Photography forum image of the month May 2011

Every month on our pho­tog­ra­phy forum mem­bers nom­i­nate images that they like. Then at the end of the month I choose an excel­lent image and talk about why it rocks. The photo I choose is not nec­es­sar­ily the best one of the month. I’ve come to real­ize it’s not really log­i­cal to pit images from totally dif­fer­ent gen­res against each other. That’s why there are cat­e­gories in photo con­tests. I just choose a photo that has extremely strong ele­ments that we can learn from.

Lake Wall by taffy

This month’s choice is Lake Wall by taffty.

I chose this image for sev­eral reasons:

Mood — The over­all mood here (which I inter­pret as as “ethe­real”) is cre­ated by many fac­tors includ­ing; the soft light, the com­po­si­tion and of course the black and white post pro­cess­ing. The whitish clouds reflect­ing in the water as well as what looks to be a really gen­tle surf also give you the feeling/illusion that the wall is float­ing on air.

Com­po­si­tion — The lines, curves, shapes, sub-shapes cre­ated by the lines and curves, and the use of neg­a­tive space are all well used here. They please our eyes and intrigue our eyes. The curved wall-path that starts with medium/light tones in the fore­ground to darker at left midground leads our eye beau­ti­fully as it ‘cuts’ through the lighter tones on the left..

Expo­sure and post pro­cess­ing — Both well han­dled here. Even though the light is soft, reflec­tions off the water make for a trick­ier expo­sure. Whites hold their sub­tle detail on my mon­i­tor and I like that. Sil­very mid­tones in the sky (back­ground) and imme­di­ate fore­ground match each other for won­der­ful effect.

For all these rea­sons, this is my choice for image of the month. Since we all have opin­ions, some mem­bers may dis­agree with my choice. That’s cool but THIS thread is not the place for debate over my pick, NOR is it the place to fur­ther cri­tique the image. The pur­pose here is to sug­gest strong ele­ments in the photo that we may learn from.

Con­grats again taffy for see­ing and and cre­at­ing this won­der­ful photo!