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 associations do you make when you see this image?
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
This is a small snapshot of the Upper Deschutes River on a day when there was a lot of foam on the water. It was shot in the fall, which explains the minute debris on the surface.
Technical Details
GFX50R, 45-100mm, f/16, iso 2000
Specific Feedback
I am mostly interested in the conceptional and emotional response to this image. Actually all feedback is welcome since the composition is a bit unorthodox as well.
What I like is the stong structure and the contrasting movement created by the main lines converging on the subject. They seem to pusch it forward fighting against the thin lines moving in the opposite direction. This contrast is reinforced by the color contrast of the warm colors of the woods and the livid blue of the water.
Igor, the lines in the foam do a great job of keeping my eyes moving throughout the frame. The scattered leaves add a lot of interest, especially in the foreground. The mix of static and dynamic is quite striking.
When I was in junior college, I saw a vehicle accident. I was on a ballfield, and saw the accident through one of the entries. Because it was such a small view, I just saw this blindingly fast collision, but it stuck in my mind so strongly it was almost like a freeze-frame of the incident. This image gives me that feeling. There is obvious collision of the forces, but they are frozen, waiting for the day when the forces will be released to collide again.
Convergence! Actually, when I first saw the thumbnail I saw a frozen scene. Only when I enlarge the image do I see the foam lines converging towards a path of least resistance. Those leading lines are tremendous. I love the few leaves in the foreground as it speaks to the time of the year and it gives the foreground just a tiny bit more structure. This is a scene I probably would not have even noticed while hiking along the banks of the river. Good of you to see such potential.
I love your reaction to this image, John. I just came across this short poem by Ezra Pound that has a similar approach. Good images are similar to poetry, I believe.
In a Station of the Metro
The apparation of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough
I see the logs being pushed by the force of the water and they’re stuck in place. There’s tension because the space into which the logs/stick can move is small and the uppermost stick is touching the frame edge, further blocking their movement. If you didn’t want so much tension, it would have been good to have more space at the top. But maybe tension was your intent.
