stating the obvious
Cem and all here,
Thanks for pointing out the wiki definition - can you please mention it over to the monkey art thread. I think with a little work, maybe, it will get a basis of something we can all agree with. That whole topic has been a real struggle with me, trying to get a common ground.
wrt your other comments, other than the train of thought, that I suspect was originally in Asher's mind - I wonder if I can make the wheel look like a hat, since I can't get the car to move, or the girl to move', and then maybe at that stage he thought of a halo, not hat, or maybe later, the thought that struck Dierk, you, me and others was forged then. If the wheel had been moved away by six inches, then It may have been something else we were trying to get.
Any way, while we're all still friends, here's my take.
I look at Brian's, I see, 'hey Brian, its a halo, come on, it 's what it's meant to be.' So, he removes it. He pushes the girls face up into the corner, way past the 1/3 corner, then he blurs most of it, contrasts the skin tone and the blue either side of the diagonal, and although he forces you into a corner, to look at her eyes, the small in focus area is somehow balanced by the larger blurred area. I think that is clever, and skilful in concept, and execution, really Lowe in my esteem ;-).
Dierk tries to get an accurate rendition, knows in his mind its 'a madonna', as he pointed out he named the file that. He has made an 'acceptable' image, which could be construed as not a compliment, when in fact it is the opposite. He recovered some colour information, and made it pleasing to view, yet still a very accurate representation of the scene, but with some colour adjustment - I don't know whether to refer to it as a glow, or pop, but is different than Ashers original image, has more 'life' it is the original, but a 'subtle' hint to Dierk's thoughts, but not so subtle, 'cos it triggered me into thinking it could be stained glass halo. I think Cem saw the same and took it further than Dierk, see what its like in b&W, got it to glow, real sunshine, which is what I wanted to do.
While he was doing that Asher challenged me to do what I thought may work. So I roughly did that. I do know a little bit about leaded stained glass windows, but would have liked to have been able to look more closely at some. Anyway, the result showed the concept, but nowhere near as good a result if Dierk or anyone else could have done, by stating the obvious. I messed up completely with the bit I wanted to get right, the halo, but it serves to give the idea.
Having 'done the obvious' it then restricts whatever comes afterwards, and I wish maybe for something else. Still, Mary does purple. Eric does the definitive black and white version. He explains exactly how he got there, and it was worth getting there, since it shows yet another way of subject focus.
Now, is there anyway that anyone can put this all together. A real cooperative multinational photograpghic production, a picture produced by combining half a dozen or so thoughts. It needs to be an expert in photoshop or post processing, so that lets me out. In fact, if we can manage 12 by 2007, and Nikolai gets humoured by us, we may be able to make some calendars.....
Come on, you know you can do it...
Best wishes,
Ray