john_frie

Well Jeff,
After all of these dos and donts and shoudas and wouldas do you know now how to make this a great shot :-).
I see and feel an abstract emotion along with something very soothing about your photo. The colors work well and the balance and composition is very tastefully done. Can it be done other ways? Yes and they would all be different but not necessarily better and they could all be taken apart and technically analyzed to the most profound and pedantic degree.
I see good lines, a multitude of textures and tones that gradate beautifully with one another and a crop that brings it all to a pleasing light.
Well Done Jeff.

"Good points. I didn't recognize those things when I posted it, but I must have seen them during shooting because 11 frames later I made this one"

That's funny, after I commented I went to your gallery and saw the one you mention. I was going to repost but didn't. I figured, chalk another one up to foot in the mouth :-).

Very nice shot.

J

Nice soft lighting and the pose is well done. The right hand, however, looks amputated and distracts me. I would also have done something to tuck the back of her shirt in.

J

Exposure is good, nice leading lines drawing your attention into the photograph, however, I believe it would have been much more pleasing if the horizon was not centered.

J

Sorry,

One more thing, the hand at the shoulder is really not good. Looks more like a claw. The only thing that saves it is that it's in shadow.

John

The pose and light is good not fantastic. Your're right the hand is not good. Very unattractive way to photograph hands. Hands are one of the more difficult things to photograph.The majority of photos you see are really poorly done even from the very good photographers.

One way to make it better would be to bend it at the wrist bringing the heel of the hand down and curving the fingers. Or turn the hand more tho follow the leg where fingers are pointing toward the foot and laying gently along the line of the leg. It's difficult to explain I'd have to actually show you. The foot could use some PS work. It's not very attractive without. Not a difficult thing to do.

John

Alan,

There's nothing lucky about this shot. Although the lighting and the background are simple the fact is you had the creative talent, whether beginner or expert, to see this. The luck may be that it happened the way it did. There are many many photographers, artists, beginners or expert who will never photograph or paint something as moving as this shot.

Be very very proud of the fact that you have the ability to see the beauty in something as simple and yet as powerful as this photo. Technical ability is something anyone can learn. Creative ability cannot be taught.

John

Absolutely excellent! What more can it say? The lighting is perfect. Very well done.

john

Nice concept. Everything relates nicely, colors are warm and pleasing. The results from some of the others I feel are not

good at all and make the original appear not pleasing at all.

Aspects of the composition, however, disturb me. The horizon is a bit too centered and tends to prevent a feeling of

needed depth. It is also a distracting merger line cutting the model in half. A simple repositioning of the camera would

have taken care of these things. I believe it would have taken this photo from a good shot to something much more

aesthetically pleasing.

J

Great lightning shot! The only thing that disturbs me is the little bright rectangle of light bottom right. Other than that the rest is well done.

John

Well done Jon. It's refreshing to see a different type of bridal party group shop that deviates from the oh so common norm.

J

The model's hand is a very distracting element in this photo. Using hands in a photo or painting is an extremely difficult art to master. Posing hands can take years to master and I rarely see it done properly. Taking into consideration the lighting challenges that the hands pose in comparison to the face is a feat in itself. That being said:

I can't think of a good time to photograph the flat side of the back of a hand whether it is male or female. Make sure if the hands are going to be a part of a photograph, especially if close to the face they're properly posed, lit are attractive and are the same color as the face. This model should have had some post retouching on her facial skin and the makeup, especially around the nose needs to be redone.

Andrey, after viewing your portfolio some of your other images were quiet a bit better than this portrait. I personally think other than what I mentioned there are many more things that are unattractive about this shot. Especially when the woman is obviously very attractive.

I hope you don't take this criticism as a personal attack as many would.

Thanks for the opportunity to critque some of your work.

J

Hi Andrey,

I'm not quite sure what this photograph is trying to convey. I really would have taken some time making a better sky. The lines made by the jet are really disturbing and very unattractive.

John

Fiona,

I like this shot. There is one small thing that took this photo from an ok shot to a really good one and that's the simple lift of your feet. If you can imagine having not done that can you see what I mean? It's the little things that are so often missed that take things from mediocre to good.

Good touch.

John

Antonio,

I am really impressed with your photographic art. Your ability to see tone, lighting, composition, and detail is excellent.

The other thing that really impresses me is that you didn't need a $3000 camera to do it. I read time and time again my camera is better than yours and this camera can't do as well as that blah blah blah.

You prove them all WRONG with your ability as an artist and not a techno junkie.

John

The photo has a very quiet surrealism to it. C and S lines create a softness. I would

however, remove the railing in the center. I think it distracts from the fluidity and your

depth has been achieved with good usage of the foreground snow. This becomes more

noticable if you begin to enlarge the shot. Also turn it upside down and I find that my eyes

are always drawn to the railing. I removed the railing quickly to compare and immediately

the tension was gone. I've always found that critiquing your own work is very difficult

sometimes because of a bias created from emotions that made you take the shot.

However, something that's proven very successful is to turn the photo upside down and

you then see the image in a much more objective way. Any distractions will become much

more evident and if there are none, success!

Just from my experience and subjective opinion.

Congrats for being chosen

john

My subjective opinion.

John