Black & Blue Scratchby
danh669Comment by inspzil: Greetings Newbie from the Critique Club
By Inspzil
For reference I'll add a little "veteran's" point of view advice that you can take or leave.
Composition - Difficult to interpret what the heck I was looking at. I see now, but it took a combination of what I was seeing and the title to eventually come to the conclusion that it was pocket billiards and not just some abstract stuff. (clarity of subject is very important to the large majority of DPC voters, myself included). This is a good idea and meets the challenge. Using the approach you've taken I'd have turned it slightly to make it symmetric. The light showing thru at the bottom of the pocket is a great touch. I think it should've been the selling point of this photo. The overall color tone of the pic is good.
Technical - I think this photo would've scored substantially higher if the aperture were about F11 or so to bring the ball more in focus, if not totally focused. It would've capitalized on the light showing thru the side of the pocket. The ball is pretty blurry. (Even soft focus on DPC is generally frowned upon by most of the newer members) The exposure is great and the framing is pretty close. It doesn't look like a lot of processing was done, which generally means you did a very good job, or that you didn't do much to the photo.
Overall - I can see why this did poorly by the difficult time I had determining what I was even looking at. Voters, myself included, don't have several minutes to try to sit and determine what every subject is like I did here tonight. Abstract photos are actually acceptable if you put "abstract" somewhere in the title. If not, it's assumed that you just don't know what you're doing and your photo obviously sucks :) . There is a lot for folks like me, who start as virtual novices, to learn about photography. Hopefully this gives you a little insight into what we, the voting public, are looking for and how we are looking at it. My recipe is Clarity of Subject, Consistent with Topic, and Creativity. Anyway, there's my 2 cents. Welcome to DPC and good luck with future challenges. - Inspzil
Photographer found comment helpful.