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Stairway (not quite) to heaven
 
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Image Title:  Stairway (not quite) to heaven
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 By: Nick Karagiaouroglou  
  Copyright ©2008

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Photographer Nick Karagiaouroglou  Nick Karagiaouroglou {Karma:127263}
Project N/A Camera Model Canon T70
Categories Architecture
Film Format 24x36mm
Portfolio Lens Canon FD 70-210mm 1:4.0 macro
Uploaded 7/28/2008 Film / Memory Type Kodak  Royal Supra
    ISO / Film Speed
Views 389 Shutter
Favorites Aperture f/
Critiques 28 Rating
Pending
/ 2 Ratings
Location City -  St. Gallen
State - 
Country - Switzerland   Switzerland
About The start of another very old series, "In a financial company building". This building was some steps away from the building where we were working for the IT of the bank. The difference of the general look of the interior is immediately visible. Was it technology and machinery in our building, so it was luxury and demostration of wealth in this one. As always they just have to suggest some kind of "culture" that they never had. Anyway, this is the staircase to the offices on the upper floors, which are as always for the self-called enlightened gods of any bank. (Or so they behave.) I tried to get the zig-zags and the reflections to their "heaven" as good as possible. I am glad that some depth and perspective still remained under the long focal distance of the 70-210mm zoom. Any comments would be very welcome.
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There are 28 Comments in 1 Pages
  1
Nick Karagiaouroglou Nick Karagiaouroglou   {K:127263} 8/31/2008
Which is exactly the same spoken with other words, Irena-Marta. Any kind of symbolism is also romanticism, since it *must* be based on the romantic interpretation that some things stand as symbols for some specific and non-existing content at all. Or ask yourself why it is exactly "wings" and "heavens" that are "symbolic" to you.

As an example, a cross is nothing more than two line segments crossing at a right angle. It has by itself no symbolic "function" at all. But if some mind desperately *wishes* to see something on that, then it can start knitting unholdable stories about it, make it holy, make it evil, the carrier of the own icapability to cope with reality. Why that wish for a distorted reality? Because lies are comforting. If we can't get comfortable with real world, then off we go satisfying that need for bedtime stories by seeing "symbols".

No need for that, sorry! I am here and now and not in some hollywood movie.

Cheers!

Nick

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Irena - Marta Irena - Marta   {K:4875} 8/30/2008
Nick, 'wings' and 'heaven' in this photo are symbolic for me, not romantic ... and not only in this photo.

be well,
i-m

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Nick Karagiaouroglou Nick Karagiaouroglou   {K:127263} 8/6/2008
OK, now I got you right! Thanks a lot for explaining, Irena-Marta. BTW, it was not your English but rather my own stupidity that made it hard to understand for me. Sometimes I can be such a blockhead! But now I know!

Interpretation is of course what one sees in the image, and everybody has his/her own. Somebody else might also see railways and castles or whatever else here and on any other image too. That's free.

Still some basics have to be kept. Like for example good composition, adequate lighting, etc, etc for what the photographer wanted to do. It has to be immediately visible what the intention was, or else the image is not succesful no matter what interpretations can be made. Why? Because if we are not able to take the image *exactly* as we intented it, that means that we are not able to control the camera for translating what we have in mind to a real image, and tranfer thus our ideas and thoughts to other people. And thus we can perhaps take snapshots around but this is not photography. Or else everybody with a camera would be automatically a photographer. Which of course is absurd.

The interpretation is always possible. That's trhe easy part of it. Everybody can do that. To take images and also carefully observe images is the hard of it. It is there where we can separate photographers from wannabes.

About your crop now, which in some ways resembles Marco's crop, it is OK as a very "partial" view of the building's interior. Still much of the space gets lost. The image gets flatter. I would rather go the other way around and use an even wider angle for getting more of those lines at the sides, which add the look and feel of distance.

BTW, the title was not about the usual romantic nonsense of heavens and angels and wings. This is a bank, and this is a place where the false "heaven" is propagated as if it were real. But it is exactly as false as any of the typical interpretations when an image contains a bit of heaven. My intention was not to siggest paradies and other similar diseases, but rather how the mere look of something keeps being misused by banks (and also photography wannabes) in order to suggest some kind of "ideal" that never existed. Don't search for heavens in my images. you won't find any. I don't live in "paradise", Irena-Marta. I live in real world, and I like this world too much for wasting my time with searching for wings and similar fantasies.

Cheers!

Nick

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Irena - Marta Irena - Marta   {K:4875} 8/5/2008
Nick, you see in this picture stairway to heaven(not quite), but I see heaven and wings (vv) in these stairway lines. Yes, it is not only architecture, either for me... therefore my crop. But it is only my vision, because I look in photohraphy for interpretation, not documentation.

Nick, sorry, I learn English from the beginning, but I hope you understand me? :)

Cheers!
i-m

  0


Nick Karagiaouroglou Nick Karagiaouroglou   {K:127263} 8/5/2008
Thanks a lot for the nice comment, Luis!

Have all fun of the world at the club!

Cheers!

Nick

  0


Nick Karagiaouroglou Nick Karagiaouroglou   {K:127263} 8/5/2008
Thanks a lot, Irena-Marta, for the nice comment and your time/suggestion. First of all, what is "vvings"? Or... did you mean "wings"? But then again, what wings?

Anyway, as already said about these images, I was just trying to get some good shots about architecture since that bulding had that special elegance of simplicity. But looking them again after some years, I see that they are not only architecture... some strange abstract touch invaded them, though I was surely not intenting to have that back at that time when I was shooting.

Your attached crop seems quite... expected/usual for our times. It's trivial to me, with less depth and more components of a close-up, which must make up for about 3/4 of all images nowadays. Not really my case, I want depth, distance, space, lines, composition. Composition is like conceiving a *whole* concert for an orchestra rather than focusing in some few parts of some instruments. Or, to put it in other words, any sequence of notes is already a melody. That's a piece of cake. To find the right harmony / rhythm around that melody, and to variate its character but still preserve its essence.. that's a bit more.

Cheers!

Nick

  0


Nick Karagiaouroglou Nick Karagiaouroglou   {K:127263} 8/5/2008
Thanks a lot, Mohsen!

You see what I mean? Avi said that already, and you say that too, but I am quite surprised about the fact that this kind of abstract touch stealthily invaded the image, when I was only thinking about architecture at shooting time. As Avi said, there must be that way that architecture just does that many times, even when we don't think about it.

Cheers!

Nick

  0


Nick Karagiaouroglou Nick Karagiaouroglou   {K:127263} 8/5/2008
Yes, that kind of "echoing" seems to play a bog role here, Dave! Thanks a lot!

Nick

  0


Nick Karagiaouroglou Nick Karagiaouroglou   {K:127263} 8/5/2008
Yes, that's completely true, Avi! And I don't know why this happens. Sometimes shots about architecture can go very abstract. Perhaps the domination of lines and light, when considered isolated from the whole building, introduces such an abstract character? Many of the images I shot about architecture at the end have also that certain touch, though at the moment of the shoot I was not aware of that. It's a nice to have of course.

Cheers!

Nick

  0


Luis  Steinberg (EFIAP) Luis  Steinberg (EFIAP)   {K:21250} 8/4/2008
Dear Nick all the series are a perfect mood of composition, wonderfull work...I'm absent, because I' ve a lot of work at Photo Club Buenos Aires Presidence, but I remember my good friends like you.- LUIS

  0


Irena - Marta Irena - Marta   {K:4875} 7/31/2008
Creative frame Nick, I look on the stairway (not quite) to heaven and I see the vvings :)

What do you think about it?

regards
i-m

  0



Mohsen Bayramnejad Mohsen Bayramnejad   {K:21377} 7/31/2008
I do prefer Marco's idea, but both of the versions have they own power. very creative abstract, and a really winner image by you my friend.
Excellent!

  0


Nick Karagiaouroglou Nick Karagiaouroglou   {K:127263} 7/30/2008
Thanks a lot Diego!

The choise of the angle was not only my own decision, as the very architecture almost dictated that in the staircase. There are not many other angles for expecting some good shot in such a place.

Cheers!

Nick

  0


Dave Stacey Dave Stacey   {K:150877} 7/30/2008
I like the repeating shapes here, Nick!
Dave.

  0


Avi  Avi     {K:70138} 7/29/2008
But, but.. you know, architecture does make some stunning abstracts. Just plays with forms and shapes and lines.. you see what I mean ?

  0


Nick Karagiaouroglou Nick Karagiaouroglou   {K:127263} 7/29/2008
Thanks a lot, Vandi!

I was not trying to d any kind of an "abstract" here, but rather get some of the architecture correctly exposed. But Avi also sais that it has a biot of an abstract too, and so I wonder a bit. Anyway, nice to know that I wanted architectur and I got an abstract instead! Speaks for the (inability of the) photographer, ey??? ;-)

Cheers!

Nick

  0


Nick Karagiaouroglou Nick Karagiaouroglou   {K:127263} 7/29/2008
Bingo, Avi! Completely with you on this point. Any of those many too many "abstracts", that contain 3497 symbols which then the maker expect to tell me what he/she things is worth telling, must be considered as: failures. Those are not abstracts simply because the maker *had* something very very concrete in mind while making such an "abstract". An abstract must be something like water that you never drink and yet satisfies your thirst. Your tribute to Dali was that.

This one... well, I don't know. I only wanted to depict the interiors of the building since its interior architecture was remarkable. If it went somehow abstract, then I am glad for that but it was definitely not my intention. So, at least some small abstract advantages came along with the not so good capture in the sense of architecture... again I was lucky, I'm afraid!!! ;-)

Cheers!

Nick

  0


Nick Karagiaouroglou Nick Karagiaouroglou   {K:127263} 7/29/2008
Thanks a lot again, Gustavo!

The dynamics range was indeed hard here. I also think that some small underexposure might have eliminated the very strong highlights. The question is then what would happen to the shadows... hard to say.

Cheers!

Nick

  0


Nick Karagiaouroglou Nick Karagiaouroglou   {K:127263} 7/29/2008
Thanks Maya!

Perhaps it is OK, but "excellent" is really too much here, ey?

Cheers!

Nick

  0


Nick Karagiaouroglou Nick Karagiaouroglou   {K:127263} 7/29/2008
Which at the end has caused so many catastrophes that I wonder why the bankers just get an extra bonus for leaving the one bank and are hired with an even higher salary by some other bank.

Thanks a lot for the nice comment, Harry!

Nick

  0


Nick Karagiaouroglou Nick Karagiaouroglou   {K:127263} 7/29/2008
Thanks a lot for the nice detailed comment, Marco! And also for the suggestion!

Well, I already did one with the straicase without the top window - I'll be posting it tomorrow. So our ideas did coincide, at least partially.

Still let's crop off the top window, just to see what it looks like then. (Attachment). Much of the depth of perspective was lost but the stair pattern seems to be more dominating, ey?

BTW, the other one of which I already talked is even stronger in its property of not really allowing to tell what is up and what is down.

Cheers and thanks again!

Nick

  0

Cropped off top window after Marco's idea


Diego Bullita Diego Bullita   {K:17017} 7/29/2008
hi dear Nick,

you chose a spectacular angle,
this gives the picture a grow light in a very good architectural structure,
best regards my friend,

diego

  0


Vandy Neculae Vandy Neculae   {K:7990} 7/28/2008
Very interesting abstract, Nick.
Well done.

Vandi

  0


Avi  Avi     {K:70138} 7/28/2008
works very well as an abstract !!!... I feel the key to a good abstract is to make the viewer guess.. not understand fully what it is that they see... THAT enhances the feel of mystery and drama. This does that beautifully !

  0


Gustavo Scheverin Gustavo Scheverin   {K:164501} 7/28/2008
La composición me encanta y refleja como todas tus foto tu personal estilo, la encuentro para mi gusto demasiado luminosa, encandila un poco y tiene un poco de sobre exposición en las altas luces, me parece...:-)

Un abrazo!

  0


Maja Š Maja Š   {K:17951} 7/28/2008
Excellent!

  0


Wolf Zorrito Wolf Zorrito   {K:78768} 7/28/2008
YES, this is what a bankers eye should see, growth, indexes only rising.
But photographically seen, excellent mijn beste vriend.

  0


Marco Vredegoor Marco Vredegoor   {K:7301} 7/28/2008
wow, nice and unusual view. in this architecture is a real nice pattern and clear lines. You can even hold it up side down and you would still have an evident staircase. I'm a little ambiguous about the top window though. Maybe it is better to leave it off the picture and just choose for the pattern in the stairs that gradually turn darker. anyway good picture, good eye!
All the best, Marco.

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