A staircase leading to the second floor of a small, abandoned house that I stumbled upon a few months ago and revisited for the purpose of this shoot. Mood and darkness plays a large part in Heida's work, so that was what I wanted to capture. The mood in there was so sad, the remnants of the person's life largely removed and what was left strewn carelessly about. Or, as is the case here, only skewed and broken railings, the bannister having long been broken off.
pp: No way could I replicate Heida's pp so I didn't even try! Curves, clone out two white areas on ceiling, contrast, resize, usm, sharpen edges, save for web
Statistics
Place: 117 out of 129 Avg (all users): 4.5759 Avg (commenters): 8.0000 Avg (participants): 4.4717 Avg (non-participants): 4.6159 Views since voting: 801 Views during voting: 294 Votes: 191 Comments: 5 Favorites: 0
Your one comment in-Challenge eludes to perhaps not a strong contender for this Challenge (or maybe they weren't concerned with that, hard to tell), however liked your originality regardless (and their score reflects that).
Wow, they even critiqued my comment! I was kind of frustrated with voting -- as I got into the entries, I found it increasingly difficult to vote one person's entry against another person's style. (Heida's own shot didn't ribbon, so there you go.) Rather than going after processing techniques, which it seems most folks did, I voted more on mood. Her shots are always some combination of magical, mysterious, dark, sublime. This shot probably fell flat on most voters as you didn't woo them with eye-candy processing, ominous contrast, heavy vignette, or lots of grays and blues and blacks. But it told a compelling enough story, hence my comment and vote.
Love the way that railing is now a crown of dangerous spikes. In a way, your photo certainly does fit macrothing's assessment of Heida's style: It's an innocent scene that has been processed (by time) to look dark and malignant. Keep this location in mind when the Halloween challenges come around!
First Impressions Tough pick.. I didn't vote in this Challenge, nor am I very familiar with heida's work. However, I am familiar enough to give my first instant impression of this image which was: the feel/finish/processing is not dramatic enough to be distinctly in the style of heida, in my opinion. The subject/context and scene are quite 'dark', but my interpretation of most of the images of heida's that I have viewed is that, the subjects themself are rarely 'dark', but the mood and/or processing gives them a dark feel, which is usually contrasted by an innocence or other contrary and complementary aspect. Hopefully that makes sense. However, that is my interpretation of her art, this is obviously yours - and that is one of the beauties of admiring art, we all see something different.
Photograph Information, Technicals & Composition Review With this scene as is, and using it for this Challenge, I wonder whether a variation in your technicals would have allowed more mood and drama to come into play and light up the scene differently. I like the light coming through the window, but the lack of discernible detail in the foreground, which takes up quite a bit of the frame, is detracting from the interest on the landing/up the stairs. The details discernible in the ceiling dominate too much, and again, draw the attention away from the most interesting aspects of the image (in my opinion), which are the window and possibly the door/doorway. The doorway being 'chopped' makes it a minor feature however.
The broken railings/'sticks' (which on first view I assumed was ironwork/castings), perhaps are an interesting element, however from this angle/perspective are not showcased well enough to be identifiable enough to add to the image.
Comments, Score & Placement Review 118/126 and a score of 4.57 is pretty low, but this is/was a very difficult Challenge. To try to submit an image without a human in it, made it even more difficult to emulate this lady's distinctive style.
Your one comment in-Challenge eludes to perhaps not a strong contender for this Challenge (or maybe they weren't concerned with that, hard to tell), however liked your originality regardless (and their score reflects that). Your other post Challenge comment seems to be familiar with her work and gives a good indication of why they thought the entry not so strong for this Challenge, which is good feedback to receive.
Summary A little more context and simplicity, coupled with some 'distinctive processing elumation' would likely have given this a little more strength. However as mentioned above, a very difficult Challenge to shoot for, and almost as difficult to receive votes from others who may not be familiar enough with the work of the artist honored, [user]heida[/i].
This is so creepy and unsettling, that I chuckled when I looked at the title. I don't know how Heida-esque this is (don't care) -- points for an original entry.
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