Well, this was a challenge indeed. Had to find the camera lost in the basement, clean it, polish it, no lights. Ug, well, I guess this is why they call these things challenges.
I rotated the image, cropped it square, and burned a hot spot.
After the voting:
Thank you all for your votes and comments. Perhaps a little more about the shot. I have a feeling about portraits. In reading some photo journals from the turn of the last century, I became of the opinion that a portrait should about the subject and in the subject environment. So, the old 5 x 7 became the old man of the shot. The cameras are, more or less, like the offspring. The statues were intended to stand in for the camera's subjects. While you can't see it from with this resolution, all the books on the shelf are photography books... including the 1927 American Photo journal describing portraits.
I mentioned my lack of lights initially. This shot was lit with two floor lamps, one incandescent, one compact florescent, and a flash light to brighten up the shadows in the shelves.
In any event, may I offer a big thank you to all of you that viewed, voted, and commented on this shot.
Statistics
Place: 90 out of 137 Avg (all users): 5.3117 Avg (commenters): 5.6667 Avg (participants): 5.2381 Avg (non-participants): 5.3626 Views since voting: 1113 Views during voting: 292 Votes: 154 Comments: 5 Favorites: 1 (view)
greetings from the critique club!
what a fantastic camera collection! i love the variety you show here, from the old to the new. maybe its just my screen, but the image apears quite red, which is a bit of a distraction. i dont like how there isn't a central focus point. perhaps cropping it down, or just focusing on say, the bottom shelf. the three cameras and the statue would have been a good photo by itself.
As I first looked at this image it is difficult to see who/what the subject is. Even though I enjoy the concept itself, I do not feel it worked well for a portrait type image.
My next impression is that there is not much focus to the image overall. Personally I would have really enjoyed a more narrow depth of field highlighting the main subject, the big'n with special attention to a sharp detailed lens. Also allowing for a slight blur of the bookshelf to allow the rest to take a back seat to the main subject.
Your lighting seems to be both natural from a window and also from a desk lamp. This is evident by the blue cast on one side and the yellow cast on the other. I am curious with this lighting what this image would have looked like as a b/w, maybe even with pushed contrast to give it an more edgy feel.
One aspect that may be picky, is the stagger of the heights of the books is a bit of a messy distraction. I think if they where cleaner organized by height it would have added a bit more. Or, maybe take the books out all together along with the statues, keep it all cameras for balance.
In a traditional 'class' portrait the 'students' are surrounding the 'teacher' if that was your concept here of students and teacher I would have rather enjoyed the main subject to take center stage with the others surrounding, which could have been done with this same setup, with a bit of reorganizing. To me, you seem to be more focused on everything going on and not enough on the main subject.
Looks like a nice collection. I need to display mine in a better manner. Other than the yellow color cast, this is pretty good for a shot of what's on your shelf.
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