This is wonderful (other than, and this is a personal thing rather than a serious critique, I do find unlevel horizons a bit distracting). And I really wish I hadn’t noticed because other than that I really like this shot.
Peace, thanks so much. Unfortunately, I didn’t go down and photograph the people on the beach. This was taken up very close to the umbrella, with a 28mm lens.
A very nice shot, the umbrella taking the upper part, and beneath a hat, covering the artist (?) who is doing something behind the desk. Maybe the portrait on the tripod is his too? Then the couple of people on the beach resemble the figures he has painted on the side of his desk. He doesn’t show, but his work does. Is this a barrel or what, on which “Santa Monica” is written? And then the monocular, optical instrument, resembling and connoting the photographer’s instrument, but here lonely, like an abandonment of a voyeristic instrument in favour of a closer look. The diagonal like composition and the two-point perspective add to the image, where the hidden pier artist in the hat is semi-profile and the photograph (?) [portrait] on the right has an almost frontal posistion, looking at us and smiling in a seductive way. It seems as though nothing in this photo is by chance. And though, it remains a photo, not a painting, taking it’s distances from the other art.
This is a rare moment where the photographer meets an alter ego, and then, maybe a little embarrassed, cannot show, but the art and not the artist. Or chooses to.
If I show the artist, then it becomes about the artist. When I made the photo, I responded firstly to the light, and the way the umbrella seemed to be cut out with scissors and pasted onto the scene. I then completed the composition as a kind of balancing act, moving around until the masses seemed to be in the correct spatial relationship. The picture on the easel is a charcoal drawing, made by the artist. The drum that says ‘Santa Monica’ is a trash container. I wish it wasn’t there as I think it weakens the picture. Fortunately, it’s not too dark, and not too light.
If you ask someone to describe “a day at the beach”, this is not the story you would get.
Taking a second (or third or fourth…) look, I would say that the drum has a function after all. I used my thumb on the screen to “cut it out”, and leave the imagination complete the missing part, and then withdrew the thumb. This barrel makes the artist appear enclosed, even imprisoned between the front of his table and this barrel, so it increases the sense of distance and devotion of his. He is shown, but in a way as “absent”, “distant”, “covered” and maybe even protected from your lens, while doing his work. If you took away the drum, then there would be a way out for him, the openess of the sea (ocean?). Now he is condemned to carry on, to work and work, absorbed in an other world, a (literal) shadow among the living (art).
I wanted someone to describe me “a day at the beach”, so I searched and found one I would listen to.
This is wonderful (other than, and this is a personal thing rather than a serious critique, I do find unlevel horizons a bit distracting). And I really wish I hadn’t noticed because other than that I really like this shot.
Thanks, Dave. Actually, I had made a mental note to fix this before posting, but promptly forgot about it. I’ve now posted the corrected version.
It is level now, although the hills at the right make it look slanted down towards the right, where it was down towards the left.
wow… the water is so blue! did you take a pic of those two people just behind that portrait? cool shot!
Peace, thanks so much. Unfortunately, I didn’t go down and photograph the people on the beach. This was taken up very close to the umbrella, with a 28mm lens.
Great tones…
I want to be there. Period.
A very nice shot, the umbrella taking the upper part, and beneath a hat, covering the artist (?) who is doing something behind the desk. Maybe the portrait on the tripod is his too? Then the couple of people on the beach resemble the figures he has painted on the side of his desk. He doesn’t show, but his work does. Is this a barrel or what, on which “Santa Monica” is written? And then the monocular, optical instrument, resembling and connoting the photographer’s instrument, but here lonely, like an abandonment of a voyeristic instrument in favour of a closer look. The diagonal like composition and the two-point perspective add to the image, where the hidden pier artist in the hat is semi-profile and the photograph (?) [portrait] on the right has an almost frontal posistion, looking at us and smiling in a seductive way. It seems as though nothing in this photo is by chance. And though, it remains a photo, not a painting, taking it’s distances from the other art.
This is a rare moment where the photographer meets an alter ego, and then, maybe a little embarrassed, cannot show, but the art and not the artist. Or chooses to.
If I show the artist, then it becomes about the artist. When I made the photo, I responded firstly to the light, and the way the umbrella seemed to be cut out with scissors and pasted onto the scene. I then completed the composition as a kind of balancing act, moving around until the masses seemed to be in the correct spatial relationship. The picture on the easel is a charcoal drawing, made by the artist. The drum that says ‘Santa Monica’ is a trash container. I wish it wasn’t there as I think it weakens the picture. Fortunately, it’s not too dark, and not too light.
If you ask someone to describe “a day at the beach”, this is not the story you would get.
Taking a second (or third or fourth…) look, I would say that the drum has a function after all. I used my thumb on the screen to “cut it out”, and leave the imagination complete the missing part, and then withdrew the thumb. This barrel makes the artist appear enclosed, even imprisoned between the front of his table and this barrel, so it increases the sense of distance and devotion of his. He is shown, but in a way as “absent”, “distant”, “covered” and maybe even protected from your lens, while doing his work. If you took away the drum, then there would be a way out for him, the openess of the sea (ocean?). Now he is condemned to carry on, to work and work, absorbed in an other world, a (literal) shadow among the living (art).
I wanted someone to describe me “a day at the beach”, so I searched and found one I would listen to.