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Re: [OM] Random Zuiko photo

Subject: Re: [OM] Random Zuiko photo
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:15:50 -0800
Tom Fenwick wrote:
> Hmm.  Perhaps Nathan is not the only one who doesn't like the large 
> defocussed foreground area...  

I don't usually comment on posted images I don't much like. But since 
you ask ...

I don't think I would have liked the big, bright, fuzzy leaves in the 
foreground much anyway. For me, though, the image as a whole didn't work 
because it was like two different images fighting over primacy. The 
enigmatic image of the woman sitting in the woods with her back to the 
camera seems to me to be one story, the bright, OOF leaves to be another 
story.

With both present, there's a tug of war for attention between a center 
that's quiet and almost mysterious and one that loud and in my face. I'm 
not saying it may not be a legitimate artistic piece. But with art that 
creates such tensions, many viewers may be pushed away.

Didn't work for me. I wanted to see a shot focused only on the mystery.

> This was becoming an interest of mine - here are another couple of examples!  
> Maybe I should be barking up a different tree...
>   
(groan)
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/8943748@N07/3086057632/
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/8943748@N07/3040480673/
>   

To me, these are both more successful efforts than the first. I don't 
think either would find a place on my wall, but both interest and engage 
me. They each seem to have a central focus or theme, although very 
different from each other.

The first seems to me to be an interesting exercise in formal 
composition of large, very different areas. I particularly like the 
contrast between the highly detailed, sharp, distant area and the fellow 
in front. Somehow it's like the way both photographs and often life are. 
Things seen small or at a distance hold the promise of great detail, 
meaning, insight, but the closer you look, the fuzzier it becomes.

The second one is strong, engaging. The aggressive engagement seems to 
me enhanced by the way the fellow ehind seems to be leaning back, like 
the intensity in front of him is dangerous, or perhaps I'm scary, out on 
the other side of the glass. This would be one I'd come back to in a 
book where the other images mostly weren't like it.

Moose
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