There is a time in the creative process when you need to protect your work, let it develop and form in a safe place. And there is a time in the creative process to gather feedback and other points of view, opening your work up for a constructive critique.
My latest body of work, which I’m calling “Variations on the Forest,” is ready for critique. Usually a critique is something I request from trusted sources, in private. But this time, as I prepared a sampling of images for an upcoming PhotoArts Guild Critique Night, I thought I would share them here and invite your feedback and discussion as well. Why not? This blog is a place for work in progress as much as finished concepts.
The work shown here is a sampling of images created in this series over the last two years. As in all of my portfolios, I didn’t develop a concept first and then create the work. It evolved as a response to what I do and what I see as I move through my life, in this case my regular morning hikes. There are some common elements I’m seeking in order to include an image in the body of work, but rather than define them for you I’d like to get your words.
Here are a few prompt questions, to get the conversation started:
- Do the images work together as a group? Why or why not?
- Are there any images that don’t fit with the others for you? Which ones?
- Is there an overall emotion evoked for you? What is it?
- Do you want to see more or interact further with the images? Why or why not?
Let’s discuss!
Image 1
Image 2
Image 3
Image 4
Image 5
Image 6
I’d like to see them in a different order, maybe going from less blur to more blur, or by color or degree of darkness. Image 3 is the least like the others, and perhaps I’d like to see that one first. It feels out of place after the blur of 2.
Images 6, 5, 4 and 2 go together the best.
I like these images. The light is beautiful. The blurs are pleasing and allow us to know the images are of forests.
The textures make me want to look at the images longer–to explore what is in the textures.
A series of images such as these is a wonderful idea.
Thank you so much for your thoughts Anita! I haven’t really played with order at all on these yet, so that’s great feedback.
I love the series! Image three though doesn’t do it for me…but that’s just me! There’s so much emotion in the other ones…loneliness and eeriness is what immediately comes to mind..which of course I love! Great!
Thank you Robin! Part of putting them out there is to see if #3 fits or not. I appreciate hearing your thoughts!
I agree with the previous comments about #3. It is too sharp compared to the softness of the rest. I also find that #2 seems out of place because it is so neutral in color (not warm and not exactly cool) whereas the others have warmth. The other photos do draw me in. I found myself thinking about how the light changes through the seasons and throughout a day and about how forests evoke a sense of peace. The blur creates a dreamy quality that lets my mind wander. I love looking at your work and I appreciate your the thoughts you share in your blog.
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and impressions! It helps a lot.
I like the Variation idea and I think it might be interesting to vary the size of the prints. I can see, depending on the space you have available in a gallery, a selection of very large size prints 3 or 5 very different variations, scattered around the space you have. Among those prints…or maybe even on separate walls…groupings of varied forest impressions of the same, but smaller size prints. I could also see some very tiny prints framed in very large frames with lots of white matting between the print and the frame. The effect might be one of composition and color rather than the sense of a forest. The more abstract images you’ve made either blown up very large or reduced to small size in large open space within a frame could be about the emotion of the forest. Variation can be expressed in many ways in an exhibit like this: light through the forest trees, forests as places where we experience space as our size relationship in it or approaching or leaving it; variation in color and how that influences our emotions about being ‘in it’, our memories about forests we’ve explored; variations in the experience of viewing the work in one space, enhanced by the need to step back and close in on the artwork depending on its size. I could see this collection in its own gallery room…a luxury, I know that is rarely feasible. But, could you translate that kind of experience in an art fair’s 3-sided booth? I think our audiences often need help to see the varying effects we can create on the viewing experience by varying the ways we present artwork in galleries and in our home. As buyers, we make decisions about how to frame the work and/or where we put it in our homes. Those decisions are not easy for makers or buyers. Exhibits give all of us a chance to see the importance of variations in presentations.
Such great, great thoughts and advice, Eileen. I agree with you that it’s often hard to “see” what we can do with artwork. I’ll have to think hard about all of the options you shared with me! Maybe I will get a gallery exhibit out of this someday, and could really play.
I see them as a play of light and dark with light slowly penetrating the dark mystic surreal forest. Can not see the forest for the trees but let in light slowly carefully and the magic happens.
Such wonderful words of description! Thank you so much.