Untitled 2

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Untitled-2
Untitled-22650×1850 1.04 MB

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

As I have done previously, I chose to leave this image untitled. I want to leave interpretation entirely up to the reader.

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 am excited about this image as I have been with a few of the other black and white images I’ve recently posted because I feel I’m starting to get to an expression of my own voice and getting a clearer sense of what that might be. I am interested, not only in what is seen but what is imagined – the realm of what the Sufi mystics have called “The Imaginal Realm” and what might also be referred to as The Archetypal Realm. I don’t want to sound inflated, but my hope would be that someone viewing this image would have an experience similar to what I used to come away with after watching an Ingmar Bergman film – not really knowing what it was about but being left with a strong sense of resonance and meaning. The reason that Bergman’s films have that kind of impact is because they are laden with archetypal imagery. It is the same reason why people, even those that dismiss such things as Tarot, nonetheless resonate when someone does a reading for them. The Tarot cards are all based on archetypal images, which means they have inherent meaning regardless of culture, time, or place. Images such as The Fool, The Trickster, The King, The Queen, The Magician will have resonance anywhere at any time for anybody. It is why Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” captivated so many readers. My hope is that an image like this one has a similar impact. This, by the way, was not a posed picture. It isn’t about creating a scene but allowing myself to be sufficiently tuned in and present that I am able to pick up on it when it presents itself.

Technical Details

I tried to upload a screenshot but it wouldn’t upload for some reason. Anyway, I think with this one it’s pretty obvious what the histogram would look like :slightly_smiling_face:

Critique Template

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Struggling against the flow, perhaps the flow of life?

A feeling of being alone and vulnerable in that struggle.

The long exposure of the blurred flow of water and left hand contribute to that feeling.

1 Like
3

An interestingly ambivalent image, Kerry. that gesture with the left hand could be interpreted as a plea for help or worship of the waterfall depending on my mood at the time. The dark interpretation of the background would lead me more toward the former interpretation, but the highlights in the falls and the general attitude of the swimmer lead me toward the latter.

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The person’s gesture feels like a gesture of acknowledgment of the life and energy of the falls. I don’t get a sense of struggling, even though they seem to have a good grip on the rock and the water is flowing past them.