To the gallery: Lea Murphy: Clearly the best camera is the used camera. This picture becomes very abstract with the filter. Every location of the photo draws me in and moves me somewhere else for further inspection, yet stepping back the texture achieved is velvety and hypnotic. Laurenz Bobke: I am a sucker for foliage. The delicate transparency of a young leaf has been captured. The shadows on shadows and layers of layers and the placement of the central leaf over the dark background all stage the picture but keep the eye central to the frame to explore the details. The dynamic range is used well and because the central focus is mostly highlights, it has been used to achieve the appearance of transparency. Trevor Cunningham: You have found a great subject. The lighting has been used to bring attention to the top of the flower and the detail along the was is great. But because everything in the image directed me to the top of the frame, I was left stuck wanting a little more detail at the top as there was so much along the way. I think if you could bring more detail to the highlights, this would be stunning. Don Roberts: Because you described it yourself as a Tourist photo, I will agree with you and about being awe struck in a new place and to be temped by the snap shot. But I find it hard to believe that there wasn't some detail of the many glyphs on the ruins that wouldn't have made a good picture or the repetition of the pillars of the lower structure to play with shadows. I find that if I take a more abstract position, the idea of painting with light, the subject sometimes shows itself. John Palcewski: Stolen moments always make for interesting pictures. The tight cropping encourages a feeling of closeness that you get in a subway and the glance received is a little unsettling as the observer. The subject has had the realization that an intimate embrace enabled by being lost in the masses of a subway system has been suddenly lost to the observer and the pictures pulls the unwitting observer into the picture. The grain of the image also enhances the fleeting nature of the encounter of the now three people. Russell E. Baker: After reading the comments and writing my own previously, I will refrain from further comments other than, if you don't want to be treated like a Neanderthal try not to sound like one: "Yep...I just keep on churnin' out them thar purdy pictures!" Presentation is everything. Emily L. Ferguson: I don't know what to make of this picture other than documentation. The van seems to far away to be the subject, but there really is no foreground or back ground to be interested in. The image has been flattened to the point that I don't feel the van moving at all. I wonder if a different crop with the van somewhere away from dead center would help keep the eye moving into the frame. I think there is more motion in the frame if the left side and bottom are cropped away such that the van is nearer the lower third and right third of the frame. The van then seems to lean almost right out of the picture providing some dynamics to the image. Andrew Davidhazy: I think this exemplifies my comment to Don Roberts and to start with painting with light. This is a great execution using the strobe effect of the lights to make compounding multiple exposures. While I am not personally enthralled by this single image because it seems random and one off, maybe on a different forum where you can have multiple images using long exposures to show a theme or technique, the group would then have a much larger impact for skill and craft. Hope this gets the group back on track with commenting. Thanks, The other Andy.
