The Blue Hour

Critique Style Requested: Initial Reaction

Please share your immediate response to the image before reading the photographer’s intent (obscured text below) or other comments. The photographer seeks a genuinely unbiased first impression.

Questions to guide your feedback

I’m interested to know what comes to your mind when you see these shapes and colors.

Other Information

Please leave your feedback before viewing the blurred information below, once you have replied, click to reveal the text and see if your assessment aligns with the photographer. Remember, this if for their benefit to learn what your unbiased reaction is.

Image Description

This is a small detail of an old wall in San Ignacio. I spent one late afternoon looking for compositions that seemed to evoke a response. This is the second image. Both images have been reinterpreted after downloading and don’t resemble at all how it was initially shot. I don’t know if that’s a weakness in seeing or what. The problem is that the camera shows the image as it is in nature and I often prefer a different perspective entirely. This one was rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise and then cropped in half.

Technical Details

GFX50R, 45-100mm, f/11, focus stacked. Lens would not focus as close as this subject requires.

Hi Igor! My first impression is that this looks like a landscape. Feels like an abstract drone shot. Colors are awesome. I really enjoy how the pattern in the (wallpaper?) reveals itself as you look at the shot for a bit. Thanks for sharing.

This one evokes more than one reaction for me. :thinking:
Nothing specific stands out immediately.

It still says “Old Mexico” because of the colors and the floral patterns.

But it also says “Reveal” because the missing and peeling paint is revealing a previous generation.

Another reaction is “Time” because this shows at least two generations worth of time.

Or it could be “Decay” for obvious reasons.

I think my most realistic and honest reaction is “Nearing The End of Life”.

Now I’ll read your hidden text.

Maybe the reason for not having a clear and immediate reaction is because the camera does not record your intentions, it only records reality?
As you said:

Igor wrote:
“The problem is that the camera shows the image as it is in nature and I often prefer a different perspective entirely”

Well…I was way off on the location, I said Southwestern US in response to your first image, this is a couple thousand miles south, southeast of there but it still works in terms of culture. :slight_smile:
(This was in regards to my “Old Mexico” reaction)

Igor wrote:
Both images have been reinterpreted after downloading and don’t resemble at all how it was initially shot.
I don’t know if that’s a weakness in seeing or what.

I don’t think that’s the case.
IMHO, viewing the image at some point in the future will rarely convey exactly what we felt while we were at that location in person, even if we clearly remember the experience.

Anyway, thanks for activating a few unused brain cells! :slight_smile:

I’m loving this image. Of course, the colour palette is gorgeous but the tones give it a feel of real mystery for me. My initial take, seeing it small, was that these were bits of old desiccated oak leaves, but, obviously on closer inspection I can see that isn’t the case and that, in fact, it is peeling paint revealing old wallpaper underneath. But the desiccated part remains consistent with my original take and is what it evokes in me. It has the feel of New Orleans - beautiful decay. For me, this image demonstrates the difference between what an image is “of” and what it is “about”. Really nice work, Igor.

I love that comparison. The closest I ever got to New Orleans, however, was seeing ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’.

Thank you for looking.

I like this one, too. The underlying paper is more prominent. One thing that I’d try is to put the tears on a diagonal. I bet that would be interesting. Diagonals always convey energy to me and having the tears seem a bit more forceful could work, too.