Uprooted, April 2008 ©Martin Doonan
Now that I’ve got the first print in the mail, here’s the online version. This is one that I’ve had up in my living room for a while and I still can’t decide on it. Some days I think it’s really telling me something, other days I don’t really care for it.
First the image:
I’m having a bit of trouble with this one, at least when I try to put it in the same context as the title. My main focus tends to wander towards the rock, which is the bright and colorful part of this image. Also the root, which I presume we see the underside of, sort of disappears behind all the dry twigs.
But still … the lines do feel somewhat appealing.
wait a moment while I pull back a little ….
thanks.
I just tried to look at the print from around 2 meters, and it suddenly became much more clear to me. I think the problem for me is that it contains too many irrelevant details that distracts me when I look at it up close. When I pulled back, it suddenly became more 3 dimensional. I need some more time with it.
On the printing:
There are two things that strikes me. First is that the colors are a bit crazy. I see a magenta tint that is most visible in the dark parts. Also the lightest greens on the top of the rock (the brightly lit moss) as kind of washed out.
the other thing is similar to, but opposite of what you commented on my picture. The shadows aren’t really black, and the print looks a bit on the bright side. I did look at the jpg in photoshop, and I see many areas that should be completely black, but didn’t turn out like that on the print.
On this picture my viewing lights had to be switched off because the blacks seems to be missing or the dirt was not represented how I thought dirt ought to look in a print. With the light off the dirt gave a more expected look. I feel that the dirt could be printed down a bit further since the web version here does have a more dense black, I am not familiar with your printer so do not know its limits, I’ll find an online review and have a read.
As for the picture I get a feeling of the uprooted tree that once occupied this space, a tree that used to live in the upper right lighter triangle of the picture but now dies in the darker lower left triangle. The mess of twigs and roots holding the 2 halves together.
It took me a long time to see this 2 halves connection and I am not sure that is what you wanted me to see.
This print do look better in low light, while mine looks better in strong light. I suppose this tell more about the different light Martin and I use for print viewing
As for the content part, I too start to see it come together more now, and as I said in my previous comment, it is easier to grasp when I’m not up close.
Thanks for the comments. Lots of useful stuff.
The shadows are probably too light in the print as I was going in the opposite direction to Kjell with his – over lightening to make sure they weren’t lost. Indeed, viewing light has a big part to play. I can print full blacks, the lighter black point in this print is my fault, not the printer’s.
As a result, with more recent prints, I’m using natural daylight as my viewing light as it sits nicely between a bright viewing lamp and my regular room lighting so I get a balanced effect.
I’ve also just acquired Lightroom and have started printing from there instead of my old route. I’m finding I have better control of tones and with appropriate presets should be able to get more consistent results in the future (more testing to be done, however).
As to composition – I think I need to take 2 things away from this image. First is that getting to tight like this loses context. I think the difficulty you’re having with the subject is that I’ve abstracted it too much – I know the context (having been there) but lost that from the print. If I’d set out to do an abstract that would be fine but that wasn’t the intention. The other thing is that I tend to look past distracting elements like the dangling twigs when shooting which can cause a problem in the final result. I need to see the whole subject, not just the bits I’m interested in – that’s what the camera does.
As a result of these little discussions, I have once again started to run around the house with the prints to try it in different light. I used to do this before, but for some reason I stopped. Probably became too lazy.