The photographer is looking for thoughtful feedback on the image as a whole, especially around the areas noted below.
Feedback Focus: Artistic / Expressive
About This Image
Here is another photo from the Pebble Beach area north of Bean Hollow State Beach. I was fascinated by the unusual color and texture of the Tafoni and it is what prompted me to make this photo. The crisscross pattern of lines in the stone, and the linearity of the lines was intriguing. I was also trying to capture the sweeping nature of the Tafoni and chose to compose this scene vertically but then in processing decided to crop nearly half the frame to a horizontal.
Feedback Requested
Does the composition support the feeling I’m trying to create?
So nice!! The cool, soft light on the FG is wonderful, as it lets us enjoy the amazing structures there. You captured a beautiful visual sweep leading to the distant cliff and the small amount of sea conveys its vastness somehow. The mix of warms and cools in the sky is such a nice feature – is there such a thing as cool warms?? Well done!
Test passed! The textures and lines in the FG are excellent, Youssef. I also like how the cool FG contrasts with the warm light in the distant cliff and the sky. A fine coast/seascape, indeed. No nits, here.
-P
Great find Youssef. The liquid shapes and textures of the foreground rocks contrast nicely with the dark , jagged, more fragmented rocks on the coast. As mentioned by others the cool to warm transition brings a nice mood to the image. I like how you have kept the highlights on the top surfaces of the rocks as if they are reflecting the sky giving it a very natural look . The strong diagonal lines don’t bother me since they end at a point in the upper third of the image where your eye immediately picks up a peek of sunset reflected on water keeping the viewers eye engaged with the image.
It most certainly does. Given you cropped from vertical, you likely don’t have anything with more on the left? I don’t know the constraints, but I think the sweeping effect would be greater with more room for the diagonals. As presented though, this works beautifully
A test shot? huh? With your level of experience, I would think you knew exactly what you wanted and not experimenting…
Colors, Sat, contrasts… all spot on. A beautiful Seascape Youssef!
Haha! No, I just was not ready to post the photo since I really did not have a title for it. Then David asked for some beta testing of the new posting form, so I decided to use this photo to test out the new form and titled it Just A Test.
Most times when I make a photo, I am not sure yet why, that is what attracted me, or what caught my attention, or what it means to me. So, I usually wait until I can find some meaning in the photo before presenting it. That was the case with this one. I just did not have a name or meaning yet. So Just A Test.
I really like those rocks for their shininess and their smoothness and their shapes. This is what Anil Rao might call a tactile image. You just want to reach out and run your palms across their surface. Yet the forms are not erotic. They’re more metallic. If you could imagine a sculpture made of metal, that’s how I would react to this. The rest of the image gives a nice sense of what this is all a part of.
For me what the lines define is less important than the sense of volume which they and the tones bring forth.
@Igor_Doncov, thanks for mentioning Anil. His work was always an inspiration. I happened to go to his website after reading your comment, and I found a photo of his that probably contains part of this photo. HERE, he titled it Coastal Badlands. Aptly titled.
That’s an amazing coincidence. After you wrote this I went back and looked at his portfolio again. He was a perfectionist in the effort he put into processing. He told me he reworked each image for a week before he felt right about it. What strikes me the most though is that his vision was very different from the rest of us. He just saw differently. He made pictures of what most would overlook or even wonder what he saw in that. It’s only after seeing the product and studying them you realize what he was after. Here is an image I have always liked but where not much effort was put into composition. And I like that about it. https://www.anilraophotography.com/portfolios/rocks_and_stones/assimilation.html
