Critique Style Requested: Initial Reaction
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
Although visuals are essential to me as a photographer, the emotional aspects of photography are of even more interest to me. So what do you feel looking at this scene? How would you describe the atmosphere? Does this make you think of a story, true or fictional, and if so, what is it about? Thank you for your thoughts.
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
It wasn’t about detail or color, it was about me walking out into the water and feeling the sea was bigger than the sky and just a few things in view. I just recorded what was there and the relationships to be had between those things.
Technical Details
Taken with a Nikon D3200 using a Nikor 50mm f1/8 at 1/500 sec at f/8 and ISO 100, handheld.
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Well, the buoys don’t look like buoys to me. They remind me of robots. So from that my mind jumps to alien invaders and the entire image starts to get a science fiction feel to it. If I had made a different connection I probably would have taken a different path and come to different conclusions. It’s only because of the connection to movies of my youth that I took that turn. However, I do feel that the buoy (and his brother) is the central character in this piece.
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Thanks Igor. I knew you’d have something interesting to say. Not only are you describing your thoughts and feelings but you’re also aware about the origin of those. I like that.
I’m sorry you’re not getting more feedback on this image. I think people are more comfortable with technical analysis then examining their own feelings about images. Fundamentally I think it’s the same issue people have in communicating their own feelings to one another. They don’t want to explore them.
I hope I can inspire people to engage with this aspect more by writing more articles about these things and posting more images like this. If you’re dealing with life and your emotions you may find a whole different and more or at least differently rewarding approach to photography. It helps that there are people like you willing to share what they feel and think. I do thank you for that.
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My first impression… a quiet gray day at the sea and the gulls are enduring.
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Thank you for your thoughts, Stephen.
