Just about when you are ready to give up...

[Ed Vatza]

Cold (17F), blustery (20-30 mph winds) but we decided to go out this morning anyway. Admittedly most of the morning was spent in the car driving from site to site looking for birds for my wife (we found the albino hawk she wanted to see) and anything for me to shoot. After two hours, I hadn't even taken my camera out of the bag when I mentioned to my wife that I hadn't seen a single thing that I had wanted to shoot. Not a minute later, we rounded a curve in a local county park and there it was... a most interesting (at least to me) stand of trees, cypress maybe, I don't know for sure.

I pulled over, got out the camera and made several images. This is one that I like.

Image made with Canon 50D and 24-70 2.8L lens, handheld

0.8 sec @ f/22; ISO 100; 0 EV; FL 55mm

Image processed in Nik Dfine, Viveza 2, and Color Efex (Polarization and Lighten Center filters).

[denise ippolito]

Ed, Very nicely seen. I love the snow/ice base. The tree trunks have alot of interest and I like the rich green color tones. I might be tempted to take a small slice off the bottom just above your sig. But that's just me. I love this one and would consider it one of your best blurs to date. At least of the ones I have seen and you have had some fantastic blurs.

[Indranil Sircar]

Excellent composition, Ed. Beautiful colors and a very effective blur with the white snow. I agree with Denise - one of your best.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Ed. that was certainly worth waiting for! I think it's one of my favorites - I love the reflections.

[Julie Kenward]

Print it. Large. Print it LARGE. :D:D:D

[Arthur Morris]

I love the trees and the soft colors and the patterns. Not so the light water in the foreground. It might be crop-able or you you might be able to tone it down but as is it draws the eye from the trees. It is rare that dark above/light below works....

[Ed Vatza]

Thanks folks. I appreciate all the feedback.

I love the trees and the soft colors and the patterns. Not so the light water in the foreground. It might be crop-able or you you might be able to tone it down but as is it draws the eye from the trees. It is rare that dark above/light below works....

Hey Artie. Appreciate you taking the time to look in. I guess technically it's water in the foreground - it's snow. The immediate foreground was snow-covered (thin layer). The area immediately beneath the tree was bare of snow. The vertical pan tended to fill in the uncovered area with a thin layer that looks a bit like ice. Given that I wanted to capture the darkness of the trees over the white snow, I don't think I had a choice but to go dark above/light below. To crop it out would, I believe, remove an important element from the comp. Just a bit about my vision on this image.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for the explanation Ed. But when folks look at an image they do not get the explanation. And thus the eye is dragged away from what is for me the most interesting parts of the image. Perhaps a healthy crop from the bottom would leave some ice for you but reduce the impact. Or not. You are the artist. :)

[Cindy Mead]

I love in-camera blurs and this scene really is a great subject Ed. I really like the muted tones and reflection. I'm wondering what a very small crop from the bottom would look like? Really nice work :)

[Julie Kenward]

Nice eye, Cindy...Ed, if I'm not being too pushy, you might try cropping right above your signature line. I think that would leave plenty of blur but delete some of what Artie is talking about. I still say print it large though! Wow!

[Ed Vatza]

Dang pushy people! ;)

I might try cropping... if I wasn't such an obstinate old SOB!

Maybe I'll give it a whirl somewhere down the line. For now, I like it as is.

As for printing, I did a 13x19 (12x18 print). Now I just have to mat and frame it. Problem is that that in these bigger sizes, I can't do the cheap and easy off the shelf at Michael's framing for my own personal use.

[denise ippolito]

Ed, I enjoy your stubborn side and your passion for your work. I like your new contemplative avatar, even though I was starting to really like the artsy fartsy one you had.:)

[Ed Vatza]

Ed, I enjoy your stubborn side and your passion for your work. I like your new contemplative avatar, even though I was starting to really like the artsy fartsy one you had.:)

Thanks... I think.

I changed the avatar because I believed that my more "intense" look was enough to frighten small children! So I set out, with the help of Photo Booth on my iMac, to soften the image a bit. Ergo the more contemplative look you see here.

I wanted to convey that while I may be a stubborn, obstinate old SOB; I am really a nice, stubborn, obstinate old SOB. :)

I do recognize that I have to be careful here. I definitely do NOT want to discourage folks from commenting on my posts. I don't want people thinking I really don't care what they say about my images. I do care and every comment gets internalized into my artist's psyche. And it may impact future images.

And sometimes you all do change my mind on the image under critique. That happened recently with the first soft focus carnation image that I posted in Macro & Flora. I argued my vision, I defended it and eventually I came to agree that the critics were right and I was wrong. But... often I end up still preferring the image as posted as is the case with this one.

I could crop this image a tiny bit. It may even make the image a bit stronger in some eyes. The dark over light may break the rules. But I like the image as is. I like the moodiness of the trees. And I really like the snow/ice appearance created by the vertical pan. So why would I want to crop it? And even though this image is barely 48 hours old, it has garnered a lot of favorable comments here, on my website/blog and on Facebook as well as from "ordinary people"/non-photographers. You can argue about their qualifications but there must be something right with the image as presented. And I don't think they will suddenly rush out to buy if I crop an inch off the bottom.

An area that I am grappling with now (I have exchanged a couple of posts with Jules about this) is vision. I as the artist (we all as artists) create an image with a certain artistic, compositional vision in mind. Sometimes I think that when we put on our "art critic's" hat, we are too quick to alter the vision from the artist's vision to the critic's vision. In other words, our first line of criticism is to change the image to fit our vision rather than try to evaluate the image in light of the artist's vision. Does that make any sense? I look at a lot of images from well-known, even famous, photographers and I just don't get what makes them great. Does that mean I should change their vision to mine. Tell them they need to do it differently to suit my vision? I don't think so. I think I owe it to them to try to get inside their world and their vision before I consider altering it. Just my thoughts.

This post has gotten way too long for its own good so I will stop here and just remain...

an obstinate old SOB with a passion for his work but still a nice guy!!:)

[denise ippolito]

Ed, I think more than most I get it. I mean I really get it. I get inspired and affected by other works and sometimes I see something within an image that some don't see. It comes down to trusting your vision and your eye and KNOWING that not every piece of art or image created by you will be loved by all. BUT it just might catch the eye of someone,someone that shares your vision for the piece.:)