Gold Flipch

[Joel Eade]

A flip image I've been messing with. Fractalius added.

[denise ippolito]

Very cool flip and the cyclops looks great. I like the title also. The frac. adds a nice touch. I might tone down the bright spots just a bit and clone the 2 small spots at the bottom. Nice feather detail.

[Indranil Sircar]

Nice flip. Fract definitely adds to it. Agree with Denise on toning down the bright spots.

[Ed Vatza]

OK, Joel. I'm going to get myself in trouble here this morning, I just know I am. Technically, what you have done here is fine. Yes, the bright spots could be toned down and that would make it just a wee bit better technically.

I want to preface the following statement by saying I love out-of-the-box work. It is my favorite way of working. That said, as I wrote recently in an artist statement, I want the viewer of my work to ask two questions: how did he do that and why did he do that? What was the vision behind it. Sometimes when I look at an image like this, I get caught up in the how but end up feeling the answer to the why question is "because I can". I guess that's my issue with this image - a cyclops siamese twin goldfinch just doesn't speak to me. While being an excellent "how" image it doesn't answer the question "why" for me. That's not to say it doesn't for you or someone else.

I'm walking on thin ice here, I know but this time of year, I find myself doing a lot of philosophizing. Maybe too much. Have a great day and keep shooting.

[Joel Eade]

Ed,

Thanks for the thoughtful critique, I agree with you actually. I was just messing around with flip images for entertainment and learning purposes, not trying to create an image out of any pre-conceived vision. Not rying to send a message just an odd look that resulted and I thought it might be entertaining from a perspective of "hey, that's really weird!"

After I created the flip the overall pattern sort reminds me of the Free Mason's logo and the all seeing eye but I didn't intend that.

[Kerry Perkins]

Ed, a Zen question for you - why does there have to be a why? Isn't it enough to elicit an emotional response from viewers of your work? I don't think everyone wonders why or how, they just appreciate or not. When I am moved by a work of art, like a beautiful sunset, I don't ask either question. In the context of a critque forum it makes sense to ask how, but why seems to me to be a personal issue that needs no justification. To me, vision is either there or not, it doesn't need to be intellectualized. Of course, I could be wrong...

[Ed Vatza]

First, let me say that I don't wish to hijack someone else's post with a philosophical discussion so I will try to briefly explain my views.

Ed, a Zen question for you - why does there have to be a why?

Because I think that the why is what separates the photo from the snapshot. Now that may be spitting hairs, I admit. The person who jumps out of the car, races out to Glacier Point, snaps a few pictures of the valley below and moves on is not thinking why or how. When we take an image into post-processing, I feel it should be with the goal of making it better. Making it different is not enough. We have so much software available at our fingertips that sometimes I believe the reason for doing something can be summed up as because I can and not to make the image necessarily better. I keep underlining I because I can only speak for myself.

Isn't it enough to elicit an emotional response from viewers of your work? I don't think everyone wonders why or how, they just appreciate or not.

Maybe. I want all my work to elicit an emotional response. You can love it. You can hate it. Just don't say it's nice. Nice is damning it with faint praise. As you scan through the forums, how many images do you truly remember? I would content they are the images that you either really loved or really didn't. The ones in the middle get lost. I agree not everyone wonders why. But I do think that the person looking at it as art is more likely to. And I do think that the artist should, at some level, know why she/he made the image.

In the context of a critque forum it makes sense to ask how, but why seems to me to be a personal issue that needs no justification.

I agree that you don't have to justify why. But I do think you should be able to answer why.

To me, vision is either there or not, it doesn't need to be intellectualized.

I don't know that intellectualize is necessarily the right word. My academic training those many years ago was in psychology and my relatively newfound love of photography has stirred an interest in understand the creative process as it applies to photography. I am reminded of a quote from Susan Sontag's "On Photography". She said "photography has become almost as widely practiced an amusement as sex and dancing - which means that, like every mass art form, photography is not practiced by most people as an art." I am interested in the art of photography.

Of course, I could be wrong...

... and so could I! ;):)

I have drifted far afield from Joel's original post and for that, I apologize.

[Joel Eade]

I would say there's room for both: being deeply seriously artistic and just being spontaneous, crazy and having fun! Neither right nor wrong.

[Kerry Perkins]

I agree, and thanks Ed for the discussion!

[Ed Vatza]

The final word is yours, Joel! Glad you took the critique and discussion in the spirit it was meant to be. See ya down the board.