Drain Pipe Lovers
by Coley

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club.

Hi Cole,

Well done on the 7th place. I always find it difficult to critique your shots as they are always technically excellent, and often clever. What can I say - I like it.

I like what you have doen to make use of the strong, heavy shadows. I guess the construction site anf pipe really needed conversion to greyscale. Nonetheless, you've done an excellent job kof bringing out the detail. Well done.

BTW - that sure doen't look comfortable for your wife.

It is my hope that these insights are helpful and constructive. Please feel free to PM me if you have any questions regarding this critique. And please remember to mark it "Helpful" if you found it so. Good luck with future challenges.

Cheers
Paul

drugs.porn.liquor.
by menele

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club.

Hi Mark,

the moment I saw you image I scroleld down to the voting breakdown to find out how hard you had been hit the frump-trolls. Only two 1s is a good starting point. On the whole I think the shot did well. I personally am not really getting an album cover feel, but I find it hard to put my finger on why.

Composition-wsie it looks as if you have executed your concept effectively. The main area for improvement seems to be the quality of the lighting, and the mix of noise-control and sharpness. Lighting is an area where (I am assured) you will never stop learning. In this case I think large diffused light sources would have helped. It may be worth your effort to download NoiseNinja or NeatImage (you can get the demo version of Neat Image free).

It is my hope that these insights are helpful and constructive. Please feel free to PM me if you have any questions regarding this critique. And please remember to mark it "Helpful" if you found it so. Good luck with future challenges.

Cheers
Paul

Dubious Parenthetic Lotus
by SAC

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club.

Hi SAC,

Welcome to DPC. Congratulations on your new personal best.

I really like your basic composition here - I find it nicely balanced, and that my eye flows neatly over the image, ultimately being led to the title. There are however a number of negatives to the composition that are lkargely due to the water and the lighting - I really don't like the shadow in the top right and below the flower. I'm not sure what caused the 'scratches' or marks on your background, but these are unnecessary and detract from the rest of the image. Under advanced editting it would have been fairly easy to remove these. There are a number of brighter marks around the edge of the flower that look as if they might be due to over-shapening - they too detract from the good.

On the whole I think this is a great effort that sufferred a bit due to the DPC taste for bright colours and contrast.

It is my hope that these insights are helpful and constructive. Please feel free to PM me if you have any questions regarding this critique. And please remember to mark it "Helpful" if you found it so. Good luck with future challenges.

Cheers
Paul

Greenhouse Effect
by cloudsme

Comment:
This somehow gives me a sense of vertigo. Very odd, a real sense of movement. Your various lines leadign to your vanishing point are great.

Peek
by bananashay

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club.

Hi Shanna,

This sure satisfies the challenge - nice stopped action here. you've managed to capture a really interesting, enaging pose that garbs the viewers attention, and holds those few seconds while they are voting. This is technically very sound - you've stopped the motion with a fast shutterspeed, and kept the apperature closed enough for your required DOF. The main points I would make have already been covered by both yourself and the other commentors. The drab sky isn't attractive, but you could have mitigated this with a closer crop. Indeed a much closer crop could have removed much of the distracting elements in the frame, such as the other people, the metal, etc. And of course a bit of USM on Jason would have help make him pop out from the busy trees behind him.

It is my hope that these insights are helpful and constructive. Please feel free to PM me if you have any questions regarding this critique. And please remember to mark it "Helpful" if you found it so. Good luck with future challenges.

Cheers
Paul

Chess with a twist - Shots of Tequila
by heavyj

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club.

Hi Jason,

So; you've been beat up by the DNMC crowd - pretty badly too. The vote distribution tells the story! Some would have marked you down because they don't think chess is a sport, others because they can' see the action (must admit those opening moves are on a par with a golfer walking onto the tee - hardly what the sport is about), and others because they can't see the human element. Is this fair? Not really, but it is their vote to do with as they please.

The above aside lets consider the image itself. I agree with boyd2000 that a lower POV would suit the subject better - giving a greater sense of depth. You've got some lovely lighting, especially in terms of the light on the glasses - I would have loved these reflections to be sharp and crisp. Perhaps the DOF was too short. I see you had a very long exposure. A better approach would probably have been to shoot at f/8 and then lit the scene with a stronger light to keep the shutter speed down.

It is my hope that these insights are helpful and constructive. Please feel free to PM me if you have any questions regarding this critique. And please remember to mark it "Helpful" if you found it so. Good luck with future challenges.

Cheers
Paul

A Vanishing Point A Vanishing Subject
by Coley

Comment:
I'm interested to see how the voters respond to this. I think you've got a winner, but lets see.

The cloisters
by mimid

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club.

Hi Michal,

Congratulations on a new personal best. Well done. Helps make that new lens feel worth it.

An awesome perspective, although it takes a moment for the eyes to make sense of the it. I imagine you were near the very wide end of your focal range. You've got some nice interesting light and detail here. The focus looks a bit soft, which I think can largely be put down to the combination of your fast aperture and the huge depth of field in the image. I've found with my wide-angle that I get best results keeping the aperture between f/8 and f/10.

You sure have the Symmetry challenge covered, although it would have been better to have the far sides fo the image similar. My first thought was that a crop on the left would have done the job, but actually I really would have preferred a run of wall down the right edge to match the one on the left. I think this woul;d have served to draw the eye in on both sides, and really high-lighted the symetry in the image.

It is my hope that these insights are helpful and constructive. Please feel free to PM me if you have any questions regarding this critique. And please remember to mark it "Helpful" if you found it so. Good luck with future challenges.

Cheers
Paul

Burning Bridge
by Fauxtoeman

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club.

Hi Jae,

Welcome to DPC. Well done on your second submission.

Wonderful rich colours here, although the whole does look a bit unnatural. The colours in the sky are remarkable, and such a contract to the lit road stretching forward. The leading lines of the road run the eye right off the image, drawing it away from your colours.

Not really sure what you have done in post-processing so the following may be off track. The colours on the water look a bit odd - the sky is all orange, but in the water the reflection contains pink and quickly transisions to blue. It just looks a bti unnatural to me (which doesn't mean it is unnatural.

It is my hope that these insights are helpful and constructive. Please feel free to PM me if you have any questions regarding this critique. And please remember to mark it "Helpful" if you found it so. Good luck with future challenges.

Cheers
Paul

Pear Blossoms
by Shea927

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club.

Hi Hannah,

I think you have had some useful comments on this already (and soem less so). I would like to start with the positive - you have put together a lovely composition, I especially like the sense of depth and the curve of the lives from the top right towards the bottome left.

You have had a few comments to the effect that it is not sharp enough/too soft or out-of-focus. I note that you put in the soft focus (I suspect you did the same with yout triptych entry). The main problem to me seems to be that there is no clear focal point to really enage the viewer. I would love to see this image with just the front blossom in sharp focus and the rest as it is. With perhaps a slighty tighter crop on the left. Then the flow of the lines would lead the eye to the focal point. Maybe.

There are also a few comments on your choice to go for B&W. The tona contrast of the image certianly does look flat, but that doesn't mean going for B&W was a mistake. What method did you use to convert to B&W? I recommend first finding out which channel has the best contrast, and then using the channel mixer to convert to greyscale.

It is my hope that these insights are helpful and constructive. Please feel free to PM me if you have any questions regarding this critique. And please remember to mark it "Helpful" if you found it so. Good luck with future challenges.

Cheers
Paul