I came across this scene in the hill country inland from our home.
It immediately made me feel sorry for this old lichen-encrusted rock formation as it seemed to me that it’s heart had been dislodged and was bleeding.
Type of Critique Requested
Aesthetic: Focusing on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
Conceptual: Focus on the message and story conveyed by the image.
Emotional: Focus on the emotional impact and artistic value of the image.
Specific Feedback and Self-Critique
I appreciate that it is a ‘messy’ image, but it just created a strong feeling of sorrow when I saw it. Does that make sense with this photo?
Aesthetically I find it pleasing because of the contrast in colors, the well balanced highlights and mid-tones and the details in the shadows along with a good sense of depth, they all come together in a visually pleasant way.
Conceptually, I’m not really sure I see a message or story per se but that may be because I don’t have a background in mycology.
I like the dark lines between the rocks because they add separation and the slightly darker edges of the image help to keep me from wanting to see more.
I do find that it has a nice artistic quality or value.
I see this as a micro-scene that is part of a much larger scene that includes more of the same.
I just like it for the aesthetic quality. And I like the narrow black border, it keeps my attention on the content.
Thanks for your personal thoughts on what you saw in it.
Phil, I don’t see blood. What I do see is a wonderful intimate landscape in which the contrasting colored lichens move my eye into the black cracks or separations in the rock, creating lots of visual appeal. I like it.
Thankyou @Merv and @Larry_Greenbaum for your kind comments. Hmmmm, you both make me wonder why I saw a bleeding heart in the rocks. Perhaps I should get my heart checked out just in case .
I wouldn’t characterize this as messy - nature isn’t messy, that’s a value judgement based on human sensitivity to patterns and order. I would instead characterize this as complex. There’s a lot going on in a very small scale. If I’d noticed it, I’d have been right there taking a photo, too. I really like the detail in the crustose lichen in the center - the contrast next to the deep orange is terrific. The darker lines radiating outward work as an organizing element, but I wonder if this could use a crop to bring that center to more prominence?
Not getting sorrow from this at all. But that’s just me.
I too don’t think this is messy at all. In fact I think the composition is excellent and you did a great job in framing this. All the cracks draw the eye to the smaller rock and “bleeding heart”.
I can see and understand how you might have reacted to the scene. But agree with the others, I don’t get that same feeling, certainly not sorrow. The difference being in the obvious - we weren’t there and don’t have any other senses or emotions attached to the experience of photographing the moment. So, IMHO, take it with a grain of salt that I don’t see or feel the same.
And quite the contrary, this is quite the excellent intimate nature photo and a good nature story.
Only suggestion might be to take the near-square crop and go all the way square. A skosh could be taken off the bottom just for even better balance. But this is well seen and presented as is.
Hmmmm…I agree, messy is not the correct word for this. Complex in relation to the rock and lichen structures, that’s better. I do like the square crop Lon suggested, but I don’t really want to make the ‘heart’ more central because an important aspect of this for me is the downward ‘bleeding’ effect. Thanks for taking the time to comment Kristen. Cheers.
Hmmm…I didn’t think the square crop would do that much for the scene but I was wrong (that was a personal kicking myself for dismissing the idea and thereby not suggesting it), the square crops looks remarkably better that it already was.
To me, this just proves how “many eyes with a variety of experienced viewpoints” can be so valuable.
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