Everybody this is Craig Tanner for the Mindful Eye and the photo of the week on the Daily Critique. This week’s photo of the week was submitted by Sam, who is an advance photographer. Sam shot this image at the Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego, California, just before twilight in an air show. And he said what really caught his eye here was the light coming through the flag and then he sort have saw the soldiers are folding the flag and he quickly frame this shot. And he said he just felt very fortunate to capture the moment with the focus awareness of the soldiers and also to have this guy above them. Sam shot this with the Canon 5D. He used the 300mm lens and the 5D is a full framed sensor camera so this effectively 300mm. Great use of the long lens here and Sam shooting at ISO 400 shot at amp feature of F4 for 1800 of a second. There so many things I love about this image. One of the things that I love about it is just its potential to evoke a lot of emotion.

There are so many Arco types that represented in this image that are potentially very powerful from an emotional standpoint for the viewer of the idea of soldier, the idea of flag, the idea of service to the country and then all the Arco types that folding the flag represents and the other thing about this image because of all those potentially very powerful emotional Arco types. This image has the potential to be a metaphor or sort of waypoint to memories are all kinds of things for a lot of people and so just very, very, very powerful on that level of being able to evoke commotion. It’s an intrinsically beautiful photograph. There's an incredible at the same time balance in this image in terms of all the different subjects and elements but it’s also incredibly dynamic.

You have sort of this book ended symmetry with the two soldiers on the outside and then the same kind of feeling with the two soldiers here, sort of partially turn towards each other. You have two soldiers that are lower and there book ending and they are mostly surrounded by blue and then most of the focus contrast in terms of color and value is in the middle here on these two soldiers. You have a lot of feeling of dynamic sort of relationships between subjects and the image because of the flag. It’s on the right hand side and very, very, very powerful. You get to this sort of primary colors and just the idea of the flag itself and then that comes for a playoff of imbalance. This is really strong vertical lines here in the background, you have this really dynamic radiant of a sort of cool soft twilight blue coming up into this much more exciting part of the sky up here.

So, just so many things just from an intrinsic visual design standpoint that worked really, really well in this image. Another thing that I find totally fascinating about this image is that I look at it once and then I look at it again and I was like, wait a minute. This image is evoking another image for me and it almost immediately evoke the one of the most famous work photographs of all time which is the flag raising at Iwo Jima. And so I Google that and I was amazed when look at that image to see that the shape of the soldiers are making here overall is almost identical to the top line of the soldiers and the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima. Another thing that’s amazing is that eventhough there six soldiers in the picture for the casual viewer of the photograph, if you don’t know the story. You don’t see two of them. You really only see the four soldiers that are in the front. That the other two are sort of in the back row and they're so merged with the two other soldiers in the front row that you don’t see them.

So, it’s really sort of incredible how this image connects to or resonates with an outrageously powerful Arco type, just in terms of a very, very, very famous photograph. The other thing and to me, this is one of the biggest takeaways that you can take with you from this photograph today. The other thing is sort of amazingly about this image is the way Sam has managed shadow detail. And it’s interesting because under questions and comments that was the question that he had. He said, you know, that he very much intentionally in the way he expose this and the way he’s present it and I'm working out in Photoshop. He very intentionally left subtle detail in the soldiers. And he was asking about what I thought about that and to me from a visual design standpoint, its one of the most powerful things about this image.

If you were far away from this image even if you're looking at it now and you just scoop back away from the monitor. I'm doing that right now. The figures become much more silhouettes but even from a distance you can see detail and for me because I sort of follow the light. I kind of see the detail in this soldier’s face right here first. And then, what that subtle detail does as it moves me closer and as I get closer, I got it from seeing the soldier’s silhouette. I start to see detail. I start to see the expressions on there faces. I start to see the alloy drop of their uniforms. And you know, when we think about the visual hierarchy of how people look our pictures. We know that the areas of highest contrast to all out at first then bright areas then warms tones, then mid tones, and cool tones. Then areas that are very dark and then, we skip black with no detail and eventhough areas that are very dark or sort of the last place we go. One of the things that I say a lot when I'm teaching is that that how you manage shadow detail might be the most important part of your image. Because eventhough there's a last place we go, it’s mysterious in there.

If you just leave a little bit of detail and your shadows it’s the one thing that can actually physically encourage the viewer to do two things. Number one, to stay with the image a lot longer, all the other things contrast, bright colors, warm colors, mids, they're all going to be readily apparent. But what's not so apparent is the shadow detail and it will cause the viewer not only to comeback around again, and spend more time with the image. It can physically pull the viewer closer to the image. What's amazing to me about these images, I get closer to it. If I get very close to it and spends enough time with it. The green in here instead of just being sort of an abstract really starts to come forward. Part of that is just my memory in what I know in my mind about these uniforms but that that green starts to be a beautiful counterpoint to the red of the flag, and the warm tone in the backgrounds.

So, just the way Sam has manage the shadow detail here to me is a -- is from just a purely visual standpoints. Its one of the most powerful things about this image, an incredible moment, an incredible use of framing with the long lens just amazing moment in terms of just the way all the different subjects relate in the frame here and an image that has the potential to evoke a lot of emotion, a really powerful image. I want to say a huge thank you to Sam for sharing this image with us on the Mindful Eyes photo of the week on the Daily Critique. Have a great weekend everybody.