richard_cochran

I notice the brim of the hat looks sharper

than her eyes. The first rule of portraiture

is to focus on the eyes! The colors are nice,

the lighting is fine, though could be a wee bit

softer. The pose is pleasant and flirty.

The lighting of the foreground doesn't

match the lighting of Saturn. Your Saturn

photo, like every Earth-based

photo of Saturn, has the light source pretty

close to the camera axis. But your foreground

shows some side lighting. You either need

a forground that is lit from directly behind

you (probably showing the

space-suited photographer's shadow) or better

yet, one of the space probe

shots showing Saturn lit from the side.

That looks like the home of Anne Rice to me.

Perhaps the Mayfair Witches haunt the place?

I'll take my payout in cash, though, because

I'm not one of those who believes in numerical

ratings.

Not astronomically realistic. When the fullmoon is within a degree or so of the horizonas it's shown here, the sky is neverthis dark, since it's always within a coupleminutes of sunset (or perhaps sunrise). I'dalso expect the moon to be red/orange when thislow, especially since you can see theeffect of smog in the distant city lights. Andof course the perspective makes it look likeyou used a longer lens for the moon than forthe city lights.

Maybe I'm just being a spoilsport.

I've swung off that rope swing at Bass Lake myself! I thought I recognized it in thethumbnail even before I saw that it was takenat Pt. Reyes.

I like the photo, but knowing that spotand how high above the water it is, I thinkI'd like to have seen it at a wider angle,as a vertical shot, to show where he's goingto hit the water. I'd keep the same width, butdrop the bottom border significantly. Ofcourse in practice this means switching toa wider angle and turning the camera 90 degrees.

Then again, maybe there were people climbingback up from the water that you didn't wantto show.

Anyway, you've inspired me to go back there soon!

Judging by the lack of shadow detail, it lookslike it was seriously underexposed, perhapswith an attempt to save it at print/scan time.Shadows should continue to have detail until they get to be completely and totally black(and highlights should have detail until totallywhite).That can only be achieved by proper exposurein the camera.

Your comment in the critique forum explainshow you had to lie down on the ground to getthis shot. The perspective of the flag behindthe monument looks nice, but one of the things to remember is that your audience doesn't know or care how hard it was for you to get the shot.

I would NOT crop to put them in the center!

If I were to crop the photo, I might

consider cropping off a bit of the right

and the foreground, to put the hikers

right in the corner. There's a dark

line in the mountain that leads from the

summit down to the hikers, and to my eye,

it's visually pleasing if the extension of

that diagonal line leads straight to the

corner of the frame.

There are two problems I see with this image.First, it includes a lot of extraneousimage area. I'd crop it down to just thebee. Perhaps the bee and the flower, but probably just the bee. Fill the frame with yoursubject! Second, the bee is located right onthe border of the light flower and dark background, which means she's almost lostin the background. It would have been niceif you could have gotten a different angle where the bee stands out against whatever's behind it.

Photographic insects in their natural environmentis very difficult!

Second photo of a spider on a rose in my front lawn. Do you

like it better or worse than

href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=197705">the first

one

?

Took this photo of a spider on a yellow rose in my front lawn. I'm

trying to decide whether I like this pose better than

href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=197709">this

one

.

I like the colors. Especially since the colors of the two images blend very well.

I'm a little bothered by the fact that thelight on the woman is directional, coming fromthe right, while the light on the rest of the scene isn't. Getting the light to match up is one of those things that isn't easy and isn't often done well when images are combined. This one is less objectionable than many I've seen.

As a former trumpet player, I have to wonderwhy the trumpet is being held in such anawkward position. The valves are normallyoperated by the index, middle, and ring fingers,and the left hand is normally around the middle ofof the valves, unlike in your photo. I know that's a little thing, but it grates onme just like when an actor on TV pretends to take a picture while holding the camera grosslywrong, or when an old manual camera makes a motorized sound, etc.

But the concept is nice, and the lighting ispleasant. Instead of making it a cold blue tone,I might try giving the whole photo a very warmtone, reminiscent of copper and brass litby a warm light on a smoky stage.

Nice composition and technical quality.

 

I, too dislike

the picture of the couple, just

because it turns the picture into

a depiction of romance between those two

pictured people, instead of romance in

general. Also, I'd avoid depicting the

brand name on the chocolates.

 

Instead of the photo of the couple, if you

could find a miniature copy of Rodin's "The

Kiss" sculpture... Or a valentine's day card,

or just a pink envelope with a woman's kiss

imprinted in lipstick, or a diamond ring in a

presentation box, or a man's bow-tie intertwined

with a woman's garter, or...

 

I'd definitely want to crop out thosetwo big highlight areas in the background.Cutting off the top portion of the photofixes them and loses nothing, IMO.

I'd also prefer more DoF. As is, the DoFtends to focus attention on the left arm and head, while the lighting tends to bring our eyes to the torso and legs. I don't likethe conflict, but maybe that's just me.

Extending the above comment about shootingin morning or evening, it might be interesting to shoot this at night, either with existing light (I have no idea what nighttime lightis like there) or with a couple of slaved battery operated strobes. Orperhaps even "painted" with a flashlightover a long exposure. You might be able tobetter isolate the sculpture from the backgroundif you can gain better control over the lighting.