Memorial Day

torags

Lafayette Hill in Lafayette California. A property owner has graciously allowed citizens to place crosses for each of the fallen Americans of Iraq/Afghanistan. They have run out of space, but the memorial remains.





With tears in my heart, join me remembering them, they deserve it.

ian408

The hill has been the subject of much controversy. Kinda sad in a way too.

Personally, I thank those who have maintained those crosses as a solemn reminder of the price for war.

bdcolen

Both are very moving images, Raggs. I'm not quite sure what gets me about number 2, but I think it's the simplicity. If I'm going to critique - and why am I here, right? :-) - I would suggest trying #1 in black and white, and I'd note that #2 would be technically stronger if you'd included the enitrety of the cross pieces of he crosses at the top, or cropped them out entirely. But I quibble.;-)

RSL

Both are fine shots, Rags. I really can't choose between them, but I'm moved by the ghostlike aspect of the crosses in #1, gray in the bright sun.

I don't agree with BD. In #2 the focus is on Jake Yelner. The presence of other crosses is important to the atmosphere, but raising the camera would add detail that doesn't need to be there and that could detract from the focus.

bdcolen

RSL wrote: »

Both are fine shots, Rags. I really can't choose between them, but I'm moved by the ghostlike aspect of the crosses in #1, gray in the bright sun.

I don't agree with BD. In #2 the focus is on Jake Yelner. The presence of other crosses is important to the atmosphere, but raising the camera would add detail that doesn't need to be there and that could detract from the focus.

Actually, Russ - you're wrong. What we have now are two distracting two inch wide white strips. Raising the camera enough to include the entire cross members would simply frame the image, and would in no way distract from the subject.

lensmole

Yes both are nice shots, but I feel more of a connection to second one, although I agree with B D about showing more of the tops of the crosses.

RSL

Actually, BD, unless the photographer crouched, raising the camera enough to include the tops of the more distant crosses would remove the flowers at the base of the Jake Yelner cross, and crop too much of the base of Jake's cross. In addition, the re-framing might add additional detail at the top of the picture that would detract from the focus of the picture.

But let's go back to a fact I covered at length in another post: unless you're actually there, you have no way of knowing what's outside the borders of the picture. It's possible that by raising the camera, Rags would have included something completely distracting. Only Rags knows, and even if Rags tells us at this point that raising the camera would include things that either improve or degrade the picture, that doesn't eliminate the fact that we can't know what's outside the frame by extrapolating from what we see in the frame. Our knowledge of a photograph is always limited to what's inside the frame. If we speculate about what's outside the frame we're entering a world of fantasy.

Harryb

RSL wrote: »

Actually, BD, unless the photographer crouched, raising the camera enough to include the tops of the more distant crosses would remove the flowers at the base of the Jake Yelner cross, and crop too much of the base of Jake's cross. In addition, the re-framing might add additional detail at the top of the picture that would detract from the focus of the picture.

But let's go back to a fact I covered at length in another post: unless you're actually there, you have no way of knowing what's outside the borders of the picture. It's possible that by raising the camera, Rags would have included something completely distracting. Only Rags knows, and even if Rags tells us at this point that raising the camera would include things that either improve or degrade the picture, that doesn't eliminate the fact that we can't know what's outside the frame by extrapolating from what we see in the frame. Our knowledge of a photograph is always limited to what's inside the frame. If we speculate about what's outside the frame we're entering a world of fantasy.

:deadhorse

The only fantasy here is to think by making the same argument again it will suddenly result in some kind of agreement that wasn't reached the first time the argument was made.

Rags' image is a fine one but it could have been better. Unless we consider all the alternatives such as a lower perspective, perhaps a vertical comp, etc, etc we will never change (improve) our results.

Nevertheless what Rags or anyone else is usually looking for when they post their work is critques of that work. While I am sure Rags and everyone else is fascinated by our critiques of how others have critiqued the image its is equivalent to a hijack of the thread.

If y'all want to discuss how to critique an image it would make a fine topic for its own thread. Its just not a topic to be gone over in Rags' post or anyone else's.

torags

Awww.... Harry, you're no fun....