View Full Version : Photo Critique: "Boulder," February 3, 2023
All indications so far are the photographer submitting for critique gets to make the rules. :cool: First, just to verify I'm posting in the correct thread, the image is 6x12 cropped from a 4x5 negative. You may recognize it - I posted it here once before.
I would like to get critique with and without a statement of intent, so I open this up now with just the image, then will give a statement later this evening or tomorrow morning. Play before the statement, after, both, or not at all.
You can't hurt my feelings. A photographer friend looked at this image and said "It's not happening - get rid of it!" He's done that to me before, then later said "I know you're going to do what you want, regardless of what I say." I kept it.
https://static.wixstatic.com/media/eef209_e1203138df9648208c5f5c90c47bde7a~mv2.jpg
My problem is, I cannot tell if it is a rock or bail of hay
I do remember the image
If I had money, I would buy a copy unframed 8X10
Money talks...
I like panoramas, but this doesn't strike me as a panorama subject. I think it might be more striking if it were in the 4x5 format. 6x12 might work with a wider lens and/or closer up. Some contrast would add some punch, too. Maybe getting up a little higher???
Always nice to see someone using a 4x5 camera to make panoramas -- I'm a cropping aficionado.
Graham Patterson
3-Feb-2023, 16:46
I originally trained as a geologist, so that probably colours my thinking. There are a several ways for boulders to be isolated like this.
I can see time, entropy, change. Even the anthropomorphic - 'nice here, innit?".
Peter De Smidt
3-Feb-2023, 17:09
Perception is more about the perceiver than the object. That's why critique is so difficult. I like the image. The static composition allows my attention to wander through the photograph, but it always gets pulled back to boulder. The contrast of textures adds interest. But...it either works for someone or it doesn't. Assuming that what's good or lacking about a picture can be completely capture with words seems wrong to me. The experience of viewing a photograph is not, imo, reducible to words.
this is a great comment on the current "disruption economy" going on the past handful of years. the old guard industries, and economic models grown as a dense forest and the boulder screwing up the view, just perfect, made my night!
play on light and dark and texture works well
:)
Monty McCutchen
3-Feb-2023, 17:54
It is a beautiful image as is. My eye sees the smallest crop up from the bottom only to give the rock and trees behind more presence.
Wonderful photograph Gregg
willwilson
3-Feb-2023, 18:45
I like the concept. Singular subject. Soft light. Nice high tones. The trees in the background are nice. Good texture, consistent. The bolder itself is unexceptional. That could be the point?
How did it get there? What is the story.
Sometimes I find these types of subjects need a bit of weather or "special" light to really take things over the top. If it has a unique or one of a kind vibe it can speak louder.
Not sure on the cropping. It really might be better 4x5 with all the extra space.
It would make a nice square. Joking, but not really. As mentioned above, one's eye keeps coming back to the rock...the pano format gives the eye someplace to come back to the rock from.
A wonderful study of textures, which is what drew me to the image first. The composition (created by the three textures and the light that plays on them) is simple enough to allow an appreciation of the each texture on its own and as they work together.
And as pure eye-candy, I love that the top of the rock shares the same quality of light as its surrounding grass.
Drew Wiley
3-Feb-2023, 20:59
It's obviously a rock, and quite possibly an old glacial "erratic". I find the composition just too busy. If you want to feature all that nice texture in the boulder, all those trees in the background just compete with it, or visa vera. To juggle both, you'd either need to back off and make to make the boulder look smaller, or move closer in, to make it bigger still. As it is, they just compete for attention and neither wins. Or just experiment cropping into the scene more when printing, so that the rock becomes dominant. Easiest, you could trim from the bottom. The rock is "floating" too high in the grass, and all that excessive brightness down there is competing with the highlights in the trees and top of the rock itself.
It's all a matter of proportion and balance, and our mind instinctively wants that big heavy object lower down. That's something architects are often taught - to visually "weight" things, and what the ancient Greeks knew building their temples. Give it the feeling, "gravity is working". But with a little intelligent cropping, I think you could have something nice. Just lowering the image on my screen so that most of the "lawn" is cropped off is a significant improvement to me. Yeah, it's a lot narrower, longer rectangle that way; but I prefer that too. More dynamic.
Thanks to all for comments. I'll revisit with the cropping suggestions in mind when I rescan the full 4x5 negative. (I scanned it just 6x12 for the image presented.) Those of you who like to disparage all things digital can chuckle about why I have to re-scan if you read this. (https://www.greggwaterman.com/post/hard-reset) FWIW, I never sent the hard drive in.
The rock lives near me in something called Bear Wallow, a dry lake bed. I first spotted the rock when cross-country skiing (it's the only one like it in the lake bed), and went back in the fall a couple times to photograph the rock and other things. I tried other compositions with the rock, but straight-on like this was the only thing that really appealed to me. I also tried two or three focal lengths. There are some difficulties, the greatest being that a wider view takes in the tops of the trees and a hillside behind them with lots of distracting elements. Not necessarily an excuse for any compositional deficiencies, but that is why I chose a panoramic crop..
To me, the scene gave a strong feeling of "occupancy," which is what I was trying to convey with the photograph. Put more whimsically, I hear the rock saying "I'm here, I've been here for a long time, and I'll be here a while longer." That's the best I can do for a statement of intent. I also just enjoy the three textures of the grass, front of the rock, and trees.
For those of you who have commented, thank you for taking the time to do so.
Hi ! I'm woods / trees fan, so I think without rock it would be great shot.
Seriously, this rock is out of place, or out of format here. Just my opinion.
Get up higher, get closer, use a wider lens, wider format (6x17) -- that will create more separation between the rock and the trees, making the rock more prominent while keeping the nice background.
Oddly, last night, as I was thinking about this and other threads, I somehow got myself thinking that you stated goal was to show this rock as being solitary in a great field. And I though of an aerial view. I thought that this image was to cozy, to up close and I am comfortable here. I reread your statement
"To me, the scene gave a strong feeling of "occupancy," which is what I was trying to convey with the photograph. Put more whimsically, I hear the rock saying "I'm here, I've been here for a long time, and I'll be here a while longer." That's the best I can do for a statement of intent. I also just enjoy the three textures of the grass, front of the rock, and trees."
and, bingo, I was thinking precisely what it was that you had intended to say. So that is a success, in my opinion.
The central composition, overall sharpness, and close attention to detail and framing puts this photograph right into the concept of documentary photography. It follows a lineage of photography from the middle east travel photography of Pharaonic and Roman ruins of the 19th century through to Sullivan's documentation of the West and on to Atget's documentary photography of Paris and Versailles. Even to the Becher's towers.
Just in case, there might be confusion, to say that a photograph is a document is not to comment on it as art. The appreciation of the texture of grass rock and trees is an emotional and artistic response. And I am going to be a hypocrite and propose a hypothetical other photograph along Xkaes's suggestion which is to raise your viewpoint so that the line between lower dark and higher lighter top might run along the line of lower light of grass and higher darker top of trees.
Best Wishes
Bill
bmikiten
4-Feb-2023, 09:36
My first thought was fuzzy. I'm not sure if that is the image or just the amount of detail shown. Overall, I like it. The framing as a wide image pleases me as I'm partial to wide formats right now as they mimic the human eye IMHO. I would love to see this as a 5' wide wall mural. I do like the overall tone of the image and probably wouldn't change contrast much as you've balanced the image itself with an appropriate "feel". Like many landscapes, it provokes the viewer to ask questions and allows them to look at it over and over. I'd love to see a high resolution version. I'd hang it!
johnasavoia
4-Feb-2023, 09:56
The framing is good, the subject is fine, but the light is boring, feels like mid day on an overcast day. Same spot same angle when the light is soft late or early in the day, or even at a more extreme angle during sun rise/set might feel different, but as it is there is a certain flatness, not of depth of field, but of light. To me.
Hi, Gregg. Perhaps since this is a "critique image," my first impression was that the composition was off, pulling me to the left despite the centrality and symmetrical balance. But it didn't take long before my view changed. The apparent printing favors this, lighter on the left. To my eye, there is a quiet anthropomorphic feature in the rock, a face in profile in the left edge, with nose jutting leftward, a small eye, a slightly curved, thin-lipped mouth, even the relief of a check bone. Along with the brighter tonality of the left part of the image, that made the rest of the rock appear as if flowing or streaming behind.
I see three levels of biological life: the grass, the shrubs, the trees -- in a certain formal way, three sizes of the same --, apparently all dormant for the winter. Thus, a variety of formal ironies and interplay begins to imply questions about the relative permanence of the rock, the seasonal and longer life-cycles of the plants, along with the strange location of the solitary boulder in the field.
I find the viewpoint perspective appropriate to giving weight to the boulder from the downward force of gravity while the plants reach upwards.
I do, however, find that my eye tends to wander into the trees on the left and get stuck there. The tonality of the trees behind the boulder appears suppressed and overly flat to me.
...
To me, the scene gave a strong feeling of "occupancy," which is what I was trying to convey with the photograph. Put more whimsically, I hear the rock saying "I'm here, I've been here for a long time, and I'll be here a while longer." That's the best I can do for a statement of intent. I also just enjoy the three textures of the grass, front of the rock, and trees.
...
The rock definitely occupies the space. Your use of space and texture keeps that an active occupation...but then I am willing to consider the concept that rocks are aware and mountains are wise.
AHHH, the old art-speak rabbit-hole.
Lot's of valuable, and FUN input here - thank you! Here are a few specific replies, sorry if I don't get to all of you:
Iga: That line of trees is about 1/2 km long, so no lack of material! I DO have a couple color images from there, need to do some B&W.
xkaes: I somewhat dread the thought of walking the 45 minutes up there with my 5 foot aluminum ladder, but I may give it a try...
cowanw: "documentary" is not a nasty word to me - I love Timothy O'Sullivan, Carleton Watkins, ... I've seen some pretty good photography in person, and amongst my favorites were a bunch of large albumen prints by Watkins. They are beautiful.
bmikiten: I've tended toward smaller and smaller prints lately, but I have both large and small of this one and, in my opinion, it benefits from size.
johnasavio: I've thought of trying to get up there for sunrise, but when I think of trekking up there alone in the dark with a headlamp, I start getting cougarnoia! But maybe if I had the aluminum ladder on my back, that might deter them?
Ulophot: My botanist friends would inform us that all those aspen trees might be part of a single organism, adding to your biological interpretation!
OK, I gotta go re-scan that negative and try some other crops!
Ulophot: My botanist friends would inform us that all those aspen trees might be part of a single organism, adding to your biological interpretation!
An aspen "tree" ARE some of the largest, heaviest living organisms on the planet. Just one can cover an enormous area.
OK, I had to look it up. Apparently aspens have ceded their spot as the largest living organisms, at least as far as area is concerned: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-largest-organism-is-fungus/
I'll bet aspens may have the fungus on mass, though! In the article they estimate one at over 6600 tons!
Drew Wiley
4-Feb-2023, 14:58
There is a famous place in Death Valley where rocks move on their own. So you never really know what a rock is thinking, and if it decides to shift around its pose between the time you've focused your composition and when the darkslide is actually removed. No different than girlfriends.
h2oman - there will never be an end to that, what constitutes the oldest tree nonsense. I'm still of the camp that a tree is a tree, not an interconnected grove where multitudes of trees have replaced each other every few decades for thousands of years on end. Give me a particular bristlecone pine any day of the week instead. Where this really gets complicated is how aspen groves actually communicate and time things like color fall change synchronistically, via electrical signals from fungal mycelia in the soil. So if that counts for the single "oldest organism", what doesn't? Everything is basically interconnected in one way or another.
And maybe rocks are sentient organisms too, but just speak to each other at such a low geologic frequency we can't hear them. That's why I like rocks. They mind their own business. Certain underwater rock-like stromatolite colonies might have lived hundreds of thousands of years; but is a "colony" a single long-lived "organism"? Just more fighting over terminology definitions. And I studied all of the above - geology, biology, and paleontology. Now I'm joining the actual club, and gradually becoming a fossil myself, and someday might actually speak the rock and boulder dialect myself.
I wasn't going to drag that fungus into this "discussion" for fear it might go off-track -- but apparently it's too late for that.
djdister
4-Feb-2023, 16:39
I like the light and tonality on the rock and the trees - but not the very bright grass at the bottom. It would be interesting to see a different relationship between the rock and the trees via camera position and/or focal length selection.
Alan Klein
4-Feb-2023, 20:32
I like the tones but the lighting could be better. It's very flat. Maybe come back at another time of the day when the cougars aren't out. How about a view from inside the woods through the tree trunks framing the rock. Right now it just looks like a documentary of a rock with a busy background. It needs some "oomph". At least the focus is sharp and crisp unlike mine.
...Give me a particular bristlecone pine any day of the week instead. Where this really gets complicated is how aspen groves actually communicate and time things like color fall change synchronistically, via electrical signals from fungal mycelia in the soil. So if that counts for the single "oldest organism", what doesn't? Everything is basically interconnected in one way or another...
Coastal redwoods can live a couple thousand years, clone themselves and live for a couple thousand more using the same root system. And perhaps even another round, I have no idea. But it is fun to find a tight circle of 12+ foot diameter 'sprouts', with the center 'mother tree' completely gone.
They figured out how the rocks move -- too bad...I love a little mystery in life.
Lot's of RECENT research on the '3rd' realm of Fungi
It crushed rock to MAKE soil
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGEdHxiWo_Y
I like it as it is. This is what you saw, this is what touched you and inspired you to make the photo. Having said that, it certainly looks like a subject that could be mined for other angles, other times of day. It kind of reminds me of some of Michael Kenna’s and more recent Robert Adams’ work. Keep at it.
I really like it, although I think it's crying out to be 4x5 or square, and paired as a diptych.
https://www.ianland.co.uk/projects/NotDarkYet/_01diptych05.jpg
Tin Can
13-Feb-2023, 13:42
Just now USPS delivered 2 nice prints from our discussion aka 'crit' of H20man's images
A delightful surprise
Thank you!
Lot's of valuable, and FUN input here - thank you! Here are a few specific replies, sorry if I don't get to all of you:
Iga: That line of trees is about 1/2 km long, so no lack of material! I DO have a couple color images from there, need to do some B&W.
xkaes: I somewhat dread the thought of walking the 45 minutes up there with my 5 foot aluminum ladder, but I may give it a try...
cowanw: "documentary" is not a nasty word to me - I love Timothy O'Sullivan, Carleton Watkins, ... I've seen some pretty good photography in person, and amongst my favorites were a bunch of large albumen prints by Watkins. They are beautiful.
bmikiten: I've tended toward smaller and smaller prints lately, but I have both large and small of this one and, in my opinion, it benefits from size.
johnasavio: I've thought of trying to get up there for sunrise, but when I think of trekking up there alone in the dark with a headlamp, I start getting cougarnoia! But maybe if I had the aluminum ladder on my back, that might deter them?
Ulophot: My botanist friends would inform us that all those aspen trees might be part of a single organism, adding to your biological interpretation!
OK, I gotta go re-scan that negative and try some other crops!
Tin Can
14-Feb-2023, 05:22
h2oman
I prefer your second image, the perspective creates mystery
Infers movement, the shadows almost hide
Trees confuse wonderfully
Is all alive or all dead
I prefer this 'portrait' orientation
Is the central subject moving, perhaps
The object has directional elements implying movement or just clothed by wind
Bug or giant?
Good print with movement aspiring
Thanks! Speaking of the object, do you have those in your neck of the woods? They are fairly ubiquitous here in the west, but one wouldn't expect to see one in such a setting!
Tin Can
15-Feb-2023, 16:24
I have seen them in Texas
Not so good on motorbike, especially at night, when they attack!
Thanks! Speaking of the object, do you have those in your neck of the woods? They are fairly ubiquitous here in the west, but one wouldn't expect to see one in such a setting!
I have seen them in Texas
Not so good on motorbike, especially at night, when they attack!
:)
Alan Klein
16-Feb-2023, 10:13
It's obviously a rock, and quite possibly an old glacial "erratic". I find the composition just too busy. If you want to feature all that nice texture in the boulder, all those trees in the background just compete with it, or visa vera. To juggle both, you'd either need to back off and make to make the boulder look smaller, or move closer in, to make it bigger still. As it is, they just compete for attention and neither wins. Or just experiment cropping into the scene more when printing, so that the rock becomes dominant. Easiest, you could trim from the bottom. The rock is "floating" too high in the grass, and all that excessive brightness down there is competing with the highlights in the trees and top of the rock itself.
It's all a matter of proportion and balance, and our mind instinctively wants that big heavy object lower down. That's something architects are often taught - to visually "weight" things, and what the ancient Greeks knew building their temples. Give it the feeling, "gravity is working". But with a little intelligent cropping, I think you could have something nice. Just lowering the image on my screen so that most of the "lawn" is cropped off is a significant improvement to me. Yeah, it's a lot narrower, longer rectangle that way; but I prefer that too. More dynamic.
Here's a glacial erratic I shot in NYS just above NYC in Westchester County. I used to live in Queens where the glaciers terminated 10,000 years ago there and across Brooklyn where the British marched during the US Revolutionary War in 1776 when it captured Long Island and New York. Most New Yorkers walk by these things everyday and have no idea what interesting things have happened under the feet.
Glacier Kettle Pond in QUeens https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanklein2000/6151918600/in/album-72157627487899061/
Erratic in NYS above NYC https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanklein2000/6151376723/in/album-72157627487899061/
jtomasella
23-Feb-2023, 11:05
I feel this should be a square crop
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