Please share your immediate response to the image before reading the photographer’s intent (obscured text below) or other comments. The photographer seeks a genuinely unbiased first impression.
Questions to guide your feedback
What is this, and why is it here?
Read the description.
Other Information
Please leave your feedback before viewing the blurred information below, once you have replied, click to reveal the text and see if your assessment aligns with the photographer. Remember, this if for their benefit to learn what your unbiased reaction is.
Image Description
Shiprock rises abruptly from the virtually level surrounding plain. The east face reflects morning sunlight while a wind-driven cloud clings to its 1700 foot summit. Located within the Navajo volcanic field, it is a classic geologically-distinct landform of the Colorado Plateau. The landforms of the Navajo volcanic field also figure prominently in the empirical knowledge and culture of the indigenous Navajo people.
“Randy Van Schmus said that he and several others were going to date xenoliths in volcanic necks in the Four Corners area. That’s where Shiprock is, and Shiprock (like Devil’s Tower, in Wyoming} is a volcanic neck. Also called a volcanic chimney, a volcanic neck is a conduit through which magma rises toward eruption on the surface the earth. After everything freezes and epochs pass and erosion tears down the volcano and surrounding land, the volcanic neck may be left standing high because the frozen magma it is made of is so much tougher and more durable than the rock that once lay around it. Differential erosion. A xenolith, in this instance, is a rock from around the margins of the neck that fell into the magma when it was soft.” Annals of the Former World—John McPhee
Technical Details
Canon EOS 5D II; Canon EF 28-70 mm @ 65 mm; f/16 @ 1/10 sec, ISO 100; Gitzo tripod, RRS BH 55; remote trigger
Thank you @Igor_Doncov for your remarks. This is the more familiar viewpoint of the rock but I believe I have captured a singular moment. Lots of frames that morning waiting for the cloud to move into this position. Time well invested. Good ROI.
Bob, this is beautiful. The light, the color, the sky. And of course I am wondering what this is and why it is there. Looking like a flying flag or a woman’s hair in the wind. But more than anything I am glad you were there to witness and record. And of course and as always I’d like to see this in black and white. I think the color of the rock is beautiful, but I think it is not the most important aspect of the photograph. Thanks for sharing.
Bob,
You captured some amazing light in this scene and both versions work equally well for me. Great timing with the cloud as it reminds me of someone’s long hair blowing in the wind. Beautifully done; no suggestions from me.
Thank you @Youssef_Ismail for expressing your preference. Art “beauty” is in the eye of the beholder. There is no standard. However, we all know, and can agree, what ugly is.
Hi @Bob_Faucher , I’ve noticed that a lot of your posts use the “Initial Reaction” critique type, but you ask that people read the description, either in the post itself or as a reply to a comment.
Thank you @mdjnewman for your interesting comments and suggestions. You may be correct. As far as I can recall, all my images are posted as “initial reaction.” What I have observed throughout the critique categories, and I have not been a member very long, is that many people don’t read the “description” of the images they are critiquing, even after their critique, to see if what they and the author are “seeing” is the same thing. That is critical to the poster. When in the field we see, hear, feel, smell the scene broadly. That is not always depicted in the two-dimensional image(s). We, the authors, know all the sensory information and it allows us to attach those perceptions to the image. I believe that is why the description is important—so both parties can grow.
