Simply Banannasby
mbakerComment by LalliSig: Greetings from the critique club! Here is the critique you requested :)
Hey Mark! Congrats on your personal best so far. I think you have lot´s of room to improve here at dpc though so prove me right and do so :)
This shot definately meets the challenge, no question so no comment on that subject. I personally would have voted this shot a 5 and moved on to the next photo, opting not to comment. 5 from me means neither good nor bad. Like I said, this is not a bad photo but it doesn´t speak to me at all, no offense intended ofcourse but it just seems you didn´t put a lot of effort into this shot, when I see this photo it just seems to me like you ran into the citchen, found a couple of bananas and threw them on a black backround and blasted away. What I mean is that you didn´t lay them out in an interesting manner or arranged them carefully and you didn´t bother taking off the sticker on the top banana, THAT is what I mean when I say you didn´t seem to put much effort into this. I am just saying it how I see it so take this with a grain of salt.
Composition is so so, not good but hardly bad. Just that the vantage point is a bit normal and no interesting angle or no lines or such that lead the eye over the frame. Not bad like I said but could be better.
Most people here acknowledge the effort you put into photos so next time make it seem like you did and I promise you the score will go up. The lighting is not bad, you have no highlights and soft shadows so that is good. I am not really fond of the black backround, I think going with a complementary color would have lead to a stronger image, perhaps using blue? Image seems a bit flat, think it could use a small contrast boost and it would make it pop more, trust me. Also one small trick is to sharpen the shot after resizing it, it will lead to a sharper image and a better score, I can promise you that :)
I hope I don´t sound to negative, I´d like to say again that this shot is not bad at all, just nothing that would want to make me give a higher rating than 5, again, a rating I consider "average". I like the settings on your camera, the small aperture and long exposure, it shows that you did indeed take your time with the lighting and setup (I know what I said earlier, just what I meant was that you don´t SEEM to have put much effort into it, I didn´t mean that you didn´t do so)
Blah, hope this makes sense, I am very glad to see you experimenting and I really encourage you to keep doing so.
Kind regards from Iceland, Larus.
Photographer found comment helpful.