Great Lakes Lighthouse
by Spork99

Comment:
Pretty colors

Good Night, Sleep Tight, Don't Let The Muggers Bite
by drgsoell

Comment:
I think the previous commenters made pretty good points. Especially the being a little dark around the sleeper and the spanse between the two subjects.

For me this would have been a more meaningful shot had the sleeper actually been (or appear to resemble) a homeless person. Kind of a Haves and Have-Nots type representation. As it is, it just comes off as staged to me. The light on the aluminum frame near the bottom kind of distracts me a bit.

Maybe just using Car Headlights from the sleepers feet direction would have lightened things up a bit.

Neon challenge or not the concept you have going here is an interesting one. I like it.

The Soul of a Woman
by librodo

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club.

Manuel, you have captured the essence of this beautiful young woman wonderfully.

You have harnessed natural beauty, elegance and mystique all together in one shot. The big dark eyes and pouting lips tell a meaningful story here. One immediately gets lost in the subjects glance. I as a viewer gather that she is questioning something, see that thoughts lay heavy on her mind. The perfect Background/DOF reinforces that feeling.

The crop, the hair, the location are all perfect to set the stage for the drama that is opening up in this shot. The soft focus on the models shoulder was well executed to further insure that the viewer is focused on the young lady's facial features.

The brighter than normal lighting on the models left is excellent as it places emphasis on the left eye and works quite well in adding to the emotion of the shot.

If there is anything that you could have possibly done to make this shot better, it might have been to reflect just a small amount of soft light on the right side of the models face. Lighting just enough to bring a bit more detail of the right eye and cheek, without making her shirt any lighter.

This, such a wonderfull capture, stands alone as an intricate portrait or could be used to set up an emotional journalistic story.

Great Jobâ€Â¦

Andy

ED: For spelling

Message edited by author 2004-07-09 10:11:14.

who is afraid of yellow bricks?
by Phileine

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club:

This is a nicely done, original and creative piece. It is a fun, yet intriguing picture to look at.

The choice to use a border for this shot was good one. In this case where there is no really no definable edge in the shot, without a border the desaturated area would run off the edges causing the shot to look flat.

The off center border is a very nice touch; there is a lot of geometry, hard edges, dimension and organized elements in this shot. IMO, by not having a centered border you make the viewer rethink the whole organization aspect. You have broken up the organization where every square that must be in a certain space isn’t. You've shown some freedom in a very methodical shot. Throw the viewer off a bit, I like that.

I like the use of the colorized pieces in the border as opposed to a solid border. A solid border would have given this a harsh mechanical feel. However the border as it is, is very busy with a lot of detail of it's own that draws the viewer outward away from the subject.

My suggestion in this case (advanced editing challenge), would be to mask the current border, then apply just enough Gaussian Blur to the border to take any interest away from it. Apply blur to the point where you can just make out the edges of the circles and lines of the tiles in the border but don’t go so far as to create a hard line between the border and gray area. This keeps the colorful warm feeling against the gray background but does not lure the eye outward. If you was to desaturate the border somewhere between the yellow tile and gray area, it would retain the detail and not effectivly push us inward.

The eye/brain combo really likes to take the easy way out most of the time. With an Out of focus border surrounding a desaturated background the viewer is going to immediately be attracted to the in focus brightly colored tile no matter where it is in the shot.

A slight softening of the desaturated area by decreasing the contrast would help to take some of the hard dark edges off of the desaturated tiles and further push the viewer to the Yellow tile.

This is very creative, well designed shot. Keep up the good work.

Andy

The Softer Side of Me...
by aaronb532

Comment:
I like the negative space and the lighting you used in this shot. It adds quite a bit of emotion. I might have cropped a little more of the negative space but this is a might nice shot.

Small town gears up for July 4th festivities
by neenee1999

Comment:
Excellent shot, love the expression on your subjects face.

Seven Firefighters Dead In Amonium Nitrate Blast
by frumoaznicul

Comment:
Very good shot. Very emotional, captured perfectly. Great job.

Gov. Schwarzenegger proclaims Automotive Service Professionals Day
by Brad

Comment:
Very nice, very clear. The black background and dof force the viewer to the center of the shot. I like the composition of this.

Blood Donors Avert Crisis
by ablessg

Comment:
Great shot, I like the tones that you achieved here. I keep being drawn to the corner of the scale near the top left, I may have cropped right at that point to remove the distraction. Very good.

Speed cameras, do they work?
by piercedJon

Comment:
Very strong shot. The b/w works well here. The flowers tells the story that someone has lost their life here and the cameras may not of helped. Very good shot.