Greetings from the Critique Club :)
Composition:
For me personally I think the building is a little too centered and the tilt works against the shot as a whole making it look a little awkward, I'm not sure if the building in the back is part of the main subject so allowing this room but cutting the bottom of the subject seems like a strange decision (although maybe that was to minimise the impact of the distracting woman walking in to the shot). I like the very acute lines contrasting the curves in the upper half of the shot, but wonder if there was a more interesting angle shooting from the other side? I've never been there so only going by what I can see, it's a shame about the people within the shot as it makes your image feel a little snapshot like, it doesn't look overly busy and I wonder if waiting around for a little while would have given you a shot without so many human distractions (but then again maybe it was busy and you did wait for this lull? if this is the case then apologies).
Camera Work:
The technicals look pretty good, it's sharp, nicely exposed and well focused.
Post-Processing:
I am slightly confused by the USM majorly faded comment and not totally sure what this means, my first impression was a duplicate layer, heavily sharpened and then the layer opacity reduced (which is a technique I have used before) but I'm pretty sure this would not be legal in Basic editing.
Other than that point, I think the editing is pretty good, the saturation is nicely done and there's good contrast through the scene.
My Opinion:
I quite liked the image when I saw it in voting, but my immediate reaction was that maybe you had missed an opportunity of capturing a great shot, I think exploring this amazing building could have resulted in some seriously good shots that may well have contended for a slot on the front page, the shapes within the building itself are awesome and some creative angles could have yielded almost endless opportunities.
The strong shadows to the bottom half and the dotted people in the shot unfortunately are just a bit too much of a distraction so I think the score was just about right for the shot entered this time round.
Good luck in future challenges!
Mark
ETA: Spelling corrections
Message edited by author 2009-06-18 05:07:33. |