james_oneill

Definitely a good shot.

Looking at your folder, there are some very good "mood shots" - a lot of which are in Black and White. There are some "just-a-hot-babe shots" too, and they're not terrible, but beside shots like this one they really do look second best. It certainly looks like more thought went into this.

The lighting really makes the shot. Normally I wouldn't like the hat, but the light picks out the texture so well. The same is true for that earring - it puts something in where the hair world just be shadow.

The art in this is not in the photograph (except perhaps in editting the grafitti into the frame). That doesn't make it a bad photograph - in fact the folder looks like a good project to record grafitti. But personally I don't know how to score it.

Definitly one of your best.

It's got a sort of magic to it - it makes me want to know what she's looking at.

Nice light, shape and texture. What's the pale bit on the left wrist ?

Ivan, I agree with you, it's a good photo; bordering on excellent. The name is a bit of an issue. One way you could get round it is focus the other way round, i.e. have the headstones in the background in focus (the names would be too small to read) and the foreground one out of focus. If that were the headstone of a member of your family, would you be upset at the way it was shown. I wouldn't.

I'm assuming you mean becasue I've set to create something like Warhol's famous picture, even to the point of lifting the colours... Since so much has been done before I tend to rate based on the the thought that went in and the choice of what to copy, but there are other perfectly valid views (like yours).

Agree with linda 100%. Also why is the border wider at the top and bottom than the sides. The picture itself was well seen and well executed.

 

99% of flower pictures are BORING. Sorry, but that includes the other two you have put up for critique. This is different - truly original , and the flowers are well chosen for the effect. This may be the only time I ever give a flower picture a 7 for originality.

[Warning - don't jump to conclusions about what I am saying until you've read to the end]

As a thumbnail, this is a disaster. And the first reaction is "It's a mess, someone needs to tell this guy how to photograph moving water". You're going to pickup some low scores because people don't get past that. Therefore you need to ignore the average score you get. If you look for a bit longer you get to see the "eye" that Geoff referred to, which makes me think of a peacock's feather. in the top part of the white below the 'eye' I can see the head and beak of a wading bird. And the streaks and swirls are like either brush strokes or an animal's fur. So what I am saying ? If people are prepared to invest a little time looking at this picture, some of them may get a lot out of it. So keep it in your exhibition. You don't sell a picture because a lot of people say "that's quite nice", you sell because one person says "that's brilliant". The only other advice I'd give is that the gentle sepia toning seems to work well, but try comparing prints of this and a blue toned version before making a final choice of what to show.

It feels upside-down this way. If you rotate it 180 degrees that seems the "right" way.

Hi Max, Its the Warhol thing... Where it started was the site of of one of the photography mags, where someone asked "how do you do that ...", I read the answer and thought "I can do that more simply", so I did. But I couldn't get the right colours. So I did a google Image search for Warhol Marilyn and picked up the colours from that. So I built the picture or me like that. The original of this is one I think of as "Self portrait with pills. It was taken at a bad time for me, and you can just see the medication that seems to be keeping things OK. For me it contains both great darkness and hope. But the thing is ME ? In the style of Marilyn Monroe ?? I famously did a rendition of Happy Birthday imitating her once, but that's as far as it goes. So I went looking for a suitable picture of my daughter. One that we took on Holiday a few weeks ago looked promising so off I went. She strikes a pose if you point the camera at her, and I'd said "I'm not going to take your picture like that so she let out a huge sigh and did that". So the easiest way to put the colour in to that one was to pick it up from the one of me. when I re-opened it I was struck by how similar the poses were. My father had phoned while I was working on the picture, and I was thinking about the characteristics I had inheritted from him, and what would be passed on. Would my daughter have to face the same things I have ? Hence the quote from Larkin. (You can find the whole thing through google). Now I know how to do this (and it's quite a quick process) I'll probably shoot some pics with this treatment in mind. I've created some variations using the Hue-map feature in Paintshop Pro, but I'll try other colours too.

 

Seeing the similar expressions makes me wonder about how we turn into our parents, and think of Philip Larkin's Poem "This be the verse"

They F*** you up, your Mum and Dad.

They may not meant to but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had,

And add some extra, just for you.

 

Hence the title.

Comments ? ...If you can be bothered

I'm not as clear cut about it being the best. These "holding the knees" shots are all good in my view. Although this is the best composed. Stick with it.

Not sure that there is anything much wrong with the sharpness or tone. I've been complimentary about this folder before. These days its people worry about trying to capture the beauty of children, but these do that with innocence and not too much sentimentality. They're some of the best children pictures I've seen.

Well I can't see how you'd get a problem with interpretation - its clearly about the bond between parents and children. Very good lighting. With the border and text it does make me think of posters from the 1980s. But that doesn't make it a bad picture.

My first thought was not so much Buddha, but Jabba the cat :-)

Kent said it well. It maybe Just two trees but the composition is excellent in its simplicity. I notice you've done this digitally, I thought this film at first - its closer to what I get on Kodak HIE film, than what I get with the IR filter on my digicam.

Very nice. It's a classic gliding shot (i.e. its not 100% original but we can forgive that). Good sky to silhoutette the other glider against; you have to have the wing in the foreground, but you've made it work well in the composition. Even that white line of cloud (vapour trail ?) fits in nicely. If the other glider had been any further back the tail would have disappeared behind the wing.

OK so the lighting is good. A repeating patterns are normally good for composition, but there's nothing here for the eye to lock on to it's all texture, and all a similar colour. You see where there's a hole right of centre about 2/3 down the picture, if you put something in there with a contrasting colour it would make for a much stronger image.

If it were cropped more tightly it would look like a Paris postcard. Giving it a bit more space moves it away from being a cliche, and combination of exposure and the time of day is just right. Even if it is not very original, the result is still nice.

Anyone ?

Beau. Smiley noted. Tamara is posting again so that's that. Since her work is my favorite here it's not surprising I got pretty annoyed with people posting stuff that makes here want to pack it all in. I know that feeling very well, and its horrible when people provoke it in you. I don't have any fantasy of being a "white knight", with Tamara as "Damsel in Distress" - if you'd upset Owen (who's further up the thread) you would have got the same reaction.

There may be an interesting academic discussion to had (although I'm with Ansel Adams and reallly only care about is it a good picture or not), but to do it in the context of a single persons work is bound to be destructive. Especially if it comes over as "this work stems from a borderline personality disorder".People with artistic tempraments are not always thick skinned, and to say, as others have 'if you can't take the comments don't post' is a bit silly, because most of us would rather see the work.

Very good version of a classic wildlife shot. I did wonder at first if it was two or three pictures composited together, but I notice it says not manipulated.

Ah, Pedro that comment helps a lot. I think this is the best of the nudes you have posted here. Someone has already said that the empty space works well, and it does. I also like the models pose/and expression, she looks thoughtful, and that's right for the mood of the picture. For some reason thoughtful goes well with empty space.

I think you find a lot of interest in the use of shadows, but in a lot of your pictures the lighting is too harsh and the shadows are too heavy (at least for my taste). This one still has the shadows, but the balance is better, much better.

So if this is more recent work be encouraged, because it is better in every way.