Holiday Traditionsby
justbill2020Comment by snaffles: Greetings from the Critique Club!
First impression: Made me smile as I love Miss Piggy, I gave you a 7 :-) Also, this looks like so many of my entries here when I first joined, it takes me right back...which means I know exactly what you need...we'll get to that later.
Artistic: Very cute and whimsical use of two popular characters who hold a spot in many of our childhood hearts. I like the selective desat, you did it well and then refrained from popping the colours like crazy. You have a lovely concept here and tried hard to get it, so I appreciate the effort you made.
Technical: Now down to the nitty gritty. The concept is good, but the execution is lacking. The crop is far too tight, all of Kermit's skiis should be in the shot. Miss Piggy's adoring eyes should be at the intersection of the thirds in that corner - probably approximately where her elbow is. And yes, all of her should be in the frame too. The composition is on the right track, leading us from Kermit to the smitten Piggy, so you have the right idea. Your lighting looks fine.
The aperture is fine; f5.6 will pretty much save your butt every time. But your shutter speed, at 1/6 is exceedingly slow; at ISO 3200 you should have been able to shoot at least 1/200, assuming you shot handheld, as I think most of your problem here is plain ol' camera shake. Basically you cannot shoot slower than 1/40 handheld, without it being apparent. (Curious...why such a high ISO?)
So you need to do two things: learn to shoot at a faster shutter speed, and get a tripod. At this stage, you don't have to go hawg wild, at this stage a bare-bones basic tripod from Wallyworld will probably cost you about $25. And you'll learn a lot from using it, because then you can shoot with smaller apertures and slower shutter speeds. Trust me, if you ever want to shoot stuff like painting with light or star trails, you can't do it handheld!! :-)
Overall: A very decent first attempt, and I applaud your efforts. Maybe reshoot with the ornaments spaced roughly in relation to each other as they are now, both handheld at faster shutter speeds, and also with a tripod - if you can't afford one yet, try using a beanbag. Then shoot, and shoot, and shoot some more, as that's the only way to learn.
And by all means feel free to check out the stuff in my portfolio especially from 2006 - I'm sure you'll get a few good chuckles out of it.
Hope this helps, and I really do wish you all the best and look forward to seeing more entried from you.
Feel free to PM me with any questions.
Susan
Photographer found comment helpful.
