efusco

I think the geometry is great here. The shape of the openings is repeated in the car and even in the bricks in the wall behind. There's an interesting balance and yet the car and guard rail weight the image enough to keep some grounding.

 

Nit picking, the straight lines reveal some barrel distortion of your lens.

--evan

? Tip of a burning match or incense? It's a bit too obscure for my tastes and the bright bokeh get your attention more than the smoke and whatever the thing in the middle is do. Side lighting might have brought out the smoke better and not brightened the background so much.

Well done, esp. if this isn't a crop it's great camera work. Clean background and foreground lead the eye nicely. The composition is excellent. There's enough facial detail to really show the expression nicely. Color could be a little more punchy, but that's pretty minor.

Cute, fun and creative. I think you should work this theme. Give the bugs something to look at. Clean up the background. Try some different angles...shoot the bugs through the lens of the glasses. Can't say it's the best photo I've seen technically but really creative and original.

O-7 A-5

You were one to something here, but it just doesn't quite do it. There's too much trash in the frame beyond the two boards. The two boards themselves are brilliant compositional elements helping the leading lines of the footprints passing b/w them. Also, there's just a lot of 'dirt' and artifact in the sky and other areas that should be spotlessly clean.

o-6 a-4

Nicely done photo. Gotta knock it for originality b/c this is just a very over done image. I'd sure like to see someone do something unique. I think I also feel the highlights are way blown out here creating a pretty distracting 'hot spot'.

Hmmm...that darn DOF thing got ya... Your focus is somewhere on the area just in front of the wings and behind the eyes and the OOF eyes are a major problem with this otherwise nicely composed image with a nice background. But perfection is what macro work is all about.

The bright background against the bright head really competes for the eye here. And, I find the cutting off of the beak rather disconcerting. The composition is interesting and overall it is a nice sharp photo.

You have to make the building vertical...the entire photo is MADE by the simplicity of the composition, but if the only compositional element is not absolutely perfect the image will not work well.

 

Take this back into PS, rotate arbitrary about 1/2 degree clockwise, recrop and you've got a superb image....also watch out for over sharpening/compressing...you've got some serious edge artifact.

 

Ok, heck, open the original file, rotate, size, lightly sharpen and repost.

 

BTW, I love the concept of the shot and would have scored quite high except for the above issues.

I applaud you for being able to draw so many comments! This is an attention getting image which definately caught my eye or I wouldn't be here commenting. On close inspection, however, I found several elements that bother me a bit and keep it out of the exclusive top ratings.

 

I feel the cutting off of the stems of the flowers is uncomfortable as a viewer. It is a minor line, but it is a leading line that takes you no where. It also appears that the petals are a tad unsharp. It does seem that the horizon is slightly off, though with the mountain I don't find it that noticable or bothersome.

 

I think the exposure is quite good and the compositon good, if not particularly original. Finally, I'm home sick...used to live in Palmer....Nice piece.

I'll rate this relatively high for asthetics due to the wonderful technical qualities (sharpness, exposure, DOF, detail) Composition is adequate but not particularly inspired. Likewise I just can't give high originality marks for such a staple shot that doesn't show me anything original. It is a beautiful image to be proud of.

Composition and timing are wonderful, makes a great silouette. That framing with the tree was great--I'm going to presume it was intentional--please don't tell me otherwise.

 

I concur that this looks like a shot with good stock potential...esp. if you've got about 500 others to submit with it!

Pleasing Ansel Adam's like image. NO particular focal point or focus of interest. I find the deeper shadow mid/right of image a bit distracting as is the slope on th bottom left foreground area.

 

Asthetically I'll go the 5-6 range, I'll decide when I punch in the number. 4 for originality, just doesn't show me anything new or different.

 

I do agree that the shot has good impact as a B&W image but I haven't seen the color version.

Certainly is a well executed macro with great detail within the permitted DOF. The background is even quite nice and even for this type of shot.

 

I'm going to have a hard time with rating too highly both in originality (for obvious reasons to me, this just isn't exactly original in concept or execution); and aesthetics b/c the subject just isn't very nice or particularly creatively represented. I hope that doesn't rain on the parade too much--that isn't my intent, but I feel an honest critique and score are in order.

I don't understand the "my last picture" title, I've never seen your work before to compare to, but I've been floored by this one. I absolutely had to look close to be sure it wasn't just a photo of someone's painting. This is exquisitly executed, the lighting is beyond any words I have to express. The choice and placement of props, the pose, the expression all just wonderful. There is a red color at the bottom left that distracts a bit b/c it isn't clear what it is, but dang, I can't complain more than that.

 

I hope the "last picture" thing is some kind of inside joke b/c I'd sure love to see more of your kind of work around here. I've given maybe 2 or 3 7's before, this is getting a pair of them and that's rare for me--reserved only for the photos I believe are amongst the truely great images of our time.

I'm in league with those complaining about the white pontoon, it really ruines the timelessness of the image. The subtle tones are wonderful, no overblown/oversaturated colors to distract from the excellence of the composition. Well framed, well balanced...just that dang white boat.

Ok, probably too cliche' a shot to get anything on originality but otherwise appears well done--the compression artifact is terrible along all those straight lines of the bridge.

The glow on the rim is nice though I'd like to see the sides of the glas a bit more clearly too.

If you'd have shifted the camera position to the right about a foot or so and cropped out the white pants in the background and really zoomed into the interesting part of the photo (the dog in the lap and face of the sleeping kid) you could have had a pretty powerful shot. Unfortunately it's pretty much a snap shot in it's current renditoion with lots of distractions.

Again, I'll knock this a bit in the originality department, we've seen this type of work many times before. The powerlines are a major distraction as well. I think keeping the lower eaves line level with the bottom of the photo was a good idea and the rest of the composition and exposure are solid as well.

I see this image as having some potential for a cover or interior photo for a college brochure (I assume it's a college). It's simple and the people add a sense of place. However, it isn't particuarly original or artistic, the air conditioning units really stand out just above the models, and the stature of teh guy on the bottom right is, potentially, the most interesting aspect of the photo and can barely made out in the crop. Exposure seems close, but the skin highlights on the woman are blown out, I don't know if that's a levels/white point issue or true over exposure.

Very well done. There's someone famous out there that does these shots so I can't give you a 7 for originality, but asthetically you've really nailed the image. The lighting/shadow detail is exquisite.

I think I see how you wanted to contrast the white fence with the white flowers here. Unfortunately the image suffers due to blown out highlights in places (esp the lowers on the right) and camera shake. I don't think the tilted camera angle is effective in this kind of shot. Typically one uses that to give the impression of dynamic motion/action whereas this is much more of a still-life type of shot. Finally, the leaves on the flowers and trees look almost brown. I didn't look to see what kind of image capture you used, but, if digital, you need to check your white balance setting. If film consider a new film or lab if this is scanned from a print.

 

I think the use of the corner of the fence and the pickets created some nice leading lines to draw the viewer to the flowers and this could have been a pretty shot if the technical aspects had been addressed more carefully.

A nice capture of light and the corpuscular rays. The color is spectacular and the composition adequate though not especially creative. I'm gonna knock this shot down a bit for originality b/c, well it isn't very original...I've got dozens like it as does almost anyone else who shoots a lot. I don't mean that there's anything bad about the shot, it is eye catching, pretty, and a great one for any portfolio, but the way our grading criteria are set up here with "originality" weighed at 50% of the score this one's gonna suffer. Again, beautiful shot.

This is one of the most difficult, if not impossible, shots to get the exposure correct on. Notice the dark background in shadow and the bright directly sunlit foreground...and the bird is on the edge of the line.

 

You've blown out the highlights on the breast and foreground to get the exposure close on the face of the bird and thus you've got a little detail in the shadows. Unfortunately, you have to use a slower shutter speed to accomplish that. Without a tripod you have lots of camera shake with long lenses and long shutter speeds giving you the bad blur.

 

Compositionally the bird is a bit centered, which isn't very interesting, but bird photos sort of lend themselves to that.

 

Exposing for the bright foreground and using flash to fill the shadows would probably have been a better option here...and a tripod.... Keep up the hard work, this stuff isn't easy.