Saint Anthony

[Kevin Childress]

Open to all areas of critique ...

[© Tom Cooper]

As usual, Kevin, I think this is very near perfection.  The use of B&W was almost certainly correct.  The textures and details on the surfaces of the statue are rendered incredibly sharp.  The tones are rich and smooth.  I can almost feel the man's compassion.

 

Warning:  This is going to go deep.  Sometimes, items in the image imply something that is not.  A great example is the arch; you have included less than a quarter of the archway, but our brains can and probably do extend that arch all the way to the other side.  When we do that, the sculpture that you have shown us ends up well to the right of the center.  Our brains want something to fill the other side to create balance.  But we have no idea what is there.  Without realizing how or why, a sense of mystery is added, because our brains wonder what is not there.

 

Whether you intended to do this or not, I think it works very well.

 

Tom

[David Humphreys ( formerly Galatas )]

Well , Tom has certainly gone too deep for me :-)
Knowing Kevin's work I'm sure he made a conscious decision about whether to include the arch or not. I'm fairly certain I wouldn't have included it , if at all possible , but I don't have Kevin's artistic eye. It goes without saying that the exposure etc are faultless. Nice job done.

On Monday, August 18, 2014 2:36:34 PM UTC+1, © Tom Cooper wrote:

As usual, Kevin, I think this is very near perfection.  The use of B&W was almost certainly correct.  The textures and details on the surfaces of the statue are rendered incredibly sharp.  The tones are rich and smooth.  I can almost feel the man's compassion.

 

Warning:  This is going to go deep.  Sometimes, items in the image imply something that is not.  A great example is the arch; you have included less than a quarter of the archway, but our brains can and probably do extend that arch all the way to the other side.  When we do that, the sculpture that you haqe shown us ends up well to the right of the center.  Our brains want something to fill the other side to create balance.  But we have no idea what is there.  Without realizing how or why, a sense of mystery is added, because our brains wonder what is not there.

[© Tom Cooper]

David Humphreys ( formerly Galatas ) wrote:

Well , Tom has certainly gone too deep for me :-)

 

There is currently a TV series here in the U.S. called "Brain Games" on the National Geographic Channel.  It demonstrates some interesting details of how our brains appear to work.  The show has taught me to think about what is actually going on in my brain (which I consider separate and somewhat independent from my mind).  One thing I have found remarkable is how much our brains "fill in the blanks."  Having some knowledge about when and how that may happen, I've learned to recognize some cases when my brain has filled in what is not there.  What happened in this case was that the instant I saw the image, I imagined a door in the shadows to the right of the statue.  The door would have been out of focus and a distraction had it been included.  In the past, I would have just dismissed it without thinking about it or even recognizing that my brain invented the door, but now I have some inkling of what is happening, and I find it interesting.  In this particular case, I believe most of us have that instant reaction or something like it.

 

BTW, before taking on some of this understanding, a year from now, if you had asked me to draw this photo, my brain might have tricked me into including the whole arch and the door, plus I might have drawn the whole sculpture, including his bare feet.  (How do I know his feet are bare?  My brain invented that, too, without consulting me.)  Confronted with the actual image, I would have struggled to reconcile the two.  A classic example of the problem with eyewitness testimony.

 

Tom

[vtgbart]

splendid. How many time did you spend making that one ?

[Kevin Childress]

Thank you for the feedback received thus far. 

Tom Cooper wrote:

The use of B&W was almost certainly correct.  The textures and details on the surfaces of the statue are rendered incredibly sharp.  The tones are rich and smooth.  I can almost feel the man's compassion.

I'm glad you like the black and white treatment. I tend to prefer presenting statues in B&W unless there is something really compelling about the colors, and in color this one was pretty boring. Its the tones and the contrast in several features that I'm most excited about with this one. There were passing clouds at the moment so I didn't have to wait long for a cloud to diffuse the light enough to help create some neat definition in the man's facial features and folds of his robe. Its also neat to hear that you get a sense of compassion (or emotion otherwise) from the man's posture. I too get a sense of emotion from many of these iconic statues - maybe that's why I like photographing them so much. 

Tom Cooper wrote: 

Sometimes, items in the image imply something that is not.  A great example is the arch; you have included less than a quarter of the archway, but our brains can and probably do extend that arch all the way to the other side ... Whether you intended to do this or not, I think it works very well.

David Humphreys ( formerly Galatas ) wrote:

Knowing Kevin's work I'm sure he made a conscious decision about whether to include the arch or not. 

Yeah, I included that portion of the arch on purpose. I had been working on the same statue a few minutes earlier with a wide angle lens when I began to see how the statue interacted with the surrounding architecture. I only needed enough of the arch to help balance the "left third" of the frame. That archway is a rather large/wide area. The focal length and distance-to-subject required to have included all of the arch would have made the primary subject rather diminutive.

vtgbart wrote:

How many time did you spend making that one ? 

About three minutes. 

[Lady GooGoo La La]

I agree with others, perfect DOF too!

Well done.