philip_coggan

Well there's nothing wrong with this, in fact it's very good. If you really want a suggestion, I'd personally go for pure black and white, as I sense a greenish tone to this - barely noticeable, and perhaps I'm mistaken.

I like this better than the POTW. I like the way the freckles are echoed by the pattern on the coat, I like the way the eyes are so sharp and everything else so soft. The regard is so appealing. Lovely - I'm sure the parents of this child are very pleased. (Or it's your daughter?)

I see we have a new author's ID pic. No more the sardonic spade-bearded professor, now the wild elfin spirit of the woods. Or desert.

Anyway, the flowers: beautiful light, lots of colour, a hint of eternity. Who says irony is dead?

Maybe crop the iron stanchion down the bottom? (it seems a bit obtrusive, and the red pot should be the anchor in that corner). For a client?

Doug, I like everything about this, from the pose to the texture and faded look. You might consider the effect of cutting the head off entirely (poor girl) - the idea being to depersonalise the image even further, since the texture etc are already taking it away from the idea of portrait and towards abstraction. Mais c'est vous le maitre.

Thank you Fred. I also feel that cloning the elements of pool out wouldn't be a good idea - the viewer needs to be able to put the man's actions in context (he's sluicing down the concrete surround of a hotel swimming pool). There's also an element of humour in there of course - him and his bucket of water, and those stormy-looking clouds about to dump far more on top of him. The water in the bucket needs to be seen to coming from somewhere.

Just out of curiosity, why do you post on photo.net? You're a leading photgrapher with a pretty thriving career - what has this site got to offer you?

I find this interesting. I assume that the harsh colours/contrast and light are intentional. The concept of the naked and apparently frustrated writer is interesting - I can't make anything of it, but at least it makes me think. The back of the chair is missing - maybe she tore it off. I think you better stay out the room for now, and make alternative arrangements for dinner tonight.

It's hard to critique a photo of your son without seeming to criticise your son, which is not my intention. But, I'm afraid, I don't think this photo works. It's been processed, and overprocessed. The eyes are lovely, but elsewhere the picture seems to have been artificially blurred/softened. The result is that I find myself asking questions about the processing, instead of simply enjoying the photo.

 

You might like to experiment with lighting - try out softer lighting, side lighting, etc. But don't rely on photoshop.

Nice and sharp, and well isolated subject against a blurred background. The blurring in the foreground - near side of the piece of wood - looks odd. It doesn't really matter why this happened, but it's a good idea not to have anything in the pic which causes the audience to say "that looks odd." Good luck :)

Nice colours, but the tilted horizon is a bit distracting.

Oh dear Mr Hancock, are you still at it, producing beautifully crafted photos of disgusting scenes and objects? I showed your pics (on my laptop) to a man in a bar in Phnom Penh the other day. He's an art photographer, he says - takes pics of girls with no clothes on. (What is it if you take pics of girls with clothes on? Big money if you do it for Vogue). Anyway, he didn't see the point of Mr Bun. I doubt he'd see the point of this either. (Broom Clean is a rather uninspired title, I think - A Clean Sweep would be too obvious. I don't know. Seriously, it's nice to get back and see your work again, I like it, tho I think it's an acquired taste).

 

Philip.

This is metaphysics - the rocks seem will be worn away by the ocean, the dawns will come and go, and it's all about time and the passing of time. An approximation of reality? Spare me the calendars, please!

That sure is one mean looking bird!
What it feels like to fly - all that soaring and swooping is fine, but this photo shows there's real work involved. All this makes it a great and original shot.
It makes me feel what it means to BE a bird! All those feathers and muscles to control - flying a 747 is a piece of cake.

Without reading all the other comments:

 

It works - it captures the attention, and that's good. The surrealism - something odd, but what is it? Of course that question should never be answered - mystery is the point.

 

The lit interior lobe of the shell looks as if it leads into another universe - one wonders what's in there.

 

And I like the twilit look.

 

 

When I was a child of dreamed of such things. You bring back magic.

A brilliant image. Partly photography, partly not, and who cares? A camera is a tool, not a religion. I love the playfulness of the imagination, and am awe-struck at the skill. Congratulations.

I think I prefer this one - and with the water masked by the trees, you don't have to worry about tilted horizons. Also a potential prize-winner.

Quite a decent photo - plenty of detail in sky, water and the boards of the jetty, and it succeeds in capturing mood (tho to my mind it's more foreboding than serenity, but I guess I wasn't there at the time). One little thing is the horizon, which is tilted - your water is running uphill. Can be fixed with Photoshop. Then send it off to a magazine and win a prize :).

A photo that speaks - seems to have a story behind it. Not sure I like the blue, but that's your decision. Don't worry abt the nudity - something that worries Americans but not many others (I'm not American). Good luck in your work. P.

A beautiful image and I'd love to see it ten feet tall - andthekeysonthiskeyboardstick.

It's difficult to take this type of photo (pictorial) successfully - far too easy to come up with a piece of calendar-art. I like the way you've approached the challenge with oversaturation and, in this case, the tilt. I wonder what your purpose is - do you sell these, or is it for yourself? If the former, I imagine they should do well - they stand out from the pack.

 

Some people have mentioned the boy - to my mind he adds to the composition, giving a feeling of the life going on in the field (i.e., the subject is not just the woman, but her activity as part of a rural village).

 

I like you photo of your ex-girlfriend, too - but it doesn't seem to go with the Chinese rural idyll pics.

As a photograph, it's intriguing - largely because of the combination of backlighting against the dust plus what looks like frontlighting on the animals. It's also rather good fun working out which leg belongs to which zebra. But like David Malcolmson, I'm rather put of by the aesthetics - as David says, it looks like the very worst type of popular painting, what is so often called the Elvis on black velvet approach. This is a matter of personal taste, of course, and there's nothing wrong with popularity. But the essence of popular art is that it shows people what they already know - it takes no risks, doesn't challenge. I se a chance here to push the envelope and challenge perceptions, simply by converting to black and white (which will concentrate attention on the graphic elements) and cropping hard to remove visual clues - in other wordfs, concentrate attention on the which leg belongs to which animal question. As someone else mentioned above, there would then be room for several pictures within this one, and they would hold the viewers' attention longer and more strongly.

And thank you Rarindra. It's a beautiful photo, and your comments here are very valuable.

 

As for what 'manipulated' means in Photo.net, it seems to mean that only colour sides are 'unmanipulated', which means that you're not allowed to mark a photo as unmanipulated if you've done more than correct levels and contrast. For some reason it's also permitted to turn colour photos to black and white, but not to add colour to black and white photos. All very strange, and possibly best to mark every photo as 'manipulated' just to be safe.

 

I think your photos would make very popular coffee-table books and calendars.

You mention pose, but I get the imperssion you had least control of the girl's pose compared to all the other elements in the frame. It's a very nice composition, and I wouldn't have done it differently - and I love the range of tones. Yet, given that the girl is simply standing there stiffly and not doing anything to gain my attention, I feel that something else is needed to give the picture interest. What that might be, I don't know - but if the girl herself isn't doing anything to merit my attention, then another element needs to be introduced. What I'm trying to say is that the photo has no story, no narrative: I can see that this girl is poor, but then what? How does she live, what does she do with her day, what are the important things in her life? This is what I miss. (Please don't take criticism to heart - photo-forums do tend to be gatherings of egocentrics, but ego can only get in the way - and god knows I'm as guilty as anyone).