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
I would like to know anything you’d care to share around the mood of the photograph and feelings, memories, thoughts, or experiences that may be evoked for you. But I also have a question about how it reads for you outlined below.
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
I took this picture in the soft predawn light as I walked a path behind our campsite towards the forest where I’d planned to take some pictures. The path hugged the lake about three feet above the water. In the morning stillness, tufts of grass stood out in the water, and I thought “I ought to take a picture of that”. And I did but realized how bored I am of taking that same semi-abstract picture over and over. As I began to gather up my gear and continue on the path I saw this scene. My first thought was, it’s too messy, don’t bother, but gathering up my courage I made the picture anyway.
I am very much aware that complexity is just a stone’s throw from chaos. The question I have around this image is which of the two I’ve managed. There is a lot going on in this photograph, especially with the grasses and their myriad reflections. My hope is that there is enough structure to focus and contain the eye of the reader. There is the diagonal that goes from bottom-centre to left-centre. From there it moves across the frame following the grass from dark to light and from there, the light moves diagonally to the upper left. I imagine that the parallel diagonals contain the image so that the eye can roam about freely taking in the various details throughout the frame without getting utterly lost or overwhelmed. But then, is this just something I’m telling myself after the fact and that, really, the picture is running madly off in all directions? I know I like it a lot, but I’m patiently sympathetic (i.e., biased) and am used to reading it.
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
I think it’s a very interesting image. I enjoy the grasses, the reflections and the stones underneath the water and don’t find it chaotic, everything seems to have its place.
I’m not sure about the bright area to the top right, my eye is obviously drawn towards it but that actually doesn’t bother me or take me out of the frame in this instance.
I like it a lot, too! I’m easily bothered by chaos but don’t find this chaotic or too busy, possibly because of the very interesting underwater scene. The “busy” grasses are an extension of that and it gives them a base. Wonderful seeing and processing – I’m glad to enjoy a moment of peace along your shore!
I, for one, really appreciate when a photographer is goind beyond the usual, the expected image. This type of image is almost always a composition of strands of reeds against a smooth surface of water. A sort of minimalist outlook. The fact that it’s different piques my interest and makes me want to explore.
Perhaps busyiness is relative because I don’t find this busy at all. Never since I first laid eyes on this image did I find it busy. Perhaps you mean that the lighter strands of reeds mess up the arrangement of the darker ones. Not at all - they make it more intriguing because they’re unexpected.
This makes me feel as if I’m becoming unbound, as if I’ve lost my bearings and am moving into the void.
It doesn’t feel chaotic or unstructured at all. The reeds are not going in every direction - they’re +/- vertical. Maybe that’s why I get the feeling of floating away - the reeds are pointing up into that bright space. It doesn’t seem complex to me either. Maybe because I’m so used to studying scenes like this.
Sometimes I wonder if a better question to ask would be “What is your considered reaction?” instead of “What is your initial reaction?” As we’ve discussed in other threads, modern social media seems to be training us for quick glances and then moving on. As such, my immediate response was “Oh, I like that!” But, my slowed down and considered response is much more.
This is a symphony in a photograph, and as such the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. First, there are the two arching themes of the grass sweeping to the right as the darker stones and cloudless reflection sweeps to the left; a quodlibet to stick with the symphony allegory. This is accentuated by the details of the lower corners; just enough to hold interest before letting the eye release and flow into the sweeps. The stark detail of the grasses contrasting with the softness of everything else I find magical. Although it is subtle, the fact that the texture and color varies in the cloud reflections along the top is essential for me; it has just enough interest to say “beauty” without stealing anything from the show below. Even the small cluster of brown grass is just right; a nice little bit of sweetness to contrast all the savory.
Okay, back to hoi polloi where I belong. This is a true treat Kerry; encore please.
I just read your comments that were hidden, and am not changing a thing I said.
I love this one Kerry. It has so much complexity to it. I love going deeper into the image with the rocks under the reeds and the mist. Nice work here.
This is stunning Kerry. I find that the symmetry of reflected objects somehow brings simplicity into a potentially busy scene. I love the muted tones in the foreground and the brighter background. I do wonder if the top left might be just a little too bright. I feel as if you could darken that with a diagonal linear gradient just a tad. Keep it lighter than the top right to give a sense of depth, but bring it down from full white. My eye keeps getting pulled up there, even when I try not to. Love your eye for things like this though. I’m beginning to be able to recognize you from just the thumbnail images.
@DomMcKenzie, @Diane_Miller, @Igor_Doncov, @Bonnie_Lampley, @Jim_Erhardt, @Ed_Williams, @Michael_Lowe, @Paul_Holdorf - Thank you all for taking the time and taking a look. I appreciate your insights and experience. @John_Williams - I wanted to thank you especially for your detailed, thoughtful, and even poetic response. I must say, I really do like your notion of “What is your considered reaction” and I hope you send that to @David_Kingham as a suggestion - I know I would be much more comfortable making that request over “initial reaction”. Today I learned a new word, thanks to you - “quodlibet”. But really, your analysis of this photograph and why, in your view it works, is worth the read all by itself. Thank you for gracing this photograph with your very excellent critique, much obliged.
I’ll add my thanks to @John_Williams for explaining to me why I love this image so much!! Looking at it again, I have the feeling that the grasses are unified with their reflections and both are dancing above the water, floating in space.
Kerry: I’m really late to this party but this is a wonderful image. So many harmonious elements. The first thing I noticed was the rocks in the water and thinking that you must have used a polarizer; a technical point but it seems every other reed-in-water image is about reflections which tend to command attention. The color palette is also so good. Just a superbly crafted image and certainly worthy of the EP.>=))>
@Bill_Fach - Thanks so much, Bill. Actually, I didn’t use a polarizer (I find them a nuisance and rarely do). In this case, I think the sun was sufficiently low and the light diffuse such that there was very little glare. Lucky, really because as you can see by that clump of grass over on the right, there is plenty of glare out there but also, a nice transition as your eye moves out from shore.
Thank you Kerry; that means a lot. I often feel a bit inadequate critiquing photographs, but feel it is critical to my development as an artist. I find that is especially true when an image speaks to me, because I want to know why that is so.
I think the reason this image speaks to people on different levels is because of its visual ambiguity. I originally advocated for adding an initial reaction as a critique type to NPN specifically for this type of image.
Btw, this morning I watched a YouTube video on Husserl’s phenomenology and I see this image as an example of what he meant. In short: meaning comes from the viewer and not the subject. The viewer projects reality on the subject and not the other way around. It’s not a very popular outlook in our technical modern world but in my opinion essential in the world of art.
My immediate reaction to this image is a strange one. Somehow, I feel as though I’m looking at a deeply insightful, one-line poem though try as I might, I can’t come up with any words. It just has this power and a strong (silent) presence. Hmm, I think I’ll just have to give it some more time to figure out what it’s trying to say to me.
On a technical note, this image is just about perfect. The light is beautiful, the grass feels chaotic and yet organised at the same time and the rocks under the water add another dimension and depth to the image.
@Tom_Nevesely - That is such a fine metaphor - a one line poem for which you can’t find words. I am humbled that an image of mine could get someone out of their head that way. Thanks so much for your thoughts and reflections.
By the way, I see that David duChemin is offering his course - “Shoot What it Feels Like” - the one you asked about many months ago. Are you still planning to give it a go?
@Igor_Doncov : I really want to respond to your reflections here, Igor, but it would take an essay and I don’t think this is the venue to tackle such complex questions. I can say this, my PhD thesis, written in what now seems like ancient times, was a deep dive into the nature of soul and consciousness and drew on many perspectives including Husserl’s phenomenology as well as his student, Heidegger’s philosophy. At that time I bought into the notion, stated over-simplistically as “there is no meaning in the world except for the meaning we create for it”. I held that position uncomfortably for many years until relatively recently when I recanted. While I do believe that we, as human beings do create meaning I believe that there is also inherent meaning in the universe that arises from its “source” in what might be called Cosmic Consciousness. But though I can give it a name it is, nonetheless a thoroughly ineffable, unknowable “intelligence” that cannot be contained as a noun. What can conceivably be known, however, is its manifest expression. I believe that is what archetypal expression is - expressions, glimpses, metaphors really, for a deeper truth and meaning with which we can resonate but never grasp. The person who turned me around on this was Richard Tarnas in his book “Cosmos and Psyche”. You might like to read it though it takes courage - well written as it is, it is a massive tome but full of deep and fascinating insights.
Thanks for the head’s up Kerry! Unfortunately I can’t seem to find it anywhere but even if I did I’m afraid it wouldn’t be in the cards right now money wise.
