Carl Kirstein: merci beaucoup, mai vous avez une merveilleuse journée
Marno
21 Jun 2008, 14:16
well done, this is a very moody piece. At first I thought the high contrast in the sky was a bit too powerful, and that it detracted from the sombre quality in the lower half of the picture (almost so much so that I didn't see the "raft"), but the sun does bring a necessary balance to the composition (and it might be desirable for the raft to be "lost" in the picture). I don't know whether this image is cropped from the original, but have you tried cropping out more of the sky so that more of the picture plane is filled wiht ocean? This might help communicate how the 'Medusa' is lost at sea, like in the Gericault painting.
Carl Kirstein: thanks for the comment and suggestions. The idea was to balance the bright sun with the dark "raft" at the bottom right-hand corner... almost a yin-yang composition. The powerful sky and the setting sun on the hapless raft is balanced by keeping more of the dark most on the sea, therefore the 50% split is not bothering me too much. I haven't tried cropping the sky, as this was as I have taken the photo. On the 1st glance though the sky feels too unresolved and the vastness of the scene is lost. I'll give it a couple of attempts later on though to see if it can be improved.