Untitled by Tudor ApMadoc

Please note the following:

• 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.
• Discussion of photo.net policy, including the choice of Photograph of the Week should not take place here, but in the Help & Questions Forum.
• The About Photograph of the Week page tells you more about this feature of photo.net.
• Before writing a contribution to this thread, please consider our reason for having this forum: to help people learn about photography. Visitors have 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? Try to answer such questions with your contribution.

For an internal work, this is very appealing capture, the available light is so well utilized to serve the purpose, I also admire the details which been obtained all over this place, the b/w format worked so well with this image, specially the contrast and tone here are of very high quality and enhances the over all composition.

The composition works all in all. The photographer's purpose appears to be to show the geometrical partition of space, giving a surreal representation of this interior. All the lines included in the frame work very well. The photo's strength are its cleanness, the precise main division of areas and the sub-divisions due to the window grids.
Another strength is the lighting and the grey tones. They work very well.
There are some elements to be noted:

• it looks as if the right wall and windows are tipping over, probably because the elements are not perfectly vertical. Vertical alignment is not absolutely important, but in this specific case it is, because the composition mainly relies on geometry;
• there is some evident barrel distortion to be seen. This depends on the lens used.

Also to be noted: the part of the fan blades at the top, the cut-off angle of the windows on the upper right and the cut-off wall angle on the left, the electric plug on the wall and the objects appearing behind the wall.
Maybe some more "play" with the composition would have reduced the impact of all of these elements, for example cutting off more of the wall angle on the left, putting the objects behind the wall out of sight and maybe include the entire window on the right.

Nicely done. The geometric shapes are very pleasing to the eye. The composition of the shapes keeps one's eyes moving through the frame. It's not the easiest of exposures either and the exposure is handled well

After looking at this photograph for a few minutes, I decided I needed to put it in the context of the photographer's other black and white work...work which does include some really nice work.

Having done that, I can appreciate what the photographer is trying to here with light, shadow, and form. But there are a few compositional elements out of place for me...the two ceiling fans, and whatever that is that's partially visible over the top of the wall. I could also do without what appears to be an electrical outlet on the left. I don't like the left-hand corner of the wall and the upper right corner of the window being lopped off, either. It makes the photograph sort of incomplete for me.

I would liked to have seen a little blacker blacks and whiter whites, and in the end, it's the overall lack of contrast that makes this photograph sort of boring to me.

Having looked through Tudor's photos here and on the website, this image appears to be pretty singular in nature. This seems especially true with regards to the more general rendering of buildings and architectural detail.

Here we have a very formal, geometric presentation that has the feel of being a well considered and studied photograph. Because of the nature of the shot, certain technical issues become more relevant, maybe even critical, than they would be in some of the more spontaneous record shots I saw.

Those technical issues have already been enumerated here but my own sense is that the more egregious issues are the lack of vertical lines, barrel distortion and the detritus behind the horizontal wall. I don't find the ceiling fan/light fixture or the way the window is cut off to be significant issues although the intrusion of the fan might be a bit more problematic due to the nature of this image. I do think it's placement, however, hidden in the dark ceiling minimizes its effect. (all of these defects are fixable in either the raw processor or in post processing)

I find the tonality of the image to be well handled for the scene presented. And as I said, leaving the ceiling dark allows the fan to recede from prominence.

The nature of the photograph is such that the content of the image is the geometric form and play of light–in essence, the technical aspects of the image. It is not an image which attempts to inform us of the place itself and as such these sorts of details–or lack thereof–are critical to the success of such the image. The image also doesn't seem to be an attempt to create a more metaphysical or expressive type of message.

There could certainly be other renditions of the space that could use the enumerated deficiencies as positives but they would be totally different photographs. For instance, if the detritus behind the wall were some remnants of former tenants, it could create more contextual reference to the space if it were revealed more.

As I said, this seems to be a unique image in its style for Tudor and I think it has been seen well overall, just has a few details that need cleaning up and maybe could receive more attention before exposure in the future.

This is a very interesting picture. It is geometric in nature with straight edges that fall in a pleasing way (in my eyes) with great tones. My first reaction was, "wow, pretty cool" to have composed it the way it is. The exposure is well done. You can see details outside the window and inside the room.

My improvement suggestions would be what someone else pointed out: to remove the electrical outlet on the left and either get the whole fan or remove it completely. Also, I'd like to see the foreground window completely.

I'll put all of the detail and technical issues aside (there are several, easily identifiable and already described), and just look for the "story" the photograph carries for me. Here, it's about the world on the outside versus the world on the inside. The boundary between the two distorts. What we take in from the outside through our senses filters the reality of the external and makes it conform to our own internal prejudices, preferences, preconceptions, and expectations based on our past experiences and our personality. I can easily see this happening in myself when I interact with others and with other elements of the world, and I can see it happening in others as well. I find Tudor's photograph an apt and very nicely constructed physical metaphor for this fact of life. Each of us is far more complex on the inside than we may seem based on external characteristics alone. It's an interesting photograph, and what I'm able to read into the photo makes it even more interesting for me personally and lessens the importance of the technical issues I might find if I limited it to an architectural photograph of lines and areas of light and dark.

It seems that John A and I are on exactly the same page here.
Just to to clarify my intention: I mentioned all the side-elements, which I noticed, not because they should all be considered or - even worse - corrected. I just noticed them and suggested that some of them could be composed differently. Clearly this would mean presenting the scene in a different way as it is now.
I also agree with John when he says that this photo is quite different from Tudor's overall body of work.