rippo

this has a classic feel. like it was taken half a century ago, by one of the greats. focus and cropping be damned, this is a great shot! a wall-hanger for sure.

out of the last 30 or so photos i rated, this was the only one to get 7/7. really great shot! it's a often-photographed subject, and yet the road in the foreground is a unique addition. the quality is that of a kallitype or some other alternative process printing technique (was it? or was this photoshopped to look old?). that old fashioned look contrasts very well with the modern road. a definite wall-hanger.

 

i'd be interested in hearing more about your process if you're doing some alt-proc , as i'm just getting started in that area myself.

it's pretty good but and i see what you were getting at, but it's not quite hitting me. i like the echo of the floodlights with the barbecue. but the baseball diamond and buildings in the background are a little distracting and take away from the effect. yes i do realize you couldn't just move these! :) it detracts from the composition.

 

while i like the warm colors, i tried it in black and white and like the effect a little better. it has a more mechanical feel to it, and reminds me a little of Kertesz's work. but that's just my opinion of course.

the thumbnail looked as though this was some science fiction 3D modeling of a city or something, and i was prepared to see something looking very synthy. i was pleasantly surprised to find it's a cathedral under construction! great shot, great perspective, wouldn't change a thing.

 

well ok one thing. the clouds in the sky seem a little overexposed. but it's a great shot!

the hills in back do have a certain sameness of tone which might have led to the "flat" critique. and because they're so dark, it's a very heavy lump of dark grey dominating your picture. i think ultimately the water is more interesting than the hills (unless you're able to get some more lightness out of the hills by developing the print/manipulating the file more, or waiting for a different lighting situation). so tilting the camera downward might have worked.

 

i did a quick crop to focus in on the subject and the water more. it's not perfect composition-wise but it gives you the general idea, i.e. pay more attention to the water and less to the hills.

 

hope that helps.

it's hard to tell what the subject is. the rock? the fossil in the rock? can't tell just by looking at it. i would suggest using a macro lens to get really close to the fossil, so that it fills the frame or nearly so. the colors are nice, and the lighting has potential. since i assume this is still lying around on your porch, try taking it again and really nailing the point of the photo (that's my suggestion anyway).

 

hope that's helpful!

the image is a bit too cluttered to really get the point across. the subject matter is hard to figure out: is it the cleaning lady? the store front? the mannequins? perhaps ultimately it's just not that interesting of a subject. if the woman had been striking a similar pose to the mannequins, or if there weren't any mannequins at all...something's needed to elevate it from an ordinary snapshot of a random stranger.

 

sorry. i hope that's helpful!

glad to help.

 

since you're using slide film, perhaps the 'graininess' i'm seeing is just a slight overexposure. when you do another shoot, be sure to bracket your exposures (if you didn't this time), so you can get a range of images. i.e. if your meter says 60 sec, try 120 sec and 30 sec too in subsequent shots. also, atmospheric haze or mist might be causing the perception of grain.

that's really nice! nice composition, colors are interesting, the pattern is interesting. my only complaint is that the edges are out of focus. tough thing to do with macro photography is to keep everything in focus, because of the extremely limited depth of field. also, something non-leave-oriented in the image would have made it more interesting. a bug or something crawling on it for example. right now it generates a "hey cool!" reaction in me, but then i don't spend a whole lot of time looking at it, because there's nothing else to look at besides leaf veins.

it's a bit dark and indistinct. this is one of those pictures where it's thrilling just to have captured the phenomenon at all! i totally get that. but to make it a picture that strangers would want to buy and hang on their wall, it needs a bit more. i see some tops of trees in the lower right. i think more of those in the image would have helped give the picture scale and context. also, they'd need to be a lot brighter. i assume you had a massively long exposure time. you could have taken a portable flash unit and flashed the trees during the exposure...the aurora wouldn't have been effected, but the trees would have been brighter.

 

ior you could have gone the other direction, and had the trees silhouetted by the aurora. either way, right now it's mostly sky we're looking at.

 

as aurora displays go, it's a relatively mild one. here are some links to a few nice aurora pictures, which i just googled. notice the foreground elements and how they provide context.

 

http://www.my.opera.com/Mathilda%C2%B4s%20Wallpaper/albums/showpic.dml?album=108126&picture=1484090

 

http://www.answers.com/topic/aurora-at-fairbanks-alaska-jpg

 

(that second one is a bit dicey with the crooked shot and fuzzy trees, but you get the idea.)

 

hope that's helpful!

nice moody lighting. i'm not sure how i feel about the graininess of the image. it seems odd for this sort of monument type of shot, but i sort of like it too. was this high-speed film or digital? just curious.

 

the biggest problem with the picture is that darn tree! i will forever not know what this tomb really looks like because of it. i'm sure you were trying to get some foreground subject matter in the shot, but it's obscuring the main subject of the image to the point where it's frustrating to the viewer. if you had moved the camera to your left, it would have fixed it...but of course i don't know if that was even possible. also, that tree is the only truly dark thing in the picture, so it draws even more attention to itself. the rest of the night sky is unusually light, because of the spotlights on the tomb.

 

hope that's helpful!

a really nice image! only a couple minor quibbles.

 

the far shore of the lake is forming a pseudo horizon, and it's a bit too centered. i would like to see it higher or lower. either show more sky or more earth in other words.

 

also, the sky could be a little bluer, and the clouds could stand out a little more. they're a bit muddy as it stands.

 

and finally, there seems to be just a little bit of haze over the mountains. were you using a UV filter? if not, might have made the mountains a little clearer.

 

but those are all minor things. this picture is way beyond a snapshot of a vacation, and *almost* poster material. the colors, the reflection, the lighting and time of day are all ideal. perhaps what might knock it into the category of something strangers would hang on the wall would be less foreground. those bushes are very non-descript. if you had a clearer view of the lake, with a little something in the foreground, that might have nailed it. but again, it's an excellent shot.

you're welcome!

i agree, nice lighting, nice composition. i've only got one problem with the comp...that big featureless expanse of white space in the lower half of the picture. yeah i know it's snow, it's white, that's how snow is. but my eye is stuck in the upper half of the picture as a result. a little texture, foot prints, lumps, anything would have made that area just a bit more interesting and slammed this one home. as it stands now, i almost expect some sort of text to be printed there, like for an ad or a motivational poster. the river bank is making a horizontal line right across the image too, which only emphasizes the white space more. perhaps a tilt of the camera upward would have fixed both those problems, but i don't know what lies outside of the picture frame up in those branches.

 

but that said, the mood is stunning. the image is cold, makes me feel cold even though it's currently 75? in my house. it's classy without being too trite like some wintery landscapes can appear.

wow! now i want a lensbaby. i really like this. i recognize this bridge too. i've seen it in a photography book before, but i can't recall where the bridge is. my only complaint, and it's minor, is the bridge is a bit dark. could have used less contrast, just to give the iron some more detail in the shadows. but visually it's got great impact! er..wait a minute. how did you get the late afternoon light on the bridge with a noonday blue sky? has that been faked? :) no matter, i still like it a whole bunch. and the lensbaby give it that little extra something.

nice colors! i like the soft brick in the back, really makes the tree and flowers pop out. lighting is pretty good too...perhaps could have been a different time of day, as it's a little blue from shadows or overcast, but that's very minor.

 

compositionally it could use a tweak. first off, it's a "bulls eye". the subject is right in the center. my eye doesn't want to wander around and explore the picture, because the big payoff is too easy.

 

also, i'm not totally convinced this picture is about the bike. it's so small in the image. it really should fill the frame, make the image ABOUT the bike. if you were retaking the shot, use a zoom to get the image closer, leave some flowers in down the bottom but make them out of focus using a wider aperture. you probalby would want to get down low to do this. frame it perhaps more like the attached image. i've faked the foreground flower blur in photoshop, but you get the idea. note the bike isn't in the center, neither is the strong vertical line of the tree trunk. this makes it clearer that it's about the bike parked against the tree, but the pretty elements are still retained in the shot.

brilliant! took me awhile to figure out how it was a nude, but i caught on. this is really good. is it truly a photo? looks like a drawing. how'd you do it?

nice lighting, nice composition. background tones are light and not distracting.

 

couple of things, well three actually:

 

- there are a couple of reflections on her dress that look sort of like dust (i know they're not). they could use a little burning in to darken them, make them less distracting.

 

- her lipstick is the wrong color. or perhaps you used a red filter? either way her lips are too light and look a little funny. just a tad darker and i wouldn't have noticed.

 

- she's doing 'crunches'. she's holding her head up and it shows...she doesn't look quite comfortable.

 

- and one more thing. the shadow behind her head looks a little odd. could have used a slave flash around the side perhaps.

 

it's a very sophisticated image, the model looks very regal. overall nice job, just work with the model a little bit more to make sure she looks natural. a tough thing to do in the middle of a shoot i'm sure!

i agree the sky is washed out, but it's a tricky lighting situation. any darker and the ground and walker would lose detail. but because it's so light, the sunset doesn't have the typical intense color one has come to expect in photos.

 

also, the horizon is dead smack in the middle, so i'm not sure what i'm supposed to look at.

 

what might have worked better is if you'd been on the other side of the road, and caught the walker as a silhouette against the sky. then the sky could be exposed properly (i.e. darker) and the walker would be in complete shadow, outlined against the sky). hard to say as i wasn't there.

 

i like the light through the clouds! that perhaps should have been the subject matter, moving it a little to the right and tilting up a bit. on the other hand the walker is a decent 'phoney subject' and provides interest.

 

tough one. might have to consider it as one of those pix that was *almost* the right moment, but didn't quite cross over into the realm of the sublime.

first the bad stuff: it appears to be a photoshop job. the shadows are on different sides, which would have been tough to pull off in real life. also contributing to that feel, the woman has either had a LOT of work done, or she was photographed standing up. how do i put this delicately? gravity does not seem to have any effect on her breasts. :)

 

i also would have liked *something* to be in focus. both figures are blurred, and the shadows aren't sharp either. it makes my eye restless, trying to find something to focus on.

 

on the other hand, i like the composition. it's a bit daring in terms of placement, but something about it works for me. color tones are nice, and the image certainly portrays a sense of energy.

 

i hope that's helpful!