Clear Cutting

Critique Style Requested: Initial Reaction

Please share your immediate response to the image before reading the photographer’s intent (obscured text below) or other comments. The photographer seeks a genuinely unbiased first impression.

Questions to guide your feedback

Does this image convey the subject matter emotionally.

Other Information

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Image Description

Every time I did drive to the beautiful rainforests of Washington I pass scenes like this. They are always arresting. You never fail to stop and look in amazement. Maybe it’s the attraction people have when they slow down on the freeway to see the remnants of an accident. In a way it reminds me of some of Salgado’s images of the devastation of the Amazon rainforest. Maybe the destructions of all rainforests look the same. This was the best of an hour’s work. I intended to go back and still do.

Technical Details

GFX50R, 45-100mm, f/11, hand held, high iso

Specific Feedback

Are you turned off by images where nature isn’t beautiful and grand?

Does this image have aesthetic appeal or is it mostly documenting something?

Can an image be both documentary and be aesthetic?


Critique Template

Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.

  • Vision and Purpose:
  • Conceptual:
  • Emotional Impact and Mood:
  • Composition:
  • Balance and Visual Weight:
  • Depth and Dimension:
  • Color:
  • Lighting:
  • Processing:
  • Technical:

First impression: The conflict between industrialization and the natural world. I am not turned off by such images as they show how we could do better if we work at it. I think this image is more documentary than aesthetically appealing, but it is very graphic.

The composition and tonality work well here, Igor.
-P

Sure, of course. Emotions though, are just like opinions and can vary and are subjective. For example, you could have sepia-toned this somewhat to make the image look more historical - ie. during a time when clear-cutting was rampant. I’ve seen countless burn piles in Yosemite with a whole different meaning - ie. fuel removal and forest restoration… So I guess it all depends… :roll_eyes: However, your specific image clearly speaks to clear cutting, especially with the remaining stand of trees you have included.

Composition and tonalities are great for the story you’re telling.

Yes, it conveys the idea well (and by well, I mean grimly). I don’t see it as just another brush pile. It’s clearly a slash pile from logging. Reminds me of a similar Robert Adams photo.

I am not turned off by images where nature isn’t beautiful and grand, because nature often isn’t beautiful and grand. That being said, photos like yours feel more documentary than aesthetically pleasing. I think that photos depicting the results of clear-cut logging are not inherently pleasing to most people because of the appearance of destruction. There’s the learned societal response and, I think, also an evolutionary response. Placed that appeared damaged wouldn’t have appealed to our very distant ancestors and in fact might have indicated danger. Hence, we have a visceral reaction of unease.

A photo can be both documentary and aesthetic, IMO. There are plenty of New Topographic style photos that are both. Think Stephen Shore’s work or National Geographic stuff.

Robert Adams’ pictures are of the same subject and in the similar area. His compositions are different though. They’re more unorthodox than this one and that’s what I like about them.

Stephen Shore’s work is more positive and less emotional. I love his work as well but mostly they’re urban photography. The aerial landscapes don’t do much for me. But I think I know where you’re coming from. It’s not the subject matter that matters but how the components balance out. I would argue that Adam’s work is aesthetically pleasing. As pleasing as Weston’s cypresses at Lobos. It’s an important point for me because I’m frankly getting bored of all those artsy arrangements of curves and shapes. When that’s the main point of the image I don’t like it so much.

Whose work would that be?

Pretty much most of what is posted in the Abstract forum. I decided long ago that abstractions for the sake of abstraction is inferior. Good abstractions are ones that either improve the vision of the subject (Weston) or they ambiguously suggest something and take you on a journey (Minor White). The closeups you see so commonly these days of the surface of a rippled dune is no longer that satisfying to look at. But that’s just me. For example anyone can move in close to weathered wood and make an aesthetically attractive pattern. I do it all the time and am disappointed with myself.

Well, snap! :rofl:

Igor, this does a fine job of showing off what clear cutting does to a forest. Yes, we cannot leave nature untouched and have humans survive, but we can be better caretakers. I have’t been in the forests of the Pacific Northwest from many years, but I distinctly remember driving for miles through clearcuts where there’d been one two two rows of trees left standing along the road so that a quick glance (ignoring the mountai peaks behind) might not show the devastation.

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Hi Igor,
This is not what I would call a pretty photograph; and that is just fine because nature is not always structured and pretty; but it is a thought provoking reminder that we have to do a better job of being better caretakers of our natural resources. I think the B&W conversion works very well for this image and the story it tells. I like that you included those still standing trees on the right as it adds context to the story. Makes me wonder; are they next in line for the chainsaw? Thanks for putting my mind to work today.

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Ansel Adams wrote the following:

“It is just as important to bring people the evidence of the beauty of the world of nature and man as it is to give them a document of ugliness, squalor, and despair”

But art is often motivated by pain.