Isisbridge

Isisbridge club

Posted: 29 Jul 2013


Taken: 17 Oct 2010

1 favorite     14 comments    189 visits

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Keywords

canal
path
towpath
footpath
walk
Hythe Bridge Moorings
Oxford
Oxfordshire
England
English
Britain
British
UK
October
2010
trees
sunlight
shade
EDIT


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Photo replaced on 04 Nov 2020
189 visits


canal path stroll

canal path stroll
Hythe Bridge Moorings, Oxford

Howard Somerville has particularly liked this photo


14 comments - The latest ones
 Isisbridge
Isisbridge club
same place after the British Waterways onslaught:
stark towpath at Hythe Bridge
11 years ago. Edited 2 years ago.
 Howard Somerville
Howard Somerville club
One of your best.
16 months ago. Edited 16 months ago.
Isisbridge club has replied to Howard Somerville club
Which one?
16 months ago.
 Howard Somerville
Howard Somerville club
This is one of the loveliest photos I've seen on Ipernity, and it's a great historical record of that spot as it was.

Composition is perfect, the figures and boat are perfectly placed, but its real glory is the lighting - the low sun giving depth and bringing the foliage to life and producing those wonderful shadows streaking across the path, together with the green, half-in-shade boat and muted colours giving the scene the look of a Gainsborough or Constable. I also like the way the bit of tree, top right, holds the scene together, and the "corona" round each of the back-lit figures.

If it were my picture (if only it were) I'd have airbrushed out the cables (thought they're mostly hidden) and perhaps removed the rightmost figure, though those are very minor criticisms.
16 months ago. Edited 16 months ago.
Isisbridge club has replied to Howard Somerville club
Each to their own. I don't think it's that brilliant, but a nice reminder of how things used to be.
It was such a treat to walk along this path in the old days. My own criticism is that there's a distracting piece of white beside the girl's head, perhaps a white bag, and I intend to clone that out when I get around to it. I certainly wouldn't remove the rightmost figure.
16 months ago.
Howard Somerville club has replied to Isisbridge club
Each to his own, indeed. Behind the girl and her father are two other figures, party hidden. The white bag belongs to one of them. They should certainly be removed. Perhaps the grandfather should stay, just recolour his clothes (and the father's trousers) to fawn rather than blue.
16 months ago. Edited 16 months ago.
Isisbridge club has replied to Howard Somerville club
No, I'm not going to rearrange their wardrobe. The blue jeans are fine as they are.
16 months ago.
Howard Somerville club has replied to Isisbridge club
You're not expected to. I'm saying that it's what *I* would have done.
16 months ago.
Isisbridge club has replied to Howard Somerville club
Can't think why. Fawn trousers wouldn't show up so well.
16 months ago.
Howard Somerville club has replied to Isisbridge club
Because blue jeans (which I myself wouldn't wear anywhere) don't belong in an oil painting-like scene, nor do blue jackets.
16 months ago. Edited 16 months ago.
Isisbridge club has replied to Howard Somerville club
But it's not an oil-painting scene. It's a picture of Hythe Bridge Moorings before it got trashed.
Many of the people who live there wear blue jeans, as do the passers-by.
16 months ago.
Howard Somerville club has replied to Isisbridge club
That's the difference between a pictorial photographer (which I am) and a documentary one, concerned chiefly with recording reality, warts and all. It's just sad that today the two schools can so seldom be combined.

It's also sad to see adults so lacking in dress sense.
16 months ago. Edited 16 months ago.
Isisbridge club has replied to Howard Somerville club
But they are combined in my case. I am also a 'pictorial photographer' and do for the most part try to make each photo into a picture, rather than just taking an any-old-how snap to document what's there.

Why should this be less of a picture because the men are wearing blue jeans?
Is it the blue that offends you, or the fact that the trousers are made of denim?
Would a naval uniform be okay? Or casual fawn corduroys, as I've seen you wear?

And if you don't like blue jackets, then how about this?

plodding the towpath
16 months ago.
Howard Somerville club has replied to Isisbridge club
1. OK, but you don't go as far as I do.
2. Because they're intrusively modern, and hence detract from the timeless feel of the picture
3. Both
4. Yes they would
5. Very Constable-like.
16 months ago.

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