Stills

" If you don't like the ball of light, why did you leave it there?"

Er, good question. Not sure why I didn't think of cropping it out. It would be a pretty natural crop now that I see it.

"I am interested in the stairwell, where does it come from and go to?"

It comes from the pizza joint and goes to bus stop ;-).

"This is not an image that makes its impact by composition, it is a container of detail."

Perhaps that explains my confused impression of this. When I'm closer to a printer, I might try running off a couple prints.
 

It is rare for me to agree to cropping what has been taken, and I stick by that here. This encapsulates the 'city': all grows topsy-turvy, one place is not really connected to the next (Rex: "...where does it come from and go to?..."), a light shines brightly close to but leaves areas at the limits of its glow in darkness. I see the light as being integral to conveying the arbitrary nature of urban space. That you try and impose some order with a railing is understandable. This is not the sort of shot that gets taken often but is close to the Vienna of Carol Reed's 'The Third Man'.
 

The 'I like the light' 'I don't like the light' debate is interesting. I would like to add that viewed on the screen I have a contrast ratio available of 500:1 or there abouts, on a sheet of paper I probably have 50:1 or there abouts. So what I find distracting, and I do find it distracting, on the screen may be perfectly acceptable on a print.

What do you think?
 

Rex, one could quibble about the word 'like'! I think that one has to grit one's teeth and accept that it's there, just as one would for real. My screen probably has much the same contrast ratio but I'm not sure that scaling down the light on paper makes a material difference to whether it 'should be there or not'.
 

I apologise for the introduction of “The 'I like the light' 'I don't like the light'” comment as nobody actually used the word ‘like’ wrt the light until I did.
I too have an aversion for the words like/dislike unless rapidly followed by an explanation as to why that view is held. Without the explanation it is not a very useful piece of information.

Should it be there or not is another issue. As you say it was there and in a documentary shot it should remain. In an arty picture where one may be trying to produce an image that the viewer or one may find enjoyable then the light being there or not is the author's choice.

I do find the light very distracting in that I keep being drawn back to it without any emotional benefit or contribution to my enjoyment. My curiosity has me thinking that this level of distraction may not occur with a print due to the lesser contrast ratio.

I agree that this curious point has no bearing as to whether the light should be there or not.
 

I've hung off commenting on this because I've found it difficult to form an opinion. To me, the light dominates the picture. This goes beyond distraction. It is as if I were standing right by a real light. The scene beyond requries me to squint to see it.

When I do squint, I can see a number of picture components, but nothing that quite gels into a strong enough composition to fight the light.
 

I agree with your critique.

Scolling the light off the top of my monitor creates a new picture that I find has much to look at.
 

What Auspicious says about squinting is what I was alluding to as being real. It might, quite possibly, require one to squint less in a print. I have also scrolled it up, leaving about a third of the light showing (which seems to distract very little) but I then find that the resulting ratio weakens the composition. I suspect that Matt took this with the aim of seeing what it would look like with a full frontal light and not necessarily composing more than the bottom half of the picture (not a criticism - a deduction that may be wrong). The result is something interesting as I described in my first comment. The elements that remain after the roughly proposed crop are slightly less interesting and not compositionally satisfying.

Dare I say it, but I like it as it is - explanation in first comment Rex!
 

I have no problem with the ball of light as there are plenty of other distractions in the shot competing for my attention. And I'm not sure they all work. Perhaps you have two shots in one here. I'd prefer one with the light - a crop out of top right containing light and person at bus shelter. Bottom of such crop would be above the top horizontal railing. Left boarder just to the left of the left-hand bus shelter upright.
 

I've tried cropping this down, but in my mind it unbalances the composition. The veil of light still remains as well, and I'd rather have the light source in the frame than leave folks wondering where all that light is coming from.

"I see the light as being integral to conveying the arbitrary nature of urban space. That you try and impose some order with a railing is understandable."

That's not quite the way I would have put at, but that's certainly something of what I was feeling when I took this shot. Seoul is a particularly arbitrary city. Now I'm going to have to go find a copy of "The Third Man".


I appreciate everyone's comments on this one. I suspect this is one to stick on the wall and think about for a while.