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 thoughts run through your mind when you first see this?
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 suppose it’s pretty obvious what this is. It’s a foam line on the Deschutes River. I had seen many foam line images before and had taken some myself. They’re usually pattern shots. I tried to bring something different to the table when composing several of these. Whether I succeeded is another matter. It depends on how much time you devote to looking at it.
Technical Details
This was shot when I was first learning to focus stack. I discovered that the foam line was moving ever so slightly and so it was impossible to merge the stack. However, it did give me several variations on where the leaf occurred within the frame and I chose what I thought was the most optimal.
Specific Feedback
I believe that the foam line is not tack sharp. How big of an issue is that?
My first thought: The first light emerging in our expanding universe. It is a contemplative photograph. The little touch of yellow really stands out against the blue.
My very first thought was “aerial of a very blue sea with a small boat going out into open water.” That was my interpretation from the thumbnail image.
It’s beautiful. I could stare at this image daily as a kind of meditation on life. There is so much symbolism here: movement, separation, solitude, hope, cycles. And that blue is just wonderful.
Sensational image, Igor. My first thought is of a giant wave about to crash on a surfer riding for his life. The surfer even has a wake behind it. Big surf champion, here we come. LOVE this one b because it immediately brings something to mind whether it’s a waterfall, or a giant wave and surfer or something else and that’s what a great image should do. Stir the imagination. Well done and well seen.
I made a slight change to the image. I decided to further delineate the fine dust and matter on the water but bumping up the clarity and texture. Did that improve things or make it worse? Or did it make very little difference?
Like the others have said, it’s a lovey image to sit and ponder. My first thought was an overhead view of a small boat and a big storm coming. I found the added texture and clarity made a lot of distracting noise throughout the frame. You said you were a little worried about the focus on the foam, though, I think on an image like this the flow and movement of the lines are what matter. But until I went back and forth between the two, did I notice the foam was a tad softer. But without the other image, I wound not have noticed. Again, it’s really the feel that matters. So, nicely composed.
I have to say that I prefer the newer addition. I like the added texture. Not sure why but I do even though it almost looks like noise. But by comparison, the original looks flat. Maybe something in between.
Thank you for picking this image for the weekly pick. I still haven’t grown used to the latest changes at NPN. Which of the 3 categories was this picked for? Landscape, intimate, or abstract.
Hi Igor,
My first thought is the scene in the movie The Perfect Storm where the fishing boat Andrea Gail is about to be swallowed up by that monster wave; although this is certainly open to some other interpretations as well. Even though this has a wonderful sense of motion I find it very soothing and contemplative to view. I also love the blues in this intimate landscape as well. Great vision to spot the possibilities in this scene. I slightly prefer the revision with the slightly lighter toneswith a touch less clarity. Beautifully done!
This is so good.
At first glance, all I could see was a windsurfer riding the waves, maybe in Peniche or Ericeira.
I really like the atmosphere created in the image.
I think the second version is a bit too much…
Nice.
