::: Critique Club :::
Great fun to do a critique on your image but it is difficult if you don't give us any information in your photographers comments. When we do a critique, we go past just the photographic result, that's what voters comments do. The critique looks at what you were trying to achieve, how you wanted it to look and what issues you had in getting the image captured and ready for voting.
First Impression - the most important one:
A little confusion because I didn't really know what it was I was supposed to be looking at. All images (paintings and photographs) tell a story. You are the author who has to lay out the tale for the viewer to enjoy.
Composition:
The confusion I talked about mostly comes from the composition. The target of interest, as defined by you, is not clear. there's no lead in to the picture to show the eye where to look. all of these things make a difference. Do a google on two 'rules' as they are called, The Rule of Thirds and Leading Lines. These just detail that way that research has shown that the eye enters, fixates and leaves images - and they really do work.
Subject:
There's good and bad in your subject matter in terms of winning hearts and votes. It's good because you've shown a collection of things, many things, which perfectly reflects the way we collect stuff in our lives. The bad is that there's no particular collection to focus on and get interested in. One or the other scenario might have given you more impact. So, with not much juggling, you could subtley re-frame this and gather interest.
Technical (Colour and light):
It's wel lit and the colours are true. The on-camera flash was hot and has flared on poor old St Exupery which will loose you points in this tough school.
I see that there's trouble with the grain/noise and the breaking up of the colour. I suspect that you have used a .jpg, worked on it and saved it many times as you worked. What has happened is that a jpg is a compressed format. Every time you save it, it re-compresses what is already compressed and so you loose detail in the file. Eventually you end up with the effect you have here. I bet you were wondered what was going wrong with it.
If your software allows, save it immediately you get it out of the camera to an uncompressed format like BMP, TIFF of PSP etc. Do all your editing and then the last steps to submit it are resize, sharpen and save as a jpg.
To improve?:
There's some pretty easy principles to apply when you are working on a submission that will certainly help you break into the 5's and eventually the 6's. Keep it simple, tell a story, use the composition rules, never submit an out of focus image, take a predictable idea and make it different, try different times of the day or light angles.
Summary:
In looking at your portfilio, I can see you're working hard on your images and trying lots of different things, this will pay off and I personally look forward to seeing the fruits of your efforts. Good luck
Brett |
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