Winter & Midnight Both Visit America * Traveller by Canon DSLR Challenge

Canon DSLR Challenge | all galleries >> Challenge 62: Low light or low key (hosts: Victor Engel & Olaf.dk) >> Eligible > Winter & Midnight Both Visit America * Traveller

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04-MAR-2006	Traveller

Winter & Midnight Both Visit America * Traveller

Interestingly, I had to shoot this on a 32Mb card that I borrowed, once I was where I needed to be. I had forgotten to bring a card with me, (sigh). Do you know how many jpegs you get off a 32MB card...lol...Make them count, and so I have. I am torn with the alternate title, "Midnight Comes to America," but it is late and I'll decide in the morning. If any one has a preference, Let me know.

Canon EOS 350D
1/8s f/5.6 at 47.0mm iso800 hide exif

Full EXIF Info
Date/Time	04-Mar-2006 02:37:39
Make	Canon
Model	Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
Flash Used	No
Focal Length	47 mm
Exposure Time	1/8 sec
Aperture	f/5.6
ISO Equivalent	800
Exposure Bias
White Balance	(-1)
Metering Mode	partial (6)
JPEG Quality	(6)
Exposure Program	manual (4)
Focus Distance

other sizes: small medium original auto

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* Submitter retains all copyrights *

Canon DSLR Challenge		08-Mar-2006 01:08
Thanks a lot Tim, I appreciate the fact that someone got it. Of course, it may well be the case that many, many people understood perfectly what I was getting at...but just didn't want to go near the implicit statement. Best Wishes, Traveller

Canon DSLR Challenge		07-Mar-2006 22:46
Its a really nice shot helped along by a great title! Tim A

Canon DSLR Challenge		07-Mar-2006 02:32
I was going to say white grainte, but it could be sandstone. It is the Ronald Regan Federal Courthouse in Santa Ana, CA. If the blocks are about 4 ft square, then the Great Seal is about 16`x16`, and as noted, it is actually gold in color. I did try a tighter crop as suggested by Cindy, but I think you need a sense of scale, and cropped the trees may be bushes and that destroys the sought after effect of Speer-like monumentalism. I do have one shot directly through one of the trees, but the Seal then is subsumed by the tree. You want, or at least I wanted, tree branches doing the framing. Best Wishes, Traveller

Canon DSLR Challenge		07-Mar-2006 00:18
Not having been here before, I don't know the material. What is the wall made of? -- Victor

Canon DSLR Challenge		06-Mar-2006 05:37
Dearest Cindy: I was going to write an apology of sorts to Michael and you because I had a momentary feeling that I was being ungenerous in even bringing up your images. And yet, Michael is photographer of the year and you know how I admire your work. I am not even in the same league as you and Michael in the creative sense...but artistically, in the sense that Art may matter in the world, I can compete. But this isn't a question of better or best. I wanted some feedback because some people say I nailed it, others didn't get it at all. What I was attempting is difficult, as was your bridge shot. But in different ways. I was a little curious how you did the set up. Did you see it in your mind's eye? Did you ask your daughter to dress up in an evening gown? Or was it an accident with some luck because she was there already? Either way, the image remains amazingly evocative. Honest people can honestly disagree, but I prefer the White version because it seems warmer to me. The green is a little more sterile, maybe even operating room like. But this is only my view, other people will see it differently...as is right and proper. The world of photography is large enough to contain all of our visions...and this is what makes voting so extraordinarily difficult. I was just flogging my own dead horse...lol Best Wishes, Traveller

Canon DSLR Challenge		06-Mar-2006 02:14
Odd the way images end up getting compared that were grown from such different seed. . . Although my "Alone" was composed to bring interest, geometry, beauty, and question to the viewer,it certainly was not meant to make a political statement, controversy, history lesson or anything like this image. However, all these things are in the mind of the beholder - a woman unescorted at night? That could be a crime in some parts of the world. I find your point of view on your own image interesting traveller and I think an image like this would fair better as a large fine art BW in a gallery as part of a series or collection, than in this venue. I also would like to see the words better, and maybe a square crop. Cindy P.S. - I thought you said you liked the new one better . . . I guess I need to decide soon. lol, but part of me likes the hazy light from the original too. I like the realness vs. the perfection. Another part likes the beautiful green light and less tech glitches of the newer one. lol aw well - the 'statement' is the same regardless.

Canon DSLR Challenge		05-Mar-2006 22:40
That Cindy's and Michael's images touch on the Devine, is a point I will wholly agree with. This image, however, is more ani-Devine than anything and speaks to human darkness in symbols and their sway over us. This image was never meant to be pretty. I hate to say this, but in some ways the Devine is easy...not withstanding Michael's 200 shots to get to where he needed to be. And, as a parenthetical thought, I still think I prefer Cindy's White version even with the slight light pollution, which only goes to show that she labored intensely over her Devine touching also. But we are talking apples and oranges here. Or better yet, apples and shusi tuna. They are very different, yet both are good for you and nourish both the palate and the soul. I draw my distinction with Cindy and Michael because this difference is so very apparent. I will go out on a limb here and note that sometimes the Challenges venerate, to stay with your Devine metaphor, the sublimely beautiful over the very real and ever present darkness that inhabits our everyday world. Though, as I mull on this a little, there are numerous exceptions were one to peruse the Challenge galleries. (As to lovely and warm Importance, please see my comment under Bedtime Story). Best Wishes, Traveller

Guest		05-Mar-2006 21:54
Here's something to ruminate on for awhile, and I'm not sure if I agree 100% with it but I'll play the DA: Government, political, and economic beliefs that are important are all centered around this world and this mundane existence. Setting it in stone is a stab at making something more permanent and real, but only in our perception. Beauty, love, and thus Truth are perhaps more fleeting but of infinitely more importance if one believes in higher powers than our own. According to recent polls, there's a significant majority of our population that holds those types of beliefs fairly strongly, which is a very large factor in GWB's re-election. I'd argue that Cindy and Michael's simple representations of beauty point out as much of the divine in the mundane as your symbol represents other commonly-held beliefs.

Canon DSLR Challenge		05-Mar-2006 21:06
Dear Olaf: Intimidation is good. I a glad in some far away place in my mind that you got a sense of this. Some, though not all, of the shimmering effect comes from dodging the circle of clouds, the head and beak, and on the banner in the Eagle's mouth. A real and knock on me is that I do use too many words to make my point. I say what should be implicit. Which is why I should have simply gone with the original stark title, "Midnight Comes to America," and just left it alone, allowing the viewer to read into it as they wish. Still, even with this being said, the Image is as good as it can be. It is also better than it would have been had I used it in the Gold Challenge, the Great Seal being in fact all in gold. In the final analysis, I am pleased with the picture on both an artistic and emotional level, and that's all we get or can hope for when we do photography. Best Wishes, Traveller

Guest		05-Mar-2006 20:27
I like the silvery shimmer in this. I would probably not get all the connotations without the comments, but I would see a symbol, a symbol of the only super-power in the world at the moment. Giving that more thought, along with the atmosphere of the photograph, probably would have lead me to see intimidation.

Canon DSLR Challenge		05-Mar-2006 20:23
As a final note...Leni Riefenstahl would not have taken this picture. (BTW, Leni spent the rest of her life being a very good photographer). Ms. Riefenstahl could not have taken this image...it would not have been in her consciousness to have seen this as I have or framed this in this fashion. She would only have seen a Triumph of Will and not the dark caution. Best Wishes, Traveller

Canon DSLR Challenge		05-Mar-2006 20:09
Dear Jason: I'm not sure there really is any connection. But humans are always looking for connections, and I am particularly curious how the artistic mind runs. Yet, the only connection is probably only one of closeness in time...a mere coincidence or serendipity. I have been waiting to take this picture for over 5 months now, and it was my leaving my credit card at a Target in Orange County that took me back down that way. Or did I lose my credit card there on purpose knowing that I'd have to go back?...lol Someone has said that there is a monumentalism to this image, maybe even a touch of the Third Reich and Leni Riefenstahl. I'm good with that also. This remains in my mind an Important Picture with some intellectual depth...a cautionary vision that hopefully makes people sit up and take notice...whether they like the image or not. That is enough for me. As much as I love Cindy's Alone or Michael Soo's Butterfly, and they are both really, really fabulous pictures, I'll take this one anytime over them and I'm proud of this...for having substance, for having meaning, for its real attempt at importance. Best Wishes, Traveller

Guest		05-Mar-2006 17:54
Trav, I learn something new every day. I too would have misread the connection between this and The Assyrian God image. My wife, born and raised in Poland, makes fun of me constantly for my lack of knowledge on Geography. I was born and raised in Chicago, and though there are a LOT of different culture trees here, the forest is definitely a Capitalist ethology and economy. It's a shame, because as a previous psychology student I much prefer the trees to the forest. ;)

Canon DSLR Challenge		05-Mar-2006 04:32
Futher thoughts on the Subject as I Respond to a friend from a posting elsewhere: However, as the Artist, I find it a little interesting that The Assyrian God at Rest and, Winter and Midnight Visits America were both produced within 24 hours of each other. I wonder if the possible waking of Assyria, Kurdistan and Northern Iraq, wasn't somehow linked in my subconscious to finally producing the Darkish image of America through a stylized version of the Great Seal? However nice that theory might be, the truth is that I always thought of Assyria as being Iranian in origin, whereas having Googled Assyria today, I find that I am off 500 or 1,000 miles to the West. It seems best to think of Assyria as Kurdish and not Iranian. But in my mind, (and Iran is on my mind a lot lately), the artistic linkage is Iran and the United States. Still, I didn't even see this until I posted the two images together as I did here. Hummmm.... Nonetheless, I am particularly happy that you, because of your recent history of being in this land, found the images....maybe even intellectually exciting. Best Wishes, Traveller

Canon DSLR Challenge		05-Mar-2006 02:11
Thanks, Jason, I can see where this would have a post-apocalyptic feel to it. I find that response acceptable as the artist for this shot. This is a political image and I am, (or was but becoming less so every day), a passionately political animal. But the image was taken Now, in this day and was meant to give a sense of foreboding and maybe even pending oppression & menace. To some degree I hope that it disquiets and maybe even frightens.... And yet, while this is a political image, it really doesn't define the artist either in that today I could just as easily shoot, "Sunshine in America." Yet, the powers of the State, all States in fact, are great and any individual is weak beyond belief standing up against the brick and mortar and accumulated social history of the State. It crushes and it can mangle. Beware this terrible visage. Interestingly, the card I was forced to borrow only showed that three images were available. Since I don't shoot 32Mb cards often, this seemed late at night, possible. However, this morning I see that there were other images on the card. I should of formatted, but then it's not my card. I am however very pleased that I could get the job done with only three shots. There is a lot of fine burning and dodging in this picture to heighten the effect. Initially I wanted to shoot this back in late September for the Gold Challenge, but at that time I didn't have my camera with me...sigh. Maybe the shot comes to people that wait, also. Best Wishes, Traveller

Guest		04-Mar-2006 16:25
I just got through another viewing of "12 Monkeys" by Terry Gilliam, so that may be affecting my judgement, but this image looks slightly post-apocalyptic to me. Almost like the trees are cracks in the wall or it's been overgrown and neglected. In that light, it's a very chilling and powerful image.