tom t

What Dominique said.

 

However... outside of the assignment, I fear there is simply not enough going on here. the shot seems to miss a clear subject, and/or a clear path to which the eye is drawn. The textures - tough lovely - are not enough to caputure the attention here. The branch might be a nice leading line, but it is not prominent enought. A crop like suggested by Dominique, would help indeed by taking away some of the less-interesting textures at the left, and make the branch more prominent, but I doubt all that would make the shot a winner.

 

Nonetheless, thanks for sharing PT. I'm sure the view in real life was pretty impressive.

 

My 2cts - feel free to disagree of course,

 

Tom

Interesting shot, PT. The backlight effect is not all that enormous, and I get the impression that the shot was over-sharpened (jpeg artifacts perhaps?). The plane really makes the shot, but I wish it were just above the grass, not covered.

 

Tom

I like it too, but I neither see a strong theme fit (looks old, hence discarded, perhaps?).

 

The light is gorgeous, and I love the bird (which as Seven hinted gives a sense of size). I do get the impression that the picture of the girl itself is a bit dark so I would lighten the up a little.

 

Regards,

 

Tom

Great textures, very discarded, good catch.

Compostionally a couple of things bother me:

• the blueish thingy top left distracts a bit. Clone away or crop.
• you got the big white edge tack in the middle - offsetting it a bit might help balance the compo. Also, the total white surface is perhaps relatively too large, drawing too much attention.
• the doorhandle in my eyes is too close to the edge of the shot - missing some breathing room.

To correct the latter comment would have to move around a bit ; the rest can be dealt with by cropping. Xample attached; to offset stuff I did some creative cloning work on the bottom and just a little on top (I *love* cloning with textures).

Nonetheless, as said, good catch!

Tom

I agree on the cropping of the white letters and I would even crop the traffic sign. Example attached.

 

Apart from that, me too I really like this one. Great theme fit but a godo shot even outside of the assigment. Thanks, PT.

 

Tom

Not super original (losts of plants in this assignment) but a great specimen, great colors and good composition. It's almost perfectly symmertical. Very nice, PT!

Very nice, very dreamy, and I like the choice of DOF. A pity though that the top is cut off, in my eyes.

 

Nice one, PT!

Very nice! Close that hole top middle, and crop drastically to the left would make the shot stronger and also emphasize the nice feathery edges. Example crop attached.

 

Good catch, PT, and gorgeous light!

 

Tom

Waht Seven said about the backlight distracting the eye and off-centering the subject. I would add as a suggestion that moving the chair to the right, and cropping the left might help balance things. Just cropping right as is now takes the nicest part of the incoming light away (pity). Cropping left as is leaves the face looking to the edge of the shot without breathing space.

 

Like Seven I do like the picture - I also like the outlines of the window in bright sun on the floor.

 

Nice to see a backlight shot without leaves or other natural outdoorsy things :)

 

Tom

I find this a great fun shot! I like the light and the DOF, and the combination, where the brush fades out into the light. B/W is a good choice here.

 

As for theme fit I'm not so sure - the textures - though very interesting - are not all that prominent here. And abstract of the textures (rough idea attaxched) would be a better theme fit. But that would also be a less-interesting photo. I think I forgive PT here for going for the whole thing, and not just the texture.

 

As usual, feel free to disagree,

 

Tom

Good catch for the theme! The textures themselves are pretty interesting too: well seen.

 

As for composition I find this one a bit boring and static: in my eyes the gray top thing does not work. You may want to leave it in but then I would tilt to create a diagonal, or else leave more breathing space on top (about 1/3 or so).

 

I would also change the light: the way your light plays on top of the rope (assuming that is what it is) is really nice, but the bottom is too dark really.

 

I think this can be improved by trying a bit more abstract, and cropping majorly (or getting closer). Attaching a (very quick and very dirty) example. If you got a macro lens I would dare move in even more (tried but cropping that much with such limited number of pixels I got a very jagged image).

 

In all, very interesting texture, I love the colors, and this is something that - in my eyes - just screams for lots of experimentation. If PT can re-visit this I think PT should.

 

Just an opinion of course, feel free to disagree.

 

Regards,

 

Tom

Obviously a recognisable texture and good theme fit. Esthetically for me it's too dark and the dof top/left/right bothers me - this is the kind of texture that I would prefer to see tack sharp. The darkness makes it kind of morbid in my eyes.

 

Regards,

 

Tom

Great catch and very nice theme fit. Esthetically I like the golden colors, and the textures of the littel drops left and right of the sun.

 

Outside the assignment I'm not sure this is a winner. Compositionally the main items (sun and streak with the bigger drops) are well placed, but the blurr bottom half of the shot kind of defeats the purpose of the nice textures we got goin on higher up. Either it's a problem of sharpness (even the sharpest drops don't look all that sharp to me) or too narrow DOF. Given that, I would crop the bottom away - a suggestion attached.

 

Regards,

 

Tom

IMHO a great one for textures, less for this theme. I like the blue! As for composition I'm not sure a square is the best choice - you have a nice leading diagonal that (in my eyes) screams for a more landscape-like format. Example attached.

 

Tom

Great catch - but I too would have missed the wings sticking out of the mouth!

 

You should get rid of some stuff to focus the eye on that. I would suggests a tighter crop alltogether - pick you pick (cutting out some of the predator's body or not) but definitely get rid of the dark blotch to the left of the stem of the main green leave. Also - indeed - pity for the highlight around the head but I guess we can't have everyting :)

 

I really like the (non-obvious) theme fit here!

 

Tom

I like this one too. Only gripe I would have is the lack of contrast between the lock and the background. Personally I would have moved to the right, and try and get a bit brighter background.

 

I do love the rusty color on the lock.

 

And yes, the sense of senselessness is priceless.

 

Tom

I like the idea and execution of all of these. In this one I would crop a bit on top to avoid that angle in the middle.

 

For all of them - sell seen!

 

Tom

Wow, Seven, my mind boggles! Sometimes I really envy your ability to guess what's behind an idea in a shot.

 

PT: I like the idea here (though I would not have thought of the explanations Seven came up with) but I agree that this could be improved from an execution point of view. No need to go for esthetics here, but a bit more attention to details like the dark triangle bottom/left might clean up the composition a bit.

 

Regards,

 

Tom

Very well seen and very well executed!

 

As for improvement me too I was thinking about a tilt, but I would do the opposite: Loose the graffitie to the left, and have the tunnel tilt up; the eye would be led to the outside.

 

That said, the composition you have here is pretty strong too.

 

Regards,

 

Tom

This one is well seen and well done. The centering does not bother me; besides, he rule of thirds is a guideline, not a dogma. Here it doesn't appy, I think.

 

I do agree the white bag is a bit of an eye sore. As for eye sores, I would also crop a tiny little bit on the bottom; the shadow you have there is awfully tight.

 

Regards,

 

Tom

Nice shot but you need to pay more attention to clutter in your composition - here it's the grass in front. Mainly the little leaf over her ear is really annoying.

 

Apart from that it's a good shot. I like the light on her hair!

 

Tom

FWIW: no clue from me either.

I'm getting the impression there's been some PS work in this, and the color of the water, perhaps unnatural, does not bother me (quite to the contrary). Well done, PT, both esthetically and for theme fit.

 

I do wonder how this was done - is the fish bait? If so I don't get how it's connected to the hook. If it's caught and not bait, then again I don't understand how it got hooked. My guess is this is pure PS work?

Nice one! Well done with the deep DOF. ONly gripe I might have would be that the face seems a bit overexposed?

 

Great idea and well seen!

 

Tom

If this is not a montage it's well seen. But you need to pay more attention to the details. Like the little white spec just under the blue on the right edge.

 

Personally I would crop out the whole bottom and only keep the blue. Crop a little to the right and you get a nice square format.

 

Regards,

 

Tom