Shadows of WHY!
by Judi

Comment:
::: Critique Club :::
Heya Judi, this is going to be fun

First Impression - the most important one:
My first impression when it opened was of the green road. Is that dumb? I don't know but the complimentary colours of the 'green' road and the purple sky was quite captivating and I think important to the image.

Subject:
I think I agree with most of the commenters where the shadow is a significant part of the image but not a major part - as perhaps it should be to get the best out of the challenge. Having said that, I was still drawn to its presence before I even looked to see what challenge the image was from. So something about it worked, maybe the caption did it.

The model's pose and the mood of the whole pic is I think exactly what you wanted to convey. It's such an unusual scene that frustration and what-the-hell comes through loud and strong. The dog is a gem. The contrast between the guy's anguish and the dog's relaxed and carefree presence just tops it all off.

Composition:
I have a pet hate for crooked images if it doesn't look like it is a deliberate contribution to the art. This doesn't, it kind of looks like sloppy work. I know you don't do sloppy, but that's the impression to the untutored eye and I would have scored it 5 because of it. I'm also wondering how much more impact there would have been with a little more vertical thirds use.

OK that's the niggly bits out of the way, now lets get to the good stuff. I LOVE the sky and how it completely dominates the 'small insignificant man'. It is the large and overbearing sky that gives it the drama and the feeling of it all being too much for the guy in the street. Anything less and it just would not have worked, so you did good:)

Technical (Colour, focus, and light):
The short rather than long shadow has cost you points for sure. I guess when your source of light is a street light, there's not a lot you can do about that. Am I right in guessing that there's a strobe for the model in that 15secs? The detail on the model is pretty sharp, it doesn't look possible for anyone to stay that still for that long. I was trying to find its shadow and can't so i went back to thinking "no strobe"? I'm not sure that you could have introduced an additional lower light source without ending up with confused shadows and a bad result.

To grow its vote?:
Well I guess you got a bit of DNMC reaction. I bet you're frustrated now that "Desolation" hadn't come up instead. As I said, I would have given it an "average" because of the tilt, maybe others did too.

Summary:
This baby has a lot of impact and is a fine photograph. It didn't please the DPCers - so what? Interesting and thoughtful image.

Brett

Saltwater Bubbles
by slickchik

Comment:
::: Critique Club :::
Hi, this is the in-depth critique you asked for from one of the CC members. Well, you wowed them didn't you!

First Impression - the most important one:
This is a captivating image. It is so unusual that nobody was ably to get their head around it. This really was worth a serious score to you because it became impossible for viewers to passively click the score button and move on.

Subject:
Well the subject is everything isn't it. Was there anyone of your commenters who didn't go "... wow, what is it ..."? You have captured not only a great image but also you have captured the essence of scoring well in DPC and in general having your photos lauded in all fora - you have to have a wow factor. You bought the camera because you wanted to shoot the corals and your love and understanding of the subject shows through in not just this image but all of your portfolio.

Composition:
I don't know that traditional composition rules are or should be a consideration in an image such as this. You do instead what you have done, look for the design and the mood that conveys the impact. Here for me it is the tentacles floating over back and edged with light that really sets off the larger softer looking bulbous parts. You have the eye and you have used that studied designer element into your other works Pink Doughnut and Full Moon as well. This tells me that this one is no accident. You're not afraid to crop of major parts of the subject whilst leaving neutral black areas for impact.

Technical (Colour, focus, and light):
Almost perfect. Your sharpness and depth of field are impressive and that's something that is near impossible in a macro environment. I noticed you were only using f13 (vs f32 for Pink Doughnut) which makes the DOF even more surprising. I think you should be very happy with your camera/lens combination. The DPC voters have appreciated it as well.

OK, now to the light and the only thing in the whole image not 100% because in two places the image has gone to white or "blown out" as its called. Now when you have such a great image like this, voters have to start getting picky in order to give themselves room to vote for the perfect image so a blow out might be a reason for someone to give it one less point.

Digital is different to film. Over exposed highlights in film can often be clawed back in the print because the information is still in the negative. Not so for digital. What you see is what you get. If you can't see it now, you never will, the information is simply not there. Areas that are too dark on the other hand do have all the information, you just can't see it. So in digital, under-expose if you're worried about blow-outs. You can lighten it and recover hidden information.

To grow its vote?:
Do you realise that it only needed 33 voters to add a point for you to be in 10th place? Maybe if you'd have been able to hold the blow out, it might have happened.

Summary:
Well done on your first challenge, impressive results. Stick to what you do so well and specialise, you will just become one of the gurus of that genre. The challenge for you now (speaking from experience) is to not think it's easy to hit the top 20 in every challenge. On my 4th challenge, I got a 5th and haven't been in the top 50 since :)

Brett

Enlightenment T2
by obsidian

Comment:
::: Critique Club :::

Hi from the critique club, this is a pleasure to do Carl as i know you have impeccible taste. Just look at the camera you use for a start.

This was an interesting challenge, the chance to put all those comments from last time into practice this time. You must be gutted that it scored worse second time around that the first! Let's see if we can work out why.

First Impressions:
I'm really puzzled here because when I first looked at it, the appearance was of a very low resolution image (around 1.5mpx) that had been post processed to death. That's not a brilliant start for sure. Certainly the bad halo right around the buddah got my attention before any other part of the image.

Subject:
It's a good subject and the potential is certainly there and particularly the first time around because the blue and orange make perfect complimentary colours. i think too it was right that you picked this for a Take II because it batted below it's potential the first time and your architectural work is so good that re-doing one of those wouldn't achieve much.

Composition:
Maybe the central location is not the best position. Certainly thirds can make a big difference to an image by allowing some neutral space into the pic and giving the subject a sort of breathing space. Perhaps by making it slightly less in-your-face might have worked. Certainly since you had the opportunity for a second go, i would have tried that.

Technical (Colour, light & focus):
Alas, 'tis here that it all fell apart didn't it. There's something that I can't figure out. As many have commented it does look 'soft' yet there are horrid spotty artifacts all over the place such as what you would normally expect from over-sharpening. The more I study it, would I be correct in assuming that you have been working with a JPEG rather than a TIFF and that you have been saving it as you go along?

Why I ask is that it looks like all your colour has broken down such as happens when you continually re-save a JPEG. A JPEG re-saved will re-compress what has already bee compressed and eventually will just about kill itself. Around the mouth looks like crumbs but are breakdowns of the file's integrity somehow. On those spots, since you had Advanced editing, you could have cloned a lot of those out. The same effect has happened in the glow behind the head, you can almost see the gradations as the file struggles to smooth the colour shift. I think it is this breakdown, whatever its cause, that has turned the voters off the image.

If you shoot with and edit the TIFF, you can force your colour shifts without loosing data like you have and if you use Adjustment Layers instead of directly editing the pixels in your image, you can always backtrack when it turns to poop.

Was it out of focus to start with or has it gone like that from the editing? I wondered how big the Buddah is and if a lot of the loss of detail is because in reality it is only and inch tall and so you are in the extreme macro area. If that's the case, it's very difficult to get right. Detail is mushy with a cast object like this and DOF is damned hard to get right.

Growing the Vote:
I am guessing the difference in scores might largely be because last time it DID have lovely complimentary colours, popular ones at that. This time of course, you didn't have that crutch.

Summary:
Oh well, an interesting learning exercise? Actually, if it was me and I had the time, I might go back and have a third go at this. It's shots like these were you can learn 400% more than with an average to good one. There may be a couple of things you do that suddenly make this the image that you imagined. I honestly think that is possible (unless Buddah is really only an inch high)

Please let me know your thoughts

Cheers

Brett

Don't Feed the Gators
by ericwoo

Comment:
::: Critique Club :::

Hi from the critique club, this is going to be fun, I hate critters, especially slimy green ones that want to eat me.

First Impressions:
It's not the sort of image you "like" very much is it. I didn't get wowed by it, but neither did I have a passive reaction. The thing looks seriously creepy and threatening and that engaged me - always a good thing in a competition photograph.

Subject:
This is a great choice of subject because it is guaranteed to get a reaction from the viewer. Even better that it's partially hidden and therefore more menacing. Even better, it's green - right on Challenge :)

Composition:
The bottom left to top right position of the 'gator has created a leading line whilst the eye is almost on thirds. The whole effect is a pretty good balance without being spectacularly captivating. You really did the very best with the material available.

Technical (Colour, Lighting and focus):
I'm undecided about the depth of field. At some point I like it then 5 minutes later I wonder how much more impact it would have had with a long DOF with all the algae sharp. I've decided that I'm not prepared to release a statement at this time ... lol. You nailed the challenge, it's green. Perhaps not brilliant green, but there's really no doubt.

I see you were running ISO200, was that intentional? Fortunately with this subject grain would never be an issue. You obviously had plenty of light at 1/5000th and f2.8. I bet you played with the DOF, did the others look pretty ho hum?

Growing the Vote:
It is perhaps a little golden if you're really scrapping to get every last point in voting but it in no way doesn't meet the Green challenge. Its just that voting is hard and people have to look for differences that can cost a point.

Summary:
It's a cool shot. It got noticed. It scored above average (of 5.5) but I'm really surprised about the 13 3's - no way does it deserve that so I really don't understand it. I wish I did.

Brett

Seating for One
by Elaine

Comment:
I like thee imagery here but I'm not sure about the lack of light in the back of the room. On studyingit, I can't make up my mind. Such is the subtlety of your light that all the features in the background can be seen whislt the hard light is on the chair

In The Shadows
by BrianR

Comment:
Good composition, this has a good feel about it

Pre-Season Abandonment
by littlegett

Comment:
And where's the empty room? It's an emty lifeguard station

Minimalist Gym
by Jaded_Housewife

Comment:
This has really good halftones. I'm not a fan of gratuitous B$W so for me to like the mono treatment means you've chosen well and done the right thing. Borders are a win/lose thing on DPC and this time I think it's a lose

Forgotten table
by GinaRothfels

Comment:
Small room :) The object is nearly bigger than the room ... lol

sign of life
by tate

Comment:
Amazing DOF and it has interest. Makes you try and figure out what the space used to be for.