http://www.ualberta.ca/~tbulger/home/footprints.jpg Photo of footprints in the snow, Edmonton river valley, Feburary 1999. taken with a canon rebel g, 28-105 zoom, kodak t400cn.

-- tim bulger (tbulger@ualberta.ca), August 31, 1999

Answers

-- (bobloblaw@eudoramail.com), August 31, 1999.

Good use of perspective and the slope to create a 3-D effect, and vertical format to lead one into the picture. I found it hard to orient the shadows at first (normally from the RHS in aerial photos). The shadows from the LHS in the middle are distracting. Thanks for posting (from someone who never sees snow :)

-- Gordon Richardson (gordonr@iafrica.com), September 01, 1999.

I would cut a little off of the top, where the really dark horizontal lines (shadows) cut across the picture. The underexposure of the snow looks good for this shot.

-- rob dalrymple (robd13@erols.com), September 01, 1999.

I thought this was sand when I first looked at it. Good use of exposure. I don't mind the horizontal shadows; the steps toward thetop seem to move off the plane of the snow, and are disturbing me for some reason...

Probably just me. Good shot.

-- Scott (bliorg@yahoo.com), September 01, 1999.

The slanting, near horizontal lines across the top are distracting to me, as well. I think this is because you're photographing something all of us have seen before. That's cool - I do it all the time, trying to get elsewhere, you know. So we have certain expectations about what this shot is supposed to look like - kind of like classic Chinese painting where you were judged on how close to the classic forms you came, not your own personal vision of these forms.

When you're photographing something like this, could you have used the - shadows? - across the top in a way that supported or played against the line of the footprints? In this photo, I don't see a connection, either compositionally or in content, between the shadows and the footprints, and you don't present enough other situational information to make the shadows convey meaning. It looks like you were going for the footprints, and the shadows happened to be in the frame.

-- August Depner (apdepner@uswest.net), September 03, 1999.

thank you for the response, the shadows were unfortunately necessary. they are caused by the strong side light going through some trees, the side light makes the footprints look interesting but it also creates the shadow. the foot prints would not have been worth photographing if it was overhead light.

-- tim bulger (tbulger@ualberta.ca), September 03, 1999.

All I'm saying, Tim, is that since you chose to include the shadows in your frame, could you have used them better?

-- August Depner (apdepner@uswest.net), September 06, 1999.