EDELWEISS
by SAC

Comment by Dr.Confuser:
Greetings from the Critique Club.

Looking at your portfolio, you have an affinity for flower photos. Fantastic. There are many many (and many more) flower photos here. It is a difficult genre and one I wish I could do better with. But to score well with this subject, you need (IMHO) to ratchet up your technical skills.

Selective desat's purpose is to draw attention to something that would otherwise not attract attention. In this particular case, the centers of the flowers would have recieved appropriate attention due to the subject matter and you composition.

You haven't used this technique to tell a story, to show me the world from a new or unique perspective. That would have wowed me.

This is my personal opinion ... If there's a God, he created flowers with color and spectacular shapes and fragrances to attract attention. Let you photos attract the intention God might have hoped for. settle for nothing less.

EDELWEISS
by SAC

Comment by saracat:
Interesting flower. Quite pretty.

Dubious Parenthetic Lotus
by SAC

Comment by SAC:

Originally posted by mi4mia: This photograph is snelicious!

Hummmm...that's gotta be a good thing. Thanks Trix!

Dubious Parenthetic Lotus
by SAC

Comment by SAC:
Thanks to everyone for your votes and comments!

Dubious Parenthetic Lotus
by SAC

Comment by SAC:

Originally posted by smardaz: nice shot but i think you a few others delved a little to deep into the thesaurus for this one ;) 7

How did you know!! Thank goodness for Roget's Thesaurus!

Dubious Parenthetic Lotus
by SAC

Comment by SAC:

Originally posted by posthumous: dpL started in an ashram in Kentucky, when three hillbilly monks realized that their chants were harmonizing really well, and smelled much dinero. Unfortunately, the success of their first album ruined their inner peace and they became Episcopalians, at which point they were no longer able to stay in tune. 9 (10 if it were square)

They never did get back in tune, but they became famous (and rich) for their invention of the 'not square' album cover at which point they regained thier inner peace. Ü Thanks for the vote!

Dubious Parenthetic Lotus
by SAC

Comment by SAC:
PaulE, thank you for the critique. I hadn't even thought of the shadows as being a distraction as my mind understood they were caused by the water and I kind of liked it. Now I'm curious as to how it would look without the shadows in water. I'll have to try that. It had an original 'soft' look, but I thought it came across as blurry, so I probably did over-sharpen it for the amount of information available in the file. There are other things I thought of 'after' I submitted the photo, one being that it should have been made 'square'! Your critique is appreciated. Thank you.

Dubious Parenthetic Lotus
by SAC

Comment by PaulE:
Greetings from the Critique Club.

Hi SAC,

Welcome to DPC. Congratulations on your new personal best.

I really like your basic composition here - I find it nicely balanced, and that my eye flows neatly over the image, ultimately being led to the title. There are however a number of negatives to the composition that are lkargely due to the water and the lighting - I really don't like the shadow in the top right and below the flower. I'm not sure what caused the 'scratches' or marks on your background, but these are unnecessary and detract from the rest of the image. Under advanced editting it would have been fairly easy to remove these. There are a number of brighter marks around the edge of the flower that look as if they might be due to over-shapening - they too detract from the good.

On the whole I think this is a great effort that sufferred a bit due to the DPC taste for bright colours and contrast.

It is my hope that these insights are helpful and constructive. Please feel free to PM me if you have any questions regarding this critique. And please remember to mark it "Helpful" if you found it so. Good luck with future challenges.

Cheers
Paul

Dubious Parenthetic Lotus
by SAC

Comment by posthumous:
dpL started in an ashram in Kentucky, when three hillbilly monks realized that their chants were harmonizing really well, and smelled much dinero. Unfortunately, the success of their first album ruined their inner peace and they became Episcopalians, at which point they were no longer able to stay in tune. 9 (10 if it were square)

Dubious Parenthetic Lotus
by SAC

Comment by smardaz:
nice shot but i think you a few others delved a little to deep into the thesaurus for this one ;) 7