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.

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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.

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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