yixing and flower petal Pikachu

A boy who I tutor gave me this Pikachu as a gift. I made this

picture for him. Tell me what you think.

Original. This is one of the few ocasions where this rating makes any sense.

Probablly is my screen's problem but I find pikachu to be a bit underexposed.

What's this picture for? Without the story to place it into context, this picture is silly without being interesting. The picture might interest you and the boy -- i don't think anyone else will care.

I think that the pic is very clear and has a lot of appeal! In case anyone doesn't get it, the photog gave the context, it is an image in response to a child's gift. I think the pic is perfect to share with a child, in that it leaves a lot to the imagination and demonstrates some basic artistic principles without being bound by them.

I enjoy it myself not only for it's sense of mystery and light heartedness, but because Mr. Roth has apparently found the real purpose for these ubiquitous figurines!

Lighten up and enjoy the Pikachu!

Joey--

Technical issue aside, this is a great photo. I like the sense of humor. You may intend for it to be a comment on mindless consumerism--if so, it works again. But if it was just a visual joke, it still works. I love photos that function on multiple levels, and I can never pull them off myself.

Technically, the other commetns are dead on--the toy is too dark and the contrast levels are all weird. It would be worth the effort to re-work this photo in PhotoShop and balance out the contrast.

Also, I recommend getting rid of the metal ring on the toy's head. It's distracting, and it's easily cloned out.

If you find PhotoShop too tedious and things just aren't working well, my advice is reshoot. Do it again as a Black-and-White, but also see how it works in color. The yellow toy, a blue wall, and a red bowl might make it a more attractive photo IMHO.

Thank you for your comments. Social commentaty did occur to me, ie "how the West preceives Japanese culture" or something. The picture was not taken with that in mind though. Here I have the origional color version, which al all pretty yellow/brown because I used daylight film with tungsten lighting, and a cleaned-up b&w version. I used the red channel to go from color to greyscale this time, and I think the results are clearer.

and here is the new B&W version