kezia

I agree with the above, plus the curve in the horizon, and they're nice trees too.

Amusing and attractive at the same time, but I'd lose the frame, it's just too heavy in my opinion.

Very successful. Not just original, it is a pleasing composition as well.

Excellent. I think it also works as an abstract without the dancers on the left.

Very nice study with uncluttered background. I like the lighting. In general I like the tight crop, but I wish you had included hiw left elbow.

Not sure what was cut, but I think this works well now. Very pleasing

You can all sorts of arrows pointing to your main subject, but if the arrows themselves are brighter than the subject, then it is the arrows that will receive the eye's attention. That said, I still think the overall effect in a large print would be stunning - I don't mind a photo that lets my eye drift around a bit. For the computer screen, I find I need to crop off almost half the foreground to direct focus to the area the photographer wants me to look at. Beautifully done, and I love your portfolio.

I like all your "people" shots, but this is my favourite by far.

Very nice. I feel the panoramic view adds a lot to the grandeur of the whole. I love the colours and light in this. Adding more to the right side of the photo does add a slight top-heaviness, however, with a feeling that I would have liked to see more at the top of the photo and less of the seating.

Any comments welcome on composition, lighting (taken by available

light from an open door) etc. Should I have placed the camera lower?

etc.

My favourite of this series. A pity there wasn't something darker in the foreground to balance the rather empty foreground with the background (maybe place the house very slightly lower in the frame?), but this is a small point. Overall I really like this.

Very nice and dreamy, lovely light. The white object (reflector? rag?) on the front spokes stands out a bit much to me, and breaks the way the bike otherwise melts into its surroundings. A shame to add digital work to an untouched photo, but I would be inclined to darken that object slightly.

Quite pleasing composition and reflection, but seems slightly overexposed - there is a lack of detail in the lightest areas.

I rarely choose the colour over the b&w version of a photo, but in this case I feel that the gradual progression from white to dark brown is more pleasing than the hard black of the darkest areas of the b&w version. Colour often disguises attractive light effects, but here the light is fairly flat and quite suitable to showing the subtlety of colour shades, so why throw away that information?

I also think this photo has to be in colour. There is an ambiguity about its statement - the photographer taking a careful picture of a staircase, worrying about light, colour, creating an attractive composition out of a relatively meaningless staircase, while surrounded by bullet holes. It is an uncomfortable image: the aftermath of war, where touring the local sites of conflict becomes almost a tourist attraction. I don't mean this as a criticism of the photograph; I think the photographer clearly recognized the ironies here, but this irony is most clearly evident in the version which is full of colour.

 

Douglas Vincent brings up the point that a desaturated colour image cannot be compared to black and white film. Is this true? I have tried to find a definitive answer to this question, and the best I can come up with when looking for this information on the internet is that many colour films (Provia 100 for example) actually have as much tonal density as black and white film, however these tones are compressed within a smaller number of steps. So, logically following from that, a photo that falls within the five-to-six-step range of Provia would have greater tonal subtlety than the same photo taken with black and white film. This would explain why I am sometimes surprised at the subtlety of tonal density of some desaturated images, which I really wouldn't expect of a film designed for colour, and the reason may be because photographers who are used to slide film probably consciously limit their activities to lighting situations that fit within the range of the film they are using. I'm not saying this is always a good thing, as I think one of the most fascinating things about b&w photography is the dramatic way it can deal with a wide range of light, but I would like to know if there is any independent research done on this subject because it isn't always possible to have a b&w film at the ready and it sometimes make sense to make the colour vs b&w decision afterwards.

Very nice. To me this photo illustrates that it is strong composition, not the minimalist elimination of detail, that makes for a successful photograph.

I'm enjoying these "how was it lit" guessing games, so I'm going to contribute my wild guess and suggest the light was to her left and somewhat in front to create that shadow, and almost level with the hat so that the shadow of the hat didn't fall on the visible part of her face. The light can't be overhead or the shadow of the hat would fall inside the lighted area. The only way I can explain the oval shape of the spotlighted area (if the flash was positioned as I suggested) is if there was some kind of mask over the flash that produced that shape. However it was done, it is very clever because the spotlit area follows the lines of her body beautifully. I would darken the right hand very slightly and minimize photoshop blurring. It is not clear in the web version how the fabric is fixed to the bench on her left (some kind of clip?) but I assume that would be less confusing in a larger printed version. I think it's a lovely "retro" fashion photo, theatrical and coolly sophisticated. To me it comments on the 40s, as someone has already suggested, a time when women's fashion was unapologetically about illusion.

With such wonderful colours and sea I hardly dare look for anything that might be changed. There is something about the composition that makes me want to play around with it -- moving the people to the right, for example, to balance the dark area of mountain on the left, or making it square, so that the people become more prominent in the image. Even though that would mean losing the upper half of that wonderful sky, I think it might be more pleasing overall, but it's just a vague feeling at first viewing and I may change my mind about this.

This and the "blue" night one are my favourites. Lovely light.

Generally I like b&w where the effect of light is so important to the subject. However, in this case I think that the colour distinguishes the cat nicely from the busy background. Curves against stripes - I like it.

Wonderful. The only think I might change is the darker background area top right. I think that would be better lighter, with less contrast between it and the diagonal curtain/cushion(?) edging.

Interesting composition, centring the wheel. But I think what attracts me most is the surreal effect caused by the complete lack of reflective surfaces.

This kind of photo is why I love black and white so much. You could never achieve this sense of light with colour.

I think I prefer this cropped just above her legs, leaving just three corners of the frame visible. This focuses attention on her delightful expression, and I find more aesthetically pleasing than cutting off her legs at the ankle.

6 for aesthetics, 6 for originality, not so much for composition but because I'm so pleased to see such delightfully subtle colours in a sunset.