ghuczek

Beautiful expression and outfit. Did you crop out the left arm or shoot it that way? Interesting effect with the elbow holding the edge of the image.

Now there's something you don't see every day! I wish the hair were more convincing of freefall motion.

A simple yet effective composition. Two small black patches in the bottom left corner could be cleaned up so they don't pull the viewer away from the rest of te image.

I think that the sky filtration is way overdone. Also, the colour spillover from the filter near the horizon makes this look a bit cheesy.

This works very nicely. I think an improvement would have been to find an angle or a possible location to get the angler in the corner like this, against water and sky without the landform in the background. (I know that might be asking too much ...) But here the blue colour in the water and sky form such a nice, smooth continuum, that it would be an incredibly more powerful photo if the distant landform were not there.

Really interesting photo. It turns out that less seems to be more here.

I prefer the other version, with the entire tree trunk showing. Having the trunk right at the edge of the image makes it seem as if there is somethng left out. In both images the greens really pack a punch.

Some leaves close to the lens produced the soft effect. The rose is a

hybridized variety. Shot at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton,

Ontario. Shot on Kodachrome 64, on a tripod. I got an HM for this

slide at an interational salon many years ago. Haven't shown it since.

Comments are appreciated.

Great work! An incredible photo.

Much better than anything I ever took in Kenya! Very dramatic, with terrific impact.

 

The lighting doesn't quite work. It doesn't seem natural at all. The direction of the light on the clouds and on the elephants looks different. Was this the actual sky? The dark background trees also look unnatural. Hard/soft neutral grad or post-image work? Hard to tell, but either way, the effect creates a strange-looking split in image tonality right at the horizon line. 6/7

Great shot. Almost like it is on some other planet. One very minor thing ... I think the neutral grad reduces the sky tones just a tad too much. The balance in the upper portion would be slightly stronger if it were a bit lighter. You can also see the light fall off near the horizon on the water, due to the ND grad, yet you would expect that the colour cast in the sky would be reflected more strongly there, beyond the shadows of the distant hills.

14! wow. Nice work. You have the point of sharpest focus slightly too far forward. The eye commands the most attention here. Try to make it sharp! Good closeup. Keep trying, if your cat will let you!

The colouration isn't convincing enough for me. I like the rendition of the ground, but it doesn't seem to go well with the sky. The framing, with both vertical tree trunks on or nearly on the image borders, makes it difficult for me to look at the farm implement, which is competing for attention. Also, the fence seems to merge right into the farm implement. Selecting a slightly higher (or lower) camera angle would avoid the conflicting overlap of these two things.

Darn that tree! It gets in the way. I suppose if you were able to move off further to the right, or in slightly closer, you would have.

Just a bit too soft for my taste though. I would like to see slightly more detail in a portrait. The flesh tones show up too red on my monitor, but the application of colour is interesting.

Thanks for posting the original file. The difference between the original and the final version is huge! Outstanding photo.

How would something like this work without the foot resting on a platform? This is something worth trying to explore further.

The lighting is wonderful.

Reshooting would be a good idea. It looks like there is tremendous potential in this location for evocative photos. The tones here work well in combination with this IR film.

Jessica ... two suggestions. The first is to try to have something as a stronger centre of interest in your photographs. In your photo the flag on the flagpole almost serves that perpose, but you have to move in much closer to it so that it will be bigger and more important in stature.

 

Secondly, refine your photo techniques. The lighting in this photo isn't the best to work with. Wait for some better light! Sometimes when the light is bad, that's the best thing you can do! You also have to try to get the right balance of light in the sky and the ground. Here your sky is too light, and the ground is too dark. There are many ways of doing this. You may have to study some techniques used by landscape photographers to get the light balance just right.

The use of infrared film here has given the photo a dreamy, intriguing atmosphere. The understorey vegetation has been revealed with great sensitivity.

 

The path, leading in from the bottom left, is interrupted quite abruptly by the vertical line of the tree trunk in the foreground. A different camera angle might have yielded a better composition. The lack of canopy in the top left has left that zone of the picture very bright. It throws the image off balance. Also, there is nothing particularly interesting happening in the right quarter of the photo, particularly in the foreground in the bottom right, which is darker and a bit softer than other areas.

Red is a very powerful colour in photographs. Your photo has a strong, yet sensuous appeal. The curved lines are very nice. The top left and bottom right corners are weak areas, pulling like a tug-of-war right across the entire frame. The very center could use a little more fill light thrown down into the flower. That would help to lighten up the shadows a bit and reduce the contrast, making the image less harsh.

Just for fun Heather, try putting something different behind the figure, like a towel or sheet, and take a few more shots. Experiment with different colours for the background, and try moving the figure slightly farther from the background to blur it out more. The figure almost "falls" into the background here, especially on the dark side on the back of the head. If you added even more light and used a smaller aperture, the background would fade out more, and the figure would stand out too. You have an interesting subject to experiment with here. Work with it to try to develop control of your technique.

Try to control tone better. The same applies to "Leaves and Sprinkler." The center dark patch gets in the way, as if layers have been built up too many times, blotting everything out. In watercolor work, this would be like the colours getting too muddy and overworked. In "...Sprinkler" the issue is just the opposite ... the lighter tones near the bottom wash the image out. Try keeping light and dark areas more balanced.

Lovely tonality in the brickwork. Bottom of the tablecloth -- perhaps try to crop the bottom off a bit more. Look at my crop ... see what you think.