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
Looking for your initial reaction. What mood does this convey to you?
Other Information
Please leave your feedback before viewing the blurred information below, once you have replied, click to reveal the text and see if your assessment aligns with the photographer. Remember, this if for their benefit to learn what your unbiased reaction is.
Image Description
This is a composite of a close-up of bull kelp leaves and fractured rock. I’ve been experimenting with compositing multiple photos. It’s quite fun and amazing how many different looks can be made from the same set of photos.
Technical Details
Both images are iPhone 14 photos. Processed a bit in ACR, but most work done in PS.
Specific Feedback
Mainly looking for aesthetic, conceptual, and/or emotional response feedback. If there is a glaring technical issue in your opinion, of course I’d like to know.
I have no idea what this is and I love it.
My initial reaction is very positive!
I think some of the fractured stuff might be a little bright but hard to say!
Thanks, @Mike_Friel and @Matt_Payne! There were some blown highlights, which I hadn’t addressed. Thanks, Matt for noticing - fixed them. Also fiddled with the upper corners - they were sort of different from the rest of the dark bits.
Bonnie, your title matches the image so well. Someone mentioned lightning which I can see but this also gives me vibes of a marble statue or countertop. So much depth to the image which looks fantastic! I like the tweaks you made too.
Bonnie, this is the most creative thing you’ve done in a long time. I feel i’m in heaven. In the clouds, And yet I see the night sky at the same time, the cosmos. Really and truly excellent. I’m overwhelmed.
It means one didn’t get a response. It’s meant to describe the feeling of standing alone on a dark night with no one else speaking, just listening to the crickets (although crickets do make a lot of noise, so in that regard it doesn’t make perfect sense).
Silence may not be a bad thing. They may be digesting it. They may be used to images of self evident subjects and don’t know what to make of it. It’s like those people who claim they can’t stand modern art (especially Picasso for some reason).
True that. The one thing that was said about it was that it “didn’t have a place for my eye to land.” So, you’re right - they are looking for the self-evident subject. I expected more of these folks, though - they aren’t unsophisticated and one of them is into really experimental stuff (although still with a “subject”, to be sure). The upshot here is that I need to manage my expectations - ha.
There is a clear center of interest reflected in the composition. The white ‘wings’ all cross in the center. There is radial symmetry here. Between explorations the eyes, my eyes, always go back to the center.
I’m not just trying to suck up. I really believe this.
The clear downside for being absent for too long, is how much I’ve missed responding to your recent abstract work. The are all outstanding, and unquique.
I’m coming back to this one because I think it’s my favorite of your recent abstracts.
Aesthetics? absolutely. This is so very appealing to me, even without knowledge of what it is. I don’t consider this comment to be an emotional response, but I do have a reaction. My initial reaction was that of baking and decorating a cake… huh? you ask… More specifically, think about those edible “gold leafs” that are used to decorate cakes and things. Ribbons of silver, gold and bronze adorning an elaborate anniversary cake? So does that count as an emotional response?
What else can I say. This is mezmerizing. Wow.
Lon
ps. Regarding the “crickets”… perhaps speechless was the reaction?
I’m glad Lon’s comment brought this one back to the top of the list because I thought I had commented on it. (My interruptions get interrupted.) Whatever it is doesn’t matter to me – I love it!! There are all sorts of vibes and I’m really not sure what any of them are – and a description doesn’t matter, at least to me. My reaction is just wow, SO cool, amazing!!
Bonnie, this is simply wonderful. All I can add to the other comments is wow!
My first impression was also of the cosmos, primordial clouds being charged with electrical shocks starting the formation of new clusters of energy and matter (the brown/red/greenish clusters). It seems to follow a theme from your previous image of the space pods!
Just love it. Cheers.
I love this! I love the others you’ve created as well but this one seems to stand out more than the others to me.
This reminds me of marble, especially the lines that resemble rusty iron veins, even the color of the kelp reminds me of marble but this has the feeling of cured clear epoxy entrapping the kelp with gold leaf sprinkled into the top portion of the epoxy. I used to make countertops and tables with clear epoxy and various materials like wood, round stones, different colors of epoxy, etc., so I guess that’s where I get this interpretation from.
Either way, I really am enjoying the patterns, colors, textures and the light.
I couldn’t help but imagine this printed and framed with a mat, so I created a digital frame just to see what it might look like.
Just a thought really, I hope you don’t mind me sharing my experiment on framing your image!
It truly is lovely! What’s not to like about it? It screams “Joyful”!!
BTW, my initial reaction wasn’t words, it was an immediate smile on my face!
