Thank you Alister for all your excellent image critiques. Reading them has been a good learning opportunity.
The snow started to fall which changed the mood of the landscape greatly. I scanned around and found this majestic tree with these beautiful vein-like branches. The tree had such a great heart like structure to it. The scene held my attention for a long time especially after spending more time with the image in the creative editing phase.
My hope is that there is some level of equivalence (credit to Alfred Stieglitz and Minor White) to the image. Perhaps the root like structures in the image reflect my own attempt to connect to nature and to life itself. I feel the passing of time especially as I approach 50 years old. I want to take a firm hold of all that is important to me: my family, nature, and experiences that lie therein.
I hope others will have their own interpretation of this and for that I am grateful. These words best summarize what I am trying to express:
"The power of the equivalent, so far as the expressive-creative photographer is concerned, lies in the fact that he can convey and evoke feelings about things and situations and events which for some reason or other are not or can not be photographed. The secret, the catch and the power lies in being able to use the forms and shapes of objects in front of the camera for their expressive-evocative qualities. Or to say this in another way, in practice Equivalency is the ability to use the visual world as the plastic material for the photographer’s expressive purposes. " - https://www.jnevins.com/whitereading.htm
You know I love your work @Alfredo_Mora This image is beautiful. It is so perfectly balanced with the tree in the front and those in the back. I like that you flipped it upside down. It makes it so much more interesting.
Thank you for those kind words, I have taken a lot of time to try and write things of value rather than just tired old cliches. Writing them is also a learning experience as I continue to work on my own emotional and aesthetic literacy.
Now, at the risk of upsetting everyone else, I think this is one of the best photographs I’ve seen in a long while. I just love what you’ve done here and transformed the literal into something transcendent, insightful and thought-provoking. Congratulations.
It takes a lot to stop me in my tracks these days, having looked at millions upon millions of images. This shot has it all for me.
Yes, equivalence: I have written in a few other critiques that trees and our human bodies share so many attributes. The trunks, branches and twigs mirror our own nervous and capillary systems. Energy, nutrients and oxygen flows.
I could not offer one single suggestion on how to improve this, and it makes me want to check out more of your work. Thank you for this, it is an extraordinary image, which be default makes you a truly creative person. Thank you, it’s been a pleasure.
Wow, this is just an amazing image! Love it. Nothing to improve, just perfect as is. And thank you for the inspiring belonging text. Alfredo, please give us more of this type of images.
Thank you Ola for your wonderful feedback! I have other images like this as part of my growing experimental collection. Still working on a title for the collection but “Discovery” is the title in the final list.
Wow Alister! I am humbled by your beautiful response! Thank you so much for your feedback and again for taking the time to share your knowledge and insights with us all during this critique session. Thank you so very much!
Wow, at first I thought this was a reflection but upon opening the image i discovered that you just flipped it. So very , very creative. And so well done. This is exemplary in every possible way. I can’t imagine offering a way to make this better. Cheers.
