Hi everybody, this is Craig Tanner for The Mindful Eye and the Photo of the Week on The Daily Critique.
The Photo of the week for this week for this week was submitted by John, he is an advance photographer from Seattle. We have some back story and meta data information for you.
John shot this in the Seattle are park. He says that he was really enjoying the evening light, this is light. He was really enjoying the reflection of colors in the water, and that he also more than anything was enjoying just the shapes that we as getting with this particular framing. And John says he was really trying to go for a feeling of piece and calm in this image. And we have a little bit of meta data information. John shot this with a 200 millimeters lens wide open a dept 28 and exposed the file at a 200 of a second.
One of the things that I found fascinating right when I look at this image is how I was immediately sort of going back and forth between an abstract reality. And when we talk about things being abstract in photography or painting it’s really the kind of picture or image or painting where as the viewer were paying more attention to just intrinsic form, or maybe that’s all there is.
When we start to move towards literal it’s more pictorial or narrative or descriptive and we’re thinking more about sort of a story, and it’s obvious to see what’s going on. And one of the things I love about this image is to me it’s a really beautiful sort of back and forth between the two different extremes an abstract where I’m just going to pay attention to shape and form and color and not really relate that to anything that’s literally that can connect to story. And then it’s obvious here that this is just shooting a part of a person and the other thing that’s very provocative is that when you do get to the literal you have a very powerful archetype here. We got somebody that’s partially clothed, and so it’s not just playing back and forth between literal and abstract. It’s playing back and forth between something that to me is the shapes and colors and everything are very calming, and that’s something that’s very provocative potentially and very high energy.
Other thing that I love about this image is that I really enjoy how when I first look at the image I do see this really beautiful big space shapes that are playing off of each other in a very sort of rhythmic way both in terms of color and quality of line and shape, but as I look closer at the image there’s a whole another layer of information details like this, and then it repeats here, and that rhymes this detail, and even this detail and the shadow on the elbow I want to place here again, that continuous a repetition of the big ideas that I see right when I looked at the image. And those kinds of rhythms to me really help the viewer to be lead through the photograph in a way we’re they feel like their getting the communication because there’s a unity or cohesiveness of ideas that’s really powerful.
The other thing that I really like about this image is John says he was going to peace and calm, and I get a lot of that looking at the image. You’ve got the archetype of water which so many people is incredibly calming and not only that seating on the surface of the water to the most calming colors, blue and then green. And then even the warm tones and the person they’re all understated. We never really get to—even though there’s some component of red and some component of orange and some component of yellow we never get to those pure colors. So the warm tones have a very sort of earthy natural feeling to them and they complement play off of the cool tones in a very soft and claming and peaceful way, and also just the line of the small at the back here in the way that it is curving and they repels in the water, but then you have the idea of this arm that’s locked off to the point where the hyper extended going in this direction, and then the hand is a real powerful stopping point. It’s not just to anchoring the person it’s anchoring the image, but it’s anchoring in a very sort of heavy locked off kind of way. The fingers are spread out which is a real powerful archetype, real high energy they’re stopping someone or waving or calling attention to something.
So the other thing that I love about this image is even though yes, there’s a real strong component of peaceful and calm to it. There’s also a component to it of tense, and there’s even a component of something that starts to go even almost so real like this almost represent like the shape of an eye. And it goes very away from the sort of literal calming idea of water.
And last thing that I want to talk about relative to this image I’ve already mentioned it but I just want to bring the color wheel here, and just talk about color for a minute. Really beautiful here if you’re just thinking about color theory, there’s a whole series of analogous colors over here on this side of the color wheel blue, blue green, green and yellow green. And then a sort of all of their opposites or near opposites playing sort of like this, but again, noticing how these colors are very, very understated and what an effect that has on this is the viewer in terms of the kind of energy that we get from the image. Yeah, you have a suggestion of the blue and orange color pair here that’s really beautiful, but it’s muted and it’s understated. Yes there’s a feeling of red and green color pair, but it’s very muted and very understated. It’s just really interesting to me from my color standpoint of what’s happening in terms of how I feel about this image.
One of the takeaways that I would say about this image for myself and that I’m just trying to share today is shooting a part of something. The cameras are great documentary tool and I love just like anybody else to just take a straight shot, and just to remind myself of something, and that can be really beautiful just sort of no effort. The camera can do something incredible just documenting, but I encourage you if you’re trying to grow your eye and your just getting into photography you could just give yourself an assignment. You could say, “I’m going today pick five things and I want to first take a very literal picture. I don’t even have to think about it I’m just going to document it, and then I’m going to take that subject then I want it five times tried by just shooting a part of it to abstract it just using part of the positive space shape and another negative space shapes that are happening around now on the edge of the frame.” Be a really powerful way to work.
I love this image, really beautiful image from John. We want to thank him for sharing this image with us on The Mindful Eye’s Photo of the Week on The Daily Critique. I hope everybody has a fantastic weekend. Thanks a lot every body.
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