"Grab That Cash With Both Hands . . ." - Moneyby
sammy_stecchinoComment by KiwiChris: Greetings from the Critique club...
A self portrait.... Not only do I have to critique your photography, but I'm potentially going to insult you as well! Just my luck. :-).
Firstly the challenge; you met that well, and picked a cool song to boot, so no issues there.
Technically you've taken the photo well, the exposure is good with a nice range of tones in the skin and money, with no unduly distracting areas in that respect. Focus is bang on, you've got all of the important bits of the image inside the DOF and sharp.
Your lighting setup looks good, although I would have liked to see more modelling in the lights, having your brightest light slightly more off to one side, but that's a personal taste thing really. The shadows of your right hand on the shoulder are a little distracting if I were to be picky. A reflector (big lump of white card / white bed sheet / fancy-pancy studio reflector) to the right would have removed it, but in a self-portrait is often very difficult to see these things, and as I said, I'm being picky.
Your overall composition/cropping is a solid use of the principle of thirds. Pureists might argue that you've committed some wierd sin by chopping off the to of your head, but it works just fine in this case.
Without seeing the non selective desat version I can't say if you made the right choice on that, but there's nothing wrong with this version. Selective de-sat can be a bit over-used / abused at times, but you have enhanced your message by it's use so that isn't the case here.
Asthetically I don't find there is anything special about this photo. Without the title and the context of this challenge it certainly wouldn't be hanging on my wall, although it would be useful as a stock photo for sure.
I think to make it a 'keeper' from my point of view the expression on your face would have to be more, err, expressive. The look on your face is placid, sort of neutral, smiling for the camera. The wild eyed stare of a madman who had just grabbed 1,000,000 in cash would have been a much better fit to this theme. To me you're saying 'Look Mum, here's my Photo for your side-table, and oh, I've got some money too.
Thanks for sharing....
Photographer found comment helpful.
