This image has a fascinating history. I put a different version of it up the other day in color; the photo shows Maria sitting in her reading chair.
I took this version of the same scene a few minutes later with my Leica; I experimented with the white light coming into the window that overexposed my photos.
I decided to put a foggy, slightly overexposed image up, it had a surreal and spiritual feeling.
The first photo is a better technical photo, but I think Maria is correct; the foggy overexposed one suggests something about Maria and her never-ending love and curiosity about the world. It has a spiritual feeling, at least to me (and her.)
I got an interesting response to the first photo, including this message from a blog reader named Gayle Leyton. She said the first image was a “storybook picture.
Unique in many ways. It is sweet and lonely and well constructed and beautiful. She said it could be a book cover and an ad, a greeting card. But it is also a comment by you about love and security and peace.”
Maria said she loved the black and white photograph because there was “an energy and atmosphere to it that made you stop and think. I thought it had so much feeling.”
I was also struck by this message and decided to post the foggier, overexposed version along with the first. Sometimes I stumble onto a good photo. Often I miss the boat.
Maria said it was one of her favorite photos; she thought it was pretty special. High praise from an accomplished artist.
Sometimes, there is more in a photo than the photographer knows.
Sometimes people see things in my photos that I don’t see and enlighten and inspire me. Thanks, Maria, thanks, Gayle. We live in a world of nay-sayers, second guesses, and amateur critics; such encouragement is valuable.
Some people will see the image just as an overexposed photo. Others will see something beyond. That is the wonder and miracle – and tension – of art.
Putting oneself out there to be vulnerable is what it is about.
Both great. I like the coloured photo because there is so much colour in Maria herself. That photograph feels very emotional to me. It has so many details, art, books, plants, not to mention Zinnia.
Thanks, I liked it too, but I do sense some presence in the other one..thanks, I think both work.
I feel the same way, all the details, the things that make a house a home, the curtains, the books, the plants, the art, and of course, Maria herself, and Zinnia.
I feel the same way also, but the photos have different functions, this second one should have been foggier and more mysterious I think.. but the color one captures the feel of the moment much better, the black and white is more mystical to me at least..I appreciate these discussions, they are what makes the Internet promising and exciting..thanks.