Feather Bedby
tonyvComment: ::: Critique Club :::
This was always going to be a fun challenge to critique since the interpretation of "Delicate" is so flexible and free-ranging.
First Impression - the most important one:
I must confess, I looked at this image and thought it was "nice". Nice is ok, but it doesn't quite turn you on. It's a perfectly lovely picture but not exciting . Itis by no means a bad photograph, on the contrary. I think that's probably why you're dissappointed with the way it scored. Lets see why that might have happened.
Composition:
The composition is great because the joining of the hard-shelled egg and the soft fronds of the feathers blend on the thirds intersection. There is a good leading line formed by the two feather stems. That featherless valley is running perfectly from bottom left to the egg's point of interest. Whatever elements we might explore with this image in an endeavour to make it attract a higher scoring, composition will not be one of them.
Subject:
The choice of two iconic delicate items, eggs and feathers, was a clever one. The subject is right on challenge. An awful lot of submissions (some scored higher too) were not strictly adherent to the subject, this one is. You have the elements here to create a feeling of delicacy and lightness but it just seemed to fail to ignite voters. Instead of wondering -what- it was, I wondered -why- it was. There seemed to be a 'reason' missing in the image. I'll talk in general in the summary about viewer involvement.
Technical (Colour and light):
The brown egg and soft white of the feathers is an attractive combination. Your focus and depth of field are great. To get such sharp feather elements as well as the egg's shell texture is good skills.
I think the element via which you would probably be able to inject more drama and voter emotion into is in the lighting. It looks as if you may have used daylight from a window? Perhaps over your left shoulder? The effect of that full light on the subject is that it flattens the image and fills in a lot of the potentially interesting shadows. If you still have this set up, I wonder what it looks like as you move a light source around to the side, to the back and/or underneath. Each of these would create a vastly different effect. It may be better (subjective response) but it may not.
To get a Ribbon?:
The sole purpose of the lighting variation exercise is to see if you can get an "Oh wow" response to a capture. Winning votes is a somewhat artificial goal if an image has a story to tell. Often you can't tell that story with a likeable image. But shots like this don't have a story, they therefore need somethhing more. As I said above, if we have to ask why the image is there then we have to win some hearts (and votes) by throwing gee-whiz factors at them :)
Summary:
This isn't directed at you or your image specifically Tony, its an observation I'd like to make in general.
[SoapBox]In saying that just aiming at winning votes is an artificial goal, I was being a little cynical. With any image not made for your own personal enjoyment, you are by definition preparing your image for other people. In doing that, you are wanting something from them. You are asking for approval, understanding, or support. If you are asking, then you must give in return. This is what commercial images do. In advertising, editorial, exhibitions and journalism you have to find that element that connects with the viewer and draws them into your image. Usually that means you have to get an emotive response which can range from a laugh to a tear to a nod of understanding to a gasp of shock - it doesn't matter. You may get all of those from different people to the same image - way cool.[/soapbox]
Thanks for the opportuntiy to review your image
Brett
Photographer found comment helpful.
