Lines in the Sand

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

One of my early abstract images, what do you think?

Other Information

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Image Description

I thought of this image immediately when I saw the weekly challenge topic of “Parallel Lines”. It’s one of my early abstract images and was taken on film! I took it on a beach somewhere on Cape Cod. It’s still one of my favorite images.

Technical Details

This image was taken in 2008 with a film camera. It was before I was a “serious” photographer and I have no idea what the setting were.


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1 Like

Very interesting image!
Like it a lot…

1 Like

I like the contrast of light and shadow. I think the image would generate more tension if you had photographed the fence from an angle thus generating a diagonal line of fence and shadow.

Debbie, I like this a lot. There are tons of parallel lines and all of them are interestingly distorted, by the sand and the waving curve of the fence. The brightness of the sand on the right sets off the darker shadows on the left well.

I was immediately drawn to the picture as the black lines on one side and the little round mini dunes on the right are so clear cut it makes the picture very interesting. It took me some time to figure out what is going on in the picture because there is such a difference between the two sections. It is interesting also how the fence doesn’t seem unnatural. because it is the color of the sane if somehow fits in with the rest and adds another dimension. I wish there was a little more of the right side, the softer, rounder side. I am not suggesting to place the fence in the middle but if you had a little more - like a third of the frame for the right side, I think it would have balanced the frame even nicer. Really interesting.

The more I look at this the more I like it. There is enough variability to keep this interesting. By that I mean the each line is different and yet the same. I’m not that fond of the tall vertical format. I would go with a 4x5 ratio by cropping just above the thick line and include everything below. Actually a square of the upper part is really good as well.

1 Like

My initial reaction…I love it. Very compelling. The black wavy, diagonal lines in the left 3/4 of the image are so dynamic. The sinuous lines of the fence itself and the slice of sand on the right provide a nice counter balance. I really like it.

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Nicely seen, Debbie! Usually marks from footsteps on the beach are annoying, but their round softness here contrasts well with the sharp shadows. My only suggestion would be to crop off the left (and top, to maintain the aspect ratio), to eliminate that bit of non-shadowed sand in the upper left part of the frame. To my eye, that makes this even more abstract - my idea:

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Hi, I really like the contrast between the line on the left and the curves on the right, but I would like to see a bit more of curves on the right to better balance with line. Now for this week challenge, the composition makes a lot of sense.

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This is remarkable. I do think some perspective change may have helped the composition. I love the contrast of the simplicity of the right side with the sort of busyness of the left side. Maybe a slightly wider perspective to further study that contrast would be nice. That curve fence line just begs to be shown off. Really well seen!

1 Like

Thank you. I will try cropping the image as you suggested.

Thank you for the suggestion on cropping. What do you think of these versions



?