The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
A group of 7 NPN photographers, including myself, took a wonderful trip to Yosemite last week. This image was taken on the first day on a rock wall along the highway just before entering park. @Lon_Overacker and @John_Williams were at this location as well, and we spent a couple hours at this spot.
Specific Feedback
I liked the mix and spread of the warm and cool colors on this rock. Does it work for you?
Iāve had great hopes for all of the pictures that would come from this trip, and I see them coming forth now! Maybe next time Iāll be able to join yāall.
I like this a lot. For me, the color contrasts are beautiful, and the fact that they are mostly in the mid range (shadows to highlights, without whites/blacks) is part of the appeal. Itās not tonality so much as various hues creating the contrast. At least, thatās my initial impression. The reflections work for me as well. It gives the whole image a metallic or liquified effect, and because I know it is rock, that creates some good conflict or conceptual contrast (solid v. liquid, etc.)
Electric Koolaide! I really like this. Great color and textures throughout and no hint of scale until you see the bit of dry grass.
These highly altered layers of ancient metamorphic rock in the Merced River canyon are remnants of ancient marine sedimentary rocks, like sandstone and limestone, deposited around 400ā500 million years ago and later deformed and metamorphosed to quartzite and marble, slates, and shales. These rocks pre-date the granite in Yosemite Valley by over 300 million years. The Sierra granite formed under a very ancient mountain range between 80 and 100 million years ago, and then due to plate movement, the uplift occurred approximately 10 million years ago. water and ice did the rest.
And that is your geology lesson for today, kids.
Looking forward to seeing more from Yosemite 7!
-P
Wow!! Electric for sure! At least 220! Maybe a lightning bolt. But also truly gorgeous ā a very serious image, with the elements and colors so well balanced and composed. My brain is trying to tease out dimensionality, with the visually receding blues and the golds leaping off the page. I donāt want to quit looking at it, but soon it will be Happy Hourā¦
Intense! And such a great find. All the various minerals interacting with the environment just produce amazing tones and colors. I think I like the the little areas of light blue in the URC and the two on either side of the bottom edge.
Wow! And to think I was pacing back and forth not paying attention to what you and John were looking at. I think I was in the ābeen there, done that moodā and just hoping you guys were enjoying this wealth of geologic magic (thanks @Preston_Birdwell for your mastery of the regions geology!).
There is so much to this - colors, patterns, texture, shapes and features ending the imagination to overdrive. I see some elaborate radar or oceanic map, with all the different colors mapping out all the different measurements, or earthly features. I step back, I see a world map, based on the Kelvin scaleā¦ I see little fish swimming, a pictograph or petroglyphā¦ what can be seen and found is seemingly endless!
Iām just mad that Iāve never discovered this little section in all the years Iāve visited āthe wall.ā
Ok, now I put on my technical hat. Interesting I see that Youssef liked the blue areas, specifically in the URC. At least for me, thatās the corner I find the least congruent overall. There is so much going on, you could crop and produce many tighter variationsā¦ but right away that becomes just a personal preference and really what you see and what you want to present. So no issues really. But I could see some tighter crop version. But you wonāt catch me attempting.. ha ha!
Great eye to capture this one Steve! Glad you guys camea away with some keepers!
I have always had a soft spot for abstract photographs, because when you strip away the subject you brush directly against the visual obsessions of the photographer. This kind of image speaks to us about its authorās gaze without the filter of reality. I believe it was Minor White who said that every photograph is a self portrait, and abstraction offers the irrefutable proof of that assertion.
I also enjoy the ambiguity in this kind of image, when the eye is satisfied but the brain struggles to recognize what it is seeing, or better still, when it sees something other than what was actually photographed.
Here I see watercolor, where ultramarine blue and burnt sienna marry, answer one another and contrast, melting into each other just as water saturated pigment spreads across the watercoloristās paper. Everything here rests in the midtones. No blacks. No whites. The image might appear flat if color contrast did not step in to make up for the absence of tonal contrast. If Turner had seen this stone, he would surely have recognized in the mountain a talented colleague, though a slightly indolent one, since it probably took millions of years to produce this work. But the time of men is not the time of stones.
Beyond the pure visual feast, which would already be reason enough to love this photograph, I also see strong symbolic potential. It speaks to us of dereliction. It evokes rust and the passage of time. It strikes me that time is an artist who works in the shadows. The more a thing is neglected and forgotten, the more freedom he will have to express his art. It is a paradox that what is not maintained, not recognized as valuable, slowly transforms beneath the patina of years and returns to us dressed in the finery of the perfect photographic subject. To obtain such a fresco, all you need is indifference. Simply let that shy artist named Chronos carry out his work far from our gaze.
I have let my thoughts wander. I have lost myself in philosophical ramblings. Is this the effect of the acid trip the author mentions? I couldnāt say, as I have never used any psychotropics. Any delirious raving on my part is entirely natural.
Steve, this is excellent. Thereās so much to explore in the multitude of contrasting colors. I also like the ātidbitsā, bright blue in the urc and at the bottom, the yellow āwormā, lower left edge, and the trio of white, bottom center. Interestingly, those saturated blue spots donāt stand out nearly as much in the large version.
When I close my eyes, I sometimes āseeā successive concentric and irregular orange circles moving from the centre to the periphery of a blue background. I did not know this happens in reality also. Nice framing! And since my father was a geologist, I heard quite a number of stories of moving tectonics and colourful rocks. Thank you for sharing and for capturing my attention and my emotions.
Man oh man, did this wall give up some gems on this trip. Your title is perfect. The colors, textures and arrangement of said are incredible. You could take a visual tour through this image for hours and see whatever you wish to see. There is not limit. That wall is so big and so long that I never noticed this section when we were there. After walking about 200 yards and seeing my truck slowly disappearing, I decided to turn back. Next time.
For those that have never seen this and other walls before you enter Yosemite, the colors are real and vivid and just like presented here. Love this one Steve. It conjures up so much in the mind. @Preston_Birdwell , love the geology lesson. Many thanks for that.
I loved this when I first saw it, and that continues. The colors are just so beautiful and over the top. Surprisingly, to me, I really like that there are traces of plant material. Normally I would pick those off, but here they give a bit of grounded reality.
Iām pretty sure that Steve had spray paint with him, because I never saw this either. Next time Iām just going to follow him around and rush in after he moves his tripod.
Thank you @xavier1, @David_Haynes and @John_Williams for your kind comments. John, I cracked up when I read your comments. The name for this post is a direct copy of your comment when you first saw this image. I sure hope no one asks me to show where on āThe Wallā I found it.
Just wow! At first glance I thought it was a rusted sheet of metal before I read your explanation. In fact, my sonās old rusted BBQ plate looked a lot like this image and I mean this in the nicest possible way.
Itās an image, I would never tire of looking at. I hope itās up on your wall!
Thank you again!