mottershead

This is sublime in its simplicity. By far my favorite of your fine folder. Thank-you for posting them.

The light, pose, and model are all beautiful. The setting is wonderfully moody and is very well enhanced by the blue cast of the colors. I am curious whether this was done by modifiers on the lights or in Photoshop. While the blue cast works and makes the image more striking, it is a little too much perhaps, especially in the model's skin and hair. I agree with the previous comment about the hand. These are minor points, however: a memorable image.

A refined, almost minimalist, composition with an elegant curve and harmonious colors. It works! Well done.

Clever framing, excellent color, and for the most part good light. The very bright area at lower left might be brought into better balance with the whole through a little burning-in.

I also think the color and the composition are excellent. Clever and original framing to omit his head, which concentrates the viewer's mind on the forms and the color, whereas with the head it would become a portrait. The blur completes it. Very well done.

 

Just one small suggestion: I think if you cropped the right edge about 1/8th of the width, you would not only balance the composition better but you would remove the slightly distracting thingy that is sticking up.

The elegant sweep of the staircase and the interplay of the lines of railings and the steps are great. It was clever to use the point at which the two railings cross as a strong focal point.

 

I do think the composition is weakened a little by the windows and curtains on the left and the blocks of the exterior wall, but only a little. Unlike the other poster, I am also not very pleased by the grain, but this is a minor point. Well done.

I don't know how the mask-like effect was achieved, but it makes for an eery effect. Very well spotted and executed.

As I've said, I'm not greatly enamoured of this photograph, but saying "pretty good for a digital shot" is damning by faint praise, and I don't think is fair either to Seven, or to the many people on photo.net working seriously with digital cameras.

Vuk, here I am already doing exactly what I counselled against. (Well, maybe next week.) I quite agree with you that the fault lies less with those who express an honest critique than with those who indulge in personal remarks and who insist on having the last word at the expense of repeating themselves ad nauseum. (Venturing into the ad hominem here, my observation is that you very seldom are guilty of either, although you can be provoked.)

I agree that there should be a thread where people can regularly rendevous to discuss photographs, although I tend to think that the photographs themselves are not that place.

The chat room might be OK, but it is usually deserted, and besides I don't think "chat" is conducive to longer, more thought-out, comments.

Only the POW has enough visibility to make it a suitable rendevous, but given how meandering the discussion can be, it seems somewhat unfair to the photographer, and makes POW a notoriously mixed blessing.

I agree the whole process for selecting the POW is too much shrowded in mystery, and needs to be rethought. I suspect the "elves" are mostly the hard-working folks who administer photo.net for a living. Gathering in the pub to pick the POW was probably fun at first, but could now be more a burden of which they would be grateful to be relieved.

I must admit that I don't greatly care for this picture. I think the idea is cute, and the pattern of the bubbles is attractive, but the stripes of saturated blue and yellow are way over the top, and who ordered the corn? It is certainly interesting, and definitely a cut above average, but I can't see it as one of the best 52 photos that will be posted this year on photo.net.

On the subject of the use of the rating scale, it would seem that there are two dramatically different schools of thought on how to assign scores. One school interprets "9" and "10" to mean "very nice": probably a few photos every day merit a 10 for members of this school. The other school interprets "10" to mean "among the handful of best photos on photo.net", and awards one or two 10's per year, and maybe a couple of 9's per month. This is fine provided every photo gets the same proportion of raters from each school, and the two schools do not differ in their appreciation of the different photographic styles and subjects. Unfortunately this is probably not the case. In the absence of guidance on what the ratings are supposed to mean, and somewhat consistent ratings, the "generous" school will of course eventually drive out the other one. It is easy to see that this has been happening recently.

On the subject of POW discussions: it would appear that the POW is being treated by some as a general, high visibility, thread where the aesthetics of photography is discussed every week, along with a fair amount of the usual bulletin board noise that comes up when people discuss things they care about. It seems unfair to the photographer to make the "honored" photograph the venue for these long discussions. It seems to me that the discussion threads associated with photographs, including the POW, should be limited to critiques of the photograph, and except for the photographer himself/herself, people should limit themselves to one or two comments, and not turn a photo critique thread into a slug-fest about who-knows-what, especially not one with a lot of ad hominem banter. Daniel put it best: let's not keep turning the weekly POW birthday party into a brawl. It is not civil, to say the least.

Most of this comment of course does not belong here, either, but the damage is already done.

The cactus, back-lit by the sunrise, are beautiful, but I think I would like it even more, if the foreground cactuses were in sharper focus.

Its obligatory to have a "this or that photo from the author's folder would have been better" comment on the POW, and Tom has already obliged us; but I agree with him. This photograph is a "decisive moment" to be sure, but the composition is too chaotic for me. I know that composition is not the paramount virtue in sports photographs, but there are several other pictures in the folder that capture equally dynamic moments, without the deficiencies of composition that this one shows. None of this changes the fact that we are all very lucky to have Daniel as a photo.net contributor!

kyle, your U. S. Code citation isn't relevant at all. In fact it seems to apply more to you than to Tris, in that says that a person (you, for example) who knowingly misrepresents that another person has infringed on copyright (Tris, for example) is liable for various damages. However, there is good news, you seem to be ignorant, and this is probably a valid defense.

Tris, my point was that the proper procedure is to attach your edited image to your comment. Posting it as an independent image in your own folder where it can accumulate separate ratings is not proper behaviour, in my opinion. This may be why the elves removed it. It didn't help when you smugly mentioned that the edited image was accumulating high ratings.

 

On the all-important issue of the sea color in this photograph: having been blessed with the opportunity to gaze upon many seas in my life, this looks well within the normal range; in fact, the color is so unexceptional-looking on my calibrated monitor, I cannot understand all the fuss.

I quite often make copies of images posted here, edit them so as to illustrate a suggestion or criticism, and post them back. Such usage is almost the paradigm case of "fair use" under the copyright laws.

 

Tris, one thing I would suggest: it is not necessary to upload the edited image to your own folder and link to it. You can simply upload the edited image as an attachment to your comment. I generally make my edited images much smaller than the original so that my edited version in no way competes with the original, which wouldn't be very polite.

 

I can see how having the image in your own folder might lead to some misunderstanding , and especially so if it starts getting ratings credited to you. So it is probably best to avoid this.

Wonderful idea. I think you should move in closer, if your equipment permits it. The composition would be improved by less centered view. Definitely worth pursuing this idea further.

The version on your web site absolutely glows, but this one isn't half bad, Chris.

Actually, I don't think you could see a quality difference between the two at 630x450 pixels. There is a difference in the color balance, and I actually prefer the other one; but you don't need to do a new scan to change either to the color balance of the other. A simple Curves move in Photoshop will do it. As for the "murkiness" of the other: could be, but a very small amount of Unsharp Mask eliminates that, too. For uploading to the web, your not getting much benefit from your expensive scanner, I'm afraid.

 

Probably the difference between the two scanning approaches would show up in a large print, but not in these web uploads.

 

The poster with its texture and grafitti was well-spotted and well worth presenting. But if your aim was to present/reproduce the poster, I think a straight-on view would have worked better. This would have focused more attention to the wrinkles and the grafitti, which is what you are bringing to the photo, the rest of the art not being yours, but that of the poster.

 

You can still achieve this by using the "Free Transform" function in Photoshop, which is what Ian was probably referring to. I would also crop out the window on the right. While you are in Photoshop, you might sharpen it a bit more and adjust the contrast, as in the small example I have attached.

 

As for the clipping it is a serious problem, so serious that if it had been my picture I would not have posted it all, rather than posting it with a plea to ignore the photo's faults. What were you hoping for with such a plea: "Great photo, except for all the problems!"

It seems that one can comment on this image on two levels: as a photograph of a drawing; and as a drawing.

 

As a photograph of the drawing, I take it that the aim was to be an accurate reproduction of the drawing. In other photographs of art works, sometimes the goal is to show the work in a context, and the photograph has some independence as an art work, separate from the original work. That is not the purpose here. However, without access to the original work it is impossible to say much about the success of the photograph as a reproduction, which is mostly a technical matter of even lighting, color balance, reproduction of detail, and getting the original framed so that edges and lines are rectilinear. As the previous poster commented, one can see that the lighting was fairly even across the original drawing. But whether the colors are reproduced accurately and whether the detail of the original has been transmitted is impossible to say.

 

As far as commenting on the drawing itself, it seems to me that photo.net is not the ideal place to obtain such a critique. People here can say whether they "like" it, and possibly they may have a more practiced eye in judging composition than the typical viewer. But most photo.net denizens will not have any expertise on drawing or watercolor pencil technique, and perhaps they will be excessively influenced by respect for artistic skills they do not have themselves. At best, they can comment on it as if it were a photograph that had been run through some kind of Photoshop watercolor pencil "filter".

 

So let me do that: I think this is not the most interesting of your wolf pictures; the situation of the wolf is not very interesting or dynamic. It is a little bit of a cliche and perhaps a little cartoon-ish with the twinkly stars and all. I like the decision to use the blue palette for the picture, although perhaps it needs something more to relieve it. The composition could be strengthened by cropping some of the foreground and some on the right, so as to move the wolf out of the center, as in the small example that I have attached.

Original and unusual perspective, which nevertheless works well.

I really like the stong colors and the way the perspective has been flattened (by a telephoto?) so as to create an image that looks like a naive painting.

I don't know what you did to the original image, but if you look at the levels in what you uploaded, the values are crowded around the middle: no shadows or highlights. This makes the image seem very flat and dull. Also, there is a color cast in the girl's white dress. Try using the white point dropper in Levels or Curves and click on a white pixel in the dress: this will give you a better starting point for correcting the color balance.

 

Finally, the composition is quite nice, but can be strengthened by cropping.

Damjan, I think your lighting is quite good, especially the hair, although I think it is perhaps a little harsh on her face. Her expression is quizzical -- nice.

 

There are several things I don't like, however. First, the pose seems awkward. I especially don't like the way her hand is scrunched between her chin and her arm. And the framing is a little too tight, adding to the feeling that she has been contorted to fit the frame.

 

Second, the model's clothes don't work at all. The red of her top is too strong, though it does match her lipstick. So is the geometric pattern of her top. Also, her clothes are tight, but the pose makes it look like they don't fit well. All the folds and wrinkles are ugly and distracting, and add to the feeling of tension created by the pose. I don't think this tension was intended: it isn't consistent with her expression for example.

 

Finally, I am a little disconcerted by her face. Her eyes aren't symmetric: one is open wider than the other, and the one on her right side looks a little red. As a consequence, the left side of her face strangely doesn't look like it belongs with the right. I am quite sure that she is an attractive woman, but your portrait doesn't capture her beauty fully.

 

While the other fireworks photograph in this folder initially seems better, some people seem to feel that it looks "fake". I think this is because the firework specifically and the sky in general look out of relationship with the city walls. It seems almost too perfect.

 

In this photograph, the fireworks are not the classic burst, but this photograph seems more "real" -- probably because some of the light streamers of the firework go behind the city walls. Overall, I prefer this one.