I Like My Bloody Mary With a Little Heat by
houstonianComment by Daybis: I am going to review this as if its part of the critique club and I will try and to this for all of your challenge photos.
First Impression: Good idea for the challenge
Composition: Using the rule of thirds would have been good here. Move the glass slightly to the left or left and up. The use of negative space is nice in this photo because it draws your eye to the glass. The photo overall is too dark. Next time try using a higher ISO. Also the glass is not in focus. Next time, turn on enough light so the camera can properly focus, then once the camera has focused, set to manual focus to keep the focus at that place. Then all of your photo of the glass will be in focus. Also try and find something that is flammable that will stay lit and stay lit long enough to take the photo. Your are obviously trying to make the flame the center piece of your photo and it isn't wow enough. Remember, you don't have to actually use real products in your photo as long as they look like the product. You do how ever have a nice black background.
Subject: Good idea for a subject. Shows red in a great way. The flame is also a good idea, but might take away from the drink its self.
Creativity: The photo is creative, but lacks composition.
Improvements: To improve the photo up the ISO to 400 or 800, stop down the aperture to f/3.5, move the glass to utilize the rule of thirds, and make flame more of a center piece. If you make these improvements and spent a good bit of time taking the photo, this could be a 5+ scoring photo. When I take a photo to submit to these challenges, I spend a good bit of time taking the photo, so next time take your time and take more than one photo. I always experiment with f/stop, shutter speed, and ISO. If I were taking a similar photo, I would have spent at least 2 hours and maybe 30+ photos fine tuning it. Also don't be afraid to utilize the editing abilities in this challenge. You can still do a good bit of editing in a "Basic Editing" challenge.
Hope this helps.
My Thoughts: You have a great subject and all of its feature were not exploited. The photo is creative, just not well executed. After a challenge is done and voting and you haven't done as well as you would like, take a look at your comments. Then utilize the comments and retake the photo.
Photographer found comment helpful.