No, my take would be to continue working on that. First attempts are rarely the most successful ones. Mastery in any field requires a lot of work (the 10,000 hours "rule"), experimenting, and, yes, errors.
The panorama is as good as it gets. Very classical (in a positive sense), warm-toned, recognizable, competent. Again, nothing to nitpick.
Which brings me back to textured overlays style. I did suggest to continue experimenting in that direction, but I am now having second thoughts. Why? Simply because it denotes a very different style of photography from what you are apparently very good at. Again, I am not suggesting to completely abandon any other style or experimenting, but ultimately you want to build a style that works for you (both commercially and intimately). It is hard to imagine, say, Jerry Uelsmann build a career doing his style and simultaneously the style of, say, Peter Lik.
Yes I totally agree Slobodan, it is just that a little variety is the spice of life as they say and as mentioned, it was an experiment and I agree it is overcooked, which is a common problem with PS, when you know how to work it fully, it is difficult not to fully work it, but there are photographers out there who seem to make quite a successful life out of heavily pushing the artistic limits of their images, such as
Rick Meoili and I do believe he doesn't actually do the processing himself, he has staff that do this for him.
And again thank you for your compliments, I always value your comments
I strongly resent that remark.
OK Walter, I am sorry, it is just that as this is a forum for critique, I thought you appeared to have dismissed this image quite vigorously on the grounds of simply not liking it, not on its merits or otherwise or offering a reasoned critique, and that irked me and I am sorry. I should not post my experiments on here unless I am ready to accept
all the comments, whether I feel aggrieved by them or not. You are entitled to your opinion and I was too hasty with my reply
I think the effect is neat...maybe it is novel. It could under the right circumstances be fabulous.
This issue reminds me of modern film where special effects become the entire reason for making a movie, and the producers forget the characters and plot. Effects like this need to contribute to the overall effect...they need to be congruent with the subject matter. I am not sure that this shot does a lot for me except make me say 'cool.' That may not be enough.
I feel this way about black and white conversions, sepia, self-evident HDR, exotic frames (virtual and real). If you are going to bring some new element of style into the work of art it should contribute to the aesthetic. If it doesn't contribute to the aesthetic, the attribute (colors, framing presentation, whatever) should be transparent to the viewer. When post processing becomes soo apparent, the work suffers by being distracted from the depth and substance of the image. To borrow a technical photo idea, it is our jobs as artists, photographers and post processors to amplify the image's story with post processing without increasing distracting noise.
Fike I agree, I got carried away with the process and lost the image in the effects, form over function you might well say.
I will continue with this type of image because I find it interesting and challenging and who knows I might have more success with it as time goes by and I am sure if I am anything less than successful with it, you will all let me know in no uncertain terms
Dave
