andrew_molitor

This isn't a particularly flattering portrait, but I think it's possible that's what you had in mind?

She looks sad, and maybe a little desperate? I can't tell if it's just the way she looks, or if she's acting, or if this is her first time modeling. Partly she just has kind of heavy-lidded eyes.

The light is not being kind to her, it seems to be pretty much from directly in front of her. It's not on-camera flash, is it? Anyways, there's not much modelling going on, her features look flat because of the lack of shadows. Her skin and hair look a little beaten up, and the light's not doing them any favors.

If this is all deliberate, well, bravo! It's got some *power* for sure, but it's not *pretty* if you get my meaning?

I like the contrasting textures: verticals, diagonals, and the earth in the foreground. It's an interesting set of tones and colors, very muted and it reads as very low contrast, so you get a very abstract feel out of it. This is pretty nice small, and I think it might turn out very well printed large (assuming there's enough pixels in there to support a biggish print).

The one quibble I have is that there's string eye-leading to the right of the frame, everything kind of "comes together" at the tree trunks at the very right of the frame, and there's not really enough visual interest to keep my there. My eye kind of skitters out of frame on the right. Not sure what to do about that, possibly give us a little more of the image on the right?

This is a nice piece of lighting here. Offhand, I don't even know HOW to get it that dark on one side and that light on the other, so, well done. Did you burn it down on the right, or did you perform some sort of lighting magic? Or both?

It looks like you're going for a yin/yang thing here, and is completely works. She looks weirdly asymmetrical, and it's partly the light, partly her hand, and partly the way she's quirking one eye. I find the sleeve a little distracting, and I'm not sure what could have been done differently there. It just feels  little out of place.

This is kind of a disturbing image, the more I look at it. At first glance it's kind of a throwaway of a pretty girl, but it feels like a lot more when you start digging in a bit. Well done!

There's a lot of wonderful things in here, great detail and a visually interesting scene. Basically, I like this photograph, but now I will quibble with a few minor things!

The shadows under the trees are a trifle flat on my monitor, perhaps a trifle more texture in there would be nice. This is the sort of image where we expect to see a sort of fanatical attention to getting detail everywhere in the full range of tones, so it's slightly jarring to see it missing.

I find the rocks and stuff in the lower left corner to be slightly distracting. Possibly just burning them down a touch would help me out.

Finally, and this is the biggest of my minor quibbles, I find that the eye is led down and to the right by the streaked clouds, and up and to the right following the streambed up. These two lead to slightly different places, which I find a a little disturbing, my eye is cannot rest anywhere comfortable, if that makes any sense.

As you noted, the composition is not particularly strong. I think you're on to something with the foreground material, the large expanse of flat stone is definitely a good item to start with in terms of getting the feeling of dry heat.

The stone in the foreground sort of wants to be a visual center, the interesting thing the eye settles on, but in the first place it's not very interesting, and in the second place it's got no help from the rest of the photograph, there's nothing leading the eye to that stone, so I think it just confuses the visual.

The green trees in the background are definitely not helping the sense of dry heat either, but I don't think you want to lose them completely. Just trim them down a bunch?

I do think that the tip of the larger expanse of stone could be a good visual center, you have the two edges of that area leading strongly to it, and there's a bit of interest there. If you cropped out the middle third, vertically (so, cut off the bottom starting just about the foreground stone, and cut off the top at around the base of the trees -- leave a little for context) you'll see what I mean.

The image becomes a wedge of pale, hot, rock leading from the right of the frame down to a point on the left. Push up the contrast a bit to emphasize the harshness of the light, and possibly let some highlights get blown out (but gently) to do the same. Maybe warm the color temperature up slightly as well?

Of course, these are just my ideas. I hope you'll try them out to see if they make sense, maybe you'll learn something (maybe you'll learn that I am an idiot!) but regardless hopefully my ideas will spark some ideas in your own mind that you can use.

That's a nice strong diagonal element, and a ton of visual interest. I like that there's a hint of green left in the foliage, and of course the attractive blue sky behind to contrast with the heat of the fire. Not 100% sure I like how dark the trunks of the two trees on the left went, perhaps a touch more texture in those would be a benefit? Certainly not necessary, it works fine as is, and making them flat black adds to the drama, for sure.

My one genuine complaint is the watermark/url ;) It's not very obtrusive, but it still bugs me!

There's much to like, here. I like the colors and textures, and the pear is beautifully rendered by the somewhat mysterious light (I suppose it's a stdui strobe, but one imagines it's something else, and when in the world would a pear be lit in such a way?) It's a little enigmatic, and quite a lot pretty.

The background looks a little weird, though. The parts of the cloth(?) in the background, upper right, and the pear near where the stem attaches to it, look weird. Were you blurring these in photoshop? Also, the "light" coming in from the right looks strange and wrong as well. I feel like if there was really light from there, it would be more visible elsewhere in the frame, it would scatter and lighten up other parts of the frame. If the entire right side were allowed to almost vanish in shadow, I think this would be a much stronger image.

There's a lot of good stuff in this photograph, but I think it's actually a mixture of two different images.

On the one hand, it's a fine sunset. I love the clouds, the subtle colors of the sunset. I love the grasses in the foreground, and the surf and rocks in the middle. There's a strong center at the sun, with the rays of light, the clouds, and even many of the grasses pointing toward it, and the land itself leading us around and up to the sun.

On the other hand, it's a portrait of a working village, the the typical suburban dwellings in the distance, and the sheds and boats of the working fisherman closer to the viewer, on the beach with the surf and the rocks nearby, and the grey vegetation bespeaking the harshness of the conditions. This ALSO has a strong visual center, at the beach, with the motion of the waves pushing the eye toward it, and the edges of the water leading the eye. This isn't a beautiful image, it's a gritty, realistic one.

So, there are two competing images here, I think, and each detracts and distracts from the other. I don't see any easy resolution, and maybe that's what you were going for in the first place.

This is very odd. One cannot tell anything about the context, really, even "why is there a hole there, and what is it a hole IN?" which makes this one kind of fun. I love the expression on the face of.. the subject (I can't tell gender or age here, either).

I like the balance of negative space right with the busy background left, but I think it's possible that other framing choices and crops might be better. I kind of like the crop with the background eliminated entirely, leaving only a blank wall with this person. That IS a different photograph, though, and not necessarily a better one.

The hair is a little dark, and I think the whole thing could benefit from a hair more contrast overall.

This is very nice. There's a lovely range of tones here, good detail, and a nice composition. Paths are always evocative, strong elements. I like the weight of the logs balancing the leafy lightness upper left, and the hints of bright light "up ahead"

I am not sure the out of focus leaves in the foreground work, although I do *exactly* the same thing from time to time. I find that it does draw the viewer into the frame, it makes the scene much more immediate. On the other hand, they're distracting, and everyone except me dislikes them ;) If you don't feel it necessary to make the viewer feel personally involved, I say leave 'em out.

The other point is the finely detailing highlights in the distance, and in the foliage above and a little left of the path feel a bit TOO punchy to me, as if the "sharpen" control had been applied a little too harshly. Either that, or possibly they're just slightly blown out, in which case I think I would prefer to push the shadows down more (they can take it, really!) and keep the highlights.

This is a good subject, and you've framed it up very well. There's good eye leading down to the main point of interest on the trunk, and a good set of material around to frame the image up a bit. The sky was doing something nice in the background, and you didn't overcook that (thank you!)

Were this my photograph, I would probably try to push the contrast on the trunk of the min tree a bit, to highlight the texture of it and give the image a little more visual punch. Otherwise, I think it's quite good!

This is very cute. Such a fat fellow. A very nice moment, love the detail in the fur and the framing. It feels slightly overexposed, although I guess it's really a problem with the tonal range of the scene. The eyes are (almost?) lost in shadow already, and the whitest fur looks slightly blown out. I'm not sure what to do about that, beyond if you had a raw file around you might try to crush the range down a trifle and fit a bit more on the screen. Not sure you could without losing the sense of bright sunlight, though.

This is very beautiful! I love the fine detail throughout, and you've done a nice job of placing the elements within the composition. The color adds to the sense of cold.

My one quibble is that it feels a little dull. I realize that the subject is in shadow, and you're trying to preserve that feeling, but I think you could probably push the whites up a little brighter without losing the feeling of shade, and gaining a little more visual sparkle.

Great job isolating these. The subtle shapes in the background are a great idea and really help this out, especially with the heavier black at the bottom. The lighting is intense, and looks quite artificial (I assume you used a strobe?) which might or might not be what you intended.

If you're going for an abstract with brilliant colors, you have completely succeeded! If you were after more of a nature photograph, it's less successful - the light is too harsh to be believable as natural. It almost works as some sort of metaphor of nature versus artificiality, the more I look at it. If the background had a touch more of a machine-like feel, rather than an organic brown color, I'd probably see it as just that.

Did you clip the tip of the leaf off on the left, on purpose? The only suggestion I have to to either not clip it off, or clip off a bit more. It looks like it could be an accident, now, and that rarely makes people like a photograph more.

This is a pretty strong abstract image, I like it! The color is excellent, especially when you dig in a little deeper and see the subtle reds and oranges and yellows. The composition is quite strong, symmetry doesn't always work, but in this case I think it does. The fact that the symmetry is slightly broken by the surrounding leaves probably helps.
The one trouble I have is that, while the visual center is quite clear (I think it's the tip of the leaf, upper center) all the lines lead away from that, down to the bottom center and out of frame. This means that my eye, at any rate, has to do a little hunting around to find where to settle. Maybe that's good in an image this austere, I'm not sure.

Strong composition, the stockings echoing her hair in the frame, good line across her torso generated by the arms, very nice. The model's quite lovely, and she's posing well.

The pattern in the stockings and the background pattern, taken all together, makes this a trifle busy. It doesn't help that the patterns clash a bit. A also think the darks should be pushed down a little blacker, it feels like the toning lightened them up a trifle too much.

These are quibbles, though, overall, well done!

Sometimes it rains like crazy and we get this strange jungle look. I'm

not sure about the sepia. Anyways. Critique away!

This is very lovely. I especially like the echoed shapes and curves: flower, nose, breast, head. Very pretty, strong eye leading, great framing. There's a good sense of mood evoked here.

Quibbles: light on her back, lower left is slightly distracting, and having looked in that corner I found myself displeased with the little shape in the cast light lower right as well.

I'm not even sure what I am looking at here. Is this a composite? Is that a mannikin or a real person? Anyways. Strong composition, nice position of the face in-frame looking across and diagonal. Good framing of the face with the umbrella shape. The raindrops in front are a nice touch.

Two things I don't quite like are:

1) The material lower right, I think it's great to have something there to finish off the lower edge of the frame, but that's slightly obtrusive and visually confusing.
2) the focus appears to be on the eyes and the raindrops simultaneously, which is why I think this is a composite. Given the effect of shallow DoF overall, this is visually a problem. If it's not a composite, the effect is that this image now looks like one, and if it is, this effect gives the game away.