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
There are faces in the water. Some are surface reflections of the living, some are of lost souls flowing in the water. Can you see them?
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
Photos such as these often reveal much more upon closer examination. In this case a photo of flowing water seems to include ghoulish faces.
I never saw them until I spent time processing the file. Kind of an eerie surprise, but now I can’t unsee them. An over-active imagination, or something else?
Technical Details
Canon PowerShot G3
f/4 @ 1/100, ISO 50
Processed in LRC
Specific Feedback
Any and all feedback is apprfeciated! And of course, let me know if you see the faces too.
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
The title of the image is significant. It provides me with a context within which I hope to interpret and respond to the image. I agree that monotone is more effective than colour in this case. I can see facial profiles and parts of faces with this presentation.
My eye is wandering around the image hoping to see where the maker wants me to go and where to come to rest! This is not obvious. I want to be led into the image. Highlight where I should pause and where I should stay less. Technical suggestion is dodge & burn a path for me please. This will also add some depth into the image. Add some diffusion where you do not want me to dwell on.
I hope you will find this suggestion will elevate to an new level, what is otherwise an intriguing image.
Vartkes
This is really neat, Jim. As Vartkes noted the title helps me interpret the image to get what you intend from it. Sometimes that helps a lot in abstract images. I also like his idea of creating some kind of path through the image. On the rare occasions when I do landscapes, I try to do that and I think it’s an idea that’s worth applying to abstracts.
It’s a very interesting image, Jim. Just to prove that tastes vary, I prefer the original image. There are a lot of intriguing details.
I suspect that part of the reason Vartkes couldn’t find a place to come to rest is that the white areas in the lower left are distracting. When I copied the image and cropped those out, I thought the result was an improvement.
Oh, this is outstanding! I don’t see faces, but I do see distorted, human-like figures. The color version is working better for me. I could see taking it even further, color wise. Hope you don’t mind, but I did a bit of editing to see what could shake out. I toned the gray water to be cooler, then tried to bring out the two figures that I see by lightening the area around them, and then adding a fairly strong vignette. Oh, and made that brown patch a bit more red - like blood. Sounds gruesome, but if we’re going with lost souls, I figured dramatic and gruesome would be warranted.
Wow, I really like this. The ghostly shapes and faces are amazing. Of the two versions I prefer the first one you posted. I’ve intentionally not read the other comments yet so unsure of the rationale but for me I really enjoy the almost monochrome of the first version.
The top one is easy to see. The middle one looks like the left eye, nose, mouth and chin of some sinister soul. The lower face is dominated by a gaping-wide mouth and chin, and the less-prominent nose and eyes above.
The more disconcerting aspect is what does it say about me seeing this stuff?
This is quite the mind bender! For me, the b&w accentuates and simplifies the shapes and ghoulish faces. I see a couple more that aren’t circled, and I’m sure the more one examines this, the more they’ll find.
I do like where Bonnie is going with this. In fact, I think that direction makes the color version worth pursuing more. I think the b&w stands up strongly as well. The only thought I have is to rotate to horizontal. Not sure if that makes a better presentation, but just a thought.
IMO, seeing these ghoulish faces is a result of our entertainment culture, where movies of otherworldly things (ghosts, demons, aliens, etc.) primes our minds to see them in nature.
Or maybe in this case, they really were the lost souls of those long gone…
