Your photo, critiqued and/or praised. It's about learning and improving.

JXD,

I think personally I would adjust the Shadows. I like these kind of photos and want to see more as the eye would sometimes.

I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty to quickly adjust the third photo.
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You don't lose the skate and the window, but more to look at.

My 2¢
 

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old_tv_nut said:
I'm thinking I am not going to respond to further requests for critiques. I'd like to help, but:
1) no one else is responding - and I think one opinion is too likely to have big blind spots.
2) no response to my critique from the poster, so I have no idea - am I being helpful, or does the poster think I'm an @$$, or what
Click to expand...

I'm with you Nut. I was in to doing this, but lack of response seemed not worth doing. Also not getting any critiques kind of sucked.
 
the bed and bags one doesnt sit with mecomposition wise. The bags are too new and don't seem to belong.

I see what you were going for with the skates and the window. I think there's a bit too much space dividing the. And would have moved the skates closer or shot on an angle more to compress the distance between the two.

I'm cb750r on Flickr. I'm no pro so take my word for what it's worth (a strangers word on the Internet... Not worth much).
 
I like the bed springs image the best by far. It has the strongest composition of the three and I like the soft, natural light. I don't see any evidence of flash, like I do with the image of the skates. I wonder how the skate image would have looked if it were shot from a different angle, tighter and without flash? I realize a tripod would have been needed but with a slow enough shutter it could be done. I agree with cb750r about the bags on the bed shot. I would have moved them. Less is More. If it doesn't add to the composition, it's detracting from it.
 
1st image. It's uninteresting, no focal point and it's all visual clutter. My eyes just go round in circles looking for something to connect too. Because of the color in the painting, my eyes eventual gets drawn to it. But it's out of focus and upside down and I can't make it out. It's frustrating and my eyes start wandering again. Find something that you want the viewer to focus on.

2nd image. I like this one, has promise. I would've tried moving the plastic bin and file cabinet out of the way in some shots. Or even try tighten in with the crop. Maybe even open the window a bit to let in more light and to get a peak of what's beyond. I would straighten the horizon line. It's tilting left. B&W would look nice too. Lots of interesting things and lots of possibilities.

3rd image. I would've put the skates next to the window. As it is now, there are two points of focus, window on the left and skates on the right. Because of the placement it pulls your eyes apart and you end up looking in the center. The light from the flash is to harsh and looks unnatural. Might want to try hanging the skates over the window and use natural light and a tripod. The skates will be more of a silhouette, but because of the shape, that's all you need.

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Montycat,

I'll give you my weekend tyro amateur opinion. Both good cat shots.

Hindsight is 20/20 but they would have benefited by being underexposed by 1/3 or 2/3 of a stop to retain detail in the white cat fur and then boost the midtones in post processing. Lots of digicams don't have the dynamic range to handle high contrast scenes.

To fix it, I would crop out half of the white blown-out sky at the top and crop out about a 3rd of green grass from the bottom to balance it all out.

I think I would have tried to get a tight vertical of the cats up to and including the door just above the doorknob. That would be cool.

I like these types of rustic shots.
 
Montycat,

The lighthouse photo is great. I like the expressiveness of the person in the chair which adds interest.
 
Okay here's one that I think shows promise! It's a jpeg right out of my Canon G10. It's looks slightly blown but I like the composition. What would you adivse? Thanks!


Farm Cat by dcrathma, on Flickr
 
Montycat said:
I'll try my hand in this thread.


Marconi Lighthouse by Buhduh, on Flickr
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Without the person in the chair, this would illustrate terrible composition - main item of interest dead center, horizon splits image in two.

With the person in the chair, I'd call it perfect. The central positioning of the lighthouse crossed by the horizon gives an abstract feel to the scene, which is then dynamically interrupted by the diagonal connection between the person and the lighthouse. It's like the person is visiting some imaginary place. {Well, that's my opinon, anyway}
 
Montycat said:
And another one which is essentially the same thing but with 2 different zoom settings. I think I just did a bit of cropping.


IMG_0852 by Buhduh, on Flickr



White On Grey On Green by Buhduh, on Flickr
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The wide shot just seems to have a lot of space that's doing nothing - I think if someone were peeking through the curtains, there would be an excuse for all that.

The close-up is nice, reasonable composition, but I think more of interest for cat lovers than photo appreciation. Like the other one, I wonder if the rest of the image except the cats themselves is contributing anything.

My overall feeling is that the cats were a great subject, and it would have been best to simplify by filling the frame with them.


Now, this is where I say I was sucked into commenting even though I said I gave up before! PLEASE reply to these comments so we can get a better understanding of how we each see these pictures.
 
Thanks for the comments!

In the cat photos I was driving by and saw the potential and pulled over but was on the verge of scaring them off as I got closer. I do like cats but was drawn to this by the intensity of the pure white against the other strong colours. The wide one I know has less interest with the extra area doing nothing but wanted to see it here for contrast with the closer shot.

The lighthouse shot has one of my usual errors. I can't seem to ever have a perfectly flat horizon, though I am only off a degree this time. I was going for the sense of idyll with Linda in the chair, and just at the right moment she provided the "action" in the shot with the hand and hair.
 
Montycat said:
I'll try my hand in this thread.


Marconi Lighthouse by Buhduh, on Flickr
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Lots of cool elements in this image. The person/chair, lighthouse, the blue horizon, grass on the hill side, sky, water and buildings. But it's not working for me and I'm not sure how it could be made better. Everything is cluttered below the horizon line, which is nearly half the image. Spatially it's all compressed into the foreground.

From that angle what bothers me the most is that building on the bottom left. It's essentially just a peek of the roof. I would've tried backing up a bit and or getting on my stomach to change the angle and getting the roof out of sight. Would've then moved the chair to the left filling that now empty space.

I love that pose Linda is in. I would've also tried moving her/chair so there was only the vastness of the blue horizon, the sky and water in the background. I think without the lighthouse and buildings, that would've opened up the image.

I'm not sure if those suggestions would work. Tricky shooting situation, for me at least.
 
Montycat said:
And another one which is essentially the same thing but with 2 different zoom settings. I think I just did a bit of cropping.


IMG_0852 by Buhduh, on Flickr
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On this one I think there is to much extraneous stuff going on in the peripheral. I would crop it down so only the front section of the building with the door and windows shows and along with a balance of the green grass. That way the cats wouldn't be so small in the composition. That whited out sky, foliage in the back/side yard and the main building section on the right are only distracting and uninteresting.

I would've shot the plane of the building straight on.
 
BrianR said:
In a little out of the way ravine in Zion National Park, Utah.
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Nice image. I would crop out a bit of the foreground blur on the bottom right corner and reposition the bush accordingly. And maybe heighten the drama a bit by increasing the exposure and darkening the gamma.
 
BrianR said:
In a little out of the way ravine in Zion National Park, Utah.
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I really like the photo. It's a might bit dark but I think that just shows the type of environment that the plant is trying to survive in.

On a non photo note. You might want to scale down your larger pictures a little for the forum though. It's wider than the frame.
 
I liked the idea, but it didn't work. The Anarchist Bookstore in the Haight/Ashbury neighborhood. How could this one be better or can it?

Original

Anarchist_bookstoreORG.jpg


Cropped

Anarchist_bookstoreSM.jpg
 
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