Jericho Beach no.2

[Seb]

Here is one more from Vancouver. Comments are welcome.

Seb

[Trevor Ash]

Hiya Seb. What's the main subject in this one? I like the mood you captured...feels very cold

[gahspidy]

Seb, I like this for the mood as well, and the branch in the sand adds to it. I only wish it had a slight bit of tone or lighting touching the sand even ever so gently. Perhaps just a passing of the highlight brush across the sand from the foreground just to wher the branch is a a low setting . very nice feel to this. btw, i notice the horizon could use a slight tilt CCW. good shot

[Seb]

Seb, I like this for the mood as well, and the branch in the sand adds to it. I only wish it had a slight bit of tone or lighting touching the sand even ever so gently. Perhaps just a passing of the highlight brush across the sand from the foreground just to wher the branch is a a low setting . very nice feel to this. btw, i notice the horizon could use a slight tilt CCW. good shot

Gary, thanks for commenting. What about this?

[Seb]

Hiya Seb. What's the main subject in this one? I like the mood you captured...feels very cold

Hello Trevor,

Thank you for commenting. What do you think the subject is???

I prefer not to comment on this at that point as I don't want to mess with people perceptions.

regards

Seb

[Yoyo Szeto]

Hi Seb,
I feel isolation and loneliness in this pic.
All the best.
yoyo

[jar_e]

Beautiful Vancouver pic. I love the way the boat in the far left adds to this picture, and the one, lonely piece of driftwood is just lying there. Great shot, and a very, subtle, yet real, lonely/remoteness feel. Hard thing to do in Vancouver

Jared

[Trevor Ash]

Hello Trevor,

Thank you for commenting. What do you think the subject is???

I prefer not to comment on this at that point as I don't want to mess with people perceptions.

regards

Seb

I'm honestly not sure, which I why I was asking. I think it must be the stick on the sand because if it wasn't I think you would have tossed it aside. But if the stick were the subject then I think there are a lot of other things going on. Maybe the subject was the foggy atmosphere, or where the water meets the sand, or the hazy sky and water. I think if you were to crop the photo horizontally so that only the stick, sand and water were showing then it would be what you were "seeing" when you took the photo. Am I close?

If lonelyness was the subject as the others have pointed out then I woudln't have included the boat, the distant mountains with all the buildings and homes, and the thing (is it a dock?) on the right.

I think you were after either what I described about the stick or something about the boat and sky attracted you to them. My original question was both a critique and a question at the same time, thanks for catching on Since you didn't want to provide an answer, I'll assume that this is the kind of information you wanted in a critique for this photo. I completely understand your position; you don't want to mistakingly lead people into telling you what you just told them.

[readingr]

I wrote a critique to someone yesterday about land/sea scapes needing a wow factor which I cannot define but will recognise it when I see it, and probably everyone has a different view of the wow factor.

I agree with Trevor here in that it doesn't have what I am looking for because i get several conflicting messages from the picture.

As a sailor I get the feeling of farewell as the boat goes out to see for another voyage not to see home for a few days, week, months... but where is the open sea?

I get the cold clammy feeling of a moist cold morning as the boat sets out on a dull early morning (been there to often in the UK)

I get the desolation of the driftwood on the shore but this is spoilt by the dock wall and the boat leaving showing this to be a popular place.

I also get the feeling of the hoardes of pleasure seakers converging on the shore ready for a day at the beach.

I suppose if thats what you were aiming for then in my case you've succeeded

[Seb]

Hey guys,

Yoyo: Thank you for taking the time to comment.

jar_e: I am glad to hear that you enjoy this one, especially considering that you are from b.c.

Trevor and Roger: thanks guys for the in depth analysis. I must recognize that you guys put more thoughts in your replies than I actually did crafting this picture.
Since few people already commented, I'll explain my view of things. I actually perceive this one as a moody landscape. My primary goal when I shot this last summer was to convey the particular mood of that area under fog/clouds (quite unusual to me since I live so far away from there). Other than conveying a mood, I also meant to create a composition where few elements would balance. As I went back to this shot yesterday, I decided to put emphasis on the stick as I thought that it held great potential. For doing so, I used selective saturation and selective sharpening on the stick all alone without sharpening the rest of the picture. No crop was involved either.
Your analysis of my picture is an eye opening experience to the significance/importance that various elements may have for the viewer. Nevertheless, your comments bring some questions/issues. For instance, I am sure that there would be people to find the scene empty if I was to clone out the boat and/or the dock. Also, would the boat and the dock really convey the feel of a mainstream/visited area if I failed to mention that this was Jericho beach in Vancouver???

regards

Seb

[Trevor Ash]

Interesting response Seb. You did indeed capture the moody landscape!

If I ever used the words "clone out" I sure didn't mean to. I'm with you when you suggest that cloning out those "distractions" wouldn't solve the problem (if that's what you were leading to). I felt a different crop was in order rather than trying to clone elements out.

Regarding your last question about conveying a high populated area if you hadn't mentioned it......I have NO IDEA what Jericho is or how many people or what kind of town Vancouver is. So for me I saw what I saw and it looked like there were plenty of people around in the hills. From yours and others responses I can assume that this is a highly populated city.

Like I said, if it was mood you were after, you got it. But that's because of the overcast/fog/stormy clouds and the dark exposure.....not because of the stick, boat, or dock. But when you put all of that together is still looks moody so they're not really detracting in any sense from the mood.

[Overbeyond]

I love this one; the mood, the colour and the different elements that make up the main subject, which in this case is surely the overall scene. Does anyone agree with this? A 'main subject' can sometimes, but not always, lead the eye away from other interesting elements of a composition.
In this case there are quite a few elements to look at and they are all assets in my opinion.
Tom

[Trevor Ash]

A 'main subject' can sometimes, but not always, lead the eye away from other interesting elements of a composition.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with having multiple elements and subjects. I also see nothing wrong with having no known subject at all. As long as one "likes" it that's all it takes. It's especially effective when as you describe, you can lead the viewers eye from one area to another. Sometimes that leading around brings along visual discrepancies which could have been done on purpose or on accident. I think some of the most enjoyable photographs are the ones you look at and wonder why a certain something was included. Obviously, this one evoked that reaction from me

[readingr]

Seb,

I have been in Canada for a total of 4 hours in my entire life and that was Toronto Airpot waiting for a connecting flight to Boston (Don't ask long long story!) I have no idea about Vancouver other than its a town and absolutely no idea of where Jericho Beach is. It just seems that the coastline opposite looks populated to me and so are most river/beach fronts especially in the UK.

What made me think of the hoards is the patch of clear sky (LCD Monitor) which looked like a brighter day comming which in the UK normally means people on the beach.

I agree you have captured a moody picture, but until you mentioned it I had no idea what you wanted to convey which sent my tiny grey cell bouncing around trying to think of all the things you may have wanted to say to me the viewer. As I said if that is what you wanted to convey you succeeded.

However, I also believe that there are parts of this picture which could be cropped to make many other photos which have significant and individual messages. I guess that is what I was trying to say with my ramblings., e.g. crop of the boat fills one of my imagenings, The drift wood on its own against the landscpae another...

[Seb]

Hello guys,

Thanks for further commenting.

Trevor: You never precisely said anything about cloning out stuff, this was just my faulty interpretation. In the end, my perception was that striping down the scene (either by cloning out stuff or croping) might lead to an overly simplified scene. But then I might be wrong. The coastline annoys me now that I am coming back at the picture. I think that I should blur it before considering the picture achieved.

Overbeyond: Thanks for commenting. I agree with you about your thoughts on main subject and other elements in a composition.

Roger: I must say that my sailing culture is fairly limited (mmhwa... Ok, I have no sailing culture at all ). Hence, I didn't get the whole symbology arround beach/boats/water. Considering your background as a sailor, I can understand why your interpretation of the scene was different from mine. The coastline now distract me a lot. It just doesn't fit with what I meant to convey.

Thanks all for the healthy discussion. I truly enjoyed the thoughts exchange.

best regards

Seb

[gahspidy]

Seb, that subtle highlighting is a nice touch and does add to mood and visual appeal. i like the overall mood from this image and also have enjoyed the discussion it brought on.
what i like to do sometimes with an image is to stand far back( maybe 15 or 20 ft for this size) and view the image without being able to see any details. Only the compositon is apparent and i find in this one that I like the diagonal line of the shore coming up to meet the horizontal line of the horizon,, and the tones of the cloudy or foggy sky contrasting with the earthy tone of the shore. Could this have been better? Probably, but I think any image we see, no matter how good, coulda, woulda, shoulda, been better. I can look through every picture of my Ansel adams book and think, yeah thats good but really would have been great with some birds. Or yeah its great, but coulda been awesome with a person or animal in the scene. I mean, we can always imagine a image being better, but for me if i look at a pic and right off the bat find it appealing, then it has suceeded

[Overbeyond]

"I mean, we can always imagine a image being better, but for me if i look at a pic and right off the bat find it appealing, then it has suceeded."

Well and truely said gary.
__________________

[Seb]

Seb, that subtle highlighting is a nice touch and does add to mood and visual appeal. i like the overall mood from this image and also have enjoyed the discussion it brought on.
what i like to do sometimes with an image is to stand far back( maybe 15 or 20 ft for this size) and view the image without being able to see any details. Only the compositon is apparent and i find in this one that I like the diagonal line of the shore coming up to meet the horizontal line of the horizon,, and the tones of the cloudy or foggy sky contrasting with the earthy tone of the shore. Could this have been better? Probably, but I think any image we see, no matter how good, coulda, woulda, shoulda, been better. I can look through every picture of my Ansel adams book and think, yeah thats good but really would have been great with some birds. Or yeah its great, but coulda been awesome with a person or animal in the scene. I mean, we can always imagine a image being better, but for me if i look at a pic and right off the bat find it appealing, then it has suceeded

Hey Gary,

You have an interesting point of view. Thanks for sharing these thoughts. I will rework this picture a little and submit a "final" version in few days (which recall me that I never reworked my butterfly shot, I'll play on these two next week end).

How is it going with your Epson? Have you reached a comfortable workflow?

best regards

Seb

[gahspidy]

Look forward to seeing your edits. But it is fine as it stands.About the 2200, I was having a few issues with it regarding color casts and contrast. To make a long story short, I found on Epsons website profiles for their papers. They ship the printer with profiles already on the disc, but the ones on their website are very top notch. As soon as I started using their profiles, all color casts were gone and b&w images look neutral, but they were coming out darker than they looked on the screen. Then I found on their website a updated driver for users of Windows XP with Service pack 2 installed. Loaded the new driver and now what I see is what I get in print. Very happy. I dont even have to think about getting any calibratring software any longer.

[readingr]

Is there a list of printers that you can get icc profiles for?

[gahspidy]

Most major paper companys. as well as Epson, are now providing very accurate profiles for all of their papers . these profiles are specific to paper printer combinations. The 2200 is probably the most supported printer out there to date, as well as some other Epson models , but other high end printers from Canon and HP are starting to see some profile support from these companies. If you go to a paper manufacturers site, you will usually find a section called icc profiles and there you can check to see if your particuliar printer is supported. But then you must know how to load and use the profile. They usually also have a downloadable file explaining the set up process.
But contact me directly or start a thread in digital forum if you want to get into this further as I don't want to get off track on Sebs thread.

[Seb]

Just in case, if anyone is interested, I put a piece that I consider to be final in my gallery. It's not that different from the version you saw here but I worked on a couple of details.
http://gallery.photographyreview.com...sort=1&cat=500
regards

Seb