demianov

This photo is well executed from the technical and aesthetic points of view. It is even fairly creative. But is it artistic? Hardly... It wasn't meant to be. This is commercial photography. Commercial photography is paid for, seen and judged by consumers, not art appraisers. For what it is, this photo is right on the money.

No montage here. It looks like the guy used just a single strobe, possibly battery-powered. Judging from the properties of the light and the shadow in the bottom-right corner, it appears that the light modifier was a softbox, possibly a golden softbox, could be an umbrella though. The key here, was to properly balance the ambient light and the strobe, which is *extremely* EASY if you know what you're doing. This is professional work, not your garden-variety weekend photo-snapping. Any real pro will tell you that setting up and executing a shot like this is surprisingly unchallenging. Keep up the good work, man. In my opinion, everyone who's even half-serious about taking photos with his DSLR, should know how to pull out a shot like that.

This is possibly your best piece. It is perfect in every aspect. I don't even know where to begin. The exposure is just right. The scene is supposed to be dark to suggest: late night, a dimly lit street. There is some noticeable blur, which also adds to the sense of that 'darkness'. It's a known fact that the human vision loses a lot of its resolving power as the light levels drop. So in this picture the viewer literary has to 'look harder' in order to make out what's going on. The bright area of the window creates a powerful 'reversal' effect. It constantly pulls the eye away from the face of the girl, yet every time it returns to the face which has the most genuine expression of embarrassment. This visual movement creates a fair amount of tension, which in turn attributes some feeling of 'discomfort', something one would feel being in the position of the girl or just standing in the very spot the photograph was taken from. Without the caption this picture doesn't really work but in the proper context it can even do without one. This work is a classic, a true timeless masterpiece, in which genuine street photography is skilfully rendered using powerful visual elements. This photograph will stay with me forever. Thank you.

Pictures like the ones you have in your self-portrait portfolio always make me think of Jeff Bridges.

That empty glass in the foreground was definitely at the right place at the right time.

I assume that you really do want to improve and that's the only reason I'm supplying my opinion.

First of all, the angle , the placement of the camera and the cropping are good. The stairs and that door in the background add to the sense of place and depth to the picture, and are given proper weight. As per the other elements - their placement is not that good. Ideally, the window should be more to the right, but obviously, you couldn't do anything about that. I would move the bicycle to the left and place it so that the front wheel partially obscures the stairs (about one third). That would yield more even weight-distribution, would fill up that empty spot of the wall and the wheel itself would add more to the 3-dimensional feeling. The loose wheel I would probably just lay flat on the ground close to the bottom right corner of the picture and move it away from the wall, closer towards the camera. Maybe I'd get rid of it altogether. As per the angle of the light - not good. Plus the sky appears to have been partially overcast and that's why the colors appear so murky and overall the objects lack definition. What you need in a photo like that is direct sunlight from a nice, low angle, coming down through cloudless sky. Want a truly remarkable photograph? Do everything I said plus find a white cat and have it sitting on those stairs looking at the camera.

The edges of the trees give you away. In general, I don't have a problem with digital manipulations, as long as they're not obvious. If they are - they distract me a lot. I'm sure that you can do better. I know I could. If this photo is important to you, you should create a proper mask. Don't change the composition though. It's great! I know I wouldn't have it any other way.

Stephen: I agree with most of the things you said. I won't argue with you on the issue of the visual movement, I'll just say this: I like it more flipped and not because I read from right to left, because I do not. Being 'real' is certainly an advantage and often is a necessity. That is the call of the art director or whoever is in charge of the post-production. I must say though that the picture is really good. I could go on telling why but it's already been said. One thing though.. At first I got lost in it a little, simply because it doesn't provide a real sense of scale. If there was something tangible the viewer could relate to it would certainly add to the 'realness' of the scene.

The visual movement is all wrong. Check it out now.

Totally forgot I posted this. Thank you, Tim! You got it right. I didn't realize I still had the photo in my Photo.net portfolio. If you want to take a look, just scroll down, there aren't many of them. That pic is from ages ago, taken under harsh light and poorly scanned. The only reason I took it was because of the two butterflies that appeared to be mating. Would be nice to identify the species but I don't really care because the photo is crap. It falls between the chairs. It's neither a picture of the flowers nor the butterflies. But hey.. we all learn sooner or later. Thanks again!

An unpleasant thing to hear indeed, I know, but such are the facts of life. There are just so many things that could have been done at the time of the shooting to turn this "cute snap" into an incredible "masterpiece" that would still be hanging in museums 200 years from now. The potential was there, there's no doubt about it. A great photographer (one with a name) would have had his masterpiece. Could I have done a better job? Not likely. My 2 cents though: This picture pretty much has to be in color but given the circumstances I think it could be made to look better in BW with a lot of local tonal adjustments. I'm not an advocate of such an approach but would probably say a few good words even if it were heavily retouched.

There are at least 7 of them... As per the photo... An interesting picture indeed, not sure about the framing and the colors DO get in the way of the composition (and MY panel is tip-top). With the right man at the scene this could have been actual "art".

Can anyone please identify the plant? I have a photo of this species. Would like to know what it's called.

A very effective photograph, in my opinion. A captivating face. As I look at it, it seems like the fourth wall is completely absent. The black wide frame around the picture works really well in this case. The tonality isn't great though. You shot this in color and obtained a grayscale version by mixing the channels in post-production. If the original is a RAW file then MAYBE richer tones can be achieved using a different mix. If you were trying to give it a washed-out look (as you emphasized the red channel) - it isn't washed-out enough. To be successful at that you'd have to actually overexpose at the shooting stage. You shouldn't mind the criticism as I'm sure you'll get mostly positive comments. I am yet to be swayed by any given DSLR when it comes to producing grayscale photographs. That is the reason I still shoot on BW film using the old-school color filters to obtain the desired tonality.

Regards.

Not that it would affect my judgement but were those clouds really there? They seem to be lit at a different angle than the main components in the composition. I may be wrong, of course. Either way the placement of the elements is very effective. Excellent choice of focal length. In my opinion, without the dynamics contributed by the "perspective" this would have been a visually dead photograph... colorful but static.

Very powerful elements are working together in this photograph. However, in my opinion the photo lacks a real point of interest. Ultimately there would be a figure standing in that shaft of light. Even an inanimate object such as an old, deflated basketball would turn this photograph into a real work of art. If you can reshoot - go for it.

I could go on for hours about how good this picture is. Flip it horizontally (make a mirror image) and you'll have much better visual dynamics. That's the only thing I would change in this photo because it's perfect.

Not sure about the cropping but I wasn't there so I can't tell if anything better could have been done. I would prefer the image being just a fraction darker and more contrasty. I think you have technical issues with this photo. Things you could do nothing about. There's some distortion in the image and I can see how you've been trying to frame the subject. There wasn't anything you COULD do without a view camera or at least a PC lens.

Now, there's another one. You lost some contrast because of internal reflections (inside the lens / camera body) due to portions of the subject being extremely bright. I can see stray light sprayed all over the frame, especially so in the lower half of the picture. Maybe and that's a BIG MAYBE it could have been reduced by opening up the aperture a couple of stops. I don't know which setting you chose or if larger aperture would yield you adequate DOF in this case.

All the above aside, not a bad photo.

I really enjoyed studying this very special piece.

Thank you.

If you had the snow flying in the opposite direction the movement would contribute to the movement of the car and the overall dynamics of the picture. That way you wouldn't have the apparent conflict in the composition. Ideally, of course, you would have placed an orange filter on the strobe. The color temperature difference between the main scene and the snow is way too much for me. I don't like mixed lighting and whenever I approach a scene similar to this I just shoot in BW. Maybe you can convert this picture to BW to see if it works for you.

A few good words about this picture: Contrary to what I would normally have to say about wide angles and distorted perspectives, they actually both work really well in this case as they contribute to the "chaos" caused by the storm. I like the cropping: more weight to the snowflakes in the black sky and less to the road below. Actually, you have a REALLY good placement of ALL the elements in the scene. The contrast is just right. A less contrasty rendition would yield a more relaxed feel to it and that's not what you want in this kind of picture. The exposure time was perfect. Any faster and the car wouldn't appear to be moving (because it appears so small). With any slower shutter speed it would be blurred beyond recognition. From my experience this was somewhere between 1/30 and 1/5, I don't know how fast it was going. You really nailed this one.

The bottom line. With opposite direction of the snowflakes and the whole picture in BW I'd say you have a masterpiece.

Is this a composite? If not: BRAVO! You left a lot of space on the right, a bold step and it worked great! The shallow DOF is perfect. The amount of light on the leaves is just right. Again: if this was done in one piece then it's a MASTERpiece!

Nice attempt, great potential for a good picture, however, the composition is too tight. If this is a crop then I suggest you experiment with the uncropped version. The light is uneven which is great, I would accentuate that. Work with curves, lower the tonality in the right side of the picture but watch the upper left corner of the window otherwise you'll lose detail in there. You HAVE to boost the saturation because the rust doesn't look very much like it and I think that the color is a little off. I hope you work in a color corrected environment (I do). Make sure you properly convert to sRGB before uploading to Photo.net. I've had this problem with color before (years back).

 

I like that the window is shot at an angle, it kinda breaks the simmetry of the bars, however, if you intended to depict rust like the title suggests the photo falls between the chairs. It's a little too tight to be a picture of a window and not close enough to emphasize the rusty bars. With a subject like this there are endless opportunities for different crops. I would even suggest a vertical composition with the window in the upper half of the picture. I'd also experiment with cropping around the left side of the window with an 80 to 105mm lens (35mm terms). There is a lot of contrast between that bright stuff (mortar?) and the upper left corner of the window I would build my picture around that and I'm sure it would look even better in BW.

Hope this was helpful.

I would like to see the whole of the sax.

Nice composition, I like the framing but the cat looks a bit scary to me. Perhaps it's because we can't see half of its face. I know that the picture was not intended to scare the viewer therefore I would try bouncing some light with a silver reflector from the left. Perhaps a white cat would do better. I'm almost sure of it.

This picture calls for a different framing from a different angle. I would frame to show the leftmost wheel only partially but from a different angle of course. The coloring is very attractive; oranges and blues go nicely together but I think that the mood it creates is inapropriate for the subject being some sort of heavy machinery. I'd go for black&white exposing through either red or green filter.