Threshold #2

[Marylynne_Diggs]

Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

This is another image in a series I’m calling Thresholds. Actually, this was the first, and I’ve since refined it a bit. Here, I’m just playing with ideas, trying to figure out what communicates the concept of a passage across a line of some sort. Unlike my Odes to Rothko, with this technique, I’m trying to create two spaces in an image, spaces that have different feelings and a border of some sort between them.

In this image, I’m trying to create the sense of a dark space and a slowly lightening space. I’m still unsure how the brain processes space in two dimensions: do we always read top to bottom? Do we ever more from bottom to top (as in foreground to background) when an image is abstract as in the case of an image like this?

Specific Feedback

As always, I’m always open to any and all kinds of feedback, including a giant yawn or a heck, this is cool but I move on pretty quickly when something is this abstract. In particular, I’m curious about the following:

1. How does your brain process this image: top to bottom? Bottom to top? Is it spatial or luminosity/color that determines that?
2. Is it just too dark overall, or does it communicate the idea of being a dark space but finding light and warmth?
3. Does this feel like a space you cross? Or is it more static despite its divisions of color?

Technical Details

Canon 5DIV with with 24-105mm
Two ICM images of 70 and 99 mm merged in Photomatix (misusing photomatix for composite)
Literal subjects were: a) a doorway from a yellow to a blue room and b) a red ornament and a black flask

[Don_Peters]

Marylynne, my responses.

@Marylynne_Diggs

• How does your brain process this image: top to bottom? Bottom to top? Is it spatial or luminosity/color that determines that?" Bottom to top because of the red color. It’s an eye magnet.
• “Is it just too dark overall, or does it communicate the idea of being a dark space but finding light and warmth?” I wouldn’t say it’s too dark overall.
• “Does this feel like a space you cross? Or is it more static despite its divisions of color?” I find myself seeing it as a sort of seascape, despite the colors, and I don’t see it as a space to cross.

I particularly like the bit of red peeking out of the background, right on the boundary.

I’m not sure I understand your intent well enough to comment further.

[Lon_Overacker]

Marylynne,

It’s looking to me like you have the makings, or the beginings of an impactful series or Project. I personally don’t have the emotional brain capacity to “see” or “feel” intent with these kinds or style of abstracts. But I’m learning and can say that I appreciate what you are attempting to accomplish.

I can be guided with questions however!

@Marylynne_Diggs

• How does your brain process this image: top to bottom? Bottom to top? Is it spatial or luminosity/color that
  determines that?" Bottom to top because of the red color. It’s an eye magnet.*

I am a general believer in the concept of our culture (Western in my case) of how we see things in terms of “reading from left to right and top to bottom” Having said that, what we’re viewing has considerable influence on how we read or see an image. And in this case, the strong, warm colors and honestly, the very slightly larger space of the bottom is where my eye goes first. Even though color and luminosity are heavier up top.

• “Is it just too dark overall, or does it communicate the idea of being a dark space but finding light and warmth?” I wouldn’t say it’s too dark overall.*

Not too dark in my opinion, but clearly depends on the impact you’re after. The darker purple and blues are heavier and could have more luminosity, but I don’t think they should approach the same levels as the red/orange below

• “Does this feel like a space you cross? Or is it more static despite its divisions of color?” I find myself seeing it as a sort of seascape, despite the colors, and I don’t see it as a space to cross.

I certainly see a border, or even perhaps a barrier with the white separating the colors. I suppose if you were to flip this vertically I could see more of a seascape look; ie. darker land, warm sunset skies?

Ultimately, I do see a kind of threshold, almost like a table-top (influenced by your description of the 2 ICM’s…) And kudos to you also, because I wouldn’t have thought of this as a composite.

I have no idea if my comments are helpful, but maybe some thoughts to consider.

BTW, the orange/red below and the shapes from the ICM, make me think the original subject was some sort of still life on a table-top.

Thanks for sharing

[lynsie (Lynsie Conn)]

Hi Marylynne. My eye started at the meeting point of the light and dark, then I explored the top of the frame before moving on the warm colors below. This does read like two distinct states of being meeting in the middle. It almost looks like an alla prima oil painting with pulled brush strokes, especially in the blue/green tones. I’d love to see more from this series.

[Marylynne_Diggs]

Thanks @Lon_Overacker , @Don_Peters , and @lynsie . This is very helpful feedback.

Lon: Yes, that was a kind of still life (ornaments on a table along with a black matte flask, but I think kind of blended with a yellow wall in a different image).

Don: No wonder you don’t understand my intent. It’s forming slowly and changing regularly, so I can’t quite articulate it clearly.

Lynsie: I find myself engaged in a kind of cognitive psychology or perceptual attention experiment with this. Top to bottom seems typical for people, unless color commands attention differently.

Everyone: With this series, I’m hoping to create a set of images with two distinct colors/spaces separated by a line of some sort. Conceptually, I would like these spaces and colors to represent emotional states (though they might differ from person to person) but also show how close we are, at any moment, to a different kind of place emotionally or spiritually or physically if we can address the barrier or threshold between them.

I know, it’s kind of woo woo, but I like to have a concept for some of my more abstract things, and they generally follow some aspect of my life. Right now, moving from grieving to living or from indoors to outdoors or from darkness to light, and I also want those things to be complicated, not too binary or specific. There is love in grief and warmth in darkness, so I’m trying to compose those feelings via ICM and in some cases ICM with composites of two images.

I think I want this to be a set of vertical images, in part because it allows us to start where we feel drawn. If I make them landscape, the left to right bias in western cognitive processing might allow me to dictate direction of movement or thought, and I would like that to be left open to the viewer (assuming anyone other than the four of us looks at these for more than a few seconds anyway ).

And yeah, these are mostly non-nature images. So far, I have found the colors of nature to be less distinct (though Lon’s wall matrix show the myth in that theory). But also, this is kind of a domestic project of sorts, something to do when home, when turning inside rather than outside, if that makes sense. Probably not the best site for this project, but thank goodness for our non-nature category. I have fallen out of touch with my other photography forums.

Anyway, thanks for your feedback. I’m going to play with more of these and share as a project sometime in the next week or so.

ML