaning, insight, but the closer you look, the fuzzier it becomes.
The second one is strong, engaging. The aggressive engagement seems to
me enhanced by the way the fellow ehind seems to be leaning back, like
the intensity in front of him is dangerous, or perhaps I'm scary, out on
the other side of the glass. This would be one I'd come back to in a
book where the other images mostly weren't like it.
Moose
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