Blue Window of Enlightenment

[drg]

Illinois Wesleyan University Ames Library.

Comments Welcome.

[Rocket_Scientist]

I like the reflection...Could this have been the inspiration for the Windows' wallpaper?

[Greg McCary]

I like the style and placement of the lamp post they compliment the reflection and give the picture depth...
Greg

[gahspidy]

I like the soft reflection and the criss crossing panes running through. I think I would have wanted to see the fg lampost placed in between the building and the left frame. That reflection in the window is truly beautiful.

[readingr]

Drg,

I can see what you were going for but for me its not quite there.

The problems I see are

1. the left hand is to bright and distracts from the real picture the reflection. It just doesn't tie in with the reflection.

2. I'd rather see all the top of the window

3. the tilt of the building could have been straightened for this shot with the skew in PS, PSP, PSE to get better verticals

4. It would be nice if the lamps enclosed the window not cut into it if you see what I mean and the wall didn't intersect the left lamp in the middle.

Sorry for the downer on this one

Roger

[drg]

Thanks for all the comments.

-R.S
I hope this has nothing to do with the Windows blue screen of death either!

- Greg
Thanks, I'm glad the placement of the elements worked for you.

-Gary
I always appreciate your views. The placement of the lights I'll comment on below. The reflection came out much better than I'd even hoped!

-Roger
Thanks for telling me in detail what you feel about this one.

Yes, there could be some brightness issues, part of which I feel are necessary to create a photo that isn't overly dark. The reflection wasn't entirely the original idea but evolved after I got back and started working on the image. I was hoping to create divisions in the photo with the lamp placements and an intuitive leading line by their vertical and horizontal (or diagonal from the top of one to the other) placement.

The angle, skew, tilt, and lamp placements is further dictated by a big wall, some oak trees and that day, mud.

The verticals I want straight are except one that just started to distort to much. The scale and depth of field with the 18mm lens bent everything. It has been rather massively straightened, twisted, and warped to get it to this point. I decided that from the 4 images I had to work with, this one showed more of what I wanted. Where I was shooting from doesn't lend itself to a view camera easily. Really need lots of movements to shoot from this oblique of an angle.

The top of the window being cut is again about location and what is above it isn't part of the shot I intended. This building has an angular location with very straight components and I wanted it to portray more of that than just another campus building.

Thanks all for you time and thoughtful comments.

[gahspidy]

btw,CD. I notice the focus seems to be on the second lamp post. Was that intentional as opposed to focusing on the window and reflection? It seems to make the reflection more pleasing with it's softness.

[4XTaco]

The reflection in the windows is great. I would crop some from the left to draw your eyes to the windows more and like someone stated previously try straightening the lines. It would be nice to see the rest of the window also.

[drg]

Gary,
Well, that's certainly where the focus would up didn't it? The post processing and straightening and warping caused more softening than I'd originally hoped would happen. There is really quite a bit of distortion, the original had much sharper focus across most of the image.

This is part of the reason I posted this one was to see what other would feel about it how it worked.

The effect that resulted has grown on me. I was working the colors, reflection, and sky as the main subjects.

Glad the softness works to enhance rather subtract at some level in this photo.

Thanks