Definitely, that "it" is only partially definable using technical terms and the like, Andre! And I guess that it is exactly this kind of going also beyond the readily explainable things that can turn an image, song, whatever, to something special for anybody. I do kind of "search" for "it" but I know that most of the time I can only partially really get it.
For this one, you might laugh, but your idea already developed to a wish for me, to try something similar without any kind of reference to depth and allowing much empty space. I think that in certain cases this could produce some unexpected photos.
On a side note, perhaps there are also images that do not create a mood but rather adapt to the mood of the spectator. Would be great if I could ever make such one.
Nick, I see what you mean about the image appearing flatter without the post. The great amount of blank space is much more apparent too. That is not necessarily a bad thing. But in this case, it didn't work out quite as well as I thought it might. Sometimes images grow on us, and we like them after a while. Sometimes they just don't have "it" right from the start. What that illusive "it" is, is very hard to define. Andre
Hi Andre, and thanks a lot for the very interesting comment, that makes me wondering again. I find the whole image "unorthodox" and I thought up to now that it was the light and the almost everything seems to be "violently cut", but I didn't think about what this might have look like if the lamp post wouldn't be there, or if it would be somehow different. It was not my intention to use the lamp post as something that makes the image "unorthodox". Perhaps it was the general appearance in my view finder, in which the post played an important role and I didn't realized that - who knows?
Just to follow your idea a bit more closely I tried to clone it off as well as I could (see very imperfect attachment) and the image changed much more than I would ever think. It turned a bit flatter, with less felt depth, or am I completely mistaken? I guess that the lamp post is also something like a reference to the near field in the original, but since there is nothing else visible at the same distance of the lamp, it looks just as if the near field were only air - some kind of imaginary only distance into the depth. When I take that away (and ignoring the traces that my cloning left on the image :-D) this rather "airy" reference is missing, and so it looks both "cleaner" and flatter. This is at least what I am able to conclude after this first comparison of the two images.
But perhaps there is also more to it, I don't know. Thank you very very much again for the time to look so exactly!
Hi Nick, Well... You mention unorthodox. Everything seems fine to me except of course the lamp post, which seems to stick out and irritate. It just doesn't look right in the scene. But, could that be the point? Andre
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