dd-b

March 1, 2004

Looks like severe exposure problems, or even deterioration of old film, to me. I don't really believe the earth, posts, and thatching are all exactly the same color. Or the tree leaves at upper right.

March 1, 2004

The ornate building in the background is too dark; so that it isn't really a building, but rather a field of distracting intrusions that don't really pull together. And it's crooked, and the top pof the arch/door is cut off.

March 1, 2004

The reflections in the fender are distracting, especially since many of them are direct light reflections at or beyond the white point.

July 22, 2002

I like the composition, with the two "hairy lumps" and the angle and all. I like the tones on the grass very much. I like the browntone presentation overall very much (and I tend to dislike warmtone B&W).

I'm bothered by the tips of the grass going out of frame, particularly on the big hump. I don't know how far it goes; if it's longer than I expect (based on the bits that end in-frame) then I might see why you chose this cropping.

June 30, 2002

The brightly lit hair seems to me intrusive, rather than balancing or compositionally useful. The iris of the eye seems too dark -- you can start to see iris/pupil separation, but it's hard. I like the very narrow view -- pretty much the magic triangle of portraiture, of course.

August 22, 2001

I oscillate; I like the angle, but lying on a piece of bark looks very wrong, posed. Hard to get this angle on a natural forest floor though!

August 22, 2001

Is that the moon, or a dust spot? Too small for the moon, too obvious to leave if it's a dust spot. Or maybe it looks much different in a real print of a decent size. I do find the overall tone far too dark, too.

August 22, 2001

But the background blurring doesn't match any reasonable theory on the lion's motion; the lion should be moving from rifht to left (and a bit of top to bottom), diagonally opposite to the apparent motion blur in the background. If this is a photoshop effect, I'd suggest changing the axis so it looks proper for background motion blur while you were panning with the motion of the lion.

August 16, 2001

Nice view, and nice eye contact, but technical considerations spoil the final effect for me. Muddy, need to work the contrast somehow.

August 16, 2001

I don't have it recorded, but I think I had the 80-200mm zoom (Tokina f2.8) on, and was in the upper half; let's 135-200 somewhere. Sorry I can't be more precise.

August 16, 2001

I don't think I've ever given a 9 for aesthetics before, that I can recall. This is just stunning. I wish I could see it as a huge print. (pause to check tech stats) hmm, dunno how huge a print could be made, but at least an 11x14 should be possible, and that'd be better than the monitor. The wealth of detail, the clarity, are really striking to me. Definitely the best of the three in the folder IMHO.

August 16, 2001

That's rather interesting; if you'd put the eyes closer to the same level, you probably could have tricked me into seeing *one* face for a moment, which might have been interesting.

August 16, 2001

I didn't see what they *actually* did with the tower on Bastille day; this looks like I'm possibly seeing the effects of camera motion among other things. If so, very nice use of it!

July 28, 2001

Very striking indeed; nice lighting, nice angle.

July 28, 2001

Nice poses, good framing, but the lighting/exposure blows it IMHO. The faces need to stand out.

July 28, 2001

The cropping at both top and bottom is unfortunate.

July 8, 2001

Too tight at the top, and maybe at the right.

July 6, 2001

Eyes too downcast, so no sparkle there. Sharpness uncertain to my eye. Basically nice; nice use of the hair.

July 6, 2001

I'm a sucker for B&W rainbows that actually work!

June 16, 2001

Very nice; this really stands out. Even though it occupies a small part of the picture, the form is very clear. And the context of the crowded hillside is good to have in the picture.