Photo Critique: "Boulder," February 3, 2023

[h2oman]

All indications so far are the photographer submitting for critique gets to make the rules. 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.

[Tin Can]

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...

[xkaes]

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]

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]

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.

[h2oman]

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]

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]

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.

[Vaughn]

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]

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.