Captives

[Tracy Lebenzon]

The sound of sunset

The sailboat named Haystack​

 

[Asher Kelman]

The sailboat named Haystack​

Tracy,

This second one is really a great vista and what a special experience. That boat, though common enough, adds human life and empathy. I'd by thrilled with this result. Kudos! How will you print it.

Asher

 

[Tracy Lebenzon]

Thanks! The large version will be about 24 x 50 on veneered canvas.

 

[StuartRae]

Hi Tracy,

#2 is quite beautiful, and the boat adds the finishing touch. The only minor criticism I have is the the squiggle of white cloud dead centre annoyingly catches the eye. Maybe clone it out?

Regards,

Stuart

 

[Don Ferguson Jr.]

Thanks! The large version will be about 24 x 50 on veneered canvas.

Nice, I bet it will look great on veneered canvas.
Don

 

[fahim mohammed]

Tracy, indeed #2 printed on canvas will look delightful. The squiggle of a cloud does catch my eye.

Beautiful work.

Regards.

 

[Tracy Lebenzon]

Thanks Stuart, Don and Fahim!

I did an edit and removed a couple of clouds near the sun and you are correct, it does remove something that the eye comes back to again and again.

 

[Tracy Lebenzon]

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Love this new one Tracy!

 

[Tracy Lebenzon]

Thank you Ben!

 

[Don Ferguson Jr.]

Is this a different picture or is the white balance changed and a lot of pp applied ? Looks great .
Don

 

[Tracy Lebenzon]

Thanks. It were captured on a different day

 

[Jean Henderson]

Tracy,

I love this one, but then the lightness in the upper left corner kept dragging my eye there. Just a thought.

Jean

 

[Tracy Lebenzon]

Sigh.

PS and my web site use a grey background and it looks okay with that, but against white, not so much.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Tracy,

As has been said myriads of times, sunsets are so much more difficult than most other pictures because of their obvious beauty, sentimental value and popularity. So we need to look for features which can mark our own work with unique fingerprints.

I notice that this attractive picture has two dominant points of interest. There's the boat on the left and then the red sky and reflection on the right. Still the picture, as it is now, is , I say hesitantly, rather flat. I wonder whether you might consider working on these two features to see if a far stronger sunset can be discovered within your photograph. Having a uniform pleasant exposure is, IMHO, not enough.

Asher

 

[Tracy Lebenzon]

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback.

The thing about working with muted colors is that some like them while others are not content unless there is more pop.

 

[Tracy Lebenzon]

Cat's Eyes​

 

[Tracy Lebenzon]

December Sunset with noise
​

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

the noise doesn't bother (too much) but the colour noise looks awful, how about removing it leaving just the luminance noise?

 

[Asher Kelman]

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback.

The thing about working with muted colors is that some like them while others are not content unless there is more pop.

Tracy,

If you specifically like muted colors go for it. Did you intend muted detail too? Whatever you wish, you also need to materialize in you pictures. Take these parameters to the extreme is that pleases you, unless it's for some market or client who has there own demands they will pay for.My opinion on esthetics has little weight when compared to ideas you wish to express, LOL!

Asher

 

[Tracy Lebenzon]

the noise doesn't bother (too much) but the colour noise looks awful, how about removing it leaving just the luminance noise?

Thanks for the feedback. I haven't used noise as a device, well, since I used Tri-X film about 30 years ago, that is. Here is one without...

 

[Tracy Lebenzon]

> Did you intend muted detail too?

Actually yes; it is a product of the circumstances. It’s a sunset, after all, Asher, where silhouettes and colors are what is there. And longish exposures are what is needed to capture it.

What other detail would you expect to see?

> Whatever you wish, you also need to materialize in you pictures.

Huh?

> Take these parameters to the extreme is that pleases you…

I was never a fan of extremes. Some are good at it but my experiences are that doing so typically produces a life support system for overly contrived results.

Thanks, as always. for your comments.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Did you intend muted detail too?

Actually yes; it is a product of the circumstances. It’s a sunset, after all, Asher, where silhouettes and colors are what is there. And longish exposures are what is needed to capture it.

So movement of waves or ripples blurs them? Is that it or is the water is just very calm?

What other detail would you expect to see?

Details in the water and clouds.

Whatever you wish, you also need to materialize in you pictures.

Huh?

Tracy, I mean if you have an idea in your head, materialize it boldly. That way your imagination is embedded in your art and it will transfer to the rest of us more easily. I was wondering whether the flatness of your picture was the result of expressing your intent or the limitations of the light and lack of wind moving the waters.

My comments are directed to the former possibility, that you intended to give a more abstracted representation of what you saw.

In general, if one is going towards abstract or any other esthetic or style, make this boldly. The idea is that art should immediately be engaging and have an identity. A picture that's only slightly styled cannot be identified, necessarily as your work by you fingerprints. Style can come from subject, composition, colors and/ theme and if these are recognizable, then our work can get more traction.

I'm not saying you should go to extremes, rather if we make our choices definitive we'll have our individual fingerprints on our work.

Asher

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

I like it better without the noise Tracy, I hadn't noticed how exquisite that cloud next to the boats mast was due to the distraction until now.

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

Hi Tracy,

Just to let you know, I have been enjoying this series although I did not chime in before. I like your perseverence and the variations presented of the same location with the same boat at the background. I know that sunsets may seem to be a cliche to many of us and that it is difficult to bottle up emotions. But your series is valuable as a study of the topic and it transcends the typical sunset snaps. Thanks for sharing these.

 

[Tracy Lebenzon]

So movement of waves or ripples blurs them? Is that it or is the water is just very calm?

Details in the water and clouds.

Tracy, I mean if you have an idea in your head, materialize it boldly. That way your imagination is embedded in your art and it will transfer to the rest of us more easily. I was wondering whether the flatness of your picture was the result of expressing your intent or the limitations of the light and lack of wind moving the waters.

My comments are directed to the former possibility, that you intended to give a more abstracted representation of what you saw.

In general, if one is going towards abstract or any other esthetic or style, make this boldly. The idea is that art should immediately be engaging and have an identity. A picture that's only slightly styled cannot be identified, necessarily as your work by you fingerprints. Style can come from subject, composition, colors and/ theme and if these are recognizable, then our work can get more traction.

I'm not saying you should go to extremes, rather if we make our choices definitive we'll have our individual fingerprints on our work.

Asher

Thank you for these thoughtful comments. If I wanted to fairly address each of your points, I’d need to develop a spreadsheet and use that as the basis of a power point presentation. Rather than doing that, I'm just going to address a couple of your comments and hopefully that will work.

Regarding the image, it isn't a timid attempt at anything, nor is it a willful abstraction. It was a fairly accurate capture of the conditions at the time.

Technical details:

This capture is a digital stitch. It involved 7 or 9 frames, iirc. I run a 10 second timer before the shutter trips and each exposure was 1.6 seconds. Add in time to position the camera at the new location and between the left and right side of this image roughly two minutes past. Also I used f32 as that permitted a longer exposure and a softer end result. When doing stitches of water, a softly defined image is always your friend.

The water was fairly calm and the clouds mostly flat and uniform (as clouds are too often around here). Beyond that the work was a fairly minimal work up. Only slight use of multiply filters to add depth, and a little color correction. More often than not, when water is the subject I forego sharpening, as was the case here.

Influences:

A few months back you (Asher) mentioned Monet’s haystack series and suggested doing a similar series of studies of Oregon’s Haystack rock along the same lines. Monet painted the same haystacks roughly 25 times over about a year. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haystacks_(Monet) for a brief account. They were done at different times of the day, while the series I've started have been done (so far) at sunset.

I liked the idea but don’t have regular access to the Oregon coast. I do get to see the sail boat I've named “Haystack” pretty regularly, and so my goal here is to show this boat and parts of the vista over roughly the course of a year. Because I like panos, doing the presentation in the form of panos is part of this series of studies.

I'm not Monet and have no training in impressionism so probably wont be going that route, but do intend to portray the environment as the central subject.

Does that help?

About style:

As to the comment of identity or style in one’s work, I remember the topic coming up during my art history studies from time to time. Professors typically suggested that most artists didn’t work towards producing a particular style, per se, but rather did the kinds of work that interested them. From that approach a style followed. I like to pursue the things I enjoy, and high on the list of things I enjoy includes challenging myself.

I absolutely don’t want to paint my work into a corner of particular stylistic expression, other than my best efforts and for the time, the use panos. Once one heads down the path of making stylistic reproductions, there is a major risk that’s all one gets!

It’s inevitable in any individual’s work that a sense of style can be seen. That’s an inescapable part of human nature.

Thanks Asher for your comments! They always thought provoking.

 

[Tracy Lebenzon]

I like it better without the noise Tracy, I hadn't noticed how exquisite that cloud next to the boats mast was due to the distraction until now.

Me too. I thought it might be cool to add noise but once I opened that door I saw a billion variables coming at me that I’d never dealt with before. I might re-visit the device once I've had a chance to see how this kind of thing can enhance the image rather than, ahem, adding noise….

 

[Tracy Lebenzon]

Hi Tracy,

Just to let you know, I have been enjoying this series although I did not chime in before. I like your perseverence and the variations presented of the same location with the same boat at the background. I know that sunsets may seem to be a cliche to many of us and that it is difficult to bottle up emotions. But your series is valuable as a study of the topic and it transcends the typical sunset snaps. Thanks for sharing these.

Thank you Cem. I don’t understand the comment about the difficulty of bottling up emotions. Heck most people, myself included, keep them largely bottled up throughout a life…..

My goal is mostly to afford myself the opportunity to capture the environment in this beautiful setting. I have no other goal and if the series serves any purpose at all it is about my own entertainment while pursuing a suggestion made by Asher.

Clint Eastwood made a great comment on the topic. He said, and I’ll paraphrase: You do your best work and then present it to others who bring with them their own ideas about what it is you were “really” doing.

But I'm glad you like the captures! I've come to thoroughly enjoy your works here to get a complement from someone whose work is as good as yours is transcendent in its own way.

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

Hi Tracy,

Apologies if I haven't been clearer when I referred to bottling of emotions (such as ones caused by sunsets). The term was introduced to OPF by Ken Tanaka in this thread. And there was a related thread here.

…..

My goal is mostly to afford myself the opportunity to capture the environment in this beautiful setting. I have no other goal and if the series serves any purpose at all it is about my own entertainment while pursuing a suggestion made by Asher.

Clint Eastwood made a great comment on the topic. He said, and I’ll paraphrase: You do your best work and then present it to others who bring with them their own ideas about what it is you were “really” doing. .

Very well said, agreed.

 

[Tracy Lebenzon]

Hi Cem,

A belated thank you for explaining and linking the related threads. I didn’t understand at the time that you were speaking of photography as a producer or bottler of emotions. This is an interesting topic of discussion as was evidenced by the linked threads.

Anywho, here are a couple new contributions to this thread.


I’ll have to start doing my walks at a different times of the day, but I've come to love seeing sunsets from this area.....and have done so for a very long time.