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.
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
After viewing the Robert Adams tape I started to think if I had ever taken images with his mindset. One came to mind. This was shot in 2015 and I kept it because I had a nagging feeling that it meant something to me in some way. I was driving down a country when I glanced to the right and felt a connection. For some reason this type of tree has that effect on me and I was glad to see that it also did for Adams. I can’t remember whether I thought those telephone poles were a nuisance at the time but now I’m really glad they’re there.
Technical Details
Canon 6D, 24-105mm
Specific Feedback
I would like feedback on all 4 considerations. Is the road the right tonal value? Is the field on the right the right tonal value?
Yes, it does. It tells a story, too, if one has an understanding of why that tree is there. It looks like the only remnant of a home site. A landscape that is emptied out.
(reading your comments)
Ah, you probably recognized the significance of that tree, even if you didn’t articulate it. The telephone poles are essential. The tonality feels right to me, considering my interpretation. Maybe bring out the road striping just a bit?
Hi, Igor. Interesting image you share for our view and comments.
To my eyes, yes, it does. I like how the tree dominates the image initially, and then I keep looking for more that is not obviously noticed right away. I’m then able to see the farmhouse in the back, barely noticeable unless I enlarge the photo. I ask myself whether the field is barren or being prepared for cultivation. I look for more elements of an environment affected by humans, but I do not see that.
Without thinking about Robert Adams’ photography, I wonder if I would have opened up the shadows on the road in the FG and darkened the skies in the URC.
On to read your comments now and return for a post-edit of this note.
I think I’ve already covered the road tonal value. As for the field on the right, I do not see it as impactful except for the telephone poles. Those poles do show the human impact on nature. I think the tonality is good all around, but I’d still try a second version of this image with a different interplay of lights and shadows as I mentioned above. I’d be curious to see how I’d look at the same image and if it’d have any impact at all. Clearly, as @Bonnie_Lampley pointed out, the tree and its contrast with the empty land might have played a role in y our getting this image registered.
