Hi Inga - here's your critique club moment ...
This is a kind of shot that I've seen quite often, so inevitably I'm going to be comparing it with the best that i've seen - which I suppose is exactly what you want ...
There really isn't much wrong with it - but there is perhaps a collection of things I'd have tried to do differently. The lighting seems to be at quite a steep angle to the wheels - from directly above, which I think hasn't helped the shot - a lot of the details in and around the metalwork are hidden: perhaps lessening the contrast would have helped this?
I wondered, as you said this is an antique train, whether it was perhaps in a museum? The lighting looks a little like it might be display lighting - those very defined, yet not very strong, shadows? If however, it's outside, you should think about waiting till later in the day (or earlier) and try shooting then - the sun at w lower angle is a much softer light, and much more intersting in general.
Converting to black and white is usually intersting for this kind of shot: by taking away the element of colour you force people to look at the tonal range, and the textures of the objects you're shooting: again, those very deep shadows and quite direct light haven't helped here.
Focus and depth of field is excellent - pretty much all the metalwork is nicely sharp.
Compositionally - perhaps a little arbitrary? You've cropped precisely to the surround of the nearest wheel (and it's brake-shoe), and it might pay off to wonder if that is the right thing to do: placing it further into the frame would give a differnt effect, as would the trick of cropping some of the edges out - giving some impression of size, as though it were too big to fit into the photograph (though it's a trick that needs care if it isn't to look like a mistake).
I'm being very critical - this is still a good photo, but it doesn't quite have that certain something to get it into the 6's rather than the 5's: perhaps these thoughts will help some.
Ed |
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