Asher:
I've been mulling your comments for a few days and revisiting the photo. Personally, I prefer the photo on the dark side with the candles less than prominent. To me it conveys the sudden shift from light to dark. I expect that we have one of those differences in artisitic interpretation that would ultimately come down to highly personal ways of seeing.
This is a great forum and the comments have been good. I wish that there would be more postings.
Hi Doug,
In actuality, nothing much can be said to settle the point until its printed and shown to naive, ie new people who have to figure out what's there. I, myself, had some delay in identifying the candles. Also the glowing wick is not powerful enough. In the dark it will be perceived as stronger.
The main thing I feel strongly about is art generally involves work on behalf of the artist to embed in the picture the unique creative vision the photographer has and that a photograph can show. It just cannot be expected that this will occur without some craft on part of the photographer. We don't want to show the bland vision of the camera, at least not generally. We want to see through the photographer's eyes.
Also the image must be captivating or else people will not be there long enough to "get it". Thus the photographer, if s/he want to have us appreciate the work fully, must make sure that its presentation likely works outside his/her privileged domain. After all, we don't have his/her memory of the idea, then the event the camera recorded.
Now the
amount of change I'm suggesting is really very small. Make the change that's needed, but in a separate layer. Then go away and come back and see if one can reduce that layer to between 7-85%. The final test is as I indicated above, a print, unless it will be only for the web or stock.
Just my $0.02!
Asher