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Smokestack
Smokestack
EstimatedEyes


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Fences (Advanced Editing V*)
Camera: Pentax K100D
Lens: Pentax DA 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AF
Location: Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, CA
Date: Dec 28, 2006
Aperture: f5.6
ISO: 200
Shutter: 1/1000
Galleries: Political, Military
Date Uploaded: Dec 31, 2006

I probably took close to 100 different views like this of different fences and signs. In all of them, I came to realize that the background was the key to the image. What was the fence keeping in and who was it keeping out, and why? On many shots, including this one, I opened the aperture up wide to deliberately blur the background. I had a number of different views of this fence, but ultimately chose this one because it tells a story with the smokestack in the background behind the lock. I deliberately chose an image with the signs a bit blurry as well, because the mists of history are a bit murky as well, and who knows what really happened here.

Minor edge crops, no tuning or edits. WYSIWYG.
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Edited after challenge: Guess the voters didn't get what I was trying to do (or more likely I didn't do it well enough!) ... but at least I stayed above a 5! Thanks for those 7s and 8s ... they sure balanced out the 1s 2s and 3s. (1s? Geez I didn't think it had no redeeming merit!)

Statistics
Place: 213 out of 315
Avg (all users): 5.1079
Avg (commenters): 1.0000
Avg (participants): 5.0562
Avg (non-participants): 5.1382
Views since voting: 810
Views during voting: 294
Votes: 241
Comments: 3
Favorites: 0


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AuthorThread
10/02/2007 10:59:47 PM
Interesting to read your comments about where you wanted this to go and then see where it went.

I see a couple of issues.

1 - crop - this affects a lot of things as this is a complex image.

Crop affects your horizon. Crop affects the position of the lock and its position in the viewing hierarchy. Crop affects the rhythm of the image, particularly when contrasting the close-up view of the wire-link fencing on the left and the pattern on the right.

2 - color - this affects the way we look at your message in the picture. The voters don't like much interpretation here, but I do. I personally would have tweaked the color a bit particularly in the sky to reduce the pure naturalness, possibly with some cues to the strongly colored signs. I might have experimented with a strong selective B&W with a yellow/orange or red filter to really get the sky fading to darkness to highlight the contrast with the smokestack too.

3 - subject management - you have a lot of subjects here. The lock, the smokestack, the fence and the signs. All of these play a role.

You were trying to relate the smokestack to the lock and chain, as well as build the impression of restriction from the signs as well as from the texture/opaqueness of the fence. From a composition POV, I would prefer to see the camera move in a couple of inches and up a bit. Perhaps just a hair to the right.

This would allow the lock and chain to 'frame' the smokestack using the asymmetrical V shape. You could have chosen to align the smokestack with the descending chain or with a part of the lock.

It is unfortunate that the scene seems so idyllic with no visible pollution coming from the smokestack as this really reduces it's visual role. Increasing contrast around the smokestack could take various forms.

Regarding the signs on the fence, it's not all bad. You seem to have a reasonable amount of use of 'vanishing point' to give depth to the signs, although it does feel that the right crop point needs to be moved in a bit to lessen their impact slightly.

If you want further demonstration of any of this, feel free to PM.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 Comments Made During the Challenge
01/09/2007 11:12:07 PM
good idea
  Photographer found comment helpful.
01/03/2007 01:18:35 AM
looks more like a gate than a fence, and the title is not helpfull
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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