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
What sort of feeling or degree of intrigue does this stimulate?
How comfortable or satisfying does the composition feel?
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
5 years ago, I was intrigued by the base of a very old ocotillo in Anza Borrego. But I have not figured out how to simplify out the gnarly textures and the translucent yellow-orange and make a respectable photograph. So this week I went to a technique I applied to other shots from that trip, and experimented to see what emerged.
Certainly many versions could come from this technique, and other directions could be explored with other manipulations, but I sorta like this version.
The Photoshop technique is to use edge masking to create a layer mask allowing edges to be revealed. Below that, blur the full image and invert that layer mask (playing with the mask’s opacity). Play with the degree of Gaussian blur and see what emerges. I used TK9 for edge masking, but could also have started with PS High Pass filter.
Then messed with luminosity.
Specific Feedback
I know that if something as abstract as this does not appear to follow any of the typical compositional rules, then the viewers have a hard time connecting. How about you and this one?
Dick: This has an ominous feel to it for me, almost like looking into the angry clouds of an impending cyclone. This is very nicely seen and captured. >=))>
Hi Dick,
I think it’s the color palette, some would say warm, but in this case, its more phlegmatic. There is something cultural about yellow and sickness, not sure where that comes from, but this gives me a generally uncomfortable feeling. I wouldn’t call it pretty, but it is interesting.
Edit: After reading Dennis’ post below, I agree with the metallic element. It’s alchemic!
ML
This is a very interesting abstract, Dick. It looks more like something mineral than bark, and I love the way it glows as if it were translucent. Very well seen and executed.
It is an interesting abstract for sure. I personally like the glow that you have achieved. In the larger version I did notice that you did something unique with the edges as they definitely stand out and some cases look a bit overcooked, but in an interesting way. Yellow, as a color, is usually associated with illness, weakness, and cowardness, but it was the glowing yellow color that caught my attention in the first place. So regardless of how it makes me feel, it still ahs appeal. I think you did well with your experimental processing.
This is a beautiful image Dick. At first glance, it looks prehistoric, and I expected to see an ancient insect trapped in the amber. The combination of light and dark areas is intriguing, as well as the flowing, liquidy feeling it emanates.
Thanks to all. Still a work on progress, I have shifted the phlegmatic green-yellows to be more reddish. Overall effect is more amber, less yuk. Might reduce the blur and maybe try vertical to appeal to viewers not enthralled with abstracts.
