It's about the music
by koltrane75

Comment:
Greetings from the Critque Club!

Compositon:
Your choice of subjects for this challenge hurt you I think. As many people said this would've been much better in a different challenge. The instruments are very small for being solely saturated. That said your framing is great. Your capture of this musical quartet is wonderful. It has a story to tell, and makes you want to know more.

Lighting:
Lighting is pretty good. The whites seem a tad on the over-exposed side, though just on the border of it.

Technical:
Perhaps a slightly smaller aperture would've blurred the background a bit better for you. As it is the stone columns look more in focus than the musicians. This is one of those photos where being forced down to 640 really hurts it. I think this would be extraordinary in it's full sized glory.

Post-processing:
Your desaturation looks good. Your subjects look a little soft. Presumably from the resizing. You might want to run unsharp mask after the final resize. You probably should've rotated the image a smidgen, as it is the steps are slightly crooked, which is slightly distracting.

Overall:
I think this would've scored much higher in a different challenge. I also think in it's full size it is probably a very unique and intriguing photo. My suggestions for improvement are rotating to get the steps straight, sharpening after resizing, and lastly while not appropriate for this challenge, I think you have a very strong completely black and white photo. In fact I think in black and white you could be talking ribbon worthy.

Excellent capture. Hope you do better next time.

Message edited by author 2004-06-30 17:37:36.

Homesick
by Philos

Comment:
Greetings from the Critque Club!

Composition:
Great job. You filled the frame nicely, your points of interest are intriguing and effective. I think you captured this challenge superbly.

Lighting:
I like the lighting you used. While it is highly contrasted, I think it helps rather than hurts in this photo. The important points are properly lighted, and that's what counts.

Technical:
I think you lost some points with voters with it appearing to be over-exposed. I think it works well for this photo though. It makes it interesting. It seems to be in focus, the photos appear soft enough to not steal too much of the attention.

Post-Processing:
I like what you did to it. It is very effective. Your desaturation was done nicely. I think many people voted lower due to the high number of objects left in color. Although, I don't think coloring just one would have the same effect. People would wonder what's so special about that specific photo, and it would detract from the theme you are presenting.

Overall:
I think you did a great job on this challenge. There is strong emotion in your photo and it speaks volumes. I like the editing you did to it, and think it helps give your photo character. About the only recommendation I have for you, would be perhaps have only 2 or 3 photos. This would satisfy all the people who thought there is too much in color.

Great first entry. I look forward to what you come up with next.

Bridge Demolishion Underway
by OneSweetSin

Comment:
Greetings from the Critque Club!

Composition:
Your composition is good. The large amount of sky doesn't bother me for this photo. Like some people brought out, giving some of the construction equipment a larger part of the frame would've helped spell out that the demolition was actually _underway_. As it is now, there is no action in the shot, which isn't a good thing, since usually demolition's are quite exciting as things come crashing down.

Lighting:
Your lighting is quite nice. There isn't any areas of the photo missing detail (save the shadows, but they belong there in this photo).

Technical:
Your photo is properly exposed, and is in focus etc. I think your settings are pretty good.

Post-processing:
The desaturation works for this shot. I think it's really personal taste for everyone, and tastes vary. It looks to me like it's overly sharpened, I would've liked to see it a tad softer. If you're using unsharp mask, I would suggest easing off on some of the settings just a touch. Don't want it too soft of course, but not this sharp either.

Overall:
I think you did a great job capturing the challenge theme. My recommendations would be more 'action' in the shot. And also a little bit less sharpening in editing, to make it softer.

I look forward to future submissions!

Rook or Bishop..
by agwright

Comment:
Greetings from the Critque Club!

Composition:
This is a superb composition. The horizontal lines are straight, (crooked is highly distracting of course) The contrast is superb. The black background makes you focus on the chess board, which is where the focus belongs.

The big choice of course is which piece to take, it's fairly self explanitory, save the subtle "best possible" move. This is shown by everyone's comments, which were extremely varied on what to take :) My only complaint is whose turn it is, but that is virtually impossible to show in this context, so no worries there.

Lighting:
The lighting you used looks like it comes from beneath, leaving all pieces glowing (I'm guessing this based on your 'light box' comment). It works very well for this photo.

Techincal:
No problems with your focus etc. At f/16 all pieces are in focus, good for a photo such as this. Your crop leaves enough room on every side to be comfortable, not cramped or unbalanced. Your exposure is good, save a little on the dark side, a little more light or less aperature would've added more contrast on the light side of the spectrum.

Post-processing:
Your border helps this photo. Not sure what you did to the photo regards editing, but whatever it was it's natural enough to not show. Again the light side of the spectrum could've been fine tuned in editing if you didn't want to re-shoot.

Overall:
Nice choice for this theme. Your composition is natural. I'd prefer your lighting be a tad brighter, but it suits this photo good enough. Really the lighting is my only recommendation for 'improving' the photo. Nice work.

And some of you need to hone your chess skills. ;)

Message edited by author 2004-06-29 00:28:40.

Some Things Are Worse Than Traffic
by Jesuispeure

Comment:
Greetings from the Critque Club!

Composition:
The red car was stuck in bumper to bumper traffic, when this giant reptile gets hungry and goes for the goods. Very nice. Very original for this challenge. I can't think of anything I'd change in the composition.

Lighting:
The lighting is good for this shot, but like you said it is over exposed. For instance the mercedes left headlight (left in the picture) is completely washed out. As is the alligator's top teeth. It looks like you used flash or some other form of directional light, making the light very bright up front, and darker in the back. I'd like to see it uniformly lit, or perhaps just not so harsh of lighting.

Technical:
Photo is in focus, I like the contrast you did to it. The photo looks grainy for some reason (in the shadows). You used 100 ISO so I'm really not sure what that is from, unless it was the desaturate - resaturate process. I'd really like to see this without the in camera over-exposure, using photoshop more to get the 'poster feel' you are going for. I think this would help bring out the detail, and still allow for the poster look.

Post-processing:
Love what you did with it. The poster feel, the radial blur, and especially the bold contrast. All of it combines very well for the finished look.

Overall:
I like this photo a lot. The humor naturally. But the look and feel seems to work great for this photo. My only recommendation would be the 'normal' exposure doing the adjustment in photoshop instead, to bring out the lost detail is my reason. That and the washed out parts are just too bright, and result in distractions.

Hmmm, what about a little blacktop and dotted line? :D Keep up the creative shots!

Top Down
by d14

Comment:
Greetings from the Critque Club!

First let me say I'm not a big fan of this genre in general, so please keep that in mind in my critque.

Composition:
I've looked at this photo a long time, and parts I like and parts I don't. As someone mentioned the tree is awkwardly placed, giving the illusion of being in the car. There is too much going on for my tastes, from the reflections in the car, to the skyline, to the tree, to the bridge, all are more or less cut off. It doesn't give me the satisfaction of seeing anything in entirity which is irritating. I can't help but feel your original uncropped is quite a bit better than this version.

What I do like about your composition is the reflection. The tree in the back panel looks as if it could be the tree actually photographed. Which makes for a very cool, surreal "anti-mirror" look.

Lighting:
Your lighting is good. The buildings could be a tad darker, to make them true silohets. Currently part of their details is visible, distracting from your subject (the car). The infared works very well for this photo. It appears normal on first inspection. Only knowing it how you photographed it (and perhaps the tree) give away that it is infared light.

Technical:
Everything is in focus (save movement) due to your aperture. I don't think shortening the depth of field would help any, so I agree with your settings.

Post-processing:
You didn't list any post processing in your comments, so the only thing I can mention is the lighting. Such as the buildings darker for true silohets, or possibly lightening of the car to bring out the detail you know it holds. (for example the mirror is pitch black)

Overall:
This is a pretty good photo, but I can't help but think the original is much better. Perhaps if you chose between the skyline / bridge, and the tree / reflection it would take out some of the distractions. I can just imagine the whole side of the car with reflections on it's shiny paint, and I imagine it'd look good.

All of your other comments enjoyed the photo more than I did, so you must be doing something right :)

Trains & Planes
by biggood53

Comment:
-Critque Club comment-

Compositon:
I love the composition in this photo. Your eyes move all over the photo just by where you placed everything. For starters you try to look at what the child is looking at. You also look at the child himself, from his (assuming a boy) arms propping him up, but especially down to his feet dangling in the air. Way to capture children's fascination with airplanes. Is that a toy train below him to boot? Nice little addition for a plane, train, challenge :D

Lighting:
The lighting as you said is 'against the light'. It looks a tad overexposed, but nothing you can't fix in editing. Perhaps shooting earlier in the morning while the sun is still rising would give you warmer and softer light. As it is, the light is harsh. A little adjustment of brightness and contrast could make up for that fairly easily.

Technical:
The photo appears to have been in focus when you took it. However, it seems you enlarged(?) a crop of a bigger file, the result is it is extremely pixelated, which is highly distracting. Instead of looking at the dangling feet, you look at the jagged blotches of artifacting in the fence. (more in post-processing)

Post-Processing:
This is where the photo lacks. If you enlarged this from a wider photo, your resizing was either too much for your camera, or the way you resized it made it lose a ton of quality. (looking at your other photos, they look fine in this regard) I'd recommend looking at your resize settings and making sure they are set correctly. Look at this tutorial on resizing for least amount of impact on your photos.

If you have the original file of this, I'd strongly recommend starting over with it and making your adjustments with keeping the quality in mind.

If the artifacting is from saving, remember to save your master in a lossless format such as tagged image file format (tif) or photoshop (psd). Both will allow you to work on your file and save whenever you want without losing quality. When saving a jpeg more than once, parts of the photo is lost each and every save. Eventually resulting in what you have here. Save in jpeg only after all your editing is complete. Also you can usually change the amount of quality lost for jpeg's, check your settings to make sure it isn't too much.

Overall:
You have a superb photo here. It just needs better editing and or quality control. Starting fresh with the original and working to preserve quality, could leave you with a very nice photo indeed. Keep up the excellent work.

Message edited by author 2004-06-24 02:13:06.

Feet First
by Manic

Comment:
Crikey do I not like heights! This a parachute shot? A railing? What?

Fun - Dog Super Star
by piratao2

Comment:
So very not news :b Nice try though.

June Sprints Glisten at Road America
by sbeaumont

Comment:
Pretty cool photo. Nice job.