pdoyle

July 2, 2003

Robert, I guess you're being too hard on yourself, because so far your raters feel that yours is the aesthetic equal to Bridget's! That has to feel pretty good, right?

July 2, 2003

Very nice photo. I find that rating photos becomes easier when there is something to compare, so I offer this as one point of possible comparison for all of us "curators".

June 26, 2003

The individual components of this image have a lot going for them but placed all together, I find it a bit too busy. I can't tell what the big black shapes are supposed to be, but they do give nice big swooping lines to the photo. But those lines are then disturbed by the vertical strip of water droplets. The water looks like it's supposed to be spattered on top of a physical, framed photo (at least to me), but the water stops exactly at the edge of the mat, adding to the random, unconnected sense I have of the water droplets. Finally (personal preference of mine): simpler frame.

June 26, 2003

This looks like it has great potential but the photo is blurry and the colors are pretty washed out, especially considering they look like they could really pop. I would move forward at least far enough to leave out the walkway and the concrete barrier in the foreground - they detract from the aesthetic quality of the scene. Better yet - get even closer, walk around and isolate various elements of the larger scene to give them more prominence in the frame and simplify the composition, which is a bit too busy and cluttered as it now stands. My brain can't decide what it's supposed to be focusing on in this photo.

June 24, 2003

You have a really cute photo here. I like the look of wonder on her face and the motion conveyed by the toy in her left hand. I do feel her face and chest are a bit overexposed and the transition from light to shadow on her throat and chest seems strangely abrupt, and strangely different from her left shoulder. The grain is a bit too strong for my taste too (looking at the large version), but that's more subjective.

June 24, 2003

The flower is nice and crisp and a nice change from the head-on angle we all do so often, but I'm finding this gradient effect on the background and frame awfully distracting visually, plus I think it's causing me some mental dissonance with respect to the lighting on the flower vs. the lighting on that background. I suspect your beautiful flower would do very well on a simpler background.

June 23, 2003

Hi Peter, I'm sorry this is the first photo of yours that I've come across because after glancing through your folders, I think I like most of your other photos better, honestly. Too much gray and nothing for my eyes to rest on. The photo seems to lead my gaze into the distance yet the only obvious point of interest, the flag, is way off to the right in the foreground. On the other hand, I can now say that I love the tones in your "Blue Monday" photos elsewhere, plus others of yours.

June 23, 2003

I was starting to get a bit tired of pictures of grasses and such lately but yours is refreshingly different. The colors help make it interesting and the central concentration of cloud density lines up nicely with the overall shape of the reeds. Plus the sparseness of the reeds lets me appreciate each one on its own rather than seeing them as a mass of growth. Not sure but I think I might like the darker areas in the two upper corners to match each more closely in tone.

June 23, 2003

This one cracked me up as soon as I saw it. He looks like either a powerful wizard conjuring up an impressive spell, or a charismatic political leader exhorting his followers to, I don't know, rise up against something. Very cool. I can't believe you got this close with that wide-angle lens, and he's not even keeping an eye on you.

I have to take away a point or two because of the branches in the background and the weird crop, and I think the wide-angle is really distorting his lower body, but frankly I don't think you could have gotten this unique angle without sacrificing something else, so no huge deal.

June 20, 2003

Nicely composed, good lighting and contrast of blue water/wood with warm tones in the dog's fur. I wish those two boards near the dog didn't have that dark staining -- it breaks the visual flow a bit -- but that's minor and I still like this a lot.

June 19, 2003

To me the filter on the background echoes in miniature the many water droplets on the two blossoms. Not sure if that was your intent but it works very well!

June 19, 2003

Great graphic impact: the red contrasts nicely with the blue-gray brick ... the converging lines in the mirror against the right-angle grid of the bricks ... with the solid black mirror frame to put an exclamation point on it all. I'll echo what the others said about the foot and maybe slightly different placement in the frame. But I like this quite well.

June 19, 2003

Certainly an interesting-looking bug! It's not often I would ask for less depth of field on an insect close-up, but in this case I think the jumble of leaves and other objects in the frame distract greatly from your main subject. A simpler background would focus the attention on the fly. I think you also have a compositional challenge to include those long tail filaments which take up as much horizontal space as the rest of the fly put together, but aren't as interesting to look at. I think that's less of a problem than the busy scene.

June 19, 2003

The green light is telling me "go" but the rest of the scene is telling me "there's nowhere to go." That's the feeling it gives me, anyway. Very nice pic. An example of "B&W with a touch of color" that doesn't look gimmicky to me.

June 19, 2003

Do you like the depth of field in this photo? Composition? Any other

comments, suggestions? Thanks.

June 19, 2003

The sky shows quite a bit of grain; on a sunny day like this one you might consider using a slower film to reduce the grainy look - you'll still have plenty of light to get whatever shutter speed you want. I'd also recommend cropping away a couple distracting elements: the black area in upper right corner as well as the little black blip sticking in at lower left. I think the photo would be cleaner without any of the trees, actually, but that just might not be possible.

June 19, 2003

Squirrels are cute, no doubt about it, but I don't find this photo particularly interesting as a wildlife shot. The lighting on the can is so bright and flat that it looks pasted into the photo. (I realize it's not.) I'd rather see this squirrel without the can and in a more natural setting.

June 12, 2003

Excellent sharpness. Would of course like to see more of this handsome bird, and would also suggest giving him proportionally more of the frame to look "into" rather than having him on the left side of center, looking to the left.

June 6, 2003

Very nice abstract. Like the contrasting warm and cool colors as well as the interplay of straight and diagonal lines.

June 6, 2003

Great behavior shot. Your work is an inspiration to many people on this site, I think.

June 6, 2003

Wonderful light, texture, color. Maybe the sky would look better darker, but it has a beautiful soft gradient as it is.

June 5, 2003

I suspect this scene may have areas of brightness and darkness that are too far apart for your film to record properly. Unfortunately our cameras cannot record the range of subtleties that our eyes see sometimes. So the light on the water goes to bright white and the shadowed areas go to black.