martin_taylor

This is the famous orginal

For such a slow exposure this is an amazing shot. It looks like an FX shot from "The Abyss" Great work! Regards - Martin

Parallax used to be a difficult thing for we amateurs to deal with. Lenses and cameras that enabled compensation were out of our range. The best we could do was get a vantage point as far away as possible and a telephoto to

minimize the effects. However, now we have photoshop. Playing with skew tool for a moment might get rid of that falling backwards feeling. Also, striking as the colors are, I'd be tempted to play with this in B&W to an emphasis to the composition and contrast. Regards - Martin

The composition here is pretty interesting and it could make a nice print. I don't think colour is adding anything here and I'd be tempted to make this a B&W. This might give more force to the texture of the stone and the design of the composition. Whilst I was messing around

in photoshop of the darkroom I'd be tempted to rotate the shot a little counter clockwise to get the verticals parallel with the frame and I might

burn out whatever is showing through the balustrade in the background (although in B&W this detail may be less troubling). Regards - Martin

This is funny - to me it looks like the sculpture has just given birth to this fully clothed man. There is also something timeless about the aesthetic of this shot; without knowing it could have been taken any time from the 30's to the present. In keeping with the sculpture both the setting and the man lend a slightly surreal feeling to the shot; why is this piece of art

in the middle of a field? What is the man doing? One thing that bothers me a little but may be due to the small size of the image is that I would not be sure what the man was doing without your explanation. I'm pretty sure this would be more evident in a proper print. nteresting stuff - Martin

I do like this shot; it has a lot of energy without being overly complex and the camera angle is pretty unusual. My only comment would be

that without the title I'd be hard pushed to know exactly what was going on here; the man with the mike could be a singer or someone leading a

boisterous political rally - I didn't notice the guitarist to the right for quite some time. If this ambiguity is OK with your vision then this

composition works. Regards - Martin

Any ideas on how to reshoot this and be more true to Kertesz's

original (without resorting to film)?

It took me a moment to work out which way was up and what was what but it's a great shot. The waves and surfer are really sharp; I like the background tones and the background surfer. Great work! Regards - Martin

Great shot - I'd rotate it slightly clockwise to get the plane flying level but apart from that I love it. Man, you guys have the best toys. Regards - Martin

Subject looks nicely framed and focus but the light is rather flat. As this kind of subject is a study in shape and texture rather than color backlight or even direct sunlight would make this jump more. Regards - Martin

Panorama photos are great for showing the grandeur of nature - unfortunately I think your subject it a bit too bland to exploit this. It does give you chance to play with your technique though. Personally, I'd crop the finished panorama to get rid of any background white space. The white cut off corners (bottom left and right) shout at me that this is a stiched photo and that makes me examine the technique more than the subject. Looking at the stitches there's some color difference in shots that becomes very evident when stitched together (most noticeably I can see 2 obvious blend lines before and after the 2 rocks in the center of the photo. You can deal with this both pre

and post production. First - when taken several shots to be stitched, your camera will adjust

exposure from one shot to the next if you let it do everything automatically. Take the exposure reading from the center of your panorama then look those settings on your camera to be used for all the shots that will make the composition. Also, read your stitching software manual. Usually there is a way to balance colors as the photos are assembled. Regards - Martin

This is the kind of thing I was thinking (sorry iot is only crudely done with a couple mins in PS).

I prefer the composition of your picture "Free Flight" to this one. The colors of the sky are much more dramatic in this one but, unlike others, I don't like the gull flying out of the shot. For me it pulls your eye out of the frame rather than in to it but it might just be me. Certainly he is flying up hill; you want to rotate the shot a little counter clockwise to get the horizon perfectly level.

Regards - Martin

Bruce - I warned the bottom jelly about this but he wouldn't listen. I find jellies pretty hard to train in this regard :)

 

Actually, I have other shots of single jellies but chose this one for the juxtapostion of the two angles of similar subjects in one frame.

Regards - Martin

The background chain link fence is just too distracting for me. 2 things to try; crop in tighter on the tiger in the print to lose some distractions.

2nd - in photoshop push the background even more out of focus until all details are lost. Whilst you're working on the background you might

want to make it a little darker to draw the eye to the real subject of the shot.

Like others, I think this photo works really well. It is a little difficult to judge fairly though as I'm not sure if the actual print contains all this grain or if it's the scan of a result of jpeg compression. I'd really like to see it in the flesh as I bet it would have even more impact (here is where the

web fails us slightly). If you like to play in photoshop of the darkroom perhaps it would be worth playing a little and trying to burn in the dust clouds a little more to add more texture and an even more threatening presence. However, that's just my personal preference - the photo

deffinately works as it stands. - Martin

This is just my idea, take it or leave it; crop in much tighter. This will make the shot more abstract and may address the previous comments

about the unnatural pose (and the butt comment). I don't know how you are inclined towards photoshop but I would be tempted to dodge the

vertical edges of the picture a bit to focus the eye even more directly on the hands and away from the background which is a little bright. Nice

idea and execution though. Regards - Martin

I like the surreal colors of this night shot. I also like the way the repeating arches pull your eye into the shot to focus on the tree. Without being too foofoo it seems like an exploration of the place of nature (the tree and water) in a man made landscape. I agree with the previous poster in that I might crop the picture to remove the sidewalk in the very bottom of the shot. I might also be tempted to reduce the brightness of this shot a little. This might make the colors even more intense and mysterious. I might also tone down the flare from the light source top right in photoshop. Great shot in tricky conditions though. - Martin

Theres something unreal, almost cartoon-like or computer generated about this shot. Perhaps its the amazing in the clarity detail or the high contrast and simple background. Whatever it is, it works. I seem to see so many pictures of an insect in a flower as people adopt digicams with extreme closeup features but this one really stands out from the crowd. Great work!

Thanks Margaret and Fred for your comments on one of the first pictures Ive put up here.

 

Margaret Im one of those who blame myself when a picture goes wrong, and the camera when it goes right. It this case the camera gets all the credit. Switching to digital has given me much more courage to try things I wouldnt waste film on in the past. I switched the camera to its highest film speed (400), made sure the white balance was on daylight (large tank lighting fools the smartest of computers), that the flash was off and then got as close as I could to the glass to minimize unwanted reflections. The shutter speed was pretty slow (1/30 of a second or so) but leaning against the glass let me hand hold the camera and the slow movements of the subject meant little got blurred. You can see a small aberration of either the glass or water in the colors around the the rear underside fin but all in all I was pretty pleased with the result.

 

I get tired of people always portraying our town in an unimaginative way - this does not fall into that category. I like the wide angled perspective. The hanging trumpets of the flowers and the spiky shrub give a slightly surreal feel to the composition and what could be more apt

for San Francisco. The steep steps and painted buildings suggest SF without being glaringly obvious. Thanks for sharing.

For me, it's a little too dark to really judge.