First snow by Jan Jensen

This image has been selected for discussion. It is not necessarily the "best" picture the Elves have seen this week, nor is it a contest. It is simply an image that the Elves found interesting and worthy of discussion. Discussion of photo.net policy, including the choice of Photograph of the Week should not take place here, but in the Site Feedback forum.

Before writing a contribution to this thread, please consider our reason for having this forum. We have this forum because future visitors might be interested in learning more about the pictures. They browsed the gallery, found a few striking images and want to know things like why is it a good picture, why does it work? Or, indeed, why doesn't it work, or how could it be improved?

So, when contributing to this thread, please keep the above in mind. Address the strengths, the shortcomings of the image. It's not good enough to like it, you should spend some time trying to put into words why that is the case. Equally so if you don't like it, or if you can't quite make up your mind.

Let's make sure this forum is a wonderful learning resource for future photographers!

Thank you and enjoy!

I like the simplicity of colors here: overwhelmingly blue and white. The dark mountains in the distance give it a darker mood than it otherwise might have, and so it is not as simple a theme or composition as it at first appears. Very nice work.

--Lannie

The color and lighting are fabulous! Try as I might, I cannot find a way to crop the photograph which would improve it. It seems about perfect in that respect too. When I measure the far background's horizon, I think it might be askew just a tad, but cannot say for sure as the picture is too small to see exactly where the horizon really is.

I find the texture of what I originally thought was water to be interesting. That must be snow covered ice down there.

At any rate, I wouldn't mind having this on my wall and could spend a long time looking at it. Nice work, and congratulations on being selected for POW.

Willie the Cropper

Picture is visually beautiful, texture and exposure is good, tree need to stand pit higher in picture so it get more lonely feeling, it can be done by bending a little when talking this photo, mood is good and over all picture is over average, still I see a big flow in picture and that is picture is to blue and shadow are more blue, you maybe think it is normal, but no it is not I live in Iceland and I am a snow picture specialist :) Icerock

Sometimes things just take my breath away...this is one of those moments. If i was standing there i don't think i would have moved for a very long time. beautiful.

Wow, what can I say? I have read several comments here, as well as many before it was a POW and all I can say is wow! That and I don't get it--

This photograph is extremely sharp and full of detail, but for me that is it. It just sits there and tells me nothing, doesn't invite me in and leaves me just looking at a frozen tree in a frozen landscape. The composition is very static and so there is no dynamic draw. A sense of serenity might be felt, but I think that could be more complete without the tree-- In fact, I think the image would be much more interesting than it is without any of the foreground.

For me, this is just too much of a great example of going into the landscape and taking a photograph that means and says nothing. I have looked and seen a place at a given time, but that is all. I think as landscape photographers we need to do more than that or landscape photography will fully deserve the blase' treatment it is increasingly getting in the art world.

Sorry for the harsh words, but don't just show us what you think is cool, go out and show us what you feel.

I like the lighting and the mood of the photo. It could be part of an ad for a nice cold beverage. It is especially appealing considering it is 97 degrees outside today.

Very "refreshing"... especially this summer weekend since the temperature reached 37 degrees downtown Toronto. Congrats Jan! Lovely scene.

In above comments there was a couple comments about 'mother nature', 'creative nature'..

What I see is a landscape, and a landscape is land from a human's standpoint angle. What I see is a very strict composition, almost mathematicly composed in the most classic way. I'm not saying a fancy framing would be better, but the fact is it follows the basic rules to the letter. What we see in not a creation of nature but an organisation, simplification of elements by the photographer.

The fact that people see nature in this creation shows that they are attracted by the elements and their display before anything else. In 'Camera Lucida', R Barthes calls this display the studium and insists that our liking or not of a studium is a cultural phenomenon. Now I can understand why people can identify to this picture as it works as a symbole. The blue and white tones associated with the idea of purity, and the total absence of humans or human artifact, commonly associated with 'nature' (as in western culture, man is not part of nature any more).

From my point of view, even if the picture is well crafted, the organisation is 'overworked', and the elements that are displayed don't tell anything to me. In other words, culturally, the studium doesnt please me.. I don't recognize any meaning anywhere and nothing surprises me here.

Cheers

I have difficulty separating this picture from a typical postcard. The colors are unnatural, overall quality is nothing special. The composition seems cut off from the top and bottom, a more square format would suit the subject better. But in the end, there's not enough subject to make a photograph of it worthwhile. A tree? A mountain far away behind some mist? The unnatural color on the ice really puts me off.

Unnatural texture of the snow on the sea in an otherwise fabulous nature shot, a bit ironic.

As others have pointed out, this image lacks atmosphere. Essentially a horizontal- vertical composition with light movement toward the right. We see a wide expanse of nothing separating a gorgious distant horizon and a somewhat less interesting foreground. A vertical bridge has been created in the form of a rather spindley looking tree. The season is winter and various shades of blue pervade the air making that known. There is some echoing of the rocks in the foreground with the mountains in the distance, There is an all pervasive emptyness which evokes a peacefull feeling for the viewer. It is simply a moment frozen in time, and nothing more. I wish there was something revealing lifes renewing potentials . Seasons seem to be best potrayed either on the way in or way out. Perhaps on another day later in the cycle, that tree would show signs that spring was near. Perhaps on another day before, the big expanse of ice and snow would be forming. Perhaps with a little more time something might have flown through the frozen composition, giving it life. Whatever, as it stands I feel robbed of a greater moment. Finally, with the light moving to the right, my eye wants it to stop at the tree, Not the rock to the right of the tree. I hate myself for saying this .... but.. maybe a crop on the right? Sorry, Hips.

I like this picture. Some of you told that its composition is static. I agree, it's static, but that's no problem for me. It's just a sunny day in a frozen winter landscape. My main feeling about it is a sense of serenity. The warm colour of the light, contrasted by the cold colour of the shadows and the background, could suggest also a sense of renaissance. The emptiness of the sea (or lake) is to me a clear invite to get in, there's an empty space, emptiness can be attractive. That's all, nice work Jan! It will be my computer desktop background for some days :)

The photo is very attracting in terms of color and light but I feel the three elements - foreground tree and snow, horizon mountains and the level ground of the left- aren't working well together. Trying to enjoy the tree but my eye goes to the mountain .... but then again to the tree... I think these two compete too much. The flat left space does not contribute either, we can not call it negative space. I think the image would gain blurring the mid and background either on the scene shooting at a wider aperture or in postprocessing.

We often have the same views in winter here in Russia. It's just a matter of catching the moment to shoot it. I think you've done it great, Jan. Greetings, Katja

I always view the POW but this is my first comment. I love the texture of the snow! I live in north country and know how difficult it is to record, on film, the detail in the snow. Often, you get just a blank white! What I really love about this photo is the warmth of the light! The low, but warm, light of the sun is beautifully reflected in the foreground and most especially by the lone tree. It is like mother and child fixing their gaze upon one another. This "emotion" makes the cold, open expanse seem much less forboding. Thanks for sharing Jan!

John Hughes

I'll agree with many others in saying that this photo is nicely composed, and the photographer has done a great job capturing the frigidity of the environment as well as the lighting during that time of the year. I have a small problem with the texture on the water though. While the snow in the foreground and the frost on the tree looks exactly as you might find it in nature, the water looks somewhat unnatural. If the water is indeed frozen, you don't get that kind of texture on snow on ice. I tend to think that the water is unfrozen, and it appears that the foreground is actually at a much higher altitude than the water - by much higher I mean several hundred feet, maybe even higher. That way any waves on the water may actually take on the texture that is in the photo...other than that the only thing I can think of is that there is so much noise in the image that the there was artificial "texture" in the photo. Please don't get me wrong - I basically think it's a nice photo, but not a great photo.

Thank you for choosing my picture as "POW", and thank you for your comments! I appreciate the interest! A few comments; Icerock is right, the picture has a slight blue cast, but not much as I remember the moment. Some of you wonder about the texture on the snow. It is fresh snow on the ice surface of a lake. The snow fell during a very cold and calm night, not a breath of wind had touched the snow after it fell. I can't remember having seen the snow like that very often, either.

Jan

Jan, thanks for confirming that the textured surface of the mid-ground is snow covered ice. Thought so. One additional comment, if I may. I think your way of framing with just a simple black line outlining the photograph and then set it off with a shadow and your name just off the photograph is super. I like that a lot.

Incidentally, I went over other of your photographes and am quite taken with many of them. I envy you the opportunity to shoot in the wilds of the back country. You really do nice work.

Above somewhere, someone mentioned a possible crop of the rock on the right foreground. It might work, but so would a slight darkening of the rock. Just burn it in a bit and it won't jump out at the viewer, although until it was mentioned, I hadn't noticed it so much.

Congrats ! Serenity it is, yes. And serenity isn't - generally speaking - "lacking" life or lacking "dynamism". It's just another kind of life, and the total opposite of dynamism. This picture feels very japanese to me - since Japan must have the most beautiful "serenity-driven" photographic art on this planet... I see it as the perfect illustration of a "contemplative" attitude. Much more than a postcard to me, although many postcards are indeed composed with a ruler, just like this picture is...

As a side-note: blues look a tad over-saturated on my monitor today, which I don't remember noticing the first times I saw this pix. Peace should probably keep a humble color scheme - silence doesn't shout basically -, but maybe it's just a monitor issue...?

Great blues, light, and composition! Congratulations!

I really like this landscape. The way it is divided into 3 horizontal sections is unusual. 2 narrow sections where there are subjects of interest divided by a larger expanse containing no objects. I don't understand the criticisms of this being 'static'. It certainly gives me the feeling of a cold still winter's day and I feel that I could walk into the landscape.

I really like this photograph. It has an attractive simplicity for me. The foreground is supreme, almost too perfect. The composition defies the rule of thirds in an interesting way. I am not quite sure I prefer this but I can't think of a way that the background could be made to have the same "vastness effect" Any ideas about how to make it more balanced and still don't loose its depth?

It must have been very nice moment, but I don't think this was the best possible place to take the picture from. I don't think also that compositional rules were applied. I find the picture compositionally unbalanced. As someone mention above two main center of interest (the tree and the mountain in background) don't go together well with blank space on the left. The picture also seems quite noisy overall which competes with that nice snow texture on ice. I would expect better postprocessing. There's also a distracting white spot right of the tree which might be cloned out. The photo is put into a postcard-like frame which may evoke that postcard feeling. That said, I've seen better postcards than this one. Norway is very nice country, I've been there for a month and seen a lot of great landscape shots on postcards or journals etc. This one I don't find very succesfull, but it is still very good shot which might be sold in stores.

This one leaves me cold, which is both good and bad. It successfully creates a cold feeling, but several things make this one unattractive to me. I like the upper and lower "framing" elements and the dramatic side lighting that produce warm and cold colors. I dislike the choice of subject, the tree's shape is dull and uninteresting (wasn't there a better one nearby?). The blues are overly saturated in most places. It is unnaturally contrasty (shadows on white snow are never completely black). The placement of the tree and distant mountains aren't balanced. A more interesting tree that occupied more of the frame would be a big improvement. Several of your images are far more intresting/pleasing/inspiring especially the ones with more diagonal depth.

Lovely photo. Regarding the textures, I agree or disagree with everything said, above, depending on whether it makes sense, or not, but would like to add that if I had a blue couch against a light blue wall, I would want to hang this over it, 4 feet by 5 feet in size, which would really accent the spatial relationships between the foreground and the background. I would call it the blue room. An eggshell white, or off yellow wall would work too. Nice photography here.

It's always so interesting to read the broad points of view that come out of POW discussions. I know of no other place that elicits such an open, thoughtful discussion as this forum. As I read through the comments, I found two observations that I found particularly interesting because they seemed to be examples of how breaking the rules can be used to good effect.

First, it has been pointed out that the picture suffers from being static and lacks life or movement. But I think that is the point: the image is supposed to convey a sense of life frozen in winter.

Second, it has been pointed out how a large part of the image is the empty, uniform texture of the frozen lake that contributes nothing visually interesting to the composition. But I think the vast, perfect uniformity of the lake bed is the main subject of the image -- the tree and the mountain are there to frame this extraordinary sight.

It works.

--Joe

I like the image. Well balanced, strong colors.

The textures I'm having trouble getting my head around and in the web image it is hard to figure out whether it is a natural efffect or post-processing. In the smaller view what I thought was rippling/wavelets on surface of the water seems to be a uniform graded texture - that further extends forward in perspective to the snow. And I'm still digesting this. I was scanning comments quickly to see if anyone else noted the texturing. I saw a reference to a watercolor paper effect - but the dimunition of the effect (as I see it on the web) weakens an overall watercolor tecture interepretation. Perhaps the photographer would care to comment on the technical aspects of the texturing of the original image vs. the final image? And the motivation of any enhancements?

Great shot Jan. 9/10. I wish I'd taken it. It could have been even better if you'd balanced the composition by putting the mountains to the left more, and the crop is too tight; I'd have preferred more room to breathe around the image. Then it would be 10/10. Please feel free to criticise my images http://www.tonyhowell.co.uk Kind regards, Tony

I rarely comment because I rarely find that they have an impact on me. This one does - OK it is not perhaps perfect but then it is produced by a human being and they never ever produce perfection.

Whoever it was that said a lower viewpoint and perhaps a bit to the left may have got a good point but it is only a small complaint.

Photography in 2006 . . . . .

How discouraging. The photographer shows us an interesting natural phenomenon and because it's unfamiliar, it's assumed that it must have been created in PS. Don't ask a question; don't read previous comments. Just jump to conclusions.

Fantastic light and perfect composition! Great shot!!!

The thing which immediately strikes me everytime I view this image, which nobody has picked up on, is that the tree is the one jagged thing in a world of smoothness and uniformity.

I thus get a feeling of utter defiance from this image: the ice on the branches defying the sun (which is thus keeping a low profile) to melt it; defying the wind (which dare not impinge on the picture) to smooth it. The tree itself stands out in a place it shouldn't be allowed, tall and proud above the yielding landscape, defying nature itself to take it away. It even defies the atmosphere to occlude its clarity, to smother it's refusal to accept an imposed standardized form.

The photograph achieves these effects by not making the tree the central or main subject, but by pushing it onto the right third and then making sure it is the brightest object (just). The rest of the photograph is then populated with an interesting number of subserviant objects, mostly kept in enough distance, fog or darkness to not singularly compete with the tree, except that the rounded boulders in the near distance complement the tree diametrically in terms of shape, size and texture.

Jan, An inspiration to always have a camera with you. Basically a simple shot with excellent composition (note only an undistracting sliver of sky for depth) and beautiful light. The type of shot available to anyone who happened along to simply compose & then to capture it. One of life's little gifts. Kudos for recognizing it & taking the appropriate action. Congrats on POW. Best, LM.

I should read all the comments first:-) Interesting. This is one of those photographs that I have a hard time grasping as a small web image. I'm curious as to what a good sized print looks like.

Wow, this is my first week as a member of photo.net and I can tell from Ms. Jensen's pic that the bar in this forum is set really high. What I get from the pic is a sense of isolation, distance, wonder, and beauty from simplicity and weather. Fantastic.

I think you've presented a cold and serene mood. Very tranquil. I'm not sure I like the arrangement of shapes. The dark line below the mountains is so dark that it flattens the whole image. In a landscape, the area near the horizon is rarely that dark, because air diffuses the light, making it lighter than jet black. If you look at a series of hills, the furthest hill will always be more gray, less crisp. Gray-out the top third a little and you'll create more depth. If you want more 3-D, you could've moved in a little closer and had the tree overlap the horizon.

This is truly outstanding. The scene in the foreground is beautiful, and would be a whole picture by itself! The huge load of snow on the tree is superbly captured before any wind blew it off or sun melted it into ice or water. But behind that the scene extends on forever across the snow and to the mountains. The amount of texture on the snow is also amazing, and totally untouched by winds or human interference! Congratulations and well deserved.

I very much like the way you managed to reproduce the texture of the snow. And all in all very good done!