What a small archive you have....

why it's better not to have a spider makes no sense to me. this is an image that doesn't have one, true, but so what? to me that would make sense if by purposeful omission it strengthened the image by suggestion, but i can't say that's the case here. would having a spider definitely strengthen it? it certainly could but to me having a spider isn't a prerequisite for a web image. in this case having the spider makes the shot:

http://www.weeklyshot.org/theme/silhouette/response/75/

But in this case the out of focus blob in the center of the web is the spider but it wouldn't have made any difference if it hadn't been there:

http://www.weeklyshot.org/theme/lines/response/94/

ana's comment may have been said in jest or simply in an off-hand way, but i felt it important to take a moment and respond to it because even if done in a frivolous way the suggestion behind the notion strikes me as, well, young.

George, I have been thinking about what you wrote here and about some of the conversations about being objective about our images. With this image, I liked the effect in the foreground and thought it added to the shot, but the more I look at it the more I realize that it doesn't have a strong focal point and the eye just keeps traveling. A spider in this image might have made it more effective by letting the eye settle on something.

As always, I appreciate your your comments and hopefully they will make me a better photographer, or in the least look at my images closer before I post them. ;)

Congrats!

Congrats, Tracy! You make a good point about a spider. Evidently in this case it wasn't needed...at least to make it to the home page, for what that is worth, and I think it's worth something. I also think Dan (dcreighton) might have some thoughts on "where the eye settles" on an image. Hopefully he'll pick up on this thread.

Thanks Thelma. :o

Sorry I had to get that in since I completely missed out on the other thread which was hysterical BTW.

Terrific image Tracy and congrats on the feature! I love the intense greens and the glimmering gold highlights, even if they are out of the focal range, which btw, doesnt distract me at all that much. Valid point about focal point however.

ha ha.

which reminds me, tracy, i'm no longer "thelma." for my handle ju dour, go to:

http://www.weeklyshot.org/user/George/

Do you have pictures? ;O

Blizzard - is that (insert macro joke here) in reference to Señor Speedo and possible pictures? ;)

Señor?

All I will say is...stay tuned for the "Pain In The Ass" theme.

Way to go, Tracy! You rock, girl.

Hi Tracy. I agree with a lot of what George said. I think this is a fine and pretty image in many regards. I do think that my eye skips around the image inside of flowing around it.

Usually the longer your eyes stay in a photo the more perceived enjoyment there is. However your eyes should move smoothly around an image. Here my eyes jump and skip from one area to the other (top to bottom). Cropping the bottom third really enhances this image IMO. This is because the focal point more clearly becomes the in focus dew drops and then the remaining web takes your eye around the frame up toward the light green area (because it is then the next brightest area in the image over the highlights in the dew drops) and then back down the web to the in focus dew drops where you pause briefly before enjoying the process all over again. With the bottom because it has a unique quality about it and because it contains the darkest and brightest areas in the image cause your eye to want to compete between what we want to be the subject, the in focus dew drops, and what our inner eye can't help but see.

Our eyes naturally go to areas of sharpness over softness, bright areas over dark, saturated over unsaturated, areas of contrast over flat, etc. Cropping this image uses the elements in the image in a more positive way that takes advantage of the natural way we look and visually comprehend things around us.

I don't think a spider in this image as a visual anchor is at all necessary and would likely be counter productive to the content of the image- web and dew. But I can see why some would come to that conclusion not realizing why their eyes are bouncing around the image or why it feels slightly "off balance".

Like I said I think this is a fine image but one that could be improved very easily with small tweaks. This is definately a fresh take on the theme. Congrats on the feature and I hope this helped explain or clarify a few things.

Dan, I'm glad you jumped in here. It's always a treat to read your perceptive insights.

Dan,
I agree with most of what you have to say above and applaud you for saying it so well.

I will take issue with one point, however. The human eye is incapable of moving smoothly around a stationary image--it jumps from point to point in what are called saccades. It's very easy to demonstrate. Any illusion of smoothness is imaginary.

On the other hand, if a bug (say a spider), were to crawl around the monitor screen, then the eye could track it like a predator drone tracks an al qaeda suspect.

The terms "move smoothly" and "bouncing around" are figures of speech used to describe the hows and whys of image composition.

Thank you, Dan, King & The Señor for your thoughts and comments, they are greatly appreciated. To me, WS is a wonderful place to learn and grow and it would sorely miss the input from you three, among others.

As a schooled graphic designer, I understand the printed page, how to make the eye flow, how certain fonts can elicit different emotional response etc. Design is constantly evolving and it is easy to change something that doesn't work and make it fantastic. With photography, you have to see it first and take it all into account, in sometimes a split second and then shoot it. There is a lot that can be done in photoshop -- I have really manipulated some images for clients -- but you need a good foundation to start with. So thank you for helping me with that.

@King: "saccades," eh? well that's my vocabulary word du jour. thanks. i love learning new terms :-)