G 2018.10 Critique

Something about this photo creates a presence, a fully sensed moment in time, perhaps a memory. We could describe all the elements of design in this photo (which, by the way, are intriguing), but some ineffable quality would still be wanting explanation of its presence. I've been thinking about this for a few days and may have reached a possible answer: both the tree and the barn are sharp and are significant, natural and memorable subjects in the photo. This is just like the eye would perceive in real life, but more so. Let me explain.

I'm sure we've all seen views like this while whizzing down a two-lane country road with no safe place to park to capture a few photons on a diode array. Our minds remember the scene and fill in the blanks from that fleeting moment. But we might fill those blanks with fragments of other memories. The camera has no other memories, and captures exactly what the photographer tells it to. So, we view the photo, see detail in each subject; see the perfectly captured context of a distant mountain range, mid-ground farm land, and foreground brush; and need not employ the visual fill-in-the-blank part of our brain, allowing it to wallow in the full visual sense while turning our our other senses to imagining crisp air, a gentle breeze, fresh scents, bird song... hmmm, and the sound of other tourists' cars. ;-) Anyway, the point is that by emphasizing two memorable subjects in their context, all exquisitely evoking non-visual memory fragments, the simple image, and the qualified photographer, has created a full presence.

From Lou Mazzatenta

A weekend vacation in the Canaan Valley with friends led me to the location for this photograph which was around the bend from where we were staying. I must confess there is plagiarism involved. A friend showed me a picture of the red tree on his camera monitor. I was taken by it. His photo was much looser showing the single tree dressed in red leaves surrounded by an expansive view of green countryside. To make a picture different from my friends, I cropped the image tighter in the viewfinder emphasizing the red tree. and de-emphasizing the green surround. I used an aperture that kept both tree and barn in focus. Upon reflection, I liked my friend's photo better. It captured the red tree in a larger green environment. I took the photo on way home. Had I more time, it would have been better to have found my own location. But fall colors were hard to find.