Greetings from the Critique Club!
While I think the Tiffany lamp has potential as good subject matter I don't care for the way it fights for dominance with the woman's face. The title throws me off a bit. It suggest that I will experience purple light spilling on to the pages of a book. The reality is, the light looks quite warm and golden and we only see a woman's face peering down. She is wearing reading glasses but she could also be sewing, doing a crossword puzzle, or balancing her checkbook as someone else quipped. This suggest to me that the cropping is a bit odd which leads me back to my initial comment regarding the struggle for dominance of subject matter.
My instinct is to suggest a more generous crop so that the viewer can see her activity. Alternatively, you could try a different POV which shows the light spilling onto the pages of her book as she reads. This composition indicates a bit of indecisiveness in choosing a clear focal point. Is it the woman or the lamp? The soft focus on the women helps a bit but her features are still quite visible and add quite a large area of interest that compete with the equally interesting lamp shade. It makes it difficult for the eye to relax. Since this is quite clearly meant to be a relaxing image the dynamics need to be toned down quite a bit.
I do like the placement and cropping of the lamp and the harmony of the jewel tones and the warm, golden light. If the lamp stayed excactly where it is in the composition but the woman was sitting quite a bit further away, perhaps curled up on a sofa, I think it would make for a more balanced composition and a very cozy, pleasing image. Of course, I don't know if this is possible, not knowing what the room is like. This is just how I envision this image working. It could perhaps be done by placing the woman on a cozy piece of furniture under similar lighting but without showing another lamp, and placing the Tiffany lamp several feet away from her on some kind support (a dining room table, a plant stand). Of course you couldn't call it "reading under purple light". The point would be to showcase the lovely lamp shade while keeping it in a warm and human environment. |
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